One of the least mature things a person can do, in my opinion, is the whole “no, it’s fine, do whatever you want” move.

Saying “it’s fine” over and over when it’s clearly not is a form of manipulation in which you set up your partner for a no-win scenario.

Either they take you at your word, in which case they’re in the wrong, because obviously it wasn’t really fine, or they keep pressing, in which case they’re in the wrong, because you literally just said it was fine, why aren’t they listening?

It’s a stupid mind game that’s unbecoming of an adult.

But we do it all the time, don’t we?

AITAH for refusing to cancel my plans and stay home to watch my toddler after my husband told me repeatedly he doesn’t want my help?

My husband and I both work full time.

We have a 1.5 year old who has to be picked up daily by 4pm.

I am the default pick up person because I work from home and my husband commutes an hour each way.

On days when I need my husband to pick him up, I will explicitly tell him, “I have a 5pm meeting today. Can you pick son up or just try to get home in time for my meeting?”

So, communication is gonna be key here. Keep that in mind.

So my husband is working from home today and mentioned last night and this morning that he has a deadline.

He always has deadlines so that didn’t really mean much to me beyond that I should let him focus and not bother him today so I said ok and left him alone to finish his work.

An hour ago I told him I wanted to go to a brewery by myself this afternoon after work to decompress which meant I would need him to pick up our son.

Apparently he was expecting me to pick our son up and watch him tonight so he could keep working to meet his deadline which is totally fine with me, but I called him out for not communicating and just assuming that I would know he wanted me to do that.

At no point in the conversation did I say I can’t or won’t pick up our child or express disappointment or anger at not going to the brewery.

I legitimately just told him that if he needs me to do something then he needs to communicate about it and not assume I will read his mind!

And now it’s a whole thing.

This devolved into an argument where he eventually said he didn’t need anything from me and I should go do what I want.

I re-iterated twice later on in the conversation that I am fine with picking up our son and that’s not my issue at all.

Both times he insisted that he doesn’t need me to do it.

I asked if he was sure. He said he was sure!

So I left the room and texted a friend and asked her to meet me at the brewery.

Here’s that fun mind game part!

After we calmed down I asked my husband if he wanted to talk.

Please note – he did not make any effort to approach me.

During that convo he told me that he changed his mind and now needs me to pick our son up and watch him.

I told him I could push my plans back to later in the evening, but I wasn’t going to cancel my plans.

I only made plans because he told me 3 times that he doesn’t want or need me to stay home with our child tonight.

I told him that his words and actions have consequences.

I never would have made plans if he hadn’t repeatedly told me to go ahead.

But now he’s acting like I’m selfish for not immediately canceling!

AITA for refusing to cancel my plans?

Let’s see what the comments say:

Many wondered if this was part of a pattern.

There are also some assumptions that seem to be built in here.

Admittedly, there’s a lot going on.

Best of luck to you both.

They’ve got a lot on their plate.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.