Mom threatens divorce after husband ruins daughter’s award ceremony with pen-clicking. AITA?
"AITA for telling my husband I'll divorce him if he doesn't stop ignoring our daughter?"
Me and my husband (46F, 49M) have a 17 year old daughter who's leaving for college soon, but my husband's been ignoring her since her Senior Award Ceremony back in mid April.
My husband is someone who loves making noises for no reason. He hums, whistles, taps his fingers or a pen, snaps, claps, literally anything to make noise. He does this constantly.
Our daughter has misophonia and hates any kind of repetitive noises. This isn't just mild annoyance, she's in therapy and has even been medicated in the past to try and cope with this. Her main trigger is especially pen clicking.
My daughter is always either in her room or wearing headphones because my husband can't refrain himself from making noises that trigger her when she's around. The issue is back in April my daughter had an award ceremony because she was in the top 10% of her graduating class.
During the ceremony, my husband brought along a pen and kept making noise with it during the whole ceremony. He was clicking it, snapping the metal clip over and over, and drumming it on the edge of the seat. I told him several times to stop, but he just told me it wasn't a big deal.
It WAS a big deal because the ceremony was held in a small gym with a loud echo, so the sound was very loud. Everyone could hear it and he did it the whole time. During the speeches, the awards being handed out, the pledge and alma mater speech.
My daughter was sat next to us before she got called up, and kept asking her dad to stop, but he told her to be quiet. When she was called up and he kept doing it she kept glaring at us from on the platform and mouthing at us to stop. My husband only stopped after the ceremony and the students were released back to their seats.
My daughter didn't talk to her dad for the rest of the night, and in the morning he called her rude for not talking to him after he took off work to attend the ceremony. She blew up at him and said he ruined it because she couldn't be happy during the ceremony because of his noise. She said she hates how he can't stop for five minutes when it's an important event.
Since then, my husband's been ignoring her and refusing to help with college packing and preparing. A few days ago, he says he doesn't think we should pay the last bit of her tuition because of her attitude problem towards him and that she needs to learn her actions have consequences.
I blew up at him and said I'm going to divorce him if he doesn't grow up and apologize to our daughter. I said that he was the one who was rude for making noises our daughter can't stand at her award ceremony and for ignoring her when she was rightfully mad.
I also said that he'd been insane for wanting to make her pay for college because she doesn't have that kind of money and we had always promised her that we'd cover it if she got it down to under 5,000 a year (her yearly tuition cost is roughly 2,500 a year with all her scholarships)
He is now refusing to talk directly with either of us but is still making comments about not paying for her tuition with his money and that I will have to use my salary to cover it.
The whole house is tense, and I'm wondering if I was actually the AH for threatening divorce. We were both raised Catholic and even though we don't really practice anymore divorce is still something we always agreed is a last case in major situations and not petty arguments. AITA?
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
Your husband brought the pen with him to the graduation ceremony. There was no purpose for him bringing it with him. But he brought it. So he could click it and make sounds with it. Knowing that it annoys the people around him.
I'm willing to bet 100 bucks, this isnt the only time, or the only thing he does to annoy you and your daughter- and that this has been his MO since before your daughter was born. You just let it slide because it was easier or because "it isn't that big of a deal".
Agree. This was passive-aggressive. The guy needs a shrink.
ETA: I said “passive” because he pretends that it’s no big deal. Another commenter suggests “covert aggression” might be a better term. Either way, he needs a shrink to diagnose him and if he doesn’t get help OP should consider leaving. All three should get family therapy.
Everything is passive aggressive. Right down to the silent treatment after receiving consequences (silence from his daughter) for his actions. Now he's flipping the script and deflecting onto them smh.
Well, the daughter’s response was silence to him, but he was the one who screwed up. I don’t care if he is ADHD or on the spectrum or has some other problem that makes him fidget. It is possible to do it less noisily, and he did not need to bring the pen to the event.
Given that his daughter has a medically diagnosed problem with these repetitive sounds he enjoys/needs to make, he doesn’t seem to have done much to adapt his behavior to be less annoying to her. I know parents and grandparents who have quit smoking when their kids turned out to be asthmatic.
I know parents who stopped eating things their kid couldn’t eat (such as ice cream) so the child wouldn’t feel tempted or left out. This guy has his daughter wearing earphones and doing all the adaptation in the house they share.
You’re husband is an AH. I would have lost my mind if I was sitting near him at an awards ceremony. And who brings a pen, was he expecting to sign autographs?! I’m so sorry for you and your daughter. His behavior is awful and doesn’t deserve either of you ❤️
I have misophonia. I would have lost my mind. My guess is that your daughter’s mental health will drastically improve after she moves away from your husband.
ThrowRAtaptaptap (OP)
I do hate to say it but she's even said that she feels better that he's ignoring her because she doesn't have to hear the noises or hurt her ears wearing the headphones. She's been coming out of her shell more, spending time with her siblings and me and her symptoms improved over the summer.
She even got one of her medication dosages lowered as a result of the improvement which was major (the last time she had a dosage lowered was when they were first experimenting with medications for her at ages 10-11)
NTA. You do realize that your husband was intentionally trying to upset your daughter, right? Theres no other reason to do this, especially at this type of event, with her sitting near him. Even if your daughter wasnt senstive to this type of noise, its rude as hell of your husband to make this noise throughout an entire ceremony. He's a real a-hole.