My girlfriend (26F) and I(29M) got into a fight while at Target today because I checked out at the register before she was ready to go.
For a little background we started the day with taking her car to the mechanic to get a new battery because her’s was dead. I followed in my car and after dropping off the car I suggested we go to Target and kill time until it was ready later in the day. Target is one of her favorite stores and she loves to just walk around and look at everything in it, even when not buying anything. We get to Target and walk around for about 5 minutes and shes looking at some clothes, then I say I need new winter gloves and some long socks so I head to the men’s section. While I’m looking over there she tells me she’s getting cranky and I ask what she wants to do. She said she didn’t know so I suggested she go to the Starbucks in the Target and grab a coffee as a treat. She happily does and I go about grabbing what I need. I then go and grab some snacks she likes and a candle I know she loves then head over to the Starbucks to get her. When I got over there she wasn’t there, and my hands were full since I hadn’t gotten a cart. I decided to just buy the stuff so I could bag it and then find her. After I did that I double checked the Starbucks to make sure she wasn’t in a corner I didn’t see sitting down, she was not. As if she read my mind she called me right before I was going to call her. She asked where I was because she went to the men’s section and I was not there, I said I was at the Starbucks looking for her. We met in the middle, but upon seeing the bags in my hands she began freaking out and yelling at me in the store because I had checked out already. Confused, I asked why it mattered that I had bought some things and said we could still walk around and peruse like she likes to do. She insisted that me checking out already was ruining the trip to the store for her and that we had to go now. I made it clear I checked out just to free up my hands and that I had no issue staying and killing time walking around there. Nevertheless she continued getting angry saying I ruined it and that we could not stay. The argument continued to the car, the whole time I insisted I only checked out to free my hands and that I wanted to stay and keep looking around. This argument continued for hours, including her refusing to get back in my car after we went to another store, and her telling me to take her to her parents, which I did, but then upon getting there she was mad I was going to leave her there.
I apologized in the store for checking out before she was ready and told her it was not because I wanted to leave. Am I the Asshole?
NTA I am honestly so confused by her reaction.
NTA. But it sounds like your girlfriend is having a rough time right now. Give her some time to cool off and ask her what’s really going on?
🚩🚩🚩run man the other direction no good can come from this. I don’t see an issue with checking out I don’t see how that is such a thing to argue in a store over. She seems to be a control freak. But to answer your question NTA good luck bro
NTA. Girlfriends a child.
NTA. Is your girlfriend a toddler because WTF
She sounds exhausting
NTA.
26 you say? I stopped throwing tantrums in Target when I was 3.
To be serious, though, you are not the asshole. Not even close. Even if she was upset about the miscommunication that gives her absolutely no right to yell at you, much less make a scene in Target. She lowkey sounds spoiled rotten. I do not mean any offence by this, but what adult would react this way?
Absolutely NTA, you did nothing unreasonable or wrong here. Your girlfriend sounds completely unhinged and insufferable, though.
If this is actually what happened, NTA but your girlfriend sounds like a toddler.
I sort of suspect you’re leaving something out of this story since otherwise why would you be with someone who acts like this?
She sounds fucking awful dude. Why on earth do you think you’re the AH here?!
It seems that she was expecting you to pay for her purchases.
I can’t think of any other reason that you checking out would “ruin” her shopping.
She seems insufferable, and you did nothing wrong.
NTA.
NTA. But just as an aside — one time I got in an argument like this with my best friend. I started screaming and crying and threw a milkshake at her because of some minor perceived infraction.
She called my Mom, who immediately drove over to check on me. I had a fever of 105 and was septic. Spent the next three days in the hospital.
If this is a one off, maybe there’s something medically wrong. If this isn’t a one off, stop dating this human.
She was hoping Target would chill her out and give y’all some downtime and dopamine, and the miscommunication/you checking out gave her more anxiety. If you didn’t want to leave (in her mind, most likely, you would’ve gotten a cart because that’s what most women would do).
NTA – She needs to learn to communicate her needs better. I say this as someone who would’ve done this exact thing a decade and a half ago, because saying “I am really stressed /anxious/ my lizard brain is overclocked and I need some no pressure time at a safe place with caffiene and sparkly things and my safe person” was literally beyond me, not just to express but to recognize, because I had gotten mocked/beaten/etc so much at home growing up for having needs.
(spoiler: Therapy helps you learn to identify and express your needs, and to feel safe doing so. And also that a lot of anxiety comes from internal expecations we didn’t even realize we were setting up being unmet. For me Zoloft also helped. I’m not trying to say BLAH BLAH GO TO THERAPY, I’m saying, it looks like she’s missing some skills a lot of us learned in therapy because LOLZ the boomer parents weren’t teaching it.)
It’s very likely she’s not TRYING to be a b!tch, she’s TRYING to regulate and because she can’t communicate well, just making shit worse. She can’t/didn’t know how to/didn’t know she should express her expectations for a target visit. My husband and I now have a term for this : Get Coffee and Wander Someplace. Home Depot, Target, B&N, whatever. A million things to look at and discuss that are not THE THING THATS PRESSURING INTERNALLY AT THE MOMENT.
We don’t really have third places anymore in the US, so for many women in the US, our “third place” has become some sort of retail establishment. It started with mall rats and has only gotten much much worse in the last decade.
This isn’t an excuse btw, it’s an explination that will hopefully help you wrap your head around what happened.
NOT AN EXCUSE for treating you that way, just like it wasn’t an excuse for me. It’s some very serious emotional regulation and language that wasn’t taught to her/allowed her growing up, and so it’s creating fuckery now as an adult. It’s 100% her responsiblity to get ahold on it, and realize that tell you flatly “I am not okay. I need X, Y, & Z to feel better, can we do that?” doesn’t make her a bad guy or overly burdensome compared to…this bullshit.
Anyway, this whole fight wasn’t really about checking out at Target, she had other shit going on and didn’t know what she needed or how to state it, and so once she started to spiral on top of that it all became stupid angry nonsense. AGAIN not an excuse for her, but hopefully some perspective.
I am really sorry you had this day. It sounds like utter shit and incredably stressful and confusing. At some point when things are calmer, y’all should talk about it (over food. Food is great! Don’t have these conversations hangry). And maybe start by asking her what she \*expected\* to happen at target vs. what did, and why did checking out ruin the trip? Did she not believe you when you said you still wanted to walk around? Etc.
Also, I don’t know how serious\* you are, but it’s perfectly ok to say you don’t want to deal with all this and nope out. My husband knew going in I had an abusive past and was able/willing to keep going ot therapy to work on my shit. That’s not the right choice for everyone, and that’s okay. No guilt, not an asshole.
\*edit: I accidently the wrong word.
May this love never find me