'AITA for missing an actual emergency because I turned off my phone to avoid my wife?' UPDATED
"AITA for missing an actual emergency because I turned off my phone to avoid my wife?"
My best friend (31m) and I (27m) have a tradition of taking a yearly weekend trip together that's phone-free. We've been doing this for a decade now. These weekend trips consist of us staying in a suite and exploring the city, not traversing the wilderness so it's not like we're completely disconnected.
Still, we liked to keep one on hand for navigation and emergency purposes, and it would usually be Friend's phone that we brought along. Friend and I left for our trip this year two Fridays ago to make use of the long weekend.
This was the first time I've gone one on of these trips since my wife and I moved in together, got engaged, or got married. However, we were dating for the last two years worth of trips (2021 and 2022), and she seemed fine during that time.
I would just tell her I was going to be busy for the weekend and she'd leave me alone. I understand that there are different expectations once you get married, but I didn't expect the 180 in behavior.
My wife all but demanded I take my phone as well in case she needed to get ahold of me despite her having Friend's number. I let her know I had arrived and immediately after that she was texting me and asking me how things were.
Then again, asking me another question when I didn't respond to the first one. I eventually muted our text conversation because I was sick of the phone buzzing. She called me a few hours later and asked why I wasn't responding to her texts.
I reiterated that this was supposed to be a no-phone weekend and kept the call short despite her trying to drag out the conversation. She called me once more after this.
When I answered and found out it wasn't an emergency, I simply turned off my phone. The calls then started coming in for my friend and he followed suit. We spent the rest of the weekend with our phones off until the drive back on Monday.
I called my wife and informed her when we were about 30 minutes away from my place and she was furious.
She said that there ended up being an emergency (her sister got into a car accident that won't affect her long-term, but still resulted in broken bones) and that I had just ignored her the entire time when she 'needed me.'
I told her that I was very sorry to hear about her sister, but it wasn't my fault she had essentially forced my hand into cutting off means of communication. She went to stay with a friend before I arrived home that night and has since come home, but she's still fuming. AITA?
The generous people of the internet offered up their two cents.
eleanor-rigby- wrote:
NTA her sister getting into what sounds like a relatively minor car accident is not an emergency. This is beyond ridiculous. How is it different from you being in another country and having no service or something?
People are allowed to still live their lives despite being married, you’re not tethered to your spouse.
TallButShort9 wrote:
OP in his comments about his relationship with his friend: 'Some people might not think it was purely platonic, but I wouldn't say anything explicitly s&^ual happened.'
People are allowed to still live their lives despite being married but having these 'non-negotiable' trips with your not purely platonic friend is a different story. YTA OP. Your wife clearly has a reason to be insecure in your marriage.
ParsimoniousSalad wrote:
NTA. I have the odd feeling that she almost wanted there to be an actual emergency so she could feel justified in bothering, and might have created one if it didn't occur naturally. She desperately doesn't want you away from her.
You'll need to have a serious conversation about that. EDIT: apparently OP buried some key details in comments too, so it sounds like his wife needs to have a serious conversation with HIM as well.
MistressLiliana wrote:
NTA. A modern day version of The Boy That Cried Wolf. If she respected you in the first place you would have been reachable.
olympus1217 wrote:
INFO-Is your friend single? Is he gay? Your comment that “nothing explicitly s&^ual” happened when you lived together is clearly being missed by 90% of the NTA comments here.
Sounds like your wife is insecure about your friendship, and your post/responses don’t seem to show any empathy for those insecurities despite identifying a pretty major red flag in your above response.
Later OP came back with this update:
I wasn't expecting to have an update this soon, but I guess it's one of those situations where once you open a door, you can't close it. What played out in the comments of the OP is embarrassing to read back.
There were things I could admit to myself and to Friend, but not to anyone else. Even anonymously, I was crafting stories that might help explain away past behaviors of mine.
A lot of what I wrote were go to scripts I had gone over in my head a million times in case anyone brought up the fact that it was "weird" for us to be living together in the way that we were. Still, some were able to see through it.
I started therapy twice a week after my first post (my initial 'get to know you' appointment was on Friday, then I had sessions on Monday and Wednesday, which will likely be my schedule moving forward as well). I've only just begun to unpack some of the religious trauma I've experienced.
I know this is going to come as a shock to some of you since many seemed convinced Friend was a villain, but my therapist has continuously praised his presence in my life. Going to a public high school, getting out of my hometown bubble, and having someone there who was able to ground me and understand me helped me not sink further into shame and guilt.
I could've been so much more repressed if things had been different. He was welcomed into the latter half of my last session and it was so healing. I cherish our life together. Him granting me so much patience makes me feel loved beyond words and I'm working to believe I deserve it. I'm also working to remind him how much I love him. He says he already knows. :)
I was planning to keep up appearances with my wife throughout this process. I wanted to focus on me before I jumped into making big external life decisions. My therapist was encouraging me to at least begin thinking about initiating a conversation, but I was reluctant. What ended up happening wasn't the best outcome.
While having lunch with my parents yesterday, my father made a comment about my wife and I having children soon. This wasn't like the marriage ultimatum they had given me before - I am no longer financially bound to them in any way - and it was likely harmless, but it flipped a switch inside of me.
I panicked, firmly told them we were NOT having children, and made a quick getaway. I took a few hours to myself, called my therapist, and then finally spoke to my wife about ending our marriage.
So that's where we're at now. I'm going to start looking for an apartment with the goal of buying a home with Friend within the next few years - we + my therapist all agreed that me living alone was best for my healing journey for now. I think I'll be going low contact with my parents.
I hold some resentment towards my STBX due to a lot of things, which I can elaborate further on (within reason) if that's something people would be interested in.
Thanks again to all who was kind to me. Valentine's day is approaching and I'm looking forward to mine. I can answer questions below if you have them. I know I have a long road ahead in terms of getting to the place I want to be, but man it feels good to finally be able to talk a little more freely about things.
After the update this conversation happened in the comments:
You may not want to answer this, and that is completely okay, but was the ultimatum the only reason you married your soon to be ex-wife?
Aside from that question, I am glad you sought out therapy and are working on yourself! Wherever life takes you, I hope that from here on out, you get to be true to yourself. Nothing is more exhausting than wearing a mask to appease everyone else's expectations of you.
Remarkable-Use-8439 OP responded:
Thank you for your kind words! I really appreciate them. :)
The ultimatum was the only reason I did a lot of things. I was stuck in the unfortunate post-college loop of applying for entry level jobs that expected experience that I essentially had no way of getting unless I did unpaid internships and never hearing back from anyone. I was working while I was applying, but it was a minimum wage job that didn't relate to my degree.
Friend got a pretty awesome opportunity once he finished with post-grad to go be an assistant professor in the area he lives now and the plan was for me to move with him.
The only problem is that this area is more expensive than the one we were living in for university and I was already struggling to pay my half of the rent. He told me plenty of times that he was fine covering it until I was on my feet fully but it was a pride thing.
Suddenly I was in a position where I was financially reliant on my parents and took about 500 steps back in terms of all the work I had done to build my independence. It sparked a series of bad decisions that went from 'we'll no longer financially support you unless you do X' (this was said with more tact.
But this was the underlying message) to guilty trippy, emotional statements that wouldn't have worked on me if I had just maintained my distance from them.
That's my long, roundabout way of saying yes, the ultimatum is the only reason I got married. As nice as it is to talk about Friend like this with both my therapist and here now to some extent, I was - and still am - more than okay being seen as perpetually single.
My wife and I were friends back when we were dating, but a few things happened that really left a sour taste in my mouth as things progressed which is what made the engagement, us moving in together, and getting married such a traumatic experience beyond my parents involvement.