Some background information. Me and my wife works in the same office. We ends the day at different times. Sometimes when we are having different opinions about a matter, she gets really riled up and her tone shifts for the worse. This pisses me of because it makes me feel disrespected. She doesnt use this tone towards anyone except for me when she gets in an argument and usually this happens in private. That is basically my take.
Either way, we were sitting in the coffee room with some colleagues when my wife tells me that she has been given a task that requires her to stay longer at work. This means that I will also have to wait for her since we drive together to work. Because of this, it is of course in my interest that she does not work overtime, so I want to discuss whether it could be solved in some other way. This is not about me wanting to overrule her, nor am I irritated at the moment. I simply want to ask whether she can plan the task differently during the day. I also want to be clear from the outset that this is not something I can or am allowed to help her with.
Regardless, when I bring it up, I immediately notice that she becomes irritated and shuts down right away, saying no. She then starts arguing against my suggestion, and I argue in favor of it. As we argue, she raises her voice more and more, and eventually she is speaking loudly and in a very demeaning tone. I become angry and partly feel: why can’t we have a normal discussion without her getting so irritated? At the same time, I notice that people around us are starting to feel uncomfortable. This makes me panic a bit, and I want to pull the emergency brake on our discussion, so I say, “We don’t need to talk about this anymore right now.” However, she continues the discussion, at which point I raise my voice slightly and say, “That’s enough now,” while staring her down. She immediately falls silent and looks away. After that, we don’t talk much more for the rest of the day.
When the day is over and we get into the car, she tells me that she felt overruled and controlled in the situation. I respond by saying that I have no intention of resolving our conflicts in that way, but that this was my way of pulling the emergency brake because the discussion was about to spiral out of control. She is still irritated and hurt by me, while I feel that my behavior in the moment was not entirely right, but at the same time necessary.
What do you think? English is not my main language.
ESH. Don’t argue at work. This should never have escalated to an argument, and no one wants to witness your couple’s fight. This is why it’s a bad idea to work with your significant other. If you can’t negotiate car pooling, then you need to find an alternative.
Is she your girlfriend or your wife? It sounds like you were demanding that she do her work differently so you weren’t inconvenienced, argued with her about it then shouted at her and stared down… I highly doubt your colleagues are looking at your behaviour at the time being necessary, especially if you’re a man and they’re women.
YTA. You wanted to ‘discuss’ how she should do her work in front of colleagues, which in itself is demeaning, and when she protested you added insult to injury by basically telling her to shut up.
YTA
She needed to work
You need to be patient and talk about it in private if at all
ESH, but only if you actually made the suggestion in a calm and collected manner. If not, then YTA fully
She shouldn’t have gotten upset, and you shouldn’t have pushed when she said no.
A piece of advice, you need to keep your work and personal relationships separate. If not, its going to kill the marriage. Only talk about work unless you HAVE to, otherwise, steer clear and just let her do her job.
Besides, was waiting a little bit longer really worth the argument? Seriously? Just sit down and play angry birds for a bit man, it wasn’t that big of deal.
There is a reason why people always say “never date in the workplace”
It sounds as though your wife was not okay with your suggestion. I’m assuming that you didn’t leave it alone after that, and instead kept arguing. She may have ended up loud or demeaning in the process which I’m not condoning, but staring someone down and telling them to be quiet is very demeaning as well. I’m curious as to whether your wife ended up working the overtime.
YTA and you are a parade of red flags. You ‘don’t like her tone’, don’t like it when ‘she disrespects you’, you ‘scold’ her (she is a human being, not a dog), shut her down rudely and you control her. I hope she is your gf, not your wife, so she can get the hell away from you, fast.
Yta. Stay out of her career decisions. And never argue in front of other people.
YTA. When she told you she had to work late, do you think it was something she wanted to do? What exactly did you expect her to plan differently? You were most definitely being demeaning to her. The way you explain what happened in this post feels off too, almost like you are talking down to everyone on Reddit too.
YTA. You crossed the Work/Home line. You gotta navigate this better, her needing to stay late for work is a WORK issue, you needing to wait around is a HOME issue. So you can not make your HOME issue a WORK issue, especially while at work (sometimes its unavoidable, this was totally avoidable).
You are not to discuss how she plans her WORK at WORK cause as you said, you can’t help or assist with her WORK. In those moments, you are stranger telling her how to do her job NOT a s/o asking about time management and its effects on HOME life.
Honestly, y’all shouldn’t have emergency brake at work, you have HR department for that. So how would HR had resolved you telling a co-worker how to plan their task unprompted?
If y’all are going to carpool, you need to have back up plan. This is the rule for ALL carpools. If you are carpooling, you MUST have a pack up plan and it is NO ONES FAULT if the carpool fails one day for you; all you can ask is for as much notice as possible so you can do your back up plan.
You don’t get to discuss resolving her work while at work until work tells you thats a duty of yours. You gotta be able to seperate these roles.
>Because of this, it is of course in my interest that she does not work overtime, so I want to discuss whether it could be solved in some other way. This is not about me wanting to overrule her, nor am I irritated at the moment. I simply want to ask whether she can plan the task differently during the day. I also want to be clear from the outset that this is not something I can or am allowed to help her with.
YTA. You started with a question basically implying she wasn’t competent enough to plan her work or cognizant of impacts of your riding together. You then proceeded to attempt to micromanage her efforts, insert yourself and finally you did shutdown conversation and control it.
Your starting position is she can’t plan her work effectively and she doesn’t think about impact on you.
TBH, actual words said here make a huge difference. You quoted your shutdown statement but did not quote what you actually said when question her work required, you instead posted disclaimers about what you claim to have intended. BTW, the language of your shutdown is very patronizing. It clearly says you’re not done trying to force your way.
YTA-she was given a task at work and has to stay later, that it. It isn’t a discussion, she doesn’t need you to tell her all the ways she should be doing it differently to ensure that the task she was assigned doesn’t impact you and what time you can leave.
You keep arguing with her about a task she was assigned, that has nothing to do with you and that you can’t help her with, and you won’t let it go until she gets mad and raises her voice. It wasn’t a discussion. Your opinion isn’t the only one that matters. Do better.
YTA. She had to work late, you argued. It escalated because you would not take her answer. Again, YOU argued and were demeaning. I have a feeling you try to tell her what to do a lot.
YTA and I say this because even though you are saying you’re not controlling, you still questioned whether she could do her job “differently” instead of just taking what she said at face value that she needed to stay later.
Constantly being questioned like that is exhausting. Maybe she changes tone because you are constantly questioning everything she does.