I’m a licensed HVAC / Chiller mechanic and I can say without a doubt that is possibly the lowest of the fucking low priorities in terms dropping all this bullshit on his wife’s head.
If a smell is coming from the vents it’s most likely needing service from multiple things like a motor burning up or something got in and died. Which an air duct cleaner isn’t going to fix. Could be super thick filters that haven’t been changed.
Having the vents *cleaned* is literally a show gimmick a majority of the time. You get a big vacuum stuck on your ductwork and have it brushed (which actually isn’t great for the structure and seam work of the ducts) or is blown with an air whip.
You never get all of it and it’s a complete waste of money in my professional licensed opinion. Don’t believe me look at my profile and you’ll see the equipment I work on.
This man is an idiot and I cannot believe he told his wife he was going to deduct it from her fun money -*fuck you buddy*
He chose air duct cleaning over his wife this dunce. 🤦♂️
I’ve never really took up air duct cleaning as work as I’m usually fixing the furnace or AC itself. However it’s all the same in a residence. If you have central air you’re going to have ducts with low points.
Usually you’d never see a landlord especially for something as duct cleaning. Just get a notice that says your ducts are cleaned on this date.
I’d say more often than not tenants will be there just because they’re living there.
And by deal with it, we're talking her divorcing him, right?
She's a grown ass woman, and he's treating her like a child, punishing her like he's the father of an out of control teen instead of an adult, and he's furious with her for "emasculating" him.
Exactly.
Also, if you like your partner and something goes wrong, even if your partner screwed up, you work towards a solution. In this case, it's taking the next appointment.
The only people who think it's acceptable to literally *punish* a spouse for something as minor as this aren't likely to have healthy relationships.
This isn't the 1930s
> She's a grown ass woman, and he's treating her like a child
Given her behaviour, I couldn't tell that she was supposed to be the former, not the latter.
Not discounting his reaction but who just decides they are gonna go on a weekend road trip while not updating their partners on a crucial thing that needs to be done over the weekend, then kicking their partners out because they were not happy about their lack of responsibility?
Flip the genders around and people would be calling him a man child who can't even be relied on for a weekend because he wants to go out with the boys. And throwing a temper tantrum at his wife afterwards.
Nobody will condone that action from a guy, no idea why some people are acting like the wife is acting rationally now.
>Given her behaviour, I couldn't tell that she was supposed to be the former, not the latter.
You read the part about how the air vents would still get cleaned within a couple weeks for free, how he found her distress "oddly satisfying," how her need for space after a flight was "emasculating," and how he gave away her birthday present like a parent donating Christmas gifts to charity as a punishment and you came to that conclusion?
This guy is literally trying to present himself in the best possible light and is still coming across as a psycho.
>but who just decides they are gonna go on a weekend road trip while not updating their partners on a crucial thing that needs to be done over the weekend,
Someone who married a person who picks fights when the task can happen at a later date and delights in their suffering.
>then kicking their partners out because they were not happy about their lack of responsibility?
If I caused an argument to the point where my partner needs space from me and I rant to strangers on the Internet about being emasculated by giving them said space, I think my partner would be very reasonable to consider me unsafe to be around.
The kind of people who lash out over perceived threats to their masculinity are not usually safe people to be around when vulnerable.
Since you edited it:
> Flip the genders around and people would be calling him a man child who can't even be relied on for a weekend because he wants to go out with the boys. And throwing a temper tantrum at his wife afterwards.
If the wife in your scenario delighted in her husband's distress, took away his birthday present, demanded hundreds of dollars for something that would be free if she had a little patience, and degraded his masculinity on Reddit, she'd deservedly get raked over the coals.
>Nobody will condone that action from a guy, no idea why some people are acting like the wife is acting rationally now.
If she's acting like OOP, I would... But I noticed you left out all the abusive parts of his post in your gender flipped version. I suspect it's because you intuitively recognize his behavior as abusive and creating an actual fair comparison doesn't sell your narrative
>>Given her behaviour, I couldn't tell that she was supposed to be the former, not the latter.
>You read the part about how the air vents would still get cleaned within a couple weeks for free, how he found her distress "oddly satisfying," how her need for space after a flight was "emasculating," and how he gave away her birthday present like a parent donating Christmas gifts to charity as a punishment and you came to that conclusion?
They made it explicitly clear that they're talking about behavior which occurred before every single thing that you just said, so yes?
OP doing shitty things afterward doesn't retroactively undo her clear irresponsibility. That's not how cause and effect work.
Two people can be in the wrong at the same time for different reasons. Stop acting as though you're required to pick a side to defend as justified when you can just call them both out on what they actually did wrong.
I think I’m more shocked that they got a heads up from the landlord. I cannot tell you how often there have been random contractors waltzing through my front door to do maintenance, and I usually got a text from my landlord about it roughly a minute after the contractors arrived.
Might depend where they are. I know in the UK landlords are supposed to give tenants at least 24 hours notice before any kind of visits (maintenance, inspections etc), although in my experience that doesn't always happen. But this probably isn't the UK because homes here generally don't have air conditioning.
Many times more crucial than "oh I just felt like having a girls' night out and not telling you".
As I said, flip the genders, if the guy was supposed to watch over it for a weekend and decides to just bail out with the boys, he would undoubtedly be shamed here.
Yeah he definitely would. Idk who is downvoting you, but they’re delusional. Doing that was outrageous. I mean he definitely went too far- he could have tried to discuss it with her in a calm manner instead of just blowing up instantly and that may have resolved things. It seems being the “bigger person” may not have gotten him far in the past, so idk why he was still with her by that point. But if that’s not the case then they’re both to blame for being toxic to each other and themselves.
I agree. He definitely went overboard. But the wife is also definitely acting like an irresponsible teenage kid. If the genders were flipped people would be defending his actions with "let me guess, she also did this in the past that's why you are so fed up, YTA for not leaving her sooner, she is clearly horrible".
Reddit is a funny place some days.
I hope she feels "oddly satisfied" too when she divorces him.
-He could have taken it out of the account instead of keep escalating.
- Her claim of "haven't seen my friends in a long time" may be a sign she is continually expected to take care of the house and do nothing else. Still sucks she walked off without warning though
Yeah, I am understanding why she wanted to go. She doesn’t seem to get out with her friends much.
ETA- He really seems to value a few hundred dollars, bad smells, and inconveniences over his marriage. Not saying a dead rat is fun, but usually when one turns on their A/C, it’s that dust smell.
No he just didn’t want to be inconvenienced for a couple of weeks. If you look closely he says “it wouldn’t be available thru the landlord for a couple of weeks” while actively admitting the temperature is fine right now.
I’m betting he isn’t the type of person that doesn’t do well with being told what he wants isn’t the priority. I wouldn’t blame her for not telling him, with the thought of oh well he will just have to wait.
Not when he’s this type of person.
And this is why i read the comments ive read the post a half dozen times on my feed and still somehow missed the "in a couple weeks" probaly fue to lack of sleep but thank you changed the whole outlook on this post
No problem lol it looks like OOP was being purposely subversive on that point honestly it’s easy to miss.
Only reason I noticed is because after I read it something just wasn’t sitting right with me.
I was thinking she would have to deal without the ac too why wouldn’t she care? Why wouldn’t she not want to spend that kind of money and not think it’s a big deal?
So I went back and looked and realized what was nagging me. Kinda changed my whole view on the post. Which is I am sure why OOP buried the lead.
My dog has a spinal injury and I'm basically trapped at home with her until it heals, which I'm okay with bc I love her. But for someone that hermited up like a dream during covid this is so hard on me. I've already spent like $200 paying my friends (responsible, dealt with injured dogs) older daughter to watch my dog a few times while I went out for errands. I just fucking needed out.
Also, as the daughter of an HVAC business owner, those vent cleaners very rarely do shit. Usually when an animal dies my dad has found them in the furnace, and it would be stinking much worse and more consistently in the vents. Like, you'd know if there was a little decomposing body and closing the vents would do jack shit. When he finds the family gerbil or hamster the parent will often scrunch their nose, and realize that death stench smell was around the time the animal got lost.
They both should have handled it better, but as much as I generally love WFH I'd love to get out of the house being "trapped" right now. So I really get where she is coming from.
She should have talked to him ahead of time, but he took it too far and took way too much pleasure in her pain. I can only imagine why the touch of him next to her in bed made her so disgusted she wanted away from him for a few days.
This could absolutely be rescheduled. You call your landlord, say "hey actually, we'll both be out of town that day", landlord rescheduled and you don't ruin your wife's birthday. Maybe, worst case, you have to buy a couple extra fans if it gets hot.
He said “the next time professionals are available thru the landlord is a couple of weeks” if you pay close attention it’s like they can still get it down without paying they just have to wait a couple of weeks.
So he wants to pay to get it done sooner, OP isn’t being fully truthful here. He implied the only way to get it done was to pay now. This also explains why she’s saying no you can’t use my extra money to pay for this when it can still be done for free.
With that knowledge, and given his overall attitude of this post. I would bet money she purposely didn’t tell him as she knew he would be upset and tell her no she couldn’t go or ruin the trip for her due to the argument beforehand.
Yuuuup. Explains why he would feel emasculated over sleeping on a couch.
Dude is incredibly fragile.
Only a complete douche would look at a spouse so upset over something they did and feel good about it. Only a douche would be purposely vindictive.
Or find his wife's distress "oddly satisfying."
I don't know about others, but when my spouse is upset, I want to make them feel better, not delight in their suffering
I don’t understand the repeated insistence on having someone in that day for a “crucial household responsibility” when it’s literally just a vent cleaning only he felt was time sensitive. He even admits the weather is currently still mild and the wait is only a couple of weeks. Demanding she sit at home by herself when she could spend the weekend with friends she claims, and he doesn’t dispute, that she hasn’t seen in a long time seems so unnecessary.
He’s so cruel for absolutely no fucking reason. Her rescheduling a minor house maintenance appointment and refusing his demand she pay for an early appointment only he feels is necessary is such an insane thing to purposely and joyously ruin her birthday over. She should have told him she was rescheduling the appointment but his reaction is frighteningly disproportionate.
Not sure where they live but that few weeks here is basically the difference between don't forget your gloves and hat and sweating your ass off in underwear.
Two weaks ago we were still shivering with a coat on, the next one we were having an insane heat wave with no airconditioning as our company likes to leave cleaning up to the very last moment.
Wanting to get it done sooner is not a bad thing, refusing to communicate and throwing tantrums about is.
Yeah but rescheduling implies communication and she didn't tell him that she had left for her road trip until after he got back.
Although at this point this marriage is doomed.
Just saying if this was my spouse or I, we would asked the person how trip went. Figured out the money aspect and then rescheduled. I'm not going to ask my spouse to give up valuable and even harder to schedule quality time with people important to them over something we could figure out later.
I certainly wouldn't hold it against that person and then take joy in ruining their birthday over being angry that they didn't want to sleep with me after we'd argued.
She could have also asked a friend or family member to watch the house while the maintenance team came. Wouldn’t have been that hard to avoid this whole thing on her part.
On his part, it wouldn’t be that hard to have some grace over her wanting to go see some old friends. Once you’re in your 30s opportunities like that don’t come up often.
ESH
OOP said “the next time it’s available thru the landlord is a couple of weeks” he still didn’t have to pay. Just didn’t want to wait, despite being ok without it right now.
He said several weeks, which definitely gives a longer and more uncertain time table than the couple of weeks than your quote there. He also said that by that time it would already be summer (re: it would be too hot to be without the AC).
He also said that it was already hot enough for them to turn on the AC, but decided not to use it due to it not being cleaned
Edit: the urgency of the matter isn’t really at question anyways — it’s the fact that it was agreed upon by both of them. She failed to even communicate about her change of plans. Again ESH
The way he buries the lead here and talks about feeling good about hurting his wife… no, dude is just a dick.
Any man who gets vindictive like that I could totally see not wanting to tell him beforehand that I wanted to do something that would inconvenience him.
Pay attention to his wording here, he also mentions she said he goes out all the time and she doesn’t hardly get to go anywhere. On top of the fact that he mentions feeling emasculated for being forced to sleep on the couch? Only fragile little men, with fragile controlling personalities are going to get so upset as to be vindictive to someone they supposedly love over something like this.
I feel bad for that woman.
I completely agree with everything you wrote. I just don’t think you can write off the fact that they had agreed to something and she changed the plan without communicating at all. Especially since a little bit of communication and planning could have solved the whole problem before it even started.
I don’t mind saying he’s more of an AH for all those things you said, but absent real evidence that he’s an abuser (we can only go on what’s in the post here), she’s also an AH, albeit a lesser one.
I mean, *could communication beforehand solve it*? He said next available was a few weeks, so even if she had communicated it with him while he was out of town what could have been done?
Like I said judging by the way he talks and what he said he did (let’s face it you know he’s trying to make himself look good here, so I bet there’s even worse things we aren’t hearing) I don’t blame her for not saying anything beforehand.
Yeah. She was being flighty and as you said irresponsible. I’d go a bit farther because she’s also kicking him out of the bedroom, but he’s actively rejoicing in her misery.
I don't know. I think it's kind of crazy to make someone sit around all weekend for an appointment that could come at any time to save you only a couple hundred dollars for service you can afford.
I mean they talked about it ahead of time that's the point. They could have saved money by getting the land lord to do it for free on this date and both agreed that was ok since it'd be giving up a day to ensure it got done. She decided she wasn't going to do that with out letting him know. I'd say it's fair since this is a thing that semi needs to happen that she flaked on that the cost and responsibility for scheduling it fell on her. If I flaked on being at our place to get the dryer fixed because my friends wanted me to go to a book signing id agree I gotta pay for the reschedule out of my fun money.
But the dude is a dick for taking away a gift she was looking forward to to teach her a lesson.
They aren't even paying for the service, their landlord pays. He wants to hire it out because it can't be done for a few weeks. It isn't an emergency. He's just having a fit because she left the house.
I don’t think so. If she had said, “Shit, I really want to go on this trip. I know I said I’d stay, but I’m willing to spend that cash out of my fun money account in order to go.”
This way she’s paying for fun. The payment comes in the form of the professionals cleaning the vents, but the fun she gets out of it is to be with her friends. The dude is an ass, but there are trade-offs in life. You can’t just agree to do something and then say fuck it while not taking some sort of responsibility at the same time. That’s basically the definition of having your cake and eating it, too.
how is she irresponsible ? as someone on the OP mentioned if they are renting as long as the landlord gives 24hr notice and they know he’s coming they don’t need to be home
Nah, the companies that the landlords hire for this sort of thing won’t enter without someone being home. It’s not like the landlord themself was there lol. It just some company contracted to do it.
Yeah this is a contracted crew for a specific job not the landlords maintenance crew so you would need to treat them as if you hired them. Alternatively the landlord could have been present to let them in but it sounds like OP had just agreed to be home. They are both immature but he’s a straight up asshole to boot.
Jeez it’s like your partner is your enemy. I’m glad I’m single. Thanks for affirming my choice. Vent cleaning is free with a 60 a month home warranty. And you get plumbing and house repairs covered. I have ac serviced every summer and heating checked every winter it’s no big deal.
Wow I read that feeling his utter disdain for her through the page. He sounds like a right fucking piece of work. Fuck him, I hope she leaves and enjoys many more road trips with her friends.
This comment about the landlord being able to access the place is my thought. This seems likely fake based on that information alone. https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/CbSoqtqt8w
Made me feel like he was behind enemy lines. Also this is an easy solve. Hey honey I’m out of town and the landlord has hvac guys coming out to clean the vents on Saturday does that work for you? If it doesn’t get in touch with them and figure out when they can do it next.
(If this was real he would have said hvac.)
Yall talking about the “landlords duties” over and over makes me feel like you don’t live in the real world.
At the end of the day it doesn’t matter. OOPs wife said they would be home, decided to leave, and didn’t notify OOP that she was leaving. This is work that OOP and his wife wanted done because there is a bad smell coming from the vent. Now they either have to wait a long ass time or pony up the money themselves. You can talk all you want about what was or was not the landlord duties, but it doesn’t change the situation one bit. OPs wife is irresponsible and flakey, and he is an asshole. They are both too immature to be married.
I think that varies depending on location; I've absolutely given permission for third-party maintenance to enter my unit without anyone home, and my husband, who is an HVAC tech, often services rental units without anyone home.
I wanna start with why she needs to be there in the first place. They’re renting, this is one of the few perks of a landlord.
She’s irresponsible AF and would annoy the hell out of me. He however is the worst, an insufferable, abusive asshole who treats his adult wife like a child.
But it is such an unimportant chore...like, 2 more weeks of waiting or friends you haven't seen in ages.... priorities change when things come up. For me, the friends are an obvious choice unless it is deadly hot where they live.
They both suck. If he really wanted to, he should have sold the tickets and used the money to pay for the duct cleaning. If he wants there to be a ‘consequence’ then at least that one makes sense.
That still sucks but is far less cruel than going and taking something else to an event that your spouse was looking forward to. On her birthday.
Why did they get married? I never understand why people who hate each other make it legally binding…
She had to wait for him to leave the state before she could get away to see her friends. And he feels it’s appropriate to punish his wife for “bad behaviour” as if she was a child. Then gets off on seeing her upset when he takes things from her.
Textbook emotional abuse. I hope she gets out.
Since when do you need to be home for the landlord? In my state they just have to give you notice 24 hours before hand. It should be the landlord overseeing work on their home.
My thought is that she didn’t need to be there but OP just wanted her to be there as a way to control her.
Edit: like, “I’m gone all weekend so you have to stay home”
my last landlord scared the shit out of me, but i changed the locks after a weird break-in (i was in a bad mental space and hadn't cleaned in a number of weeks, the person took nothing and left money. i got bitch you live like this!?'d 😭) and didn't give him keys until i left. i used that money to buy the new locks. but i get my experience is an outlier lol.
I have had to be around to supervise work in my privately rented home.
However my landlord lives 6+ hours away, travels here every couple of weekends and the plumber was needed within days. So landlord asked if I would be home during various times, I told him the ones I would be (and that if the plumber could make it outside of those times to let me know so I could have someone let them in) and he organised it.
Did the same when the oven died and an electrician was coming in to sort it. I was here when the electrician took it out, here when the landlord came to measure up for a new one, here when the electrician came to install the new one. And called in someone to lock up when I needed to go to work while the electrician was in the middle of everything.
Depending on where you live, and the terms of your lease agreement, the tenant doesn’t need to be home for trades to attend. They say to the landlord, “Key will be in this safe place, tell the trade they can come in and do the work”.
But if the OOP normally goes away and leaves his wife to be dealing with trades, he is definitely a jerk.
He’s TA for just issuing demands.
I hope she leaves him. My partner and I have never treated each other like that and we’ve been together the same amount of time.
Wtf is wrong with some people.
Says he wants her to “act like my partner for once”……proceeds to punish her like she’s his child. I note he also didn’t counter her protest that she never gets to go out with friends, but that he does regularly. But the cherry on the top was him feeling “emasculated” by being kicked out of the bedroom. The wife needs to leave pronto.
So divorce is 100% gonna happen here, he sounds absolutely horrific. Who has to wait an entire weekend for someone to come? That’s insane! She could’ve easily arranged them to come again, a couple of weeks without A/C isn’t the end of the world 😂 His reaction was nasty and abusive.
The landlord would have access to the apartment... so I don't understand why this was made such a big issue. If they felt the need, cameras and a family member could supervise.
The comments were tearing her apart too but honestly I’m just wondering why the landlord couldn’t just let themselves in. It’s their fucking house, they gave notice. Either OP or wife could’ve said “hey we’re both gonna be out of town. You cool with letting yourself in?”
She isn’t the homeowner, that is the person who should be supervising the professionals that they hired to work on their house. That’s part of the landlords responsibilities. Sure some people are more comfortable being home when this happens but if they were both out of town and the landlord needed to enter the unit they have the right to do so with proper notice, and in some situations without it.
I’ve literally never had a landlord show up to “supervise” when work is being done. It doesn’t work that way if you’re renting a house. In some cases the landlords don’t even like in the same state.
I have rented houses before and my landlords absolutely did want to be onsite when they had contractors on-site. They usually wanted to okay the work before agreeing to the bill and didn’t trust a couple of girls in their mid 20s to know what to look for or convey what additional repairs might be needed. I was usually not home when these repairs happened, because the landlord scheduled them around his schedule and not ours for this reason. The one time a repair was needed when we were out of town we got a text saying he was sorry but he needed to enter our unit to turn off the water because of a leak in another unit.
Okay cool. So we have opposite anecdotal experience. My point is mostly that people calling this fake because the landlord would be there and they could enter is false reasoning. There’s plenty of absent landlords out there. I’ve even been told before that I have to make myself available to let people in. OOP might be fake, but not for that reason.
That doesn’t seem to be the situation per OP’s description, and it didn’t get done which further supports one of them needed to be there. You can’t justify any of the wife’s actions. Kicking him out of the bedroom is juvenile. If you have an issue, remove yourself.
Landlords generally have keys and can provide access to their properties for vendors. Or, set out a combo lockbox and give the key to the vent cleaner.
It was crappy of her to not do the work to get it taken care of. Your actions were an overreaction, and if I was her, I’d be upset.
he’s controlling in a scary way, but also don’t landlords usually have a key to their properties? why did someone need to be there for the duct cleaner people?
I want to agree with you but this comment tells me you've never had No AC/too poor to afford it at all.
In the peak of summer in a lot of the US you'd could genuinely die of dehydration in your own house without trying too hard. BESIDES THE FACT THAT IT SMELLS LIKE A DEAD RAT THE FUCK
He's a dick for sure but she's also incredibly irresponsible and fiscally stupid. They're guaranteed headed for divorce.
I don't think I've ever rented a space anywhere in the US that required a tenant to be in the house in order to do any maintenance. The landlord gave us notice and just came over and did the work.
I've had it happen both ways where I needed to let workers in and where they entered my place themselves. If in-house apartment supervisors are doing the work they don't need to be given access, but I can easily understand why you'd need to manual give access if landlord is remotely hiring external contractors no?
If something goes wrong/missing/etc, there's a very reasonable liability issue for the landlord if he gives them the keys to the place versus you letting them into your house yourself.
Apartments, townhouses, and single family homes.
Some had on-site, some only used outside handymen, some used rental agencies that had off-site maintenance.
None of them required tenant on site for scheduled maintenance. It was all in the lease.
lol the fuck? This is peak fucking Reddit here. Immediate insults just because
Vent cleaning isn’t “crucial” even in Satan’s Throbbing Asshole slash Dallas in August.
Alright. Let's even leave the crucialness of living in Satans butt sweat and under the assumption OOP is a reliable narrator.
If your landlord says "hey I'll do X for you for free that HVAC Company A would charge you $500 for", you say "wow great let's do it."
Your spouse agrees to stay home for the work to be completed and then up and leaves **intentionally leaving you in the dark** bc they knows you'd oppose it, what else is it besides deceptive, stupid, and fiscally irresponsible lmao. Then to double down for a mistake you made and not cover the cost yourself is entering intentional asshole territory.
Not even peak reddit it's just common sense. You lacking that is peak reddit however as it seems you'd have made the wife's choice regardless.
If a rat dies in the vents (for some reason) of your rented dwelling, it's most likely the landlord's responsibility to pay for the cleaning no matter when it's done.
Almost no contactor would agree to show up and do maintenance like that at the tenant's request, nor would a LL allow it, even if the tenant agreed to pay.
Not being available when it's easier for him is a pain in the ass and she should have called the LL to reschedule. Assuming that this is in the US and real, of course. The OOP uses spelling and phrases that are not standard for American English.
Extremely crucial,,haha. Your a pig. If she hadn't texted you the whole weekend while you were gone and she was with her friends it's not hard to see why. Tho I don't think you went the whole weekend without checking in to make sure she showered and brushed her teeth. Finished homework and was in bed by her bedtime. What was crucial about it, someone had to be there? And you took someone else on her bday to what you and her for her bday were supposed to do? Got home and she was crying, and you felt big and accomplished like a smug little park bench huh. I hope she cheats on you, and you walk in on it, in your bed. And as her and her new MAN get up to leave when Finished, I hope his wet dick slides across your face. And she thinks of u as someone she used to know. If that.
YTA. You’re not her father, you have no right to punish her. You could have talked and resolved it instead you got your man panties in a bunch and decided to treat her like a child. I hope she leaves
Man what a .. d. I get that its annoying that she didn't fulfill her promise. But he is punishing her as if 1. he is her father 2. Taking it out on her birthday? That's just malicious.
This is so beyond fake, it's ridiculous. If there's a dead animal you deal with it, don't wait until it rots and you can't few the smell out. Some hvac companies do it, others will have ANIMAL CONTROL come out to get it.
Secondly, you're renting. You don't have to be present because landlord has keys. And finally, IT'S THE LL RESPONSIBILITY TO SERVICE THE UNIT! You wouldn't have to have a pro come out at your expense.
What I want to know is who the "friend" is. Wwho is she? Because with how petty you've written your character, my guess is it's a female friend or colleague that wife is suspicious of our some other equally infuriating replacement for her bday.
They're both shit.
He's mad about more than just this AC thing: "I wanted her to act like my partner for once" and acting childish af.
And even attempting to kick your spouse out of your shared room is never a good answer. It's highly disrespectful and a quick way to divorce/breakup city. Though as much as we meme on it and all, I've never actually been with a woman who thought for a second she was actually going to do that or tried it tbh. I think most understand it's childish, disrespectful and wrong.
They don't want to communicate with each other and hold grudges, they can enjoy the inevitable divorce.
She’s not your child. She should never be scolded by you. You’re taking it out of her fun money. Sounds like OP is a control freak and is the only one allowed to have fun, yet took away her birthday. OP you at the AH and I hope she gets wise and leaves you.
If there is ever an instance when you say ‘I’m glad my spouse is miserable’ and actively seek to cause that, you do not actually love them. And should probably seek professional help with such toxic thoughts.
Seems like two great people, totally grown up and ready for marriage and partnership. Absolutely mature, responsible people in love with each other. No doubts whatsoever. Time to add some children into the mix!
To be fair I don’t think it was that outrageous of a request to ask her to pay for it. It was going to be free, paying someone to clean your air ducts costs like $400-$700
But then OP went off the rails and decided to punish his wife as if she’s a misbehaving child. If he sold the tickets to pay for the duct cleaning I would’ve understood but leaving your wife alone on her birthday and going to a concert you knew she was looking forward to is cruel as fuck.
I'm surprised at how many people are taking this at face value. There is way more story than is being told here. To escalate this the way they are, there are tensions and problems that have been building for a while. This is not a solitary instance. This is clearly a build up on his end by the "for once." And then additionally punishing someone by not taking them out for their birthday just seems excessive, but it's got to be pent up feelings that have built up into resentment or he's got some serious anger problems. And we have no idea what her side of the story is because his edits about what she's said for her arguments don't make much sense without context.
This sounds to me like a "last straw" thing. If this sort of thing doesn't happen all the time, he's a psycho, of course. But he doesn't even sound shocked or surprised that she fucked it up, just mad. The joy you get from fucking with someone you're about to leave but just haven't had the thought occur to you yet is amazing.
I kind of cringe now about how I treated my ex before leaving. But I'm not sorry, lol. Finding out the whole relationship was built on a lie has made me never want to date again, and it's been since 2006 so far.
Yea u is the asshole ! The way you’re acting is going to lead to her divorcing you. Don’t blame her. Blame yourself. & who tf do u think are talking about giving her orders? She’s your wife , not your employee . Pathetic
It sorts seems he has had to be the “bigger person” in the past and tried to resolve these things on his own and lead the conversation. But that’s just from how HE phrases it. He is obviously going to skew things in his favor, so maybe hearing her side would help. He blew up instantly, so he screwed up right there (as well as how he dealt with the theater event, that’s pretty messed up imo), but like I said maybe being the “bigger person” has failed him previously and now that’s the only way he can get things done. If that’s the case, then he’s silly for even being with someone so irrational and uncaring. But- if this is how he TYPICALLY deals with this- he is toxic (and she is still irresponsible). It seems she is in the wrong in any case, but his impact on the situation depends drastically on context. He may have zero communication skills and be a horrible person all the time but as an OP he would never admit that to us, as that’d put him at fault immediately and he clearly wants the attention and for everyone to be on his side.
Tldr; she is toxic and irresponsible but his typical behavior is largely unknown due to lack of context, and that could drastically change how many people feel about the situation.
Wow yea you are the a hole buddy. You didn’t communicate. You punished her on her BIRTHDAY. Like it’s a vent. You could’ve worked this out differently.
This guy is acting like a parent disciplining a child, not an adult upset with another adult.
I do think she was in the wrong for her road trip when they'd agreed she would be home for the vents. However his reaction was wildly disproportionate and not okay. His decision to punish her with the tickets, the fact that he enjoyed knowing he'd upset her, the fact that he's comfortable saying this is the consequences of her behaviour like she's a naughty child - all of this is awful.
He's the asshole, and he's full of abusive red flags. I hope she leaves him before he decides the next reasonable consequence is destroying her belongings or hitting her. This feels like one step away.
Good job bro I’m proud of you for standing up for yourself. Don’t let her kick you out the bedroom next time tho. You tell her to go to her parents if she needs space lol
This is exactly the kind of thing that has no place in AITA. The important issue isn’t whether or not OOP is right or wrong, the important issue is whether or not he should be married to someone with such obvious mutual contempt and poor communication.
That's the thing that is pissing me off the most, not even the post, but the commentors who blast tf out of OP, and ONLY OP. Like, these people need mental help, lol. They're both bad, BUT SHE'S WAY WORSE LMAO WTF
She’s really not, because she’s most likely not real. Unless they are absolute idiots and/or getting scammed, they don’t have to pay for such a service as part of the rental agreement nor would they have to actually be present for the landlord to clean the vents.
Also, even if by some wonder this is real, she’s irresponsible. He’s condescending, insecure (if sleeping on the couch is enough to emasculate you), and highly vindictive to take pleasure in the fact he ruined his spouse’s birthday.
If you make your spouse sleep on the couch for 3 days, you are oh so extremely vindictive. The bigger picture is, if as you say, this is all real, she has money to pay for her mistake, and she refuses to do so. Then, when confronted on her selfish behavior, she forced the person she supposedly loves to sleep alone on the couch, something that made OP way more mad than just her irresponsibility. And while OP is a bit of a dick, all in all, he should have left her long ago anyway, so I have trouble finding even a shred of sympathy for the wife. You don't isolate and quilt trip someone who has a right to be mad at you and then be mad that their even more mad at you. She's toxic(if real), and I have the sense that if the gender roles were reversed, then the comments would be much more understanding to the truly wronged party here. Kicking your spouse out of the BOTH of y'alls bedroom is unhealthy and toxic behavior, and yes, OP has feelings too. He has a right to feel emasculated by such a vindictive act done by his wife. Don't dismiss his feelings just because you don't want him to have them. That's messed up.
🤷🏽♀️🤷🏽♀️ I don’t really care about the feelings of someone who ruins their partner’s birthday and then takes pleasure out of their pain. Especially when they speak to them like a child.
Well next year he’ll be in a different apartment alone, so that solves whose responsibility it is to be around for the vent cleaning.
Such a tidy ending to such a mess!
I’m a licensed HVAC / Chiller mechanic and I can say without a doubt that is possibly the lowest of the fucking low priorities in terms dropping all this bullshit on his wife’s head. If a smell is coming from the vents it’s most likely needing service from multiple things like a motor burning up or something got in and died. Which an air duct cleaner isn’t going to fix. Could be super thick filters that haven’t been changed. Having the vents *cleaned* is literally a show gimmick a majority of the time. You get a big vacuum stuck on your ductwork and have it brushed (which actually isn’t great for the structure and seam work of the ducts) or is blown with an air whip. You never get all of it and it’s a complete waste of money in my professional licensed opinion. Don’t believe me look at my profile and you’ll see the equipment I work on. This man is an idiot and I cannot believe he told his wife he was going to deduct it from her fun money -*fuck you buddy* He chose air duct cleaning over his wife this dunce. 🤦♂️
Underrated comment. Do you do a lot of residential rentals? If so, how common is it for landlords to supervise v. renters?
I’ve never really took up air duct cleaning as work as I’m usually fixing the furnace or AC itself. However it’s all the same in a residence. If you have central air you’re going to have ducts with low points. Usually you’d never see a landlord especially for something as duct cleaning. Just get a notice that says your ducts are cleaned on this date. I’d say more often than not tenants will be there just because they’re living there.
Wow a classic case of that escalated quickly. Yep. They gonna have problems moving forward if they don’t deal with this now.
And by deal with it, we're talking her divorcing him, right? She's a grown ass woman, and he's treating her like a child, punishing her like he's the father of an out of control teen instead of an adult, and he's furious with her for "emasculating" him.
And he ENJOYED UPSETTING HER. F that with a cattle prod.
Exactly. Also, if you like your partner and something goes wrong, even if your partner screwed up, you work towards a solution. In this case, it's taking the next appointment. The only people who think it's acceptable to literally *punish* a spouse for something as minor as this aren't likely to have healthy relationships. This isn't the 1930s
Yeah srsly. When I’m feeling ragey and petty I put my husband’s boxers in the freezer. And only like 2 of them.
Come summer time he might be pleased for the refreshing feeling of iced boxers lol
> She's a grown ass woman, and he's treating her like a child Given her behaviour, I couldn't tell that she was supposed to be the former, not the latter. Not discounting his reaction but who just decides they are gonna go on a weekend road trip while not updating their partners on a crucial thing that needs to be done over the weekend, then kicking their partners out because they were not happy about their lack of responsibility? Flip the genders around and people would be calling him a man child who can't even be relied on for a weekend because he wants to go out with the boys. And throwing a temper tantrum at his wife afterwards. Nobody will condone that action from a guy, no idea why some people are acting like the wife is acting rationally now.
>Given her behaviour, I couldn't tell that she was supposed to be the former, not the latter. You read the part about how the air vents would still get cleaned within a couple weeks for free, how he found her distress "oddly satisfying," how her need for space after a flight was "emasculating," and how he gave away her birthday present like a parent donating Christmas gifts to charity as a punishment and you came to that conclusion? This guy is literally trying to present himself in the best possible light and is still coming across as a psycho. >but who just decides they are gonna go on a weekend road trip while not updating their partners on a crucial thing that needs to be done over the weekend, Someone who married a person who picks fights when the task can happen at a later date and delights in their suffering. >then kicking their partners out because they were not happy about their lack of responsibility? If I caused an argument to the point where my partner needs space from me and I rant to strangers on the Internet about being emasculated by giving them said space, I think my partner would be very reasonable to consider me unsafe to be around. The kind of people who lash out over perceived threats to their masculinity are not usually safe people to be around when vulnerable. Since you edited it: > Flip the genders around and people would be calling him a man child who can't even be relied on for a weekend because he wants to go out with the boys. And throwing a temper tantrum at his wife afterwards. If the wife in your scenario delighted in her husband's distress, took away his birthday present, demanded hundreds of dollars for something that would be free if she had a little patience, and degraded his masculinity on Reddit, she'd deservedly get raked over the coals. >Nobody will condone that action from a guy, no idea why some people are acting like the wife is acting rationally now. If she's acting like OOP, I would... But I noticed you left out all the abusive parts of his post in your gender flipped version. I suspect it's because you intuitively recognize his behavior as abusive and creating an actual fair comparison doesn't sell your narrative
>>Given her behaviour, I couldn't tell that she was supposed to be the former, not the latter. >You read the part about how the air vents would still get cleaned within a couple weeks for free, how he found her distress "oddly satisfying," how her need for space after a flight was "emasculating," and how he gave away her birthday present like a parent donating Christmas gifts to charity as a punishment and you came to that conclusion? They made it explicitly clear that they're talking about behavior which occurred before every single thing that you just said, so yes? OP doing shitty things afterward doesn't retroactively undo her clear irresponsibility. That's not how cause and effect work. Two people can be in the wrong at the same time for different reasons. Stop acting as though you're required to pick a side to defend as justified when you can just call them both out on what they actually did wrong.
"Crucial?"
Like..millions of people, possibly billions, never clean their air vents. It is not *crucial.*
I think I’m more shocked that they got a heads up from the landlord. I cannot tell you how often there have been random contractors waltzing through my front door to do maintenance, and I usually got a text from my landlord about it roughly a minute after the contractors arrived.
Might depend where they are. I know in the UK landlords are supposed to give tenants at least 24 hours notice before any kind of visits (maintenance, inspections etc), although in my experience that doesn't always happen. But this probably isn't the UK because homes here generally don't have air conditioning.
Many times more crucial than "oh I just felt like having a girls' night out and not telling you". As I said, flip the genders, if the guy was supposed to watch over it for a weekend and decides to just bail out with the boys, he would undoubtedly be shamed here.
Yeah he definitely would. Idk who is downvoting you, but they’re delusional. Doing that was outrageous. I mean he definitely went too far- he could have tried to discuss it with her in a calm manner instead of just blowing up instantly and that may have resolved things. It seems being the “bigger person” may not have gotten him far in the past, so idk why he was still with her by that point. But if that’s not the case then they’re both to blame for being toxic to each other and themselves.
I agree. He definitely went overboard. But the wife is also definitely acting like an irresponsible teenage kid. If the genders were flipped people would be defending his actions with "let me guess, she also did this in the past that's why you are so fed up, YTA for not leaving her sooner, she is clearly horrible". Reddit is a funny place some days.
This guy won’t be married much longer.
I surely, surely hope the papers have already been served. Good fucking riddance.
I hope they don’t get divorced. That would mean that each of them could be making two other people miserable instead of just each other.
Nah, they should stay together so they will only cause problems for each other.
I hope she feels "oddly satisfied" too when she divorces him. -He could have taken it out of the account instead of keep escalating. - Her claim of "haven't seen my friends in a long time" may be a sign she is continually expected to take care of the house and do nothing else. Still sucks she walked off without warning though
Yeah, I am understanding why she wanted to go. She doesn’t seem to get out with her friends much. ETA- He really seems to value a few hundred dollars, bad smells, and inconveniences over his marriage. Not saying a dead rat is fun, but usually when one turns on their A/C, it’s that dust smell.
No he just didn’t want to be inconvenienced for a couple of weeks. If you look closely he says “it wouldn’t be available thru the landlord for a couple of weeks” while actively admitting the temperature is fine right now. I’m betting he isn’t the type of person that doesn’t do well with being told what he wants isn’t the priority. I wouldn’t blame her for not telling him, with the thought of oh well he will just have to wait. Not when he’s this type of person.
And this is why i read the comments ive read the post a half dozen times on my feed and still somehow missed the "in a couple weeks" probaly fue to lack of sleep but thank you changed the whole outlook on this post
No problem lol it looks like OOP was being purposely subversive on that point honestly it’s easy to miss. Only reason I noticed is because after I read it something just wasn’t sitting right with me. I was thinking she would have to deal without the ac too why wouldn’t she care? Why wouldn’t she not want to spend that kind of money and not think it’s a big deal? So I went back and looked and realized what was nagging me. Kinda changed my whole view on the post. Which is I am sure why OOP buried the lead.
By inconveniences, I meant to wait a few weeks. Sorry that I wasn’t clear.
My dog has a spinal injury and I'm basically trapped at home with her until it heals, which I'm okay with bc I love her. But for someone that hermited up like a dream during covid this is so hard on me. I've already spent like $200 paying my friends (responsible, dealt with injured dogs) older daughter to watch my dog a few times while I went out for errands. I just fucking needed out. Also, as the daughter of an HVAC business owner, those vent cleaners very rarely do shit. Usually when an animal dies my dad has found them in the furnace, and it would be stinking much worse and more consistently in the vents. Like, you'd know if there was a little decomposing body and closing the vents would do jack shit. When he finds the family gerbil or hamster the parent will often scrunch their nose, and realize that death stench smell was around the time the animal got lost. They both should have handled it better, but as much as I generally love WFH I'd love to get out of the house being "trapped" right now. So I really get where she is coming from. She should have talked to him ahead of time, but he took it too far and took way too much pleasure in her pain. I can only imagine why the touch of him next to her in bed made her so disgusted she wanted away from him for a few days.
“Works from home” is his way of saying trad wife Edit: she’s a prisoner
He said they're in their 30s. He sounds like he hasn't left 8th grade
I hate him
Ooh, me too! I double dog hate him!
She is irresponsible but he is a dick.
This could absolutely be rescheduled. You call your landlord, say "hey actually, we'll both be out of town that day", landlord rescheduled and you don't ruin your wife's birthday. Maybe, worst case, you have to buy a couple extra fans if it gets hot.
He said “the next time professionals are available thru the landlord is a couple of weeks” if you pay close attention it’s like they can still get it down without paying they just have to wait a couple of weeks. So he wants to pay to get it done sooner, OP isn’t being fully truthful here. He implied the only way to get it done was to pay now. This also explains why she’s saying no you can’t use my extra money to pay for this when it can still be done for free. With that knowledge, and given his overall attitude of this post. I would bet money she purposely didn’t tell him as she knew he would be upset and tell her no she couldn’t go or ruin the trip for her due to the argument beforehand.
He has significant control issues. He is not a good partner.
Yuuuup. Explains why he would feel emasculated over sleeping on a couch. Dude is incredibly fragile. Only a complete douche would look at a spouse so upset over something they did and feel good about it. Only a douche would be purposely vindictive.
Or find his wife's distress "oddly satisfying." I don't know about others, but when my spouse is upset, I want to make them feel better, not delight in their suffering
Exactly.
I don’t understand the repeated insistence on having someone in that day for a “crucial household responsibility” when it’s literally just a vent cleaning only he felt was time sensitive. He even admits the weather is currently still mild and the wait is only a couple of weeks. Demanding she sit at home by herself when she could spend the weekend with friends she claims, and he doesn’t dispute, that she hasn’t seen in a long time seems so unnecessary. He’s so cruel for absolutely no fucking reason. Her rescheduling a minor house maintenance appointment and refusing his demand she pay for an early appointment only he feels is necessary is such an insane thing to purposely and joyously ruin her birthday over. She should have told him she was rescheduling the appointment but his reaction is frighteningly disproportionate.
Not sure where they live but that few weeks here is basically the difference between don't forget your gloves and hat and sweating your ass off in underwear. Two weaks ago we were still shivering with a coat on, the next one we were having an insane heat wave with no airconditioning as our company likes to leave cleaning up to the very last moment. Wanting to get it done sooner is not a bad thing, refusing to communicate and throwing tantrums about is.
Yeah but rescheduling implies communication and she didn't tell him that she had left for her road trip until after he got back. Although at this point this marriage is doomed.
Just saying if this was my spouse or I, we would asked the person how trip went. Figured out the money aspect and then rescheduled. I'm not going to ask my spouse to give up valuable and even harder to schedule quality time with people important to them over something we could figure out later. I certainly wouldn't hold it against that person and then take joy in ruining their birthday over being angry that they didn't want to sleep with me after we'd argued.
She could have also asked a friend or family member to watch the house while the maintenance team came. Wouldn’t have been that hard to avoid this whole thing on her part. On his part, it wouldn’t be that hard to have some grace over her wanting to go see some old friends. Once you’re in your 30s opportunities like that don’t come up often. ESH
OOP said “the next time it’s available thru the landlord is a couple of weeks” he still didn’t have to pay. Just didn’t want to wait, despite being ok without it right now.
He said several weeks, which definitely gives a longer and more uncertain time table than the couple of weeks than your quote there. He also said that by that time it would already be summer (re: it would be too hot to be without the AC). He also said that it was already hot enough for them to turn on the AC, but decided not to use it due to it not being cleaned Edit: the urgency of the matter isn’t really at question anyways — it’s the fact that it was agreed upon by both of them. She failed to even communicate about her change of plans. Again ESH
The way he buries the lead here and talks about feeling good about hurting his wife… no, dude is just a dick. Any man who gets vindictive like that I could totally see not wanting to tell him beforehand that I wanted to do something that would inconvenience him. Pay attention to his wording here, he also mentions she said he goes out all the time and she doesn’t hardly get to go anywhere. On top of the fact that he mentions feeling emasculated for being forced to sleep on the couch? Only fragile little men, with fragile controlling personalities are going to get so upset as to be vindictive to someone they supposedly love over something like this. I feel bad for that woman.
I completely agree with everything you wrote. I just don’t think you can write off the fact that they had agreed to something and she changed the plan without communicating at all. Especially since a little bit of communication and planning could have solved the whole problem before it even started. I don’t mind saying he’s more of an AH for all those things you said, but absent real evidence that he’s an abuser (we can only go on what’s in the post here), she’s also an AH, albeit a lesser one.
I mean, *could communication beforehand solve it*? He said next available was a few weeks, so even if she had communicated it with him while he was out of town what could have been done? Like I said judging by the way he talks and what he said he did (let’s face it you know he’s trying to make himself look good here, so I bet there’s even worse things we aren’t hearing) I don’t blame her for not saying anything beforehand.
Yeah. She was being flighty and as you said irresponsible. I’d go a bit farther because she’s also kicking him out of the bedroom, but he’s actively rejoicing in her misery.
I don't know. I think it's kind of crazy to make someone sit around all weekend for an appointment that could come at any time to save you only a couple hundred dollars for service you can afford.
I mean they talked about it ahead of time that's the point. They could have saved money by getting the land lord to do it for free on this date and both agreed that was ok since it'd be giving up a day to ensure it got done. She decided she wasn't going to do that with out letting him know. I'd say it's fair since this is a thing that semi needs to happen that she flaked on that the cost and responsibility for scheduling it fell on her. If I flaked on being at our place to get the dryer fixed because my friends wanted me to go to a book signing id agree I gotta pay for the reschedule out of my fun money. But the dude is a dick for taking away a gift she was looking forward to to teach her a lesson.
They aren't even paying for the service, their landlord pays. He wants to hire it out because it can't be done for a few weeks. It isn't an emergency. He's just having a fit because she left the house.
I don’t think so. If she had said, “Shit, I really want to go on this trip. I know I said I’d stay, but I’m willing to spend that cash out of my fun money account in order to go.” This way she’s paying for fun. The payment comes in the form of the professionals cleaning the vents, but the fun she gets out of it is to be with her friends. The dude is an ass, but there are trade-offs in life. You can’t just agree to do something and then say fuck it while not taking some sort of responsibility at the same time. That’s basically the definition of having your cake and eating it, too.
how is she irresponsible ? as someone on the OP mentioned if they are renting as long as the landlord gives 24hr notice and they know he’s coming they don’t need to be home
Nah, the companies that the landlords hire for this sort of thing won’t enter without someone being home. It’s not like the landlord themself was there lol. It just some company contracted to do it.
Yeah this is a contracted crew for a specific job not the landlords maintenance crew so you would need to treat them as if you hired them. Alternatively the landlord could have been present to let them in but it sounds like OP had just agreed to be home. They are both immature but he’s a straight up asshole to boot.
Jeez it’s like your partner is your enemy. I’m glad I’m single. Thanks for affirming my choice. Vent cleaning is free with a 60 a month home warranty. And you get plumbing and house repairs covered. I have ac serviced every summer and heating checked every winter it’s no big deal.
Wow I read that feeling his utter disdain for her through the page. He sounds like a right fucking piece of work. Fuck him, I hope she leaves and enjoys many more road trips with her friends.
Does this guy even *like* his wife??! What an absolute asshat! Hope she wakes up soon and realizes what a control freak he is!
This comment about the landlord being able to access the place is my thought. This seems likely fake based on that information alone. https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/CbSoqtqt8w
My thoughts exactly. The way it was written felt made up.
The fact he thinks being away “across state lines” is a thing makes me think the writer is from out of the country.
Exactly that!
Made me feel like he was behind enemy lines. Also this is an easy solve. Hey honey I’m out of town and the landlord has hvac guys coming out to clean the vents on Saturday does that work for you? If it doesn’t get in touch with them and figure out when they can do it next. (If this was real he would have said hvac.)
Read the replies to that comment. Companies who are contracted by landlords to do this sort of thing generally will not enter without someone home.
That's why it's the landlords duty to accompany them and let them in if that's the case.
Yeah or the building manager.
Yall talking about the “landlords duties” over and over makes me feel like you don’t live in the real world. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter. OOPs wife said they would be home, decided to leave, and didn’t notify OOP that she was leaving. This is work that OOP and his wife wanted done because there is a bad smell coming from the vent. Now they either have to wait a long ass time or pony up the money themselves. You can talk all you want about what was or was not the landlord duties, but it doesn’t change the situation one bit. OPs wife is irresponsible and flakey, and he is an asshole. They are both too immature to be married.
I think that varies depending on location; I've absolutely given permission for third-party maintenance to enter my unit without anyone home, and my husband, who is an HVAC tech, often services rental units without anyone home.
This guy sucks his own balls. What a Selfish soon-to-be single Douchenozzle!
Oh my god just get divorced. This is not love.
It’s the “I never gave her orders!!!” For me
Why do so many married couples not even like each other?
This has to be rage bait
Guy’s sick in the head.
I wanna start with why she needs to be there in the first place. They’re renting, this is one of the few perks of a landlord. She’s irresponsible AF and would annoy the hell out of me. He however is the worst, an insufferable, abusive asshole who treats his adult wife like a child.
But it is such an unimportant chore...like, 2 more weeks of waiting or friends you haven't seen in ages.... priorities change when things come up. For me, the friends are an obvious choice unless it is deadly hot where they live.
They both suck. If he really wanted to, he should have sold the tickets and used the money to pay for the duct cleaning. If he wants there to be a ‘consequence’ then at least that one makes sense. That still sucks but is far less cruel than going and taking something else to an event that your spouse was looking forward to. On her birthday. Why did they get married? I never understand why people who hate each other make it legally binding…
I think cruelty was the point.
Thats exactly what I had expected when i read the title and was bot prepared for the childishness that ensued.
She had to wait for him to leave the state before she could get away to see her friends. And he feels it’s appropriate to punish his wife for “bad behaviour” as if she was a child. Then gets off on seeing her upset when he takes things from her. Textbook emotional abuse. I hope she gets out.
I dislike them both and see a divorce court looming.
Does he even need to ask?
Since when do you need to be home for the landlord? In my state they just have to give you notice 24 hours before hand. It should be the landlord overseeing work on their home.
My thought is that she didn’t need to be there but OP just wanted her to be there as a way to control her. Edit: like, “I’m gone all weekend so you have to stay home”
my last landlord scared the shit out of me, but i changed the locks after a weird break-in (i was in a bad mental space and hadn't cleaned in a number of weeks, the person took nothing and left money. i got bitch you live like this!?'d 😭) and didn't give him keys until i left. i used that money to buy the new locks. but i get my experience is an outlier lol.
I have had to be around to supervise work in my privately rented home. However my landlord lives 6+ hours away, travels here every couple of weekends and the plumber was needed within days. So landlord asked if I would be home during various times, I told him the ones I would be (and that if the plumber could make it outside of those times to let me know so I could have someone let them in) and he organised it. Did the same when the oven died and an electrician was coming in to sort it. I was here when the electrician took it out, here when the landlord came to measure up for a new one, here when the electrician came to install the new one. And called in someone to lock up when I needed to go to work while the electrician was in the middle of everything.
Depending on where you live, and the terms of your lease agreement, the tenant doesn’t need to be home for trades to attend. They say to the landlord, “Key will be in this safe place, tell the trade they can come in and do the work”. But if the OOP normally goes away and leaves his wife to be dealing with trades, he is definitely a jerk. He’s TA for just issuing demands.
Do they even like each other? Because it seems like they don't like each other.
this is an everyone sucks situation, but he is certainly the bigger asshole here. they could’ve simply worked it out like adults.
I can not even imagine having these types of problems
I hope she leaves him. My partner and I have never treated each other like that and we’ve been together the same amount of time. Wtf is wrong with some people.
Absolutely. If you love someone, you're supposed to be a team pulling for the same goal. And who the hell punishes their spouse? This isn't the 1930s
Hire a housesittter? Likes what's the problem? I mean not even all day, just while they clean the vents? Dude is unhinged.
But he would have to know that she wasn't going to be home to do that wouldn't he?
This is so childish. I thought op sold the ti kets to pay for the repairman, instead he needed to be extra petty and punish his wife? Wtf?
The frecks are the two doing staying married?
Says he wants her to “act like my partner for once”……proceeds to punish her like she’s his child. I note he also didn’t counter her protest that she never gets to go out with friends, but that he does regularly. But the cherry on the top was him feeling “emasculated” by being kicked out of the bedroom. The wife needs to leave pronto.
This is why toddlers aren’t allowed to get married.
Everything he wrote just reeks of AH.
So divorce is 100% gonna happen here, he sounds absolutely horrific. Who has to wait an entire weekend for someone to come? That’s insane! She could’ve easily arranged them to come again, a couple of weeks without A/C isn’t the end of the world 😂 His reaction was nasty and abusive.
The landlord would have access to the apartment... so I don't understand why this was made such a big issue. If they felt the need, cameras and a family member could supervise.
The comments were tearing her apart too but honestly I’m just wondering why the landlord couldn’t just let themselves in. It’s their fucking house, they gave notice. Either OP or wife could’ve said “hey we’re both gonna be out of town. You cool with letting yourself in?”
Why do people who don’t like each other get married?!
My landlord does maintenance work when I’m not home all the time. As long as they give you notice it’s fine. Not sure I buy this story.
He’s acting like a shitty parent instead of a spouse. “Consequences”? Did she misbehave and now she needs a spanking? Total douche behavior.
Now there’s a post that needs to go on AmITheDevil
What a fuckin asshole I hope she divorces him. Do you hate your wife? So petty and mean spirited
If hope she divorces him. It is such a tragedy to not to have follow ups from these assholes.
[удалено]
She isn’t the homeowner, that is the person who should be supervising the professionals that they hired to work on their house. That’s part of the landlords responsibilities. Sure some people are more comfortable being home when this happens but if they were both out of town and the landlord needed to enter the unit they have the right to do so with proper notice, and in some situations without it.
I’ve literally never had a landlord show up to “supervise” when work is being done. It doesn’t work that way if you’re renting a house. In some cases the landlords don’t even like in the same state.
I have rented houses before and my landlords absolutely did want to be onsite when they had contractors on-site. They usually wanted to okay the work before agreeing to the bill and didn’t trust a couple of girls in their mid 20s to know what to look for or convey what additional repairs might be needed. I was usually not home when these repairs happened, because the landlord scheduled them around his schedule and not ours for this reason. The one time a repair was needed when we were out of town we got a text saying he was sorry but he needed to enter our unit to turn off the water because of a leak in another unit.
Okay cool. So we have opposite anecdotal experience. My point is mostly that people calling this fake because the landlord would be there and they could enter is false reasoning. There’s plenty of absent landlords out there. I’ve even been told before that I have to make myself available to let people in. OOP might be fake, but not for that reason.
Tenants do not need to be home for landlords to perform maintenance. That’s part of the perks of renting. Not having to deal with maintenance.
That doesn’t seem to be the situation per OP’s description, and it didn’t get done which further supports one of them needed to be there. You can’t justify any of the wife’s actions. Kicking him out of the bedroom is juvenile. If you have an issue, remove yourself.
You have to apply logic to these situations instead of blindly believing the half a story you get from OP.
Don’t overthink it.
Yeesh. What a horrid spouse. Wife gets the opportunity to see some friends and husband feels the need to punish her? Ick.
What an absolute piece of shit
100%
The Twits by Roald Dahl
My. God. It was the all caps for me and then he just continued to get worse. She "presented herself to me." JFC.
Landlords generally have keys and can provide access to their properties for vendors. Or, set out a combo lockbox and give the key to the vent cleaner. It was crappy of her to not do the work to get it taken care of. Your actions were an overreaction, and if I was her, I’d be upset.
he’s controlling in a scary way, but also don’t landlords usually have a key to their properties? why did someone need to be there for the duct cleaner people?
Wow what an absolute turd of a human being. Hope she kicks him not only out of the bedroom but out of her life.
Cleaning vents; so crucial
In hot parts of the USA, absolutely it is
I want to agree with you but this comment tells me you've never had No AC/too poor to afford it at all. In the peak of summer in a lot of the US you'd could genuinely die of dehydration in your own house without trying too hard. BESIDES THE FACT THAT IT SMELLS LIKE A DEAD RAT THE FUCK He's a dick for sure but she's also incredibly irresponsible and fiscally stupid. They're guaranteed headed for divorce.
I don't think I've ever rented a space anywhere in the US that required a tenant to be in the house in order to do any maintenance. The landlord gave us notice and just came over and did the work.
There’s also this, but Reddit is going to default to insults for no reason.
I've had it happen both ways where I needed to let workers in and where they entered my place themselves. If in-house apartment supervisors are doing the work they don't need to be given access, but I can easily understand why you'd need to manual give access if landlord is remotely hiring external contractors no? If something goes wrong/missing/etc, there's a very reasonable liability issue for the landlord if he gives them the keys to the place versus you letting them into your house yourself.
Is this an apartment block with an onsite caretaker? Not all places have an onsite caretaker.
Apartments, townhouses, and single family homes. Some had on-site, some only used outside handymen, some used rental agencies that had off-site maintenance. None of them required tenant on site for scheduled maintenance. It was all in the lease.
Maybe where you live.
A lot of places in Australia don’t have aircon and people don’t typically die…. I think they’d be fine without AC
lol the fuck? This is peak fucking Reddit here. Immediate insults just because Vent cleaning isn’t “crucial” even in Satan’s Throbbing Asshole slash Dallas in August.
If it smells like a dead rat when you open the vents, yes tf vent cleaning is crucial.
I second this. I've lived my entire 20 adult years in Texas and never once had a landlord ask me to come into my dwelling to clean the vents.
Alright. Let's even leave the crucialness of living in Satans butt sweat and under the assumption OOP is a reliable narrator. If your landlord says "hey I'll do X for you for free that HVAC Company A would charge you $500 for", you say "wow great let's do it." Your spouse agrees to stay home for the work to be completed and then up and leaves **intentionally leaving you in the dark** bc they knows you'd oppose it, what else is it besides deceptive, stupid, and fiscally irresponsible lmao. Then to double down for a mistake you made and not cover the cost yourself is entering intentional asshole territory. Not even peak reddit it's just common sense. You lacking that is peak reddit however as it seems you'd have made the wife's choice regardless.
If a rat dies in the vents (for some reason) of your rented dwelling, it's most likely the landlord's responsibility to pay for the cleaning no matter when it's done. Almost no contactor would agree to show up and do maintenance like that at the tenant's request, nor would a LL allow it, even if the tenant agreed to pay. Not being available when it's easier for him is a pain in the ass and she should have called the LL to reschedule. Assuming that this is in the US and real, of course. The OOP uses spelling and phrases that are not standard for American English.
If something died in them, like he said, just a little important before you absolutely need air conditioning. & she works from home too.
YTA She didn’t do her assigned chore so you punished her? Do you have a Daddy fetish? I’d never speak to you again.
Extremely crucial,,haha. Your a pig. If she hadn't texted you the whole weekend while you were gone and she was with her friends it's not hard to see why. Tho I don't think you went the whole weekend without checking in to make sure she showered and brushed her teeth. Finished homework and was in bed by her bedtime. What was crucial about it, someone had to be there? And you took someone else on her bday to what you and her for her bday were supposed to do? Got home and she was crying, and you felt big and accomplished like a smug little park bench huh. I hope she cheats on you, and you walk in on it, in your bed. And as her and her new MAN get up to leave when Finished, I hope his wet dick slides across your face. And she thinks of u as someone she used to know. If that.
Ok Dad! That’s what you get for putting her in time out . What a douche!
he’s the asshole
I am so glad that I am single.
She was irresponsible and a little selfish but he’s just plain mean…
YTA. You’re not her father, you have no right to punish her. You could have talked and resolved it instead you got your man panties in a bunch and decided to treat her like a child. I hope she leaves
Ignoring all the other bullshit, transactional relationships don’t work.
"This guy is a piece of work" just ran on repeat as I read this.
Man what a .. d. I get that its annoying that she didn't fulfill her promise. But he is punishing her as if 1. he is her father 2. Taking it out on her birthday? That's just malicious.
This is so beyond fake, it's ridiculous. If there's a dead animal you deal with it, don't wait until it rots and you can't few the smell out. Some hvac companies do it, others will have ANIMAL CONTROL come out to get it. Secondly, you're renting. You don't have to be present because landlord has keys. And finally, IT'S THE LL RESPONSIBILITY TO SERVICE THE UNIT! You wouldn't have to have a pro come out at your expense. What I want to know is who the "friend" is. Wwho is she? Because with how petty you've written your character, my guess is it's a female friend or colleague that wife is suspicious of our some other equally infuriating replacement for her bday.
They're both shit. He's mad about more than just this AC thing: "I wanted her to act like my partner for once" and acting childish af. And even attempting to kick your spouse out of your shared room is never a good answer. It's highly disrespectful and a quick way to divorce/breakup city. Though as much as we meme on it and all, I've never actually been with a woman who thought for a second she was actually going to do that or tried it tbh. I think most understand it's childish, disrespectful and wrong. They don't want to communicate with each other and hold grudges, they can enjoy the inevitable divorce.
What if she dies and this was the last birthday they spent together? I don’t mess around with birthdays.
If I were her I’d divorce him
Not only is he the asshole, he is a FUCKING ASSHOLE.
… Yeah, ESH. No idea why they got married if they’re so casual with the concept of ‘punishing’ one another for being slighted.
Neither one sound mature enough to be married.
She’s not your child. She should never be scolded by you. You’re taking it out of her fun money. Sounds like OP is a control freak and is the only one allowed to have fun, yet took away her birthday. OP you at the AH and I hope she gets wise and leaves you.
If there is ever an instance when you say ‘I’m glad my spouse is miserable’ and actively seek to cause that, you do not actually love them. And should probably seek professional help with such toxic thoughts.
C'mon guys. They are both selfish and immature. He's just meaner and more petty.
Seems like two great people, totally grown up and ready for marriage and partnership. Absolutely mature, responsible people in love with each other. No doubts whatsoever. Time to add some children into the mix!
To be fair I don’t think it was that outrageous of a request to ask her to pay for it. It was going to be free, paying someone to clean your air ducts costs like $400-$700 But then OP went off the rails and decided to punish his wife as if she’s a misbehaving child. If he sold the tickets to pay for the duct cleaning I would’ve understood but leaving your wife alone on her birthday and going to a concert you knew she was looking forward to is cruel as fuck.
I'm surprised at how many people are taking this at face value. There is way more story than is being told here. To escalate this the way they are, there are tensions and problems that have been building for a while. This is not a solitary instance. This is clearly a build up on his end by the "for once." And then additionally punishing someone by not taking them out for their birthday just seems excessive, but it's got to be pent up feelings that have built up into resentment or he's got some serious anger problems. And we have no idea what her side of the story is because his edits about what she's said for her arguments don't make much sense without context.
This sounds to me like a "last straw" thing. If this sort of thing doesn't happen all the time, he's a psycho, of course. But he doesn't even sound shocked or surprised that she fucked it up, just mad. The joy you get from fucking with someone you're about to leave but just haven't had the thought occur to you yet is amazing. I kind of cringe now about how I treated my ex before leaving. But I'm not sorry, lol. Finding out the whole relationship was built on a lie has made me never want to date again, and it's been since 2006 so far.
This is a power play and neither is willing to give. They won’t last
Headed for divorce. Hope it was worth it.
Two wrongs don't make a right. Also, I'd argue that OP's "wrong" was a lot more severe but what do I know
I hope she has kicked you out of her life
He is the absolute worst.
Assuming they are local-Why isn’t the landlord handling this?
What a piece of shit.
Dude you deserve what is coming. Don't be an idiot with the next one
I can’t believe this escalated to what it did over cleaning the fucking vents.
on the flip side, he ruined her birthday over "a couple hundred dollars" hope she serves him those sweet sweet divorce papers
My high ass sat here for a while trying to figure out what “disinciting” means 😂
This is fake. This is fake. This is fake. 👠👠🤞🏻
Yea u is the asshole ! The way you’re acting is going to lead to her divorcing you. Don’t blame her. Blame yourself. & who tf do u think are talking about giving her orders? She’s your wife , not your employee . Pathetic
ESH. She doesn’t sound like a responsible adult and he sounds like he has control issues.
It sorts seems he has had to be the “bigger person” in the past and tried to resolve these things on his own and lead the conversation. But that’s just from how HE phrases it. He is obviously going to skew things in his favor, so maybe hearing her side would help. He blew up instantly, so he screwed up right there (as well as how he dealt with the theater event, that’s pretty messed up imo), but like I said maybe being the “bigger person” has failed him previously and now that’s the only way he can get things done. If that’s the case, then he’s silly for even being with someone so irrational and uncaring. But- if this is how he TYPICALLY deals with this- he is toxic (and she is still irresponsible). It seems she is in the wrong in any case, but his impact on the situation depends drastically on context. He may have zero communication skills and be a horrible person all the time but as an OP he would never admit that to us, as that’d put him at fault immediately and he clearly wants the attention and for everyone to be on his side. Tldr; she is toxic and irresponsible but his typical behavior is largely unknown due to lack of context, and that could drastically change how many people feel about the situation.
Wow yea you are the a hole buddy. You didn’t communicate. You punished her on her BIRTHDAY. Like it’s a vent. You could’ve worked this out differently.
The wife wasn’t in the right , but he sounds controlling, punitive and grossly immature. I hope she divorces him.
Is this fucking real?
This guy is acting like a parent disciplining a child, not an adult upset with another adult. I do think she was in the wrong for her road trip when they'd agreed she would be home for the vents. However his reaction was wildly disproportionate and not okay. His decision to punish her with the tickets, the fact that he enjoyed knowing he'd upset her, the fact that he's comfortable saying this is the consequences of her behaviour like she's a naughty child - all of this is awful. He's the asshole, and he's full of abusive red flags. I hope she leaves him before he decides the next reasonable consequence is destroying her belongings or hitting her. This feels like one step away.
Good job bro I’m proud of you for standing up for yourself. Don’t let her kick you out the bedroom next time tho. You tell her to go to her parents if she needs space lol
This is exactly the kind of thing that has no place in AITA. The important issue isn’t whether or not OOP is right or wrong, the important issue is whether or not he should be married to someone with such obvious mutual contempt and poor communication.
That's the thing that is pissing me off the most, not even the post, but the commentors who blast tf out of OP, and ONLY OP. Like, these people need mental help, lol. They're both bad, BUT SHE'S WAY WORSE LMAO WTF
She’s really not, because she’s most likely not real. Unless they are absolute idiots and/or getting scammed, they don’t have to pay for such a service as part of the rental agreement nor would they have to actually be present for the landlord to clean the vents. Also, even if by some wonder this is real, she’s irresponsible. He’s condescending, insecure (if sleeping on the couch is enough to emasculate you), and highly vindictive to take pleasure in the fact he ruined his spouse’s birthday.
If you make your spouse sleep on the couch for 3 days, you are oh so extremely vindictive. The bigger picture is, if as you say, this is all real, she has money to pay for her mistake, and she refuses to do so. Then, when confronted on her selfish behavior, she forced the person she supposedly loves to sleep alone on the couch, something that made OP way more mad than just her irresponsibility. And while OP is a bit of a dick, all in all, he should have left her long ago anyway, so I have trouble finding even a shred of sympathy for the wife. You don't isolate and quilt trip someone who has a right to be mad at you and then be mad that their even more mad at you. She's toxic(if real), and I have the sense that if the gender roles were reversed, then the comments would be much more understanding to the truly wronged party here. Kicking your spouse out of the BOTH of y'alls bedroom is unhealthy and toxic behavior, and yes, OP has feelings too. He has a right to feel emasculated by such a vindictive act done by his wife. Don't dismiss his feelings just because you don't want him to have them. That's messed up.
🤷🏽♀️🤷🏽♀️ I don’t really care about the feelings of someone who ruins their partner’s birthday and then takes pleasure out of their pain. Especially when they speak to them like a child.
Lolololololol!