'AITA for not reminding my fiancé that stoves are hot?' 'He GRABBED the 400 degree handle.'

"AITA for not reminding my fiancé that stoves are hot?"

Last night, my fiancé (31m) and I (30f) were winding down our days getting ready to make dinner. Together in the kitchen, I popped the chicken in the oven. Also in the oven was our cast iron pan.

We go back to our respective video games and then when the chicken was getting closer to finished, I go out to the kitchen to start on veggies. I take the now 400° cast iron out of the oven, turn on the stove, and plop some butter in there while I turn my back and start cutting veg.

My fiancé comes out, asking what it is that he needs to do. I say I just need these veggies cut (which I was actively doing) and he goes to give the cast iron pan a shake to move the butter around. Yea, the 400° iron handle, he grabbed it. It was less than a second, no lasting damage, but definitely burned his fingers. 1st degree.

Now the question becomes: was I the ahole for not adequately warning him about the hot cast iron? More importantly, I am refusing more than 50% blame for the incident. To me, the cast iron handles will regularly get hot when using it on the stove top, but obviously this was way hotter than "usual hot", so I can't say that I would grab it with reckless abandon, like my lovely fiancé.

EDIT:

Thank you all, my fiancé and I were so excited to post this and have our relationship ripped to shreds. We turned it into date night at a local pizza place, played AITA bingo and have loved all the comments.

As always, these comments are rife with mis-readings of the post. He had no idea I just took the pan out of the oven, heating the cast iron in the pan is actually ideal over our shitty stove top, and you're all right, and I should get one of those silicone handles! Thanks for the laughs, we had such a fun day. Reddit calling my relationship exhausting has been the highlight of my week. He accepts his idiot badge proudly.

Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:

gl00sen said:

Why are you two assigning percentages to blame. This is a blameless situation. Your fiance just accidentally grabbed a hot pan. You can't be blamed for that and honestly neither can fiance-accidents happen. Sounds like fiance is embarrassed and cannot give themselves grace so they need to turn it on you to protect their ego. You shouldn't be feeding into the blame game either. ESH.

jsrsquared said:

NTA but your relationship sounds exhausting. You’re seriously arguing about what percentage of blame you should each take for a small, commonplace, household accident? I shudder to imagine how you guys handle real problems.

immadriftersbody said:

I say this lightly, but YTA. There's not a visual indicator that cast-irons are hot, they don't make any noise or change color, and if the stovetop itself was turned off, I would believe that *anyone* would misjudge and think it's maybe warm, but definitely not burning hot. Even when I'm the one cooking and just get busy I forget that it's hot and will grab it from time to time.

Something that you may look into is some silicone high heat cast iron grips. I keep a silicone grip on the handle of mine other than when I'm washing it to keep myself from grabbing it while hot.

moneywanted said:

Honestly? If I walk into a room and there’s butter just melting in a pan, then I’m assuming the handle isn’t hot because the base of the pan isn’t hot enough to have melted the butter.

For now, YTA - you should have said it was just taken out of the oven, or (as someone else has pointed out) wrapped something around the handle. Is it common that you make utensils dangerous before using them, though? If so, he may have gone in with a little more caution.

SprinkleofFairydust2 said:

YTA, if I’m cooking and someone enters the space, regardless of how obvious it is, I will make them aware of something that is hot and might burn them. Not to be mothering anyone, I just don’t want to see someone I love hurt. Also, focusing on blame in a relationship…especially in percentages is going to get you nowhere. Plus assigning percentile blame is weird.

atealein said:

NTA. 0% fault. He is 31 year old adult person, regardless of sex he should know his way around the kitchen, especially if he is "giving the cast iron pan a shake to move the butter around."

I assure you, this is not the first time he is handling a cast iron pan. His mistake, taking any part of the blame is to treat him as a child. Does he wants that? Just ask him directly, does he wants to be patronized and handled like a child or like an adult person?