Woman Wonders If She Overreacted After Husband Threw Out Her Tampons Because He ‘Doesn’t Feel Comfortable’
Apparently someone never heard of "my body, my choice."
A woman took to Reddit this week after fighting with her husband, worried that she was in the wrong for yelling at him after he threw away her tampons because he doesn’t “feel comfortable” with her using them.
Reddit’s “AITA,” or “Am I the A**hole” is an online community where users can come for an outside opinion on something that has been bothering them.
In times of conflict, it’s useful to gain that outside perspective of who a stranger would perceive as “the a**hole” in the situation.
This time, a wife asked if she was wrong for yelling when her husband threw away all her tampons.
The young couple has only been married for two months, and a surprising conflict has already arisen between the two.
First, the 27-year-old woman gives some context to the story, explaining that she just started using tampons recently, having used pads in the past due to medical problems.
She also explains how she now prefers tampons, saying that they “work 10x better” for her, especially when she is on the go.
Her husband, however, did not like the switch.
However, according to her post, her husband hates that she now uses tampons. She writes, “he never truly gave a reason other than just say...he doesn't feel comfortable with me using them.”
She writes that he asked her to go back to using pads, but she made it clear that she would be making her own choices on how to manage her own body.
The wife claims that he is also like this about other things she does, but he usually “puts up” with what she wants in the end, so she thought this situation would be similar.
So, she didn’t expect much resistance against such personal choices, but she was soon in for a surprise.
He began throwing out her tampons.
When he first threw out some of her tampons, she was upset, but decided to start hiding her new tampons in order to avoid conflict.
However, he managed to find the new tampons anyway, and he threw out a brand-new box.
Much to the wife’s dismay, she didn’t discover this until she got her period again and had no tampons to use because of her husband.
Due to the stress and frustration of the situation, she said she “just yelled at him” after he admitted to throwing them out.
She describes their argument in her post: “He argued that I already knew how he felt about this stuff and yet I decided to still keep it around. I lost it and told him he had no right to do this and told him to get over himself already.”
She adds that after she says this, her husband looked as though he was about to tear up before walking out.
The couple still cannot reach an agreement.
Her husband again approached the subject, and said, in her words, “We as a couple should take each other's discomfort into consideration,” adding that, though he told her how he felt about the tampons, she “brushed him off and insulted him and verbally abused him.”
Again, he tries to insist she stop using tampons, saying that if she has to use them then she should use them when she is not home.
She made it clear she wouldn’t concede to these demands, but she worries that she may have been too harsh on him.
She says, “I feel bad for how it played out,” and finally she asks Reddit, “Did I go too far here? Does he have a valid point or not?”
The verdict is: Not the A**hole.
Thankfully, the general “AITA” community did not take kindly to this husband telling his wife how she was allowed to manage her own period.
Many were genuinely confused as to why it could possibly bother him in the first place, and their theories only made them surer that he was in the wrong.
The top comment points out that while it’s impossible to “thought police” him, he is crossing major lines by getting resentful at her unwillingness to stop, not to mention throwing out her products.
Another commentor who supported the wife has theory that is a personal favorite of mine.
However, one commentor in particular reached out to the wife beyond a simple “NTA” vote.
This user points out that there are a lot of worrying signs in her husband’s behavior and their dynamic as a couple that are clear from only this short story.
The user pleads this wife to consider all these traits in succession and make sure that her relationship is one that allows the wife to speak up and values her feelings as much as her husband’s.
Amanda Hartmann is a writer and editorial intern at YourTango who writes on entertainment and news.