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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/Gwyrstotzka on 2023-11-02 19:28:32.

I am NOT OP. Original post by u/aita-mas in /r/AmItheAsshole

trigger warnings: none

mood spoilers: kind of wholesome?

AITA? My wife says I’m asking her to “mask”. - Thursday, October 19th, 2023

Hi reddit. Sorry for this sockpuppet account. I am 34m and my wife “Polly” is 32f.

Like a lot of couples, we debrief after our workdays. Polly works in a high-touch, high-interaction job, so we usually say our hellos, make dinner, and then eat separately so she can wind down a bit. Then, afterwards, we sit in the living room and shoot the shit.

Polly has a mild neurodivergence that means she tells… let’s call it “branching” stories. She will get bogged down in sidestories and background stories and details that, frankly, add nothing to the core story about her workday. That’s usually fine, but I’ve noticed it getting a bit worse, to the point that, by the time she’s done, it’s basically time to watch a show and go to bed. I mean, I’m spending upwards of an hour just listening and adding “mmhmm” and “oh wow”, because she says she gets even MORE distracted when I ask questions.

I brought this up with Polly, and she said that I am asking her to mask her disorder, and that’s just how her brain works. I get that feeling, I really do, but I am starting to feel like I’m a side character here, because she takes up all the airtime that we set aside to debrief.

Here’s why I might be an AH: I said “well, we all change our communication styles based on context, right?” And she said that’s different, and that masking is not code switching.

I just want some time to talk about my day, too, but I don’t want her to feel bad. AITA?

Relevant comments:

Polly is 32 years old and she’s completely monopolizing their time together.

"to be fair to my wife: she really does try. She puts work into asking me how my day was, then asking followup questions.

I just don’t, idk, have the same rapid-process verbal skills as her? As I’m describing a difficult project at work, I tend to equivocate as I talk. Whereas she is just like SALLY WALKED IN AND HAD HUGE ASSHOLE ENERGY RIGHT OFF THE BAT, ALSO I COULD TELL SHE WAS WEARING SPANX"

_

NAH. Sounds like you need to switch things up. You should talk first so you get a chance to talk about your day, then she can use the rest of the time. I know how your wife feels. For me, branching out like that is the only way I can really vent.

“okay, help me understand: sometimes she brings up things that are genuinely unimportant, like objectively, the color of her boss’s shoes doesn’t really matter to the story about her big boss meeting. How does it work inside your brain when you’re bringing that up?”

Think of it this way: a neurotypical brain connects point a to point b to point c. For example, I didn’t sleep well last night, which meant I got up late, so I was late for work. A neurodivergent brain is more like a spiderweb. Point a connects to b1, b2, b3, etc. B1 connects to c1, c2, c3, etc. B2 connects to d1, d2, d3, etc. And all those points are interconnected. So, for example, I slept badly last night, so I woke up late, I watched a movie where that happened to a guy and as a result he got caught up in an espionage case. At one point, he stepped in blood and his white shoes turned red. My boss had red shoes on yesterday. Oh, I need new shoes. My old ones are falling apart. I wonder if that chicken place is still in the mall. And so on. That can all be going on in your head, but not coming out. So it can sound more like “I slept badly last night and was late for work, oh my boss had red shoes on!” That can make it not sound connected, but it’s because your brain is going so fast and you’re thinking so many thoughts at once, but your mouth can’t move as fast as your brain so it comes out sounding unconnected and disorganized.

Verdict: NOT THE ASSHOLE

UPDATE: AITA? My wife says I’m asking her to “mask”. - Wednesday, October 25th, 2023

okay so it turns out that I was a little bit of an AH. Like nothing wild but we had a good talk.

Here is what she said to me: being a teacher is hard. Being a teacher with untreated ADHD is even harder. She said she spends all day trying to contain her brain from doing what it naturally does, which is veer off in random directions that may or may not be relevant to a given conversation.

So she does that all day. And she literally looks forward to coming home so she DOESN’T have to do that. Me bringing it up in the context of how we interact at night hurt her feelings because us-interacting-time is her space where she can just let her brain be her brain. Is “masking” the right term there? idk, she apologized for using it because she saw it on social media and thought it fit but it might not.

she felt bad for dominating the conversation, though, because she’s not a monster. And she says she lashed out because she felt bad, but also didn’t want to lose access to the time of the day in which she is not fighting with her own brain.

We decided to use advice I received here in amitheasshole: I will go first when we talk at the end of the night. If I regularly go “over time” then we will start using a phone timer to make sure everyone has time to talk. And she will try to work more interaction into her stories so my role isn’t just saying mmhmm yeah mmhmm over and over.

Thank you for the advice, we are using it and we are confident that it will work.