Greetings, dear readers, it’s your favorite scribe of sass and wit—Roger—here to dispel the fog of mundanity with another slice of life so peculiar you’d swear it was fiction. Today, we’re diving headfirst into a marital muddle that’s as dicey as a gravel road in the middle of a snowstorm. Yes, you guessed it, we’re dissecting a real Reddit story from a real person, fraught with vehicular vexations and the age-old quandary: Am I the asshole for refusing to validate my wife’s irrational fear?
Picture this: a couple of over ten years, cruising through life with the occasional speed bump. He’s a seasoned driver, untarnished by tickets or accidents since ’97. She’s competent behind the wheel but harbors a driving-related trauma, trembling at the thought of treacherous terrain. Their latest escapade? A bone-rattling ride down their gravel driveway, triggering a tirade between validation and vexation that’s as winding as the road itself.
So, the husband, our protagonist, is behind the wheel, navigating the nitty-gritty of their gravel driveway, when his wife’s fear crescendos in a clamorous call to slow down. ‘Why are you driving so fast?’ she critiques, voice tinged with terror. The husband, bemused by what he perceives as an irrational fear, laughs it off. After all, where’s the harm in hitting a few bumps at 25 km/h with no cliff in sight? But therein lies the rub: by dismissing her anxiety as irrational, he accelerates into an emotional pileup that would leave even the most stoic of individuals reaching for the seatbelt.
As the tale unfolds, we learn that this is no solitary skirmish. It’s a recurring theme, a gravelly groove on their matrimonial journey. The husband, steadfast in his refusal to ‘validate’ what he deems an unfounded fear, suggests therapy for his spouse, likening her dread to monsters under the bed—a comparison as delicate as a sledgehammer to a soufflé.
But wait, there’s a twist! The wife counters with a suggestion of her own: perhaps it’s he who needs therapy to address his annoyance at her backseat driving directives. A proposition packed with irony and insight, shining a spotlight on the subjective nature of support and validation in relationships. The proverbial car comes to a halt, the discussion parked for the night as they retreat to their respective corners of contemplation.
Now, dear readers, as we rev up to Roger’s Hot Take, let’s ponder the potholes of partnership. In the grand dashboard of life, are we not all navigating through a labyrinth of fears, rational or otherwise? The key to marital mileage, it seems, lies not in the speedometer of who’s right, but in the turn signals of empathy and understanding. Validate first, debate later. Because at the end of the day, isn’t the safety of our loved ones’ feelings worth slowing down for, even if the only cliffs are in our minds?
There you have it, folks. The needle on the gauge tilts decidedly towards compassion and understanding. In the highway of love, it’s the roadside assistance of respect and support that keeps us from skidding off the path. And that, my friends, is Roger’s Hot Take on this high-octane tale of marital maneuvering. Buckle up; it’s a bumpy ride, but oh, what a journey it is. Until next time, keep your wheels turning and your hearts open. Roger, over and out!
Original story
My wife and I have been together for over ten years, and when we’re driving together and I’m behind the wheel, sometimes she will shout, “Slow down!” out of nowhere, and then say, “Why are you driving so fast?” in a critical tone, as if the way I’m driving is obviously unsafe. Usually I bite my tongue and slow down to placate her, but the thing is, the way I drive is not unsafe (driving since ’97, never got a ticket or in an accident).
My wife is generally a good driver, but much less experienced than me in snow and on gravel roads, and by her own admission she has some lingering driving-related trauma.
Yesterday she came home and told me that her car was making a rattling noise when she drove over bumps. We got into the car and I started driving down our driveway, which has plenty of bumps to hit (it’s gravel and loooong), and I was driving slightly faster than usual to hit them hard to try to produce the sound she was talking about.
Suddenly, my wife yelled, “Slow down! Why are you driving so fast?”
I glanced at the speedometer and laughed, didn’t slow down, shook my head and said something like, “Are you serious? What are you afraid of?”
Her response was, “I’m afraid we’ll skid out and go flying off a cliff!”
Since that was physically impossible – we were going 25 km/h (15.5 mph) and there was no cliff in sight (let me remind you we were on our DRIVEWAY – the same one we have been driving up and down for the past five years), I think I laughed and said words to the effect that she was being irrational. Predictably, she got mad at me for not “validating her feelings,” and I told her I wasn’t going to validate her irrational fear.
She didn’t ask me to let her out, so I kept driving and we survived the trip from the house to the road. Then we drove around for a while, listening to the car before going home, where my wife sulked for the rest of the evening.
We argue very rarely, but today the driving thing came up. Again, I refused to validate her irrational fear. We both got as worked up as we ever do – we’re pretty calm people, but voices were raised. I told her how it annoys me when she yells at me to slow down, that it’s insulting, that her fear is like being afraid of monsters under the bed, and that maybe she needs therapy to get over it.
She said I’m the one with the problem because I get annoyed when she yells at me in the car, and maybe I need therapy to work on ways to not be annoyed by it, and that I should simply do what she says in order to validate her feelings, “the way you do for someone you love.”
Eventually we decided to end the discussion for the night because it wasn’t going anywhere positive. She did her thing and I made a reddit account to ask this question: am I the asshole?
There’s more to the story, but I hit the character limit, so I cut out a lot.