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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/secure-raspberry-763 on 2024-07-02 21:10:11+00:00.
I am not OP. That is u/prankthrowaway5780 who posted to r/AmItheAsshole and their own page
TW: home invasion, murder, death of a parent, death of a pet, emotional abuse, manipulation, gaslighting, domestic abuse, threats, verbal abuse
Mood spoiler: depressing but hopeful for OP
Original Post Oct 14th, 2021
AITA for yelling at and ignoring my girlfriend over a prank?
I’ve (22M) been with Nicole (25F) for a couple years now and she’s always liked survival stuff and weaponry and all that. I absolutely don’t. Really, really bad experiences with knives when I was younger, and Nicole knows about them. We both love Halloween and usually throw a party and dress up and goof around, cook up pumpkin seeds and watch movies.
Anyway the point is Nicole loves doing tricks with her knives (like five finger fillet, flicking it open and closed, twirling it etc) and she’ll do it when we’re watching a show or movie together - forgetting that I’ve asked her please not to. Or she’ll buy a new one and show it off, asking if I wanted to give it first bite(??) and pout when I say no. Two days ago she was playing with it again and I asked her why she keeps forgetting and she said “wow okay don’t insult my intelligence again” and then that it was just a knife and therefore not a big deal and therefore not that important to remember. After that, she put away the knife and we continued to have an okay night, but I was on edge and jumpy whenever she touched me.
Yesterday she called me into the kitchen. Only she was playing five finger filet… and I startled her and she “messed up”. Badly. I lost my cool. Screamed my head off, tried shouting what I knew about first aid at her while I raced to grab my phone, complete panic, dialing 911, only for her start laughing and show me that it was a “prank” involving red food dye and a carrot.
She had a nice laugh about how I would have known it was a joke if I wasn’t so squeamish about knives, that it’s proof I need to get more comfortable, that anyone with passing knowledge knows that it doesn’t look like that when something like that happens. She kept explaining how she did it, how she practiced, how she could show me, but I didn’t even answer her, it was like my head was underwater and my heart was beating out of my chest. Just moved on autopilot and grabbed my keys and drove a few blocks away before pulling over to breath. Nicole tried to call me and the first thing I said was “it wasn’t funny at all”, and she asked “are you crying?” Then I hung up on her.
She kept texting me, saying she was sorry, that she didn’t think I’d react so badly to a joke, that it was just meant to be good fun in the Halloween spirit. I ignored her. I texted her after that I was home but ignored everything else. This morning she sent the picture of the props to the group chat with a few of our mutual friends, and they chimed in saying “It doesn’t even look real”. I’ve muted the chat since and I’m wondering if I have a leg to stand on before I go back and apologize.
Edit 10/15 5:30pm Further update here:here
It’s… overwhelming how much of a response this got, and I tried to read all of your comments. Some of them made me laugh, some warmed my heart, others had very hard truths that I still needed to hear, no matter how raw it left me.
There are a lot of repeating questions and assumptions.
First: we don’t live together. At this point I don’t think we ever will.
Second: I stayed primarily because the good seemed to outweigh the bad. You remember the negatives more than the positive, so obviously I just had to remember her positive qualities instead of being swayed by my focus on the bad times. Plus it was always almost perfect after we had a fight, and I just assumed the boom and bust cycle was normal.
I didn’t know Nicole liked knives at first. A mutual friend (“Crystal”, who was in the group chat, and I met Crystal during a community college course) introduced us as I was new to the area and at first Nicole and I hit it off as we had a lot of shared interests - music, art, outdoors activity, going antiquing, wine, food and cooking… just a lot of things. We started dating and eventually went on a camping and hiking trip, where she used a knife to split some kindling and she was pointing it toward herself. I remember telling her to watch out and she had me to relax because she did it all the time, she asked me if I wanted to do it myself and I admitted I didn’t like knives. Later in the trip we drank by the fire and talked and that’s when I told her about my trauma. She promised to protect me and I remember that exactly because I had the mental image of her fending off a mugger and I joked that she was “my hero”. (My trauma has been brought up after that point, and neither of us were drunk at the time)
My knife issues typically don’t impact my daily life except to make me more apt to be very slow in the kitchen when chopping things.
It doesn’t seem like abuse, especially when we’re good. When it’s bad, it’s really rough. I don’t have really any other baseline as I was a late bloomer dating wise. My dad always said that you should both give 110% in a relationship but everyone argues. I thought working through the rough patches was normal. That’s also why I was preparing to apologize: because it takes two in an argument so I am responsible as well and need to apologize for my part. In this case, ruining the night with my reaction.
I did go through therapy to help cope with the initial incident surrounding my aversion to knives. I was a lot worse when it happened - to the extent where I couldn’t have anyone point the knife in the direction of another living being, or certain songs on the radio that were playing at the time, or certain smells. I’ve made progress, but clearly not enough to stay with her and deal with her fidgeting with the knives. (I will admit to backsliding a bit in that I seem a lot more anxious when I stay the night and can’t stay asleep, or having more nightmares, which is why I believed her when she said I was overreacting)
Also concerning the fidgeting, it’s not a constant thing. Sometimes she’d go weeks without pulling the knife out. Sometimes she’d complain that I only focus on the fact she had used the knife, versus how long she had abstained, which seems reasonable to point out.
The Verdict was not enough info
Update 1 Oct 15th, 2021
A lot of the conversation is paraphrased with quotes that stuck in my mind. I also kept adding to this as things developed and I’m running on zero sleep, so I’m sorry if it’s not very clear.
I did reach out to Nicole again yesterday to talk and I went with the intention of standing my ground and explaining things so she could understand my side. She greeted me with “thanks for gracing me with your presence” and asked if I was here to act my age and talk like an adult. She slammed the door behind me and pointed to the couch so we could discuss things. Nicole opened with my reaction was unreasonable and completely out of line considering the situation. I said that things need to change because that prank wasn’t okay at all and she knows I have issues with knife violence and I asked “what was funny about the prank?” She interrupted and said that ultimatums aren’t part of any relationship so I said “I don’t think this is working out for us, I don’t think we’re happy together.”
Nicole froze at first and I started to explain that the knife thing and our respective stances being so different is not fair to either of us. But she repeatedly asked “so you’re going to break up nearly three years just because of this?” I tried to tell her it was more than just this, it was everything else, it was that she keeps forgetting and triggering me, that she loves playing with them but it upsets me, but she started talking over me and yelling that apparently I think she’s an idiot and that I’m the best actor in the world because she never knew I felt so horrible, and that maybe I should call the cops on her for abuse. She grabbed her cellphone and offered it to me again and again, saying “go on, call” but when I said we just need to talk, she interrupted with “no you won’t because you know, I know, we both know, no cop is going to arrest me for a joke”. Also I’m not very tall- 5’9 and she’s only 5’6 but she was standing right in front of me while I was seated, so I couldn’t get up without moving her.
After throwing her phone on the couch next to me, she stormed into the kitchen shouting that she should get rid of all her knives because I’m so terrified. She threw a few into the sink and then the whole block of knives into the trash, the whole time asking “what about this one? Too sharp? Too scary?”
When I flinched at the noises she said “oh do you feel threatened? How do you think I feel when I have to defend myself against your feelings?!” Nicole told me to quit crying, that I can’t just use tears to manipulate her, and mocked me when I said “please …
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