She Escalated an Argument Over a Parking Spot—Without Realizing the Real Reason Behind His Choice
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Imagine going on a date, and your date parks the car. If you didn’t like where they parked the car, would you say something about it or keep it to yourself?
In this story, one woman is in this situation, and she says something about it. That ended up leading to a big argument that kept going until they got back home.
Now, she’s feeling really confused about why her finace was so upset and wondering if she should’ve done something differently.
Keep reading for all the details.
AITAH for telling my fiance “I wish we parked closer” instead of “I wish I parked closer”? I wasn’t the driver, btw.
We were out on a date, and my (F30) fiance (M31) says “we’ll park on our usual spot”.
We parked in various places, so I thought he meant the one we parked for the last couple of times. So I pointed out “oh, there’s a parking space there”, which is where we parked last time.
My fiance doesn’t stop and drives further.
I found a different parking spot, and said “there’s another one there too.”
They parked pretty far away.
Fiance keeps on driving, about 3 blocks away from the coffee shop.
We start walking to the coffee shop. I tell him, “I wish we parked closer” (In a playful voice that I often use, that goes like “I wish~ we parked closer~~”)
He asked me if I was okay, and offered to take my bag.
I said I can hold it, but my feet hurts. I have been doing a lot of hiking recently so my feet were fatigued despite wearing comfy shoes.
Her fiance got really upset.
Then, suddenly, my fiance’s vibe changes (sulking, rigid, discontent. For context, when this sudden mood change happened at the beginning of our dating phase, I thought he was having a medical emergency or something because it is that sudden and big of a change of his overall demeanor).
I asked him what’s wrong.
And he says something in the lines of me always blaming him for things he does, and I should just suck it up and be grateful. And that if he were me, he would have just walked ignoring the feet pain instead of criticizing him of his parking choice.
I was like…huh?
They ended up arguing about it.
We ended up arguing on the street.
My point was that I wasn’t blaming him, I was just telling him that my feet hurt. And if I can’t even tell him if I’m uncomfortable, how does he expect me to communicate?
He thinks I was being passive aggressive, and apparently I was “huffing and puffing” before that.
The argument continued.
I told him, yeah, my feet hurt, the sun is hot, and the air quality is bad, so I was uncomfortable. But I wasn’t “huffing and puffing” to make him feel bad (honestly, I don’t even think I was “huffing and puffing”, which got me really confused).
He said, if I had said “I wish I parked closer” instead of “I wish we parked closer”, he would not feel blamed.
I told him, that’s such a small difference, and he would still be upset if I said “I wish I parked closer.” Also, I wasn’t the person who drove/parked???
We had a bigger argument when we came back home, and he said something else that didn’t make sense.
She finds his perspective really confusing.
He was swearing a lot, so I asked, “would you have rather preferred it if I said ‘I wish I parked closer’ instead of ‘I wish we parked closer’?” to make a point that he is swearing excessively and that his reaction is disproportionate.
He paused for a sec, thinking about it, and said “yes”.
I think I felt the deepest cognitive dissonance here, because it meant he perceives taking the “blame” as a bigger offense than being sweared to–even when he is told that he wasn’t blamed and it was just a miscommunication.
Also, what’s so passive aggressive about saying “I wish~ we parked closer~~” in a playful tone? What’s so passive or aggressive about it? If I wanted to be passive aggressive, I would have said “someone doesn’t know where to park” in a cynical tone.
She wants to understand why he’s acting this way.
What is going on??? Can someone please enlighten me? I’m fine if I am the jerk. I just want to understand what’s going on in his brain, because this happens too frequently.
I would make a comment about something, no matter how I bring it up (whether it is spoken nicely, holding his hand, playful tone, direct tone, it doesn’t matter), he would get so offended and says if he said the same thing to me, I would be furious.
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But I really can’t think of a time when I got “furious” for him telling me things????
He asks me to pick something up, I pick something up. I forget closing windows, so he reminds me. I just say sorry and do them.
It’s not a her problem. It’s a him problem. It sounds like he has anger issues. Maybe he needs therapy. She should seriously rethink marrying him.
Let’s see if Reddit agrees.
This person thinks they both messed up.
Another person thinks the boyfriend is clearly the problem.
This person thinks they need to talk this out…or break up.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a brother who is upset his parents bought his recovering sister a brand-new car but wouldn’t help him out with a used one.
Here’s a vote for ending the relationship.
If freaking out about things like this is a pattern with him, I think they need to break up. She deserves better than someone who criticizes her for communicating and is so picky about wording especially when his suggestion of what to say doesn’t even make sense. She wasn’t driving. He was. She was being generous by saying “we parked” instead of “you parked.”
I really do wonder why he parked so far away.
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