'AITA for telling my boyfriend that he's getting an ego over something a high schooler can do?'
"AITA for telling my boyfriend that he's getting an ego over something a high schooler can do?"
Hi everyone, so I (31F) have been in a relationship with my boyfriend (33M) for about a year, although we had been friends for a long time before this. For some context, I don't think academics or education level dictates how smart someone is but this is important for the overall story.
I grew up as the first-born daughter of an immigrant family, was always expected to get straight A's (and did), went to get my undergrad and then eventually completed my masters degree a few years ago. It's not something I was passionate about but cultural/family pressure is why I did it and I don't necessarily regret it, I have a stable career at a job I like now.
On the other hand, my boyfriend never graduated high school. He's smart in other ways, like he can fix cars and toilets and mount a TV (I consider this a type of intelligence), and he can hold a convo on any topic because he's an avid watcher of documentaries and really likes historical non-fiction.
He also has severe ADHD that was never medicated and has never been able to keep a job (constantly fired because he has time-blindness and can additionally sleep through any alarm). His family supports him financially and unconditionally.
We're both very different people and I always thought it was a strength, but I'm realizing now it may not be. He's always had grand ideas for himself (wanted to become a famous actor, and then a game streamer, and then a horror novel writer etc...) and one day earlier this year he stated he wanted to become a mechanical engineer.
He was very confident he could do it, and this time he actually took the steps to get his GED one day by enrolling in online classes, so he could finish high school and then apply to colleges after.
This is when things started to break apart. He started taking Chemistry (beginner) and Math (at the level someone in 11th grade would take) and I think began to quickly realize how difficult it was going to be after talking a big game.
He's not used to feeling "dumb", he's always the smartest one in his friend group and speaks over everyone else. I think his struggle with these high school topics did some damage to his ego and he began taking it out on me.
For example, on a night we were supposed to watch a movie, he wanted to study chemistry instead and so I sat next to him and studied with him. It was things like definitions of what covalent bonds, ionic bonds are, along those lines. I made a very casual comment like "oh cool, I get to learn this stuff too".
He looks at me, snorts, and says "You don't know what a covalent bond is?". The way he said it to me, it was like he thought I was the world's biggest dumbass. I told him I haven't touched this stuff in over 12 years so no, its not something I have stored in my brain.
In the coming weeks he would send me instagram reels related to chemistry/science. One of them was like 3 minutes long about a guy explaining how some machine works with chemistry using a lot of heavy jargon.
I just jokingly said "wow thats cool and a lot of words". He looks at me and goes "You didn't understand that? It was all fairly simply concepts". So this behavior was really starting to get on my nerves.
It kept happening and happening, even with other things too. For example, we were streaming a movie online and he dropped the call without saying anything and called me back twenty minutes later saying he fixed something and we can try again.
I asked what the issue was, out of curiosity, and he said "I would explain it to you but you wouldn't understand. Go learn about tech stuff first and then I can explain it". Later, I learned that his call dropped because he got the blue screen of death. Who the hell needs to learn tech stuff to have that explained to them?
Anyway, this was a behavior that persisted for months, where he would go out of his way to point out how dumb I am or how lacking in knowledge I am, and made it seem like a personality flaw that I didn't know all the chemistry stuff he was learning (he completely never mentioned math because in fact I did know that stuff--I was a math tutor for 4 years while completing my undergrad).
So by the time he finished that course with an 84%, I was just tired. He kept going around bragging to all his friends that he got an 84% in chemistry and that he "barely tried". It gave me the ick because it reminded me of a middle schooler bragging about his report card and not a grown man trying to pursue an education in engineering.
The final jab was when he made a passing comment about how he just gets this science stuff more than me and is intuitively more interested in this stuff, that I told him, "16 year olds take this chemistry class every year and pass it easily, I'm not sure it warrants getting this much of an ego over" and he's been pissed ever since. Was there a better way to have handled this? AITA?
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
Here’s the deal: he’s insecure about his own lack of education & career. He desperately wants to feel like he has some knowledge that you don’t have. Either that, or he’s just an immature man-child. Or both. NTA.
I mean, he's taking high school classes and being financially supported by his parents, while heavily overestimating both his own intelligence (based mostly on what he's learned from TV documentaries) and his contribution as a partner. He's basically a 16yo boy.
NTA. From the way you describe it, you weren’t randomly cutting him down - you were responding to months of condescension and little digs that would get under anyone’s skin. It sounds like his confidence in finally tackling academics crossed the line into ego and insecurity-fueled one-upmanship.
The “84% with barely trying” thing plus the way he’d point out what you “wouldn’t understand” honestly comes off more childish than celebratory. Your comment about high schoolers passing that class was blunt, sure, but it was also a reality check after he’d been putting you down for weeks.
And you are still with him why?
babybelheaven (OP)
years of friendship where he acted the complete opposite of what was described in this post, I guess. holding out for that version of him to come back. prob the most simple answer, although not the most logical. I've been in therapy for about a month, it seems like im prepping myself for the breakup, just needing that support.
Why are you with this arrogant absolute loser? Finishing school is like the human bare minimum. You literally have a university degree. Who does he think he is to talk down to you? His friends are even stupider? What a catch you got there!
He is THIRTY THREE, didn’t finish school, has never had a job, has never had to actually function like an adult, and treats people like absolute garbage. What are you doing?