Posting in Reddit’s “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) forum under a throwaway account, the man asked: “AITA for asking my girlfriend to pay for the wine glass she broke?” The post has garnered 8,400 upvotes and thousands of comments questioning the state of the couple’s relationship. Now, the couple may be on the verge of breaking up.
Why Couples Fight
According to New York City-based relationship expert and love coach Susan Winter, how a couple fights and what they fight about tends to change after moving in together. Speaking to Elite Daily, she said arguments between live-in couples tend to be more “intense” and often arise over smaller things.
“You live with your partner now, so everything is more intense as ‘running away’ isn’t an option when they irritate you,” Winter said. “The close proximity to each other can augment irritation and incite arguments over nonsensical issues.”
Counselor Jonathan Bennett also told Bustle that many “post-move-in issues” stem from the realization that a couple isn’t as compatible as they once believed themselves to be.
“Even couples that spend a lot of time together still don’t encounter the challenges that come from living under the same roof,” Bennett said. “It requires at least some merging of finances and being dependent on the other person to a degree (e.g. to pay a share of the bills). Many couples who were happy living independently find that when they move in together they simply aren’t compatible in that way.”
After a string of post-move-in fights, ending with the most recent argument over the wine glass, the man posting to Reddit believes it may be time for him to reconsider things with his girlfriend, Trish.
‘AITA’
In his post, the man said he and Trish moved in together a little over a year ago.
“When we initially decided to move in together, we decided to split all expenses 60/40 because of our combined income distribution (I make 60 percent of our gross monthly earnings, she makes 40 percent),” he said.
Several days ago, Trish broke a $120 wine glass of his while she was cleaning. When Trish approached her boyfriend about it, he asked her to reimburse him in full for the glass, but she didn’t think this was fair.
“When she told me she had broken the glass by accident…we had a discussion (may classify this as an argument…) that lasted three days about how it would get replaced, and who would pay. After all of this talking, she finally (she says) gave in and gave me 40 percent of the cost to replace the glass,” he wrote.
“After the initial agreement, Trish has now said she does not feel good about the agreement and wants me to give the money back to her. Her reasoning is that (A) it was a complete accident, and (B) she would never want to buy any wine glasses that expensive ever again,” he continued.
Of course, he thought the agreement was perfectly fair.
Redditors React
Unsure of what to do or who to blame, the man asked Reddit to weigh in, and while some commenters said he was in the right, many took Trish’s side.
“YTA [you’re the a**hole]. Nickel and diming each other like this does not make for a successful relationship. This was an accident. If she had some this on purpose I could see asking for reimbursement but this is how you treat a roommate, not a girlfriend,” u/keesouth said.
“YTA. I can’t tell how happy I am that I’m not in that relationship. You spent three DAYS talking about this? Just imagine how torturous a real problem is going to be,” u/RMSQM wrote.
In response to a commenter who called the man out for charging his girlfriend for “dishware,” u/Not-A-SoggyBagel said: “Yeah it’s nuts. It’s just dishware. And he argued at her for three whole-a** days over it. Over a mistake.”
On that note, some commenters argued that the relationship as a whole didn’t sound too stable.
Redditor u/IIILordDunbar asked: “You two fought for three days over a broken glass? Has the thought that this isn’t a great relationship crossed your mind?”
The Aftermath
After reading through Redditors’ comments, the man said he returned Trisha’s money. But now, he’s questioning their entire relationship.
“Thank you to the commenters that gave gentle and thoughtful wisdom on what they believed might be more of the root cause of this argument. I don’t think we’ve been in a good place for a long time. And asking her for money was never about control. I wanted to see her take personal responsibility because that is what I would have done,” he wrote.
“I also agree with the people who have commented on the argument spanning three days. It’s exhausting for both of us. Life is too short. We have little fights like this all the time, and it’s wearing on both of us. It might be time to call it quits,” he concluded.
Newsweek reached out to the man for comment.
Other Viral Moments
On Tuesday, Redditors slammed a man who changed the locks on his house behind his wife’s back.
Last week, commenters backed a woman who didn’t tell her boyfriend she knew American Sign Language.
And in mid-August, commenters applauded a woman who kicked her husband out of the delivery room for playing on his phone.
