'AITA because my fiancé got fired? Okay, but what if it was potentially my fault?'
"AITA for unintentionally getting my fiancé fired from her job?"
_daddy_salsa_ says:
My fiancée (24F) and I (28M) have been together for five years, and since the beginning, she’s had a terrible habit of ignoring her wake-up alarms. She sets 10–15 alarms over the course of an hour every morning. I’m the complete opposite—I’m a light sleeper, so once I wake up, I have a hard time falling back asleep. This makes it exceptionally difficult when a new alarm goes off every 10 minutes or so.
I work from home, so I typically get to sleep in until 9:30. She, on the other hand, has to be physically at work by 8:30 and typically has alarms running from 6:00 all the way through 7:30. Over time, this has made me resentful of her sleeping habits, and I’ve often resorted to sleeping in the guest room just to get proper rest.
Recently, her work schedule switched from mostly opening shifts to almost all closing shifts. This was a huge relief for me since I could finally sleep through the morning without interruptions, and we got to share a bed again.
Last Wednesday, I was jolted awake at 6 AM for the first time in months. Since she had casually mentioned earlier in the week that she was closing every day, I assumed she had forgotten to turn off her alarms. Wanting to get a few more hours of sleep, I turned them all off and reset them to 10 AM, her usual wake-up time for closing shifts.
When 10 AM rolled around, I heard a scream from the bedroom. Turns out she was supposed to open that day. She rushed to work but was fired on the spot for leaving the store unopened for well over an hour.
At first, I was shocked and felt terrible. But then I found out the real reason she had been switched to closing shifts: she had been repeatedly late for opening shifts, receiving eight warnings/strikes over a one-month period. Her boss had given her closing shifts as a last-ditch effort to keep her employed.
She never told me any of this. Keep in mind that at this point, I was consistently sleeping in the guest room, so by the time I got up for my job, she would already be out of the house, meaning I had no frame of reference to tell if she was running late or not.
Now she’s furious with me, blaming me for her getting fired, and even wants to postpone our wedding. While I understand why she’s upset, I also feel like this was entirely preventable. If she had just told me she was struggling to wake up, I could have helped.
She’s been distant and nasty toward me, and at this point, I’m over it. She made zero effort to do better when I said that her alarms were messing with my sleep, failed to communicate effectively throughout the whole situation, and, in my opinion, lied by omission about her standing at her job.
As of right now, I am back to sleeping in the guest room, and we are hardly speaking. I have told her that until she sees her part in all of this, there’s no discussion to be had. AITA? Here are the top rated comments.
Here are the top rated comments:
YessikaHaircutt says:
This person is not responsible enough to get married.
Informal-Arrival678 says:
NTA. Your fiancée didn’t get fired because you turned off her alarms, she got fired because she couldn’t show up on time nine separate times.
pineboxwaiting says:
NTA and don’t marry her. She’s ignoring the EIGHT times she had been late that had nothing to do with you. Do not tie yourself for life to someone who can’t even get out of bed in the morning. She’s irresponsible and doesn’t take accountability for her actions. That’s just not a good life partner.
MuppetBonesMD says:
Side point that might help - she should see a sleep doctor. I struggle with this. I found out way too late that it wasn’t that I was somehow morally broken for not being a morning person, I have something called delayed sleep phase disorder. No amount of shame, loud noise, or expectation will get you up before your 30’s. It’s super bad in teenagers and young people who have it.