I would like to get some advice / thoughts on an event and what this means for me and my attitude.
Last year I travelled in a foreign country with a girl (call her Ann). One of the hotels we stayed at was set up such that you have to put a keycard in a slot by the door to turn on power to the room (I’ve seen this in many hotels in Asia).
The first night in the hotel Ann fell asleep first. When I went to bed later, I couldn’t figure out how to turn off one of the lamps in the room (couldn’t find the switch) so I just pulled the keycard out of the slot to kill all power to the room.
I was tired and wanted to go to sleep, and didn’t want to wake her up by making a bunch of noise trying to find some other solution, so just pulling the card seemed the best move at the time. Next morning I plugged the keycard back in. I didn’t think it was a big deal.
Since then Ann has cited this event many times as an example of why I’m a bad guy. She says that electricity is a basic human need, and that by turning it off for the room, I was treating her as less than human – like an accessory.
I understand that her feelings, as feelings, are valid. But I cannot for the life of me understand how those feelings are rational, or how I could have predicted this response.
I’ve asked her how having the electricity off for one night hurt her and she refuses to give a response. The weather was nice so the room didn’t get hot, and I think she was charging her phone via battery.
As such I can only guess that the event triggered something deeply emotional, maybe something from her past. But should I have been able to predict this?
Is she right that my doing this indicates a bad / dismissive attitude towards her? When she explained how hurt it made her feel, I apologized and tried to explain that I didn’t intend to hurt her. But that doesn’t help and seems to make it worse.
This sort of thing seems to happen a lot to me – I’ll do something that to me seems reasonable or innocuous, and it will cause significant pain that I didn’t predict or intend.
I’m worried that there’s something fundamentally wrong with me that makes me unable to predict these sorts of responses. I hope that someone can provide perspective and advice on this.
ESH – what happens if she had something that needed to be charged? What happens if she went into the bathroom with no lights? What if she needed to find something in the middle to the night? So I can understand her frustration with you doing this…but she is overreacting, too. I would have simply unscrewed the light bulb of the one lamp I could not find the switch. Plus if the room was heated or aircon with the power, you turned that off, too.
Yea I feel like there’s a lot going on here that has led up to this … or ESH.
i’ve been i this situation and made the exact same move. my wife (then fiance) is a normal person and just put the card in when she woke ahead of me.
this is no different than one person turning off the light and another person turning it on, it’s just basic mechanics of the lights.
there is for sure something OP is not telling us about her reaction or she is too troubled to maintain a relationship.
i was going to say NTA but OP is being kind of an AH to us by leaving out important details so it’s suggesting he is manipulative at least. ESH
I would say ESH. She is being overly dramatic about it but pulling the key card out instead of figuring out a lamp is a bit much.
NAH. I absolutely see your side, that cutting all the power seemed like a better choice than making a lot of noise and potentially waking her up while trying to figure out how to turn off that light. But I can also see her side. If I’m in a strange room in a strange place and woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t turn the light on to get to the bathroom or whatever, I think I would’ve felt a certain sense of panic. So I can also see why she thought it was a bad thing to do. I do think still holding it against you after all this time is pretty ridiculous though. You had a good reason, and you apologized. She needs to get over it.
She’s overreacting and you’re autistic, NTA.
I do not think it was a good idea to turn the power off. What if something happened and a light needed to be turned on? Was she supposed to know you took the key card out? Would anyone else’s reaction would be to immediately put the key card in instead of just turning on a lamp?
She sounds like an AH though. Holding this over your head when it could have been resolved via simple conversation/explanation.
YTA mainly because people usually have things charging overnight. Also how was she supposed to see if she needed the loo etc. tripping over something in the dark would not be good
INFO: If Ann woke up before you, did she have her own card or did you leave a way to indicate where the card was so she could plug it in herself instead of worrying about waking you up (similar to your concern BTW)? Did you at apologize? Because why you express sympathy, you don’t indicate if you did or didn’t.
I’m leaning NAH either way, since it was unintentional, but I’d probably say you were at least inconsiderate. If my phone is close to empty, it takes about 2 hours for a standard charge to get it to 100%. Personally, I would prefer to not leave my hotel in a foreign country without a full charge in the morning, but I also wouldn’t want to wait in my hotel room for 2 hours while I’d rather be out exploring. Ann should be more understanding since your harm appears unintentional, but you also should try to fix the issue. For example, maybe buy a power bank charger so Ann can charge her phone on the go since you accidentally prevented her from charging overnight.
ESH- Turning off the power to the room because you couldn’t find a light switch is lazy. And when you turn off the power you make it so that if someone needs to get up in the middle of the night they have to do it in the pitch black darkness. You also made it so that none of the power outlets worked, meaning no ones devices charged. She sucks for overreacting to the situation. I think you both need to work on your emotional maturity and thought processes.
Do you not have to charge phones overnight? What if she woke to go to the bathroom, how can she see? Based on info given, YTA.
Maybe YTA – What if she needed light in the middle of the night, like in the unfamiliar bathroom? How did your cell phones charge, or did you even check to see if she had anything charging?
I would say, mild YTA.
How often do people need to get up at night to use the restroom? It’s not uncommon.
I don’t know about you, but depending on how deeply I’m sleeping, I sometimes wake up a bit confused. If I’m a bit sick (usually when I’m running a fever), I have even gotten confused in my own bedroom and have to feel along the wall to find the door.
I realize you were trying to be considerate of her in not fumbling around for the switch. Personally, I believe you should have just found the switch.
I would be pissed if my phone had an empty battery in the morning. YTA