Key context: for my boyfriend’s job, he is assigned to different locations to work at and his schedule changes every week, so his work location wouldn’t be the same every week. His birthday is on the 18th and he works the day before and after. At the moment, I am living at his house.
One day, I texted him about going to this big reef fish shop he wanted to go to which is next to my house. His house is about 50 miles from my house. I told him that I can drive him to the shop the day of his birthday, the 18th.
Below are my text messages with my boyfriend from Sunday the 14th.
👩🏻 (Me): Do you want to go to that big fish reef shop and do you work on your birthday huni?
👦🏻(Him): I work 17th and 19th
👩🏻: Yay
👩🏻: I can drive us to that big fish reef shop and we can get kbbq after after if you want
👦🏻: Ok
👦🏻: My work 20 mins shoveling from your house
👩🏻: huh?
Then he ignores my question and doesn’t clarify so I forget about it.
The next day, he mentions sleeping over at my house tomorrow night.
I get confused right away because he never mentioned sleeping over at my house and I ask "why?"
And he starts to seem annoyed and say "I told you I work on the day before and after my birthday"
And I am still confused because that seemed irrevelant to me
He tries to explain again and mumbled about working in the same store that’s close to my house
So I assumed he is referring to the one store he worked at one time which is 5 minutes away from my house so I said "the xxxx store?"
and he sighs loudly and says "ugh nevermind, forget about it"
I ask him to clarify because I’m confused but he just gets super mad
I get up and leave because I’m lost and confused and upset about how he responded to me
Then I text him because I can’t really talk when I’m upset and he says "it doesn’t take an Einstein to figure it out"
What he meant from the text earlier, he meant that he works 20 minutes away from my house and didn’t mean to write the word "shoveling." He automatically assumed I would get that message so he ignored my "huh?" message. He also thought that I would assume that we’re staying at my house the day before and the day after his birthday based on that message alone. since it’s convenient for him to drive to work and also because on his birthday, we were going to the fish reef shop which is also near my house.
He tells me that he thought I was smart enough to make that connection and said "why would I randomly mention working 20 minutes away from your house if I didn’t imply that we should sleep over at your house?"
and I told him that other people wouldn’t understand him either and he said "well, you have a doctorate’s degree and they don’t"
From the messages above, would you have assumed that the message "my work 20 minutes shoveling from your house" meant that his work is 20 mins away from my house and that we should stay at my house or am I the asshole for being upset about it and thinking that he’s the asshole?
NTA
He tells me that he thought I was smart enough to make that connection
That would be enough for me. I wouldn’t continue a conversation with someone who was this much of an asshole when just trying to have a simple conversation.
Your boyfriend talks to you like he is a bratty teen who doesn’t even like you.
NTA, I don’t think any degree gives anyone the ability to read minds.
Your boyfriend needs to learn to communicate, with an emphasis on how to have hard discussions without insulting others.
Which is what he did, insult you bc he was too lazy to clarify.
You know, I’d figure he’s smart enough to understand that “huh?” clearly means you don’t understand, but I’d be wrong.
NTA. But your boyfriend is.
I’d also suggest that, even though you say you don’t like to talk when you are upset, that you have these conversations face-to-face. Conflict is challenging AND you get ALL the details from the face-to-face. Texts are cold and flat. No nuance, no ability to react/respond quickly (especially if you are busy at the time). It is so easy to take things the wrong way via text (or, like your BF did, type something incorrectly or get auto-corrected wrong). You can get so much clarity thru even a voice phone call; but face-to-face is the best.
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NTA
But your boyfriend sure is! Of course you’re upset, he was incredibly rude and dismissive. He even implied you lacked intelligence because you weren’t able to “guess” what he meant.
If that’s how he responds to a simple clarification request, he doesn’t seem like a very good partner.
What an asshole.
NTA – he’s being an ass by assuming you’ll connect the dots when his messages were not clear
NTA- Your boyfriend is being very unfair. His text made no sense because “shoveling” was a typo, and it is his job to explain himself when you ask “huh?”
It is rude of him to use your doctorate degree to make you feel stupid. Having a degree does not make you a mind-reader. He never actually asked to stay at your house; he just expected you to guess his plan. Most people would be just as confused as you were. He is the one who failed to communicate, and he should not be insulting you for his own mistake.
NTA. Your boyfriend must have an issue with you having a doctorate. Is he also highly educated? If not, that is probably what is causing the issue. He was intentionally vague in the text thread and set you up for a verbal berating from him where he proceeds to criticize you for having an education. Yeah, I think we all know who the AH is!
NO I don’t see why you should understand what he meant by shoveling 20 minutes from your house! WTF? What are you supppsed to umderstand? That he was he shoveling gravel? Digging a hole? Manual labor for fun?
NTA
NTA. Tell him he needs to learn to use his grown up words.
NTA well I think it is logical to assume that he’d be staying over at your place since your birthday plan was near your place and you guys seem to be at the point of staying over at each other‘s houses and it’s his birthday, you are not the a hole for not understanding. No one is on it 100% of the time. Regardless, though he was a dick about it for no particular reason. Also, just pro tip if you get a message that doesn’t make sense like that usually rather than just a generic huh or what if you reply back with the confusing word with a “?” most of the times that gets their attention because it makes them check why you would send them a random nonsensical word and then they see that they made a typo. Example: “shoveling?“
NTA, your boyfriend is a clown if he expected you to get all that from * My work 20 mins shoveling from your house*.
Why do people assume other people are mind readers. My ex would do this, either use the wrong word in a text or say the wrong in a sentence and then get mad when I don’t understand what she actually meant because I can’t read minds. The audacity.
NTA. He’s being disrespectful and irritable. His tone the whole time was moody. It’s not that hard to say, “that sounds great and actually, if we can stay at your house, even better because it is closer to where I’m working on those days.”
NTA. He is a grown ass adult man who needs basic communication training. And honestly the fact he gets mad at YOU for HIS bad communication is a red flag. He needs to apologize for 1) bad communication 2) calling you stupid 3) doubling down on furthering the bad communication.
Why do people stay with people like this?