Man snaps at wife after she breaks laptop, 'can you ever look where you're sitting?!'

Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, and that is made deeply apparent when you're married. While one partner might be a master of organization, the other might struggle to find the glasses sitting on their head. Ideally, there's a balance to be found - where each partner can tap into their strengths and give grace for their partner's flaws. But sometimes, it's just frustrating dealing with someone else's flubs.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a man asked if he was wrong for snapping at his wife after she broke his Macbook. He wrote:

'AITA for chastising wife for accidentally breaking my Macbook?'

My wife has a habit of plopping her butt down without ever taking a look at where she's sitting. I've asked her repeatedly to look before she sits because some of the things she's sat in include puke, an ant pile, a puddle of water that accumulated on the surface of the floor, a spider (while hiking...it was mushed onto her butt when she got up), etc..

I've mostly learned to mitigate any direct effect this has on me by ensuring breakable things are not anywhere that people could potentially sit. I use to have a habit of setting all kinds of things on the couch next to me for immediate use. I now put it all in a different place.

I did this because she would constantly come up without looking while I'm playing a game, watching a show, or something and just sit down and suddenly the TV is turned off, or the volume is messed up, or in the previous worst case she broke one of the joysticks on my PS5 controller by sitting on it while I had the controller sitting next to me so I could watch a cutscene in a game.

Lately, she's been borrowing my Macbook a lot and I always put it back in my office when I'm not using it so that it can charge. It's a $3000 Macbook from 2022 (one of the m1 models). She left it on the couch and went back, accidentally sitting on it, and cracking the screen.

I was extremely furious as not only is there a financial burden here but now I'm out a computer and I really needed that for some classes I'm taking. When this happened I said, 'For f#$k sake. Why can't you EVER f#$%ing look where you sit? EVER? Was sitting in vomit not enough motivation? An ant hill? A spider?' to which she got very defensive.

I continued by saying that her lack of attention just cost us hundreds of dollars and put me in a bad place for my school program.

She called me a jerk for talking down to her because I have asked her many to look where she sits and I've snapped before because she sat without looking and caused some issue (for instance, she sat on an ottoman once without looking and spilled a bunch of food over that I had sitting there next to me). This time really pushed me over the edge. AITA?

People had a lot of feelings about this one.

_gadget_girl wrote:

NTA. Her carelessness cost you money. It also cost her MacBook privileges.

WoodenCash5907 wrote:

NTA. The people defending here are so wrong. She’s a grown woman who hasn’t learned from mistakes. Those who say you’re overreacting clearly haven’t had anything of both financial and personal value broken by something that you have tried again and again to prevent. She has never cared to listen or change and this is just proof she’s not willing to change that habit.

Furthermore, keep your stuff to yourself if she can’t understand why she can’t use a new Mackbook give her your old one and say here since you don’t see what was wrong with you breaking it you can use it since apparently nothing is wrong.

felidaekamiguru wrote:

NTA. She should know better by now. She's either unaware of how much this annoys the people around her or doesn't care. You've every right to be nettled, and people yell when they are nettled.

ifactra wrote:

NTA this oblivion and refusal to change of hers would drive me crazy, it’s really not that hard to just look down before you sit down. Tbh that’s toddler behavior. I‘d have her replace the Macbook, maybe paying for something she broke will teach her the consequences of sitting down wherever the hell she feels like it.

Efficient-Regular-96 wrote:

My mother used to do this. My dad called it plopping. She didn't stop until she plopped onto the toilet and it partially went through the floor to the basement. She sure modified her behavior after that.

OP is NTA here, he was just in a very frustrating situation with his wife, and had a normal emotional reaction.