Am I the jackass

I need to do a sanity check from unbiased opinions, because I’m completely at a loss. There’s obviously a ton more back story behind our relationship, but we have been married four years and have two young kids.

To set the stage, my wife’s 30th birthday is tomorrow, and we’ve spent basically the week past two days straight fighting over everything. I really did want to try to make the days leading up to her birthday special, and so Friday night I planned for my parents to come babysit the boys and to take her out to play Topgolf which she has wanted to do for years. I’d planned for one of her best friends & her husband to meet us there as a surprise. Things went well, and then Saturday morning when she and the boys woke up I had planned to take us all out for a nice breakfast. We went, had a nice meal, and then explored the farmers market that was there as well ( a fav of hers).

When we got home we didn’t have anything specifically planned and so I was going to do a few things around the house, one of which was try to adjust some plumbing on a large aquarium I have. Unfortunately I caused an outflow pipe to spring a leak, and it became quite an endeavor to fix it. I’m talking what had intended to be 15minutes of tinkering turned in to a full out 4-5 hour repair job. By the time I had it fixed she was pissed, which I get the frustration, but also started saying how I was selfish, took all that time for myself, and hadn’t done anything to make her birthday special. From my vantage point, I had already planned a few things, and still have all her presents and such to give her on her actual birthday and didn’t have a choice but to fix it. Not doing so meant you know, potentially flooding the house with 300 gallons of water, which I had communicated and apologized for the time consuming project multiple times.

We made it to evening, with admittedly neither of us in particularly good moods given the words shared around the aquarium mishap. After I got our oldest to bed I came downstairs and when I laid in bed she brought up how a clothing boutique she likes offers franchise opportunities. Mind you, my wife hates her job and I’ve supported her pursuing other things, even stopping working altogether if she wants, but she’s never brought up running a clothing store before. I asked a few questions around the details, which she didn’t know, and I made the mistake of asking her to put together a plan and “pitch it to me”. Well that set off another round of storms where she said I don’t support her, how that was demeaning and that I “look down on her” like I’m her boss. I didn’t think it was an unreasonable things to ask your spouse to put together and propose the business plan for something she allegedly wanted to pursue, but she seems so deeply offended. Saying that she has to ask for “permission” to do anything major and I’m not willing to take any chances with her. I acknowledge I’m a very risk averse guy, but we live a very comfortable life right now and I admittedly don’t want to jeopardize that for our family because of a whim my wife has, I want things thoroughly thought out. The only detail she did know was that it was estimated to cost around $125k to start, if that matters.

Since then we’ve basically fought all day today, slept in different rooms last night, and really are not in a good place. I really just need to know, am I the “jackass” here, or what should I have done differently?

Submitted August 30, 2020 at 11:42PM

I need to do a sanity check from unbiased opinions, because I’m completely at a loss. There’s obviously a ton more back story behind our relationship, but we have been married four years and have two young kids.To set the stage, my wife’s 30th birthday is tomorrow, and we’ve spent basically the week past two days straight fighting over everything. I really did want to try to make the days leading up to her birthday special, and so Friday night I planned for my parents to come babysit the boys and to take her out to play Topgolf which she has wanted to do for years. I’d planned for one of her best friends & her husband to meet us there as a surprise. Things went well, and then Saturday morning when she and the boys woke up I had planned to take us all out for a nice breakfast. We went, had a nice meal, and then explored the farmers market that was there as well ( a fav of hers).When we got home we didn’t have anything specifically planned and so I was going to do a few things around the house, one of which was try to adjust some plumbing on a large aquarium I have. Unfortunately I caused an outflow pipe to spring a leak, and it became quite an endeavor to fix it. I’m talking what had intended to be 15minutes of tinkering turned in to a full out 4-5 hour repair job. By the time I had it fixed she was pissed, which I get the frustration, but also started saying how I was selfish, took all that time for myself, and hadn’t done anything to make her birthday special. From my vantage point, I had already planned a few things, and still have all her presents and such to give her on her actual birthday and didn’t have a choice but to fix it. Not doing so meant you know, potentially flooding the house with 300 gallons of water, which I had communicated and apologized for the time consuming project multiple times.We made it to evening, with admittedly neither of us in particularly good moods given the words shared around the aquarium mishap. After I got our oldest to bed I came downstairs and when I laid in bed she brought up how a clothing boutique she likes offers franchise opportunities. Mind you, my wife hates her job and I’ve supported her pursuing other things, even stopping working altogether if she wants, but she’s never brought up running a clothing store before. I asked a few questions around the details, which she didn’t know, and I made the mistake of asking her to put together a plan and “pitch it to me”. Well that set off another round of storms where she said I don’t support her, how that was demeaning and that I “look down on her” like I’m her boss. I didn’t think it was an unreasonable things to ask your spouse to put together and propose the business plan for something she allegedly wanted to pursue, but she seems so deeply offended. Saying that she has to ask for “permission” to do anything major and I’m not willing to take any chances with her. I acknowledge I’m a very risk averse guy, but we live a very comfortable life right now and I admittedly don’t want to jeopardize that for our family because of a whim my wife has, I want things thoroughly thought out. The only detail she did know was that it was estimated to cost around $125k to start, if that matters.Since then we’ve basically fought all day today, slept in different rooms last night, and really are not in a good place. I really just need to know, am I the “jackass” here, or what should I have done differently?