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Louise Thomas
Editor
One woman hastily decided to divorce her husband for sitting in the car for too long.
When her patience wore thin, she knew she had to end it. But now, she’s not sure whether she made the right choice. Taking to Reddit’s infamous confession forum, Am I The A**hole, the woman sought to figure out if other people thought she was in the wrong for ending her two-year marriage.
She prefaced the situation by noting how her former partner always liked to stay in the car five to 10 minutes after he got home.
“I don’t know why he does it, but he talked about a past traumatic experience he had when he came home and caught his ex cheating on him,” the Redditor wrote. “Because of that he’d just spend few minutes in his car before he enters his home as response to his trauma.”
While she understands his habit is a coping mechanism, she doesn’t like how it negatively impacts her. According to the Reddit writer, his prolonged period in the car makes her “uneasy” and has caused several arguments, especially when he’s sat in the driveway when guests are inside.
“Or when dinner is waiting on him and he’d take 10 minutes silently sitting in the car,” she added.
That said, her biggest concern was that she’d find him wasting time in the car during an emergency, which is exactly what happened.
Unfortunately, the Reddit user’s eight-year-old son fell and tripped when walking down the stairs. As a result, he broke his ankle and needed to be rushed to the hospital. So, she called her husband and asked if he could leave work to take him to the emergency room.
“Then I called and called and then I was stunned when I looked out the window and I saw him sitting outside the house in his car,” she confessed. “I was both shocked and angry.”
According to her husband, he had been sitting in the car for eight minutes. What’s more, he told the Reddit writer that he wouldn’t come inside to help until his 10 minutes lapsed because he didn’t feel “comfortable.”
The original poster noted: “He told me to get my son ready to take him to the hospital, but I started screaming at him nonstop telling him this was a family emergency and that he was out of his mind to behave like that.”
Now, she doesn’t think her response was appropriate, letting anger consume her to rage against him. Still, she had been anticipating this response from him in an emergency and was upset to see she was right.
The Reddit user took her son to the hospital with their neighbor and refused to talk to her husband when he tried to reach out later. She went to stay with her mom and told her partner she wanted a divorce.
“He tried to rationalize and justify what he’s done saying he could not help it and that he was nervous and wanted to help my son but felt stuck,” the Redditor said.
She continued: “I refused to reply to his messages and days later his family literally harassed me saying I was making my husband’s trauma more severe and that I disrespected his boundaries.”
After some time and space, the Reddit user is having second thoughts. Her family has made it clear they support her decision, but her husband has been trying to talk her out of getting a divorce, arguing that she’s made a bigger deal out of the situation than necessary.
Even though her son isn’t her husband’s biological child, she’s lost trust in him as a partner and father figure. But what do her fellow Reddit users think? An overwhelming majority of readers thought her husband suffered from Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). According to the National Institute of Mental Health, OCD is “a long-lasting disorder in which a person experiences uncontrollable and recurring thoughts (obsessions), engages in repetitive behaviors (compulsions), or both.”
“It sounds like some form of OCD to me,” one person commented, while another agreed: “It sounds like he is stuck in a compulsive behavior.”
The original writer confessed she had asked him to seek help for his behaviors, but he wasn’t up for it.
“He had refused professional help and his family sided with him,” she admitted.
To this, one reader added: “The fact that he has refused to seek help for it. Peak selfishness. Leaving is warranted. Best luck to you and your boy.”
“If he refused professional help then you have your answer. You need to be able to rely on your husband in case of an emergency and he proved to you that you can’t. You’re definitely NTA,” another argued.
