'AITA for calling my husband 'crazy' for wanting to end our marriage over...a strawberry?' + BIG UPDATE

"AITA for calling my husband 'crazy' because he wants counseling or a divorce over...strawberries?"

This feels ridiculous to even type out, but I (28F) feel like I skipped 10 steps in this argument and don’t understand how it escalated this far. My husband (27M) and I have been married for 3 years, together for 5. Since we moved in together, he’s always done the cooking. Not because I refused, but because I literally don’t know how. And before anyone says “just learn,” here’s the context:

When I was growing up, my dad was extremely controlling about the kitchen. He didn’t let me or my siblings touch anything in there. If we even stood in the doorway too long, he’d scream at us. If we tried to help, he would spank us, throw things, or tear into us verbally.

Cooking was basically “his” territory, and the punishment for crossing that line was terrifying. So I grew up never being taught how to do any of it—cooking, cutting food, measuring, boiling water, nothing.

Even now at 28, the kitchen is kind of a trauma trigger. I’ve gone to therapy for it, and while I’ve gotten better about at least walking through to grab water, I still freeze up if I try to do anything beyond that. It feels embarrassing to admit, but it’s a real fear: like if I mess something up, I’m going to get screamed at or hit again.

When I first told my husband I “can’t cook,” I didn’t go into the whole backstory because it’s not something I love talking about. I just figured, okay, he knows I don’t do it. It’s not like he ever offered to teach me in a supportive way, and I never pushed for him to.

Anyway, here’s where things blew up. Last Friday, my MIL came over. She was cooking a bunch of food for her church charity event and needed to borrow our oven for the final item: a strawberry cake. She basically forced both of us into the kitchen to help her with the last steps since she never gets to see her kids anymore.

I already felt anxious, but I thought, okay, maybe I can handle cutting strawberries at least since it’d be easy. Spoiler: I could not. I held the knife wrong, cut unevenly, smushed a few berries, and even left stems on some. It was like a toddler had taken over. I know it looked bad, but I was literally shaking the whole time.

My MIL saw and went, “That’s pathetic. You’re 28 years old and don’t know how to cut a strawberry? Pathetic.” She then grabbed my hands, “showed” me how to do it properly (while still muttering about how sad it was), and then took over.

I was humiliated. It didn’t help that my husband just stood there, silent, looking disappointed. He didn’t say anything to his mom, didn’t try to support me, nothing. He even nodded when she called me pathetic. After MIL left, I went straight to our bedroom because I felt sick with embarrassment.

Later, I confronted him, I asked “why he didn’t help me.” And how “it was rude to let me sit there being humiliated.” I also said “he should’ve defended me instead of agreeing with his mom.” Because I was obviously upset.

He told me, “No, because it is useless and pathetic that you can’t even cut a strawberry at your age. You're older then me and don’t even know how to hold a knife properly.”

That crushed me. I told him he was missing the point—it wasn’t about the strawberry, it was about him standing by while I got torn apart. But he doubled down and said, “No, you’re missing the point. It’s embarrassing because it is embarrassing. You should at least know the basics.”

Since then, we’ve been in a cold war. He stopped cooking, so I stopped doing his laundry. Petty, I know, but it just spiraled. Then, three days later, he sat me down and said we either:

1.) Go to counseling.

2.) Or we’re done.

He said it’s because he’s over my gross weaponized incompetence. And I honestly feel blindsided. Yes, we had a fight, but I didn’t call him names, I didn’t insult him—I just asked why he let his mom humiliate me. And now he wants to throw away our marriage over… a strawberry?

I did call him crazy when he said that because it felt like such an extreme overreaction. Like we went from a small argument to divorce in less than a week, and I don’t know how to process it.

I’m really just posting this to get a better idea of what I possibly did wrong because I feel like I didn’t do anything that bad, besides the way I cut the strawberry of course.. but still, is what I’m doing weaponized incompetence and I’m not realizing it?

What do you think? AITA for calling her husband "crazy" over this ultimatum? This is what commenters had to say:

lilianic said:

It’s not your fault that you have trauma but it is your responsibility to get the help you need to be a functional adult.

Dreadkiaili said:

I do think sitting down with a counselor and explaining your trauma is a very good idea. A counselor should be able to be an objective 3rd party who can help him understand that you aren’t just avoiding a chore. It’s a way bigger deal. And if he can’t empathize, the you know it’s over. Also, it’s a much smaller scale, but I also cannot use knives well and I’m 52.

When I was like 7, my mom sliced some Velvita and she left the edge jagged. My dad (who is fine living in filth, so obviously just wanted to yell) randomly decided this was huge deal and yelled at her and called her an idiot. (They divorced shortly after this incident.)

I purposely sliced things wrong as my act of rebellion for years. I was an adult and my mom asked me to cube some cheese for a holiday dinner. I told her I can’t really cut things evenly because I did it wrong too long on purpose.

I told her why and she said she also cut things wrong for years because of that incident. So, I guess if you do end up getting divorced and want to come to Kansas you can come over for wonkily cut things here.

And Usual-Owl9395 said:

Go. To. Counseling.

Two days later, OP shared this doozie of an update:

Quick recap: I (28F) made a post about how my husband (27M) threatened counseling or divorce after a fight that started because I couldn’t cut strawberries when my MIL came over. I don’t cook—not because I’m lazy, but because of childhood trauma.

My dad was extremely cruel whenever we even looked at the kitchen growing up, and the fear stuck. I’ve done therapy, I’ve gotten better in some ways, but to this day it’s still really hard for me to cook or even be in a kitchen with someone else.

My husband knows. He knows to the same extent, if not more, than all of you who read my post, just not everything. But I told him one specific story after we moved in together:

When I was 4, I asked my dad when dinner would be ready. He grabbed me by the ear, threw me outside, and locked the door. We lived in a suburban house with a forest behind it, and it was dark, full of mosquitoes, the zapper going off, and coyotes around (I had already run into one before, which gave me a phobia of camping). My dad closed every curtain so I couldn’t even see inside.

After at least 30 minutes, he let me back in—but only to lock me in my bedroom without dinner. After he and everyone else finished eating, he dragged me into the kitchen, forced me to hand-wash all the dishes while he stood over me, then spanked me and told me, “Don’t ask stupid questions, the kitchen isn’t a little girl’s problem.” Then he locked me in my room again.

That story was one of the softer things he did. That’s what I told my husband so he’d understand why I avoided cooking. His reaction at the time was basically silence—no real support, but no judgment either. I thought he understood.

So yeah, fast-forward to the strawberry incident: my MIL called me pathetic for not knowing how to cut fruit, my husband stood there agreeing with her, and then later told me I really was pathetic. We fought, gave each other the cold shoulder, and then he gave me the “counseling or divorce” ultimatum. That’s where my first post ended. Well, here’s the truth: it was never about the strawberries.

Yesterday, I was about to actually take him up on the counseling deal. But then I went out to the backyard while he was on what he said was a work call. As I walked up, I heard him end the call with “Bye, baby.” My stomach dropped.

I confronted him right then, grabbed his phone (he fought me for it), and sure enough—I found tons of calls and texts with the same number going back a while. He’s been cheating.

And the funny part? The whole “counseling or divorce” thing wasn’t even genuine. He admitted later he figured if he wasn’t supportive enough, I’d break it off—so he’d have a clean exit to run to this other person.

And here’s something I didn’t include in the first post: the house is in my name. I handle literally everything else in our lives. Every bill, every chore, every errand. He only ever handled cooking, and that was it. I even paid about 80% of our expenses while he only covered 20%. I’ve been covering some of his personal stuff too, like his gym membership.

So safe to say: now he’s out of my life (mentally for the moment anyways). I told him to be gone by tomorrow, and he’s currently sleeping in the guest room. I’ve been canceling everything I’d been paying for on his behalf, starting with that gym membership. He can figure out his own meals, bills, and hobbies now.

So yeah. The strawberries, the humiliation, the arguments—it was all just smoke. The real problem was him cheating, and now I know the truth. Divorce is definitely happening.

Commenters weighed in:

Beatleslover4ever1 said:

That’s quite a twist. You should still get counseling though, and work on your cooking. You deserve relief from that trauma.

ACM915 said:

Maybe you should start with a meal delivery service that shows you how to cook something step-by-step. It could help with your anxiety and whether it turns out perfect or not, doesn’t matter because it’s just going to be for you. I’m glad you found out the truth and I really hope things get better for you.

And Pretend_Artist_1823 said:

I was wondering if that was the case. Call him out publicly for the cheating. Don’t let him control the narrative.