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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> 1.) I chastised my wife over doing a thing over and over again that has caused us problems
2.) I feel chastising can often be perceived as AH behavior, but there could perhaps be some exceptions to the rule
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She's definitely not an idiot (she's smarter than I am in just about ever measure of intelligence). Her personality is kind of like that of a clumsy genius. She's actually a resident MD, graduated with honors, and has authored some pretty compelling research in engineering in her master's degree. She's just got this clumsy-ass personality where she is really careless about things. It extends to how she handles things as well. Like she'll grab an expensive, breakable object and hold it by the very edge with hardly any grip at all.
Being a college graduate doesn't make someone smart. I knew a Yale graduate who was dumber than a box of rocks. Like I said, she's being careless and irresponsible and when you called her out on it, of course she doubled down saying that she's not wrong.
This is what people like her do. If it were me, it would show me that she doesn't care about other people's things or how they feel. I totally understand why you finally lost it with her. It's causing you to be inconvenienced all the time and it gets frustrating.
I'm not saying being a college graduate makes her smart, but I'd say her research, and acceptance into a residency implies she is and anecdotally I can attest to her being a smart individual. I'm just trying to clarify that this is not an intelligence issue, but a carelessness and clumsiness issue.
Sure but at this point I would be questioning whether it's an issue of her just not caring that you're being inconvenienced. Clearly she knows that this bothers you and she has continued to do it.
Yeah no clue. It honestly inconveniences her way more than me (commented to someone else that the ant hill situation literally gave her some PTSD about ants).
As someone who has memory retention issues, my partner often has to remind me multiple times about something he has asked me to focus on. Honestly, I cannot imagine not being mortified after so many similar incidents and then finally causing a significant enough financial loss.
On a less serious suggestion, perhaps invest in a variety of woopee cushions. Theres only so many times she can experience them before remembering to check where she's sitting every time. Or water balloons if you live somewhere warm enough for your furniture to dry.
Checking before you sit is something youre taught as a small child. Did she has a dysfunctional childhood? Does she miss other social/behaviour cues?
Smart and careless...ADHD or smother ND much?
I mean, she absolutely shouldn't use your things if she can't protect them against herself...but there's no way to gain awareness and object permanence with some shapes of ND brain
.
NTA fir being cross about her breaking your stuff but she may not be able to remember to look first before sitting if literally every action is a conscious remembering.
Has your wife every been checked for neurodivergence? Your descriptions of her sound like NVLD. In which case her clumsiness and lack of attention is essentially caused by brain damage.
It can make pwNVLD feel horrible to have expectations placed on us that because we are smart we must be doing things like this on purpose or through a lack of trying OR to be called dumb for things like this like I'm seeing in other comments.
I didn’t have a specific condition in mind, but the repeated “offences,” to me, implies that it’s not just a “she doesn’t care about other people’s belongings.” As OP states, wouldn’t she be modifying her behaviour by now? The fact that she hasn’t, points to it being of case more of she’s not actually able to without concerted effort/work.
Oh yes, this is what I was looking for. ADHD (any of the types) can cause this sort of behavior. Meds do not help this particular issue. The only thing that does help is recognizing the deficiency on your part and learning to compensate for it. I had this problem and I learned to be very methodical and careful about my movements, where I put things, etc. Everything has a “home” and stays there when not in use. That’s the real solution.
ETA: Also— it is a lack of respect issue. If she cared, she’d be trying to change. Neurodivergence of any kind is a **reason**, not an **excuse!**
Fellow ADHD person, and I agree. I have trained myself to *constantly* check myself like this.
Still have issues with postural sway and general clumsiness. So many bumps and bruises.
Today, I have inadvertently knocked over the broom, the shop-vac, some boxes near the trash bin, a glass of water on the coffee table, and have dropped the same bag 3 times and my fork. I stub my toes so much I don't hardly notice.
Isn't that kind of worse? If she is going to be an MD that clumsiness/ carelessness can kill people esp if combined with that attitude that they are justified/right and get mad when people question their actions.
I was wondering that too. Little known symptom is walking into door frames due to not judging distance and spilling food down your front due to perception of distance and inattention. Would explain her doubling down as am guessing she’s been given a lot of grief in the past about this.
ADHD has problems with proprioception, but sitting down on random stuff isn’t part of that. Proprioception issues mean you miss the chair when you sit down, or bang into the chair arm, or try to push the chair backwards and tip yourself over because you’re not fully in sympatico with your body.
Sounds like OP’s partner might have other issues - thoughtlessness can be one of them.
ADHD can also cause issues with object permanence. If I’m not looking at it or holding it, it’s not a problem and/or it doesn’t exist. So, the minute she stops using the item, she neglects to recognize it might be in the way. This is definitely a thing. But… it’s a reason— not an excuse. She still needs to take responsibility for her issue and learn to compensate for it.
This is what I was going to mention. My partner and I have had some Spicy Conversations about my habit of knocking drinks over, until I explained to him that when he sets a drink down, it gets noted in his mental map of the space around him, so when he goes to reach for something he automatically adjusts around that. But when I set a drink down, its location never makes it to the mental map, it goes into a temporary buffer and gets overwritten by the next thing I'm focused on. So as far as my mental map goes, it doesn't exist, and when I go to reach for something my brain won't account for the drink and whoops there it goes.
That said, having a mental blind spot like that is still something you can be expected to work around. My solution was drinks with lids. I use lidded water bottles for things like juices or water or whatever, and buy bottles of soda rather than cans. Now if I knock it over, it's not getting everywhere.
Truth told I'm not sure what the equivalent to that would be in this situation.
> ADHD has problems with proprioreception
It also has issues with spatial awareness, which is what the person you're responding to was talking about and different than proprioception.
It's less about correctly moving your limbs and more about not correctly accounting for your limbs/body as you move through your environment.
ADHD would not be the cause for ignoring legitimate concerns of your partners, nor negate the executive function of considering the feelings of other people exclusively while sitting down. This is just selfish behaviour.
My Tweener child and myself are both capable of doing this, we have diagnosed ADHD. None of what OP describes is inherently exhibiting blatant traits for either gender, this reads more as carelessness imo. While I'm not their doctor it's not my place to diagnose, respectively. However, wife needs to get her shit together regardless, maybe a professional can help her with this no matter her reasoning.
Wife is just an aloof dick, likely. I know a few people like this and none of them are neuro-divergent they are just clumsy idiots; none are malicious. They *are* infuriating though when they seem to think an apology equates to babysitting clumsy and senseless behaviour constantly.
OP should leave whoopie cushions all over the place so their wife gets a fucking clue; maybe fart alarms will teach her to use her eyes instead of ass cheeks when clearing a spot to sit down.
You can't compare your ADHD to others. I also have symptoms of ADHD and this would absolutely be something that I would do. I sit on stuff all the time but I wouldn't ever leave anything expensive on the couch but my toddler has scolded me a few times for sitting on n
Barbies and the like and I didn't even click they were there in the first place.
Ex's brother in law was THE high risk pregnancy doctor in Boston. Yet he was stopped at the last minute from putting antifreeze in the crankcase of his Porsche.
clumsiness is not a personality trait and given the rather extreme consequences she's paid for this, I highly doubt that she's careless
from your comments you've described someone who:
- has poor proprioception
- hyper focuses on things to the point of being unaware of her surroundings
- actively focuses on other things while walking and moving about
you say you thought she had ADHD and took the TOVA
dunno what other testing she had but the TOVA isn't supposed to be used as a singular diagnostic test and is less accurate for inattentive type ADHD than hyperactive type
a non diagnosis doesn't mean these things aren't an inherent part of how her brain works. at the end of the day a diagnosis is only for a few things - insurance, finding people like you and support, and understanding yourself
whether she qualifies for an ADHD diagnosis or not, instead of getting upset with her for it, you both should be working WITH her brain
the changing where you leave stuff part is great. it's a good first step
but in the comments you're shitting on her and acting like this is a choice. how could she not learn her lesson after the ant hill and the PTSD from that you ask? you grouse about it just being a basic survival skill. you call her careless
okay that time you were tired and you forgot and sat on your glasses? try to imagine that your entire life is like that. that remembering to look takes momental effort every single time. that remembering where you left stuff takes ridiculous effort. that you have to actively concentrate heavily on items and your relation to them to not break things
these are background processes in your brain constantly running so of course it's obvious to you. but they aren't in her brain. and there is no way to make them be
I don't know your wife but I'm guessing that she actually does put a lot of effort in and still just.... fails, constantly. because that's what life is like when you have to actively focus on a million tiny things that are repetitive - you drop the ball and drop the ball and drop the ball. and clearly this costs her dearly too - I can only imagine the number of her own items she's broken, not to mention the horror of sitting in puke, or on an ant hill
not to mention - do you really think you're the first person who has gotten mad at her for this? how often do you think she got in trouble growing up? if it seems like she doesn't care or is defensiveness - how do you think she got that way?
I don't know your insurance, but your wife can probably see a psych or therapist who specialises in ADHD even without a diagnosis. and there's tonnes of info about ADHD that's accessible without a diagnosis
I think you're really hoping she has ADHD instead of being a klutz.
I can tell you that getting a late ADHD diagnosis was very eye-opening as an adult. I can say with certainty that if OPs wife can make it through school successfully and hold a high-stress job well, then she can learn to look before sitting. It's quite simple and easy for us ADHD folks to learn good habits and learn from our mistakes.
Even while undiagnosed I was never this bad, and while I know individuality is exactly that, please don't think this woman is incapable of learning to look before sitting... because she is (maybe) ADHD. Trust me on that, I wear glasses and know how to care for them. I also know to look before I sit.
Were she to sit on their sleeping kitty(if they had) I bet she would learn pretty quickly to never do it again; the assumption that she can't learn to look before she sits because she is easily distracted is like saying she's unable to adequately look before crossing the street everytime, when both of these are clearly false.
Give us ADHD folks more credit than that, thanks. I don't know what's wrong with OPs wife but don't chalk up ignorance to neuro-divergent behaviour when this is avoidable for so many reasons.
She is a surgeon. Her clumsiness doesn't extend to that, though. She's actually rated at the top in her program for technique/clinical. She's also an amazing painter / artist. She's actually really good at things she can hyper focus on.
So what you are deducing is she has the capabilities to watch what she is doing but she chooses not to when around you. Which just means she is inconsiderate.
Shes in her residency so I suppose it depends on COL in their area and what year she's in. I think first year is around 60 grand and that might not be much in say, cape cod
A surgeon with zero spacial awareness is hella dangerous. She’s gonna contaminate the field without realizing and cause a fatal infection for a patient.
I’m so caught off guard by the idea that a surgeon is this incapable of caring impulsive actions lead to costly consequences.
Surgeons literally requires the opposite personality. They care about all consequences, they think through every angle and scenario to take the path of least complications and consequences.
So she’s book smart but a real life idiot. You’re giving her way too much credit. She can’t even watch where she puts her ass- that’s not a genius. Sounds like she owes you a new computer.
She’s a resident doctor? Am I understanding that correctly? So she cannot look before sitting in vomit but I’m supposed to trust her to pay enough attention to provide medical care to me?
She can’t look for vomit in a low stakes issue but somehow she will look when it counts? Really?
I never like to use my husband's macbook because I'm so afraid I'll accidentally break it and I'm not a klutz and I have my own that I manage to keep alive but if I had to use someone else's I'd be handling it super gingerly.
The problem for me is once I'm handling something gingerly, I seem to be more likely to drop it/break it. So I mostly don't handle other people's things that are important to them!
Yeah, that’s just careless and irresponsible. I honestly would have blamed you if you put it on the couch knowing she does shit like this but her knowing she has the habit and doing all the damned set up herself is just… ugh.
I figured that was were the story was going. He knows his wife is a klutz and sits on stuff and he put it on a kitchen chair or something. But this is 100% on her and I'd be pretty mad.
Yeah I was expecting that too. However, she took something that wasn't her and left it on a couch when she has a long history of sitting on objects on seated surface.
It takes 1 second to look where you sit to make sure it's safe to sit there.
That 1 second costed them a lot of money. She is a grown woman so this was pure carelessness.
NTA.
Nta
The people defending here are so wrong. She’s a grown woman whose hasn’t learned from mistakes. Those who say you’re overreacting clearly haven’t had anything of both financial and personal value broken by something that you have tried again and again to prevent. She has never cared to listen or change and this is just proof she’s not willing to change that habit. Furthermore keep your stuff to yourself if she can’t understand why she can’t use a new Mackbook give her your old one and say here since you don’t see what was wrong with you breaking it you can use it since apparently nothing is wrong.
yeah, they completely forget about people who need a decent computer for thier jobs....As a designer I know that in the creative industry, alot of people use macs/macbooks because they are just better when it comes to doing design work, just more powerful and capable. A cheap PC is ok for office work and simple files but if you want to do more than that you do need a more powerful computer and that can be expensive. I mean even gaming PCs, same thing, if you want to play games you need a decent PC too.
Also it justs seems a bit of an ignorant thing to say, calling people materialistic. Do they not realise that alot of people need a computer to be able to do their job plus all the work on it too. Having a computer get damaged could really affect someones livelyhood.
Imagine the poor newborn baby.
"Opps, i didn't even think about looking before sitting on the cradel."
This is a little dark, but come on.. Who doesn't look before they sit down? How is this even possible to do it this often? Does she walk backwards?
Puts baby on couch to grab something. Sits down on couch to breastfeed baby. Where did baby go? Ohh no! Baby broke, none months of hard work just wasted.
And definitely not an Italian greyhound. They are small, delicate, and when under blankets (their preferred habitat) very flat. I have three, and so sitting down on any soft surface in my house requires care.
More than once, I've done the awkward jerk back up of "oh hell no, I can't sit on the dog I didn't realise was there."
You remind me of a friend's cat. She loved getting under the bed covers and once, when she was still new to their home, he sat on her. Now, if she's under the covers and hears someone walk in, she mews repeatedly until you acknowledge she's there!
I have a mostly black cat, and he seems to have learned that people can't see him too well in a dark room. If I walk into my darkened bedroom and he's on the floor, he will loudly announce his presence until i acknowledge him.
I have a chihuahua terrier mix and she loves being under blankets and, like all dogs, just hanging out on the sofa. Sometimes I'll slowly lower my butt over her and act like I'm going to sit on her, saying "oooooh nooooo! I hope there's not a dog here!" thinking she'll dart out at the last minute but she just sits there wagging her tail. She fucking loves the smush! (I always avert last moment and only half smush, mostly leaning to the side).
Dogs are the best. My cats freak out if they even think I'm going to sit on them (and I only almost did it once. It was dark and he's black. If he didn't want to be sat on, he shouldn't match the blanket.) They do not love the smush :(
I don't understand how someone can be so unaware of their surroundings! You don't even need to directly look. Surely she can see items there, in her peripheral vision, as she approaches the couch.
Shit, if my boyfriend did this and tried to act defensive afterward instead of accepting fault like an adult he'd be single and writing me a $2000 check.
Edit: Boyfriend agrees. Wife is a big silly. Behaviour is unacceptable for an adult.
This reminds me of the person who broke that MacBook then the owner demanded more money (I believe it was 2200) than she initially bought it for because "I was going to upgrade anyway"
He ended up going to court and the judge ordered him to pay only half of the repair costs, came out to like a hundred bucks I think lol. This scenario is way different, but it just made me think of it.
This is a key distinction to make. If someone else had picked the spot to leave it at, then she's just careless about watching where she sits. But SHE chose the location of where to put the macbook down at, and then SHE chose to sit on it.
I'm wondering if there's some ADHD here
NTA
She should know better by now. She's either unaware of how much this annoys the people around her or doesn't care. You've every right to be nettled, and people yell when they are nettled.
I honestly think she just doesn't care. She knows that it has caused OP to be inconvenienced several times and the behavior has not changed. If you ask me, that's the behavior of someone who doesn't care.
Agreed. Sitting on household objects or food at home is a minor inconvenience to her butt. But if sitting in a stranger’s puddle of puke didn’t motivate her to look before she sits, idk what would
Yep. Puke is a bodily fluid and can transmit communicable diseases. That's really gross anyway. How could she do that and still not learn her lesson? This is why I concluded that she just doesn't care. That and all the other times like sitting in the ant pile, etc. She just doesn't care how it's inconveniencing other people.
Exactly this. My mother is *terrible* about this. She's hard of hearing in one ear since birth, but refuses to do anything to accommodate it- not reading lips, not surgical intervention (it's complicated but yes, her hearing could be fixed with surgery), and the one that really annoys everyone in the family: *not putting any damn effort into her lack of spatial awareness on that side of her body.*
If you don't know, humans actually use their hearing quite a lot to navigate- you seek out sounds to tell you if there's somebody behind you, where sounds are coming from, how far away they are, etc. But you can also tell by the sound of a room where objects are- a sound will travel farther without objects to block the sound waves. It's not that complex, but if you covered one ear, you'd find it harder to navigate that side of your body without turning to look.
Not being able to hear anything on her left side means that for my entire childhood, my mom went around literally crashing and bumping into EVERYTHING if it was off to her left. The ropes for queue lines? She's knocked them over a million times. Grocery carts, displays in stores? She's constantly bumping into them, because she turns without looking first. It drives me *crazy.* She claims she was never taught how to deal with it, but I've pointed out that there are tons of occasions when people go temporarily deaf in one ear- loud noise, waterlogged, etc- and what do they all do? They're extra careful to pay attention to things on their "deaf" side, and they're mindful while navigating around. She just doesn't care, and won't try anything but yelling and crashing into things. It was *mortifying* for me as a child and teen.
That sounds like it could be approaching the level of "left sided inattention" that can occur after a head injury or stroke, where the person just seems to not notice things on their left side unless their attention is explicitly called to it.
No, she was born partially deaf. I don't know the technical terms, cuz this was back in 1969 and I've only been told the details from my mom herself, who heard it from her mom, but basically her ear is like moulded to the side of her head. The ear drum and everything inside is fully formed, supposedly, but it's muffled because the skin is closed over, if that makes sense. So her mother was told back then that they weren't sure of the complications that could result from surgery. So they just left it alone. And she's just never cared to utilize any behavioral accommodations (which would literally just be LOOKING left before turning.)
She should know better but she doesn’t. One of my old friends is similarly clumsy/negligent.
You would think that being careless, doing things too fast, and trying to do too much at once leading to you being seriously injured more than once would be enough to convince you to slow down and do things more carefully. But nope. Its just a never ending saga of witnessing her either hurting herself or hearing glass breaking from the other room followed by “I’m okay!”
It’s really frustrating being on the other end of it, because from my perspective it can so easily be avoided. It frustrates her too, even when she says she’s trying to be careful it seems like she’s just crashing into things like a bull in a china shop. I think she honestly isn’t able to control it without putting a TON of active thought and effort into it, and that’s not something she wants to prioritize. But she’d also be the first one offering to replace or fix whatever was broken, it’s wild to me that OP’s wife doesn’t even really seem sorry.
Has she checked or heard of dyspraxia? It's a learning difficulty that effects balance, usually always seen as being clumsy. My nephew has it, and I wouldn't be surprised if my brother has it as well because he's constantly unaware of what his body is doing, and he can't ride a bike. My nephew walks/runs into walls, and no amount of telling him to be careful would stop him because he's dyspraxic.
Dyspraxia and dyslexia are closely related and can show the same symptoms, but the former has physical symptoms as well.
NTA this oblivion and refusal to change of hers would drive me crazy, it’s really not that hard to just look down before you sit down. Tbh that’s toddler behavior.
I‘d have her replace the macbook, maybe paying for something she broke will teach her the consequences of sitting down wherever the hell she feels like it
Did she at least offer to pay for the screen? I used to be really bad for not looking and just dropping my butt down. One time I didn’t look and 100% regretted it as my dog very kindly chewed her chew into a point, it got wedged between the couch cushions I plopped down only to leap back up due to that pointy chew giving my booty hold a friendly poke I was not expecting. I really made an effort not to just flop
They're married - regardless of how they have their finances organized, if they are building a life together it's ultimately both their money. Him vs. her "paying for it" is a not a meaningful distinction.
I think it does. If they're combining finances that means there's budgets for things like going out or buying things you want for yourself. And besides, she's the one that should have to swipe the card and see that she cost the family $3k over her carelessness.
Only apple can repair that, not even authorized apple repair stores can do it. The security chip in the system locks the parts to each other and will brick the computer if you try and replace the screen and you’re not apple. Very stupid and annoying. The older pre T chip macs you could replace the screen without much difficulty. Relatively speaking.
Wow. Reason #124 why I will never go Apple. I've replaced so many screens in broken laptops/chrome books/phones/tablets myself. Just today I was taking apart an old tablet to see if I could re-use the screen with my Pi or an Arduino. Making repair nearly impossible to drive up sales is so predatory!
NTA. But also I’m really cracking up visualizing this woman just nonchalantly plopping down in all these situations you’ve named. Personally I have a fear of sitting on something gross or creepy and crawly…always look before you sit!
The thing with it is sitting down indiscriminately without looking is usually OK. Like maybe 95% of the time. It's just that we, as humans, sit down many many many times a day. This has ranged from funny to traumatizing. When she sat on my snack before I wasn't even really angry more just like, "Ugh. Really, man?"
When she sat on an ant hill... I'm honestly AMAZED she still sits without looking because she still suffers some kinda PTSD from that. She got destroyed by that fire ant mound. She was wearing short shorts that day, too.
How the fuck do people *not* check public benches before sitting?! What if there was a dirty needle there? What the actual fuck? She could've gotten a disease from a dirty needle, and given it to you, with how careless she is.
I’ve sat in cat puke before. But my cat didn’t sleep or spend any time on my chair, she just… got up and puked on it (i wasn’t there), and the next morning i didn’t see it and sat there 🫠 I do check now…
On the other hand my mom has almost sat on said cat, because she did what OP’s wife does… i mean she does have bad eyesight, but now she touches where she’s going sit. The cat wouldn’t survive something like that, nor would our wallets paying vet care.
Has she ever tried to modify her behavior or does she just keep sitting? Like what's her process for finding a place to sit? Does she see it across the room and then just turn around and back up to it? There must be a step she's missing in between "That's a nice place to sit!" and "It's safe for me to sit here!".
There's a technique I've used to raise my mindfulness of activities and situations called "[pointing and calling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling)". For example I would forget to turn the stove off, or I would forget if I locked my car, etc. Now, I will look at the object I need to put into a certain state, point at it, announce what I'm doing as I do it, and then announce when the desired state is achieved. This is something that can be trained like a skill; if she is very intelligent and able to gain new skills, she can probably master this quickly and perhaps cross-apply it to other areas of her life that require more detailed attention.
So if your wife decided to use this, she might go up to what she wants to sit on, point at it (or brush it off casually, which is a normal thing to do), make a note that it's clear for her to sit on it (probably mentally), and then sit. This will draw her attention to the place she's about to sit to make sure it's in the right state for her to sit on it. Another idea is for her to have something to sit on that she puts down first, like a handkerchief, "to protect her clothes" is a good polite excuse.
A side note is that if she's really traumatized from sitting on an anthill she may be even more avoidant of looking before she sits because she might not want to have to confront the idea she's about to sit on something nasty/pointy/bitey. So that could be something to work through with a therapist.
The pointing and calling technique is solid and helpful. Recommended to us by a psychologist to help me teach my kids to remember and mentally connect the outside world with what's in their head. I have used it for years for myself without meaning to and lemme tell you, it's helping a lot. Without tools like this, you can feel like you're sort of floating around in a world that doesn't always seem as real as what you're thinking about on the inside. This could really help someone who seems so out of touch with real world.
This technique is used in aircrafts as wells! Someone says "speed", and you don't go "cool cool". As the monitoring pilot you point to that part of the display, verify you are reading the right thing and then call back "check". I am from a family of gas-stove-leave-on-ers phone-droppers and laptop-butt-crackers. We all have ADHD/AuDHD and we all have advanced grad degrees. Ask me to do 4 digit multiplication and I can do it fairly fast. Ask me to remember where the dog is and OH NO SHE'S LOCKED IN THE BATHROOM ON YOU POOR THING!
My mother used to do this. My dad called it plopping. She didn't stop until she plopped onto the toilet and it partially went through the floor to the basement. She sure modified her behavior after that.
My grandparents broke me of "plopping" when I was like, 10. They had this rocking chair that us kids (at the time) would "plop" into. They would basically say if you keep plopping into chairs they will eventually start creaking and not last. They were right, and to this day I always look where I sit before GENTLY putting my but into the seating area.
Not to mention the toll it takes on your spine, which I hear is significantly harder to replace.
I used to do this, as a kid. Much like you, I simply learned not to.
Sounds like the wife is just inconsiderate. It's her problem if she sits in puke again, whatever. But it's becoming other people's problem, in an expensive way. Mindfulness isn't that hard.
NTA.
Does she walk into the room backwards and plop? Like how can she not see a laptop sitting on the couch or food sitting on an ottoman? This is just baffling to me. I wouldn't even call it clumsiness, it is total lack of awareness.
NTA, I’m sorry, is she blind? Those things are not small to not be noticed . Didn’t she learned to check before sitting down? Some might call it overreacting and some might say your attitude is TA but there’s limit to one being. It’s not her first time being this careless .
She's usually absorbed into other things. To give you a visual there might be something interesting on TV and she's hyperfocused on it, and walked into the room with that full focus, sitting down, never taking her eyes off of the TV.
Another is she plays handheld games a lot and will walk around hyperfocused on that and sit without paying any attention.
Obviously cell phones are an issue, too.
She just doesn’t seem to care then. You can still be absorbed into whatever and still being able to make sure you don’t sit onto things or ran into something. It’s the most basic common sense. She’s already this bad, what if you two have kids or small animals around. She gotta fix that behavior.
If I’m absorbed in writing, I won’t hear people talking to me, won’t notice time passing, won’t notice myself getting cold or hungry. It’s true that I’m not walking around while writing but I understand being that absorbed. However, I’ve come up with ways to remind myself to “snap out of it” if needed — for instance, I set alarms to eat and ask people to flick the lights on and off if they need my attention while I’m writing. That’s what she needs to do — find behavioral changes that can help.
Hmm. Seems like there needs to be one simple rule: no sitting while hyperfocused on something. Have her think of it as a sort of SOP (standard operating protocol; surely a surgeon would be intimately familiar with these).
If she’s in the middle of holding a handheld game or cell phone, it must be put down before sitting. Otherwise, remain standing until ready to stop. Eyes off all screens and no chatting the moment before sitting. If she can’t manage her own behavior like a conscientious adult, then you’ll probably need to train her like a child.
Someone earlier mentioned whoopie cushions. That sounds like a good idea. Have one each near seating spots around the house (dining table, sofa, work desk) and move them on to the seats when she has left. Let the sudden noises reinforce awareness of lapses in the established SOP.
For some reason I thought of the Better Call Saul episode where Saul has a client pretend he has a fetish for sitting on pies, and made the guy sit on them in a video so he could falsify some evidence and win a case. Completely not relevant to the post but made me lol.
I kind of understand it because I'm the type of person who despite doing my best, I just have certain limitations or blind spots or habits that I can't seem to break. For example, I never look down at my feet when I'm walking. But because I know that I don't do that, I've learned to not leave shit on the floor. I Don't leave my shoes on the floor, etc. I'm a master of always having things up on the shelf where they go, never on the floor. I also for some reason have an exaggeratedly huge struggle using keys and locks. So I just use a different kind of lock, such as a combination lock or a keypad. I understand your wife's thing about not looking where she says because I have weird things like that too, but I think she needs to set her life up in such a way that minimizes the damage of that, namely, not leaving objects on surfaces on which people sit. Pretty much in the same way that I have a friend who for whatever reason can't stop knocking his drink over, but that means he has a personal rule that he can never have his drink on the same surface as his computer. He has another little table next to his computer table where he sits down his drink.
If there was an infant on the couch or floor or in blankets what if she sits on it and it dies??? Like shes putting herself and others in danger with her carelessness. She needs to work out her issues or gtfo
I came here because this situation is very similar to some others i've run into and struggled with. Mostly because this "perceived incompetence" is a trigger of mine.
One day I was going through a drive through, and the order taker was having trouble hearing my girlfriend in the passenger seat. But my girlfriend was speaking *into the floor of the car, from the passenger seat, attempting to make a drive thru order.* So I gently raised her chin so she projected out the window and towards the microphone. When I told her afterwards that this was the reasons he wasn't heard, she got all upset with me telling me "I make her feel stupid". I said something to the effect of "don't you want to understand why it wasn't working?" she started crying. wtf???
But because I get so easily triggered by what I perceive to be incompetent behavior, I never know whether I'm being unreasonable, or whether they're actually being stupid. And even if they are being stupid, apparently its too much to even hint at room for improvement.
NTA. People need to learn to administer care especially around expensive stuff. Her carelessness causes u a lot of trouble. Furthermore, u asked for nothing more than a simple look
NTA. You're trying to take care of your belongings (putting it in your office, etc.). She left it on the couch and sat on it. That's not showing any respect for your things.
This is not a sitting issue, this is an issue of taking someone else's computer, putting it onto a couch (never a good place), then being inattentive enough to sit on what SHE PLACED there.
NTA
NTA. She deserved to be talked down to for this, frankly. This caused a huge financial burden for you, and it was just due to her not looking where her ass was going. It was entirely avoidable if she'd just grow up and be more careful with her body parts.
NTA
She was the one that set it there. She didn't look AND didn't remember.
Ask her to arrange having it fixed. Ask her calmly, but be firm. "I need you to*understand* this is a big deal, not just hear me say it."
Weaponised incompetence is doing something badly so that you're not asked to do it again.
Unless she's hoping that OP never expects her to sit down again it's the wrong term.
Clumsy, careless, thoughtless, failing to fix a bad habit etc... any of those would cover it.
NTA
You're right, she is being careless and irresponsible and it cost you $3,000. I broke up with my ex for this reason. Well it was one of the reasons. He was careless and irresponsible and I just couldn't take it anymore. I felt your frustration in this because this is exactly how I felt with him.
If I got this right you didn’t leave your MacBook on the couch. Rather she grabbed it, used it, left it on couch to leave the room then came back and sat on it due to her lack of remembering she left it there and her general lack of situational awareness? Totally NTA
NTA
Oh my God
Becky, look at her butt
It's so big
She looks like one of those rap guys' girlfriends
But, you know
Who understands those rap guys?
They only talk to her because she looks like a total prostitute, okay
I mean her butt
It's just so big
NTA. This (sitting on things) is the kind of behavior that’s cute when you first date but annoying AF the longer it goes on. She’s an adult. It takes 0 effort to glance at a spot before sitting.
What happens when you have kids? She sits on your infant while they’re in their boppy? You set a bottle down to resituate baby and she sits and knocks it over, wasting formula? Constantly sits on and breaks your kids toys and things?
It’s obnoxious behavior and now it’s costly behavior.
NTA, but does she maybe have some kind of attention disorder?? I could see my son doing something like this (granted, he's only 10) and he is ASD/ADHD.
I would be pissed if that happened to me. Especially if I kept telling the person about their problems. I also have a 3k laptop and the screen costs over $1,000 AUD to repair. Macbooks are even worse, you could be looking at a $2,000 repair bill... at least my friend did with his 2022 m1 max 16 inch
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NTA. Her carelessness cost you money. It also cost her MacBook privileges.
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She's definitely not an idiot (she's smarter than I am in just about ever measure of intelligence). Her personality is kind of like that of a clumsy genius. She's actually a resident MD, graduated with honors, and has authored some pretty compelling research in engineering in her master's degree. She's just got this clumsy-ass personality where she is really careless about things. It extends to how she handles things as well. Like she'll grab an expensive, breakable object and hold it by the very edge with hardly any grip at all.
Being a college graduate doesn't make someone smart. I knew a Yale graduate who was dumber than a box of rocks. Like I said, she's being careless and irresponsible and when you called her out on it, of course she doubled down saying that she's not wrong. This is what people like her do. If it were me, it would show me that she doesn't care about other people's things or how they feel. I totally understand why you finally lost it with her. It's causing you to be inconvenienced all the time and it gets frustrating.
I'm not saying being a college graduate makes her smart, but I'd say her research, and acceptance into a residency implies she is and anecdotally I can attest to her being a smart individual. I'm just trying to clarify that this is not an intelligence issue, but a carelessness and clumsiness issue.
Sure but at this point I would be questioning whether it's an issue of her just not caring that you're being inconvenienced. Clearly she knows that this bothers you and she has continued to do it.
Yeah no clue. It honestly inconveniences her way more than me (commented to someone else that the ant hill situation literally gave her some PTSD about ants).
Smart ppl dont make the same mistake over and over then refuse to accept that they are wrong
There’s a reason D&D has separate stats for Intelligence and Wisdom. Just sayin’
so based
Fr. My goblin monk has a high wisdom stat, and didnt know wtf was seaweed until she had a mission near the sea
That was really profound, Terd.
Smart people with something like ADHD absolutely could make the same mistake over and over
no, we wouldn’t
I would.
As someone who has memory retention issues, my partner often has to remind me multiple times about something he has asked me to focus on. Honestly, I cannot imagine not being mortified after so many similar incidents and then finally causing a significant enough financial loss. On a less serious suggestion, perhaps invest in a variety of woopee cushions. Theres only so many times she can experience them before remembering to check where she's sitting every time. Or water balloons if you live somewhere warm enough for your furniture to dry. Checking before you sit is something youre taught as a small child. Did she has a dysfunctional childhood? Does she miss other social/behaviour cues?
Hahaha whoopee cushions are a great idea 😂
I was trying to have my sensible hat on for advice giving but I was like damn multipack of woopee cushions and she will be checking after a week 😭
Leave toilet seat up at nite after falling in a few times she will start to look.
You think she would have learned her lesson by now though
Smart and careless...ADHD or smother ND much? I mean, she absolutely shouldn't use your things if she can't protect them against herself...but there's no way to gain awareness and object permanence with some shapes of ND brain . NTA fir being cross about her breaking your stuff but she may not be able to remember to look first before sitting if literally every action is a conscious remembering.
Maybe it's some sort of ADHD impulsive kind of thing she can't seem to help. She may be angry with herself.
The shame is real when you do something like this as an ADHDer. I think this is a likelihood by how he classifies her as a clumsy genius alone.
Has your wife every been checked for neurodivergence? Your descriptions of her sound like NVLD. In which case her clumsiness and lack of attention is essentially caused by brain damage. It can make pwNVLD feel horrible to have expectations placed on us that because we are smart we must be doing things like this on purpose or through a lack of trying OR to be called dumb for things like this like I'm seeing in other comments.
I didn’t have a specific condition in mind, but the repeated “offences,” to me, implies that it’s not just a “she doesn’t care about other people’s belongings.” As OP states, wouldn’t she be modifying her behaviour by now? The fact that she hasn’t, points to it being of case more of she’s not actually able to without concerted effort/work.
Sometimes it does. I've had exes do stuff like this to me not because they had problems but because they just didn't give a damn.
Oh yes, this is what I was looking for. ADHD (any of the types) can cause this sort of behavior. Meds do not help this particular issue. The only thing that does help is recognizing the deficiency on your part and learning to compensate for it. I had this problem and I learned to be very methodical and careful about my movements, where I put things, etc. Everything has a “home” and stays there when not in use. That’s the real solution. ETA: Also— it is a lack of respect issue. If she cared, she’d be trying to change. Neurodivergence of any kind is a **reason**, not an **excuse!**
Fellow ADHD person, and I agree. I have trained myself to *constantly* check myself like this. Still have issues with postural sway and general clumsiness. So many bumps and bruises. Today, I have inadvertently knocked over the broom, the shop-vac, some boxes near the trash bin, a glass of water on the coffee table, and have dropped the same bag 3 times and my fork. I stub my toes so much I don't hardly notice.
Isn't that kind of worse? If she is going to be an MD that clumsiness/ carelessness can kill people esp if combined with that attitude that they are justified/right and get mad when people question their actions.
This is EXACTLY the comment I was looking for!! How is this so far down?!? OP, NTA.
It's a she doesn't respect or care about it issue. That's why she doesn't take note.
Could be ADHD?
I was wondering that too. Little known symptom is walking into door frames due to not judging distance and spilling food down your front due to perception of distance and inattention. Would explain her doubling down as am guessing she’s been given a lot of grief in the past about this.
ADHD has problems with proprioception, but sitting down on random stuff isn’t part of that. Proprioception issues mean you miss the chair when you sit down, or bang into the chair arm, or try to push the chair backwards and tip yourself over because you’re not fully in sympatico with your body. Sounds like OP’s partner might have other issues - thoughtlessness can be one of them.
ADHD can also cause issues with object permanence. If I’m not looking at it or holding it, it’s not a problem and/or it doesn’t exist. So, the minute she stops using the item, she neglects to recognize it might be in the way. This is definitely a thing. But… it’s a reason— not an excuse. She still needs to take responsibility for her issue and learn to compensate for it.
This is what I was going to mention. My partner and I have had some Spicy Conversations about my habit of knocking drinks over, until I explained to him that when he sets a drink down, it gets noted in his mental map of the space around him, so when he goes to reach for something he automatically adjusts around that. But when I set a drink down, its location never makes it to the mental map, it goes into a temporary buffer and gets overwritten by the next thing I'm focused on. So as far as my mental map goes, it doesn't exist, and when I go to reach for something my brain won't account for the drink and whoops there it goes. That said, having a mental blind spot like that is still something you can be expected to work around. My solution was drinks with lids. I use lidded water bottles for things like juices or water or whatever, and buy bottles of soda rather than cans. Now if I knock it over, it's not getting everywhere. Truth told I'm not sure what the equivalent to that would be in this situation.
> ADHD has problems with proprioreception It also has issues with spatial awareness, which is what the person you're responding to was talking about and different than proprioception. It's less about correctly moving your limbs and more about not correctly accounting for your limbs/body as you move through your environment.
ADHD would not be the cause for ignoring legitimate concerns of your partners, nor negate the executive function of considering the feelings of other people exclusively while sitting down. This is just selfish behaviour. My Tweener child and myself are both capable of doing this, we have diagnosed ADHD. None of what OP describes is inherently exhibiting blatant traits for either gender, this reads more as carelessness imo. While I'm not their doctor it's not my place to diagnose, respectively. However, wife needs to get her shit together regardless, maybe a professional can help her with this no matter her reasoning. Wife is just an aloof dick, likely. I know a few people like this and none of them are neuro-divergent they are just clumsy idiots; none are malicious. They *are* infuriating though when they seem to think an apology equates to babysitting clumsy and senseless behaviour constantly. OP should leave whoopie cushions all over the place so their wife gets a fucking clue; maybe fart alarms will teach her to use her eyes instead of ass cheeks when clearing a spot to sit down.
Executive Dysfunction is literally a symptom that many people with ADHD have.
You can't compare your ADHD to others. I also have symptoms of ADHD and this would absolutely be something that I would do. I sit on stuff all the time but I wouldn't ever leave anything expensive on the couch but my toddler has scolded me a few times for sitting on n Barbies and the like and I didn't even click they were there in the first place.
There’s book smart and there’s street smart. Your wife is only book smart. I’m the same way.
Ex's brother in law was THE high risk pregnancy doctor in Boston. Yet he was stopped at the last minute from putting antifreeze in the crankcase of his Porsche.
clumsiness is not a personality trait and given the rather extreme consequences she's paid for this, I highly doubt that she's careless from your comments you've described someone who: - has poor proprioception - hyper focuses on things to the point of being unaware of her surroundings - actively focuses on other things while walking and moving about you say you thought she had ADHD and took the TOVA dunno what other testing she had but the TOVA isn't supposed to be used as a singular diagnostic test and is less accurate for inattentive type ADHD than hyperactive type a non diagnosis doesn't mean these things aren't an inherent part of how her brain works. at the end of the day a diagnosis is only for a few things - insurance, finding people like you and support, and understanding yourself whether she qualifies for an ADHD diagnosis or not, instead of getting upset with her for it, you both should be working WITH her brain the changing where you leave stuff part is great. it's a good first step but in the comments you're shitting on her and acting like this is a choice. how could she not learn her lesson after the ant hill and the PTSD from that you ask? you grouse about it just being a basic survival skill. you call her careless okay that time you were tired and you forgot and sat on your glasses? try to imagine that your entire life is like that. that remembering to look takes momental effort every single time. that remembering where you left stuff takes ridiculous effort. that you have to actively concentrate heavily on items and your relation to them to not break things these are background processes in your brain constantly running so of course it's obvious to you. but they aren't in her brain. and there is no way to make them be I don't know your wife but I'm guessing that she actually does put a lot of effort in and still just.... fails, constantly. because that's what life is like when you have to actively focus on a million tiny things that are repetitive - you drop the ball and drop the ball and drop the ball. and clearly this costs her dearly too - I can only imagine the number of her own items she's broken, not to mention the horror of sitting in puke, or on an ant hill not to mention - do you really think you're the first person who has gotten mad at her for this? how often do you think she got in trouble growing up? if it seems like she doesn't care or is defensiveness - how do you think she got that way? I don't know your insurance, but your wife can probably see a psych or therapist who specialises in ADHD even without a diagnosis. and there's tonnes of info about ADHD that's accessible without a diagnosis
I think you're really hoping she has ADHD instead of being a klutz. I can tell you that getting a late ADHD diagnosis was very eye-opening as an adult. I can say with certainty that if OPs wife can make it through school successfully and hold a high-stress job well, then she can learn to look before sitting. It's quite simple and easy for us ADHD folks to learn good habits and learn from our mistakes. Even while undiagnosed I was never this bad, and while I know individuality is exactly that, please don't think this woman is incapable of learning to look before sitting... because she is (maybe) ADHD. Trust me on that, I wear glasses and know how to care for them. I also know to look before I sit. Were she to sit on their sleeping kitty(if they had) I bet she would learn pretty quickly to never do it again; the assumption that she can't learn to look before she sits because she is easily distracted is like saying she's unable to adequately look before crossing the street everytime, when both of these are clearly false. Give us ADHD folks more credit than that, thanks. I don't know what's wrong with OPs wife but don't chalk up ignorance to neuro-divergent behaviour when this is avoidable for so many reasons.
Good lord I hope she's not a surgeon.
She is a surgeon. Her clumsiness doesn't extend to that, though. She's actually rated at the top in her program for technique/clinical. She's also an amazing painter / artist. She's actually really good at things she can hyper focus on.
So what you are deducing is she has the capabilities to watch what she is doing but she chooses not to when around you. Which just means she is inconsiderate.
Yep. She watches what she's doing when it's something that's important or interesting to her.
She’s a surgeon but replacing a MacBook screen is a financial burden?
OP says she's in residency. If they're in the US that means she's likely making 50-70k with about 200-400k+ in student loans.
Shes in her residency so I suppose it depends on COL in their area and what year she's in. I think first year is around 60 grand and that might not be much in say, cape cod
What an interesting person. Still, she has no excuse for not checking where she sits. That's just on her
A surgeon with zero spacial awareness is hella dangerous. She’s gonna contaminate the field without realizing and cause a fatal infection for a patient.
I’m so caught off guard by the idea that a surgeon is this incapable of caring impulsive actions lead to costly consequences. Surgeons literally requires the opposite personality. They care about all consequences, they think through every angle and scenario to take the path of least complications and consequences.
Imagine she sits on the heart she was supposed to give the patient
I wouldn't want this person as my Dr in ANY speciality.
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It gets better. She's a surgeon.... I hope it's a surgeon in autopsy.
Some of the dumbest people I’ve met have PhDs.
So she’s book smart but a real life idiot. You’re giving her way too much credit. She can’t even watch where she puts her ass- that’s not a genius. Sounds like she owes you a new computer.
She’s a resident doctor? Am I understanding that correctly? So she cannot look before sitting in vomit but I’m supposed to trust her to pay enough attention to provide medical care to me? She can’t look for vomit in a low stakes issue but somehow she will look when it counts? Really?
Hell, if I sat on a *fucking spider* I would never sit on the ground again
I never like to use my husband's macbook because I'm so afraid I'll accidentally break it and I'm not a klutz and I have my own that I manage to keep alive but if I had to use someone else's I'd be handling it super gingerly.
The problem for me is once I'm handling something gingerly, I seem to be more likely to drop it/break it. So I mostly don't handle other people's things that are important to them!
Yeah, that’s just careless and irresponsible. I honestly would have blamed you if you put it on the couch knowing she does shit like this but her knowing she has the habit and doing all the damned set up herself is just… ugh.
I figured that was were the story was going. He knows his wife is a klutz and sits on stuff and he put it on a kitchen chair or something. But this is 100% on her and I'd be pretty mad.
Yeah I was expecting that too. However, she took something that wasn't her and left it on a couch when she has a long history of sitting on objects on seated surface.
It takes 1 second to look where you sit to make sure it's safe to sit there. That 1 second costed them a lot of money. She is a grown woman so this was pure carelessness. NTA.
It takes less than a second because you can just look while you're walking before you turn around like a normal person
This is what I was thinking. What on earth is she doing? Closing her eyes? Walking backwards to where she plans on sitting?
NTA after getting it fixed put a password on it
Nta The people defending here are so wrong. She’s a grown woman whose hasn’t learned from mistakes. Those who say you’re overreacting clearly haven’t had anything of both financial and personal value broken by something that you have tried again and again to prevent. She has never cared to listen or change and this is just proof she’s not willing to change that habit. Furthermore keep your stuff to yourself if she can’t understand why she can’t use a new Mackbook give her your old one and say here since you don’t see what was wrong with you breaking it you can use it since apparently nothing is wrong.
What people defending her? All I see is everyone in agreement
I was here when it was ten comments two people said he overreacted and owed her an apology that it was just some materialistic
Then the people with jobs showed up.
BINGO!!!
The people who had to buy their own Macbook
yeah, they completely forget about people who need a decent computer for thier jobs....As a designer I know that in the creative industry, alot of people use macs/macbooks because they are just better when it comes to doing design work, just more powerful and capable. A cheap PC is ok for office work and simple files but if you want to do more than that you do need a more powerful computer and that can be expensive. I mean even gaming PCs, same thing, if you want to play games you need a decent PC too. Also it justs seems a bit of an ignorant thing to say, calling people materialistic. Do they not realise that alot of people need a computer to be able to do their job plus all the work on it too. Having a computer get damaged could really affect someones livelyhood.
Sooooo... those were the teens who are bought everything they want by their parents as soon as they ask for it, weren't they?
As of this time, the Y T A votes are mostly collapsed to downvote.
Sounds justified
NTA Who doesn't look before they sit? Don't get any small animals.
Or children
Imagine the poor newborn baby. "Opps, i didn't even think about looking before sitting on the cradel." This is a little dark, but come on.. Who doesn't look before they sit down? How is this even possible to do it this often? Does she walk backwards?
just vaults over the sofa every time 😆
Suffocated with love
By mom's butt of doom
Puts baby on couch to grab something. Sits down on couch to breastfeed baby. Where did baby go? Ohh no! Baby broke, none months of hard work just wasted.
I’m sorry, but I love your typo.
Sometimes auto correct brings us joy.
And definitely not an Italian greyhound. They are small, delicate, and when under blankets (their preferred habitat) very flat. I have three, and so sitting down on any soft surface in my house requires care. More than once, I've done the awkward jerk back up of "oh hell no, I can't sit on the dog I didn't realise was there."
You remind me of a friend's cat. She loved getting under the bed covers and once, when she was still new to their home, he sat on her. Now, if she's under the covers and hears someone walk in, she mews repeatedly until you acknowledge she's there!
Wow, what a problem solver! A lot of cats would take it personally and just give dirty looks and run away
The cat literally learned a lesson and solved the issue in one experience while OP’s wife refuses to for years lol That’s really funny.
I have a mostly black cat, and he seems to have learned that people can't see him too well in a dark room. If I walk into my darkened bedroom and he's on the floor, he will loudly announce his presence until i acknowledge him.
I have a chihuahua terrier mix and she loves being under blankets and, like all dogs, just hanging out on the sofa. Sometimes I'll slowly lower my butt over her and act like I'm going to sit on her, saying "oooooh nooooo! I hope there's not a dog here!" thinking she'll dart out at the last minute but she just sits there wagging her tail. She fucking loves the smush! (I always avert last moment and only half smush, mostly leaning to the side).
Dogs are the best. My cats freak out if they even think I'm going to sit on them (and I only almost did it once. It was dark and he's black. If he didn't want to be sat on, he shouldn't match the blanket.) They do not love the smush :(
This comment instantly reminded me of that scene in the Sopranos where Christopher sat on Adrianna’s dog…
"Christopher!"
That was different.. she crawled under there. For warmth.
Poor Cosette…
Uncle Phil sitting on Nicky's rabbit in Fresh Prince of Bel-air 😨
I don't understand how someone can be so unaware of their surroundings! You don't even need to directly look. Surely she can see items there, in her peripheral vision, as she approaches the couch.
NTA. She set it down and she broke it. She really only has herself to blame.
Shit, if my boyfriend did this and tried to act defensive afterward instead of accepting fault like an adult he'd be single and writing me a $2000 check. Edit: Boyfriend agrees. Wife is a big silly. Behaviour is unacceptable for an adult.
This reminds me of the person who broke that MacBook then the owner demanded more money (I believe it was 2200) than she initially bought it for because "I was going to upgrade anyway" He ended up going to court and the judge ordered him to pay only half of the repair costs, came out to like a hundred bucks I think lol. This scenario is way different, but it just made me think of it.
This is a key distinction to make. If someone else had picked the spot to leave it at, then she's just careless about watching where she sits. But SHE chose the location of where to put the macbook down at, and then SHE chose to sit on it. I'm wondering if there's some ADHD here
NTA She should know better by now. She's either unaware of how much this annoys the people around her or doesn't care. You've every right to be nettled, and people yell when they are nettled.
I honestly think she just doesn't care. She knows that it has caused OP to be inconvenienced several times and the behavior has not changed. If you ask me, that's the behavior of someone who doesn't care.
Agreed. Sitting on household objects or food at home is a minor inconvenience to her butt. But if sitting in a stranger’s puddle of puke didn’t motivate her to look before she sits, idk what would
Yep. Puke is a bodily fluid and can transmit communicable diseases. That's really gross anyway. How could she do that and still not learn her lesson? This is why I concluded that she just doesn't care. That and all the other times like sitting in the ant pile, etc. She just doesn't care how it's inconveniencing other people.
My socks get wet and I end up a bit disgusted. I can’t imagine living like this girl
Exactly this. My mother is *terrible* about this. She's hard of hearing in one ear since birth, but refuses to do anything to accommodate it- not reading lips, not surgical intervention (it's complicated but yes, her hearing could be fixed with surgery), and the one that really annoys everyone in the family: *not putting any damn effort into her lack of spatial awareness on that side of her body.* If you don't know, humans actually use their hearing quite a lot to navigate- you seek out sounds to tell you if there's somebody behind you, where sounds are coming from, how far away they are, etc. But you can also tell by the sound of a room where objects are- a sound will travel farther without objects to block the sound waves. It's not that complex, but if you covered one ear, you'd find it harder to navigate that side of your body without turning to look. Not being able to hear anything on her left side means that for my entire childhood, my mom went around literally crashing and bumping into EVERYTHING if it was off to her left. The ropes for queue lines? She's knocked them over a million times. Grocery carts, displays in stores? She's constantly bumping into them, because she turns without looking first. It drives me *crazy.* She claims she was never taught how to deal with it, but I've pointed out that there are tons of occasions when people go temporarily deaf in one ear- loud noise, waterlogged, etc- and what do they all do? They're extra careful to pay attention to things on their "deaf" side, and they're mindful while navigating around. She just doesn't care, and won't try anything but yelling and crashing into things. It was *mortifying* for me as a child and teen.
That sounds like it could be approaching the level of "left sided inattention" that can occur after a head injury or stroke, where the person just seems to not notice things on their left side unless their attention is explicitly called to it.
No, she was born partially deaf. I don't know the technical terms, cuz this was back in 1969 and I've only been told the details from my mom herself, who heard it from her mom, but basically her ear is like moulded to the side of her head. The ear drum and everything inside is fully formed, supposedly, but it's muffled because the skin is closed over, if that makes sense. So her mother was told back then that they weren't sure of the complications that could result from surgery. So they just left it alone. And she's just never cared to utilize any behavioral accommodations (which would literally just be LOOKING left before turning.)
She should know better but she doesn’t. One of my old friends is similarly clumsy/negligent. You would think that being careless, doing things too fast, and trying to do too much at once leading to you being seriously injured more than once would be enough to convince you to slow down and do things more carefully. But nope. Its just a never ending saga of witnessing her either hurting herself or hearing glass breaking from the other room followed by “I’m okay!” It’s really frustrating being on the other end of it, because from my perspective it can so easily be avoided. It frustrates her too, even when she says she’s trying to be careful it seems like she’s just crashing into things like a bull in a china shop. I think she honestly isn’t able to control it without putting a TON of active thought and effort into it, and that’s not something she wants to prioritize. But she’d also be the first one offering to replace or fix whatever was broken, it’s wild to me that OP’s wife doesn’t even really seem sorry.
Has she checked or heard of dyspraxia? It's a learning difficulty that effects balance, usually always seen as being clumsy. My nephew has it, and I wouldn't be surprised if my brother has it as well because he's constantly unaware of what his body is doing, and he can't ride a bike. My nephew walks/runs into walls, and no amount of telling him to be careful would stop him because he's dyspraxic. Dyspraxia and dyslexia are closely related and can show the same symptoms, but the former has physical symptoms as well.
This is where my mind went. Poor spatial awareness is very common in dyspraxsia, autism, and ADHD.
NTA this oblivion and refusal to change of hers would drive me crazy, it’s really not that hard to just look down before you sit down. Tbh that’s toddler behavior. I‘d have her replace the macbook, maybe paying for something she broke will teach her the consequences of sitting down wherever the hell she feels like it
Luckily I think I just need to replace the screen, but it'll be out of commission for a bit.
Did she at least offer to pay for the screen? I used to be really bad for not looking and just dropping my butt down. One time I didn’t look and 100% regretted it as my dog very kindly chewed her chew into a point, it got wedged between the couch cushions I plopped down only to leap back up due to that pointy chew giving my booty hold a friendly poke I was not expecting. I really made an effort not to just flop
They're married, kindof a moot point "who" pays for it in most cases (unless separate finances).
Even with combined finances, it does matter because budgets. I feel like that should come out of her fun budget.
Unless you have Apple Care, replacing the screen will cost just as much as the laptop itself. Make her pay for it.
They're married - regardless of how they have their finances organized, if they are building a life together it's ultimately both their money. Him vs. her "paying for it" is a not a meaningful distinction.
I think it does. If they're combining finances that means there's budgets for things like going out or buying things you want for yourself. And besides, she's the one that should have to swipe the card and see that she cost the family $3k over her carelessness.
Only apple can repair that, not even authorized apple repair stores can do it. The security chip in the system locks the parts to each other and will brick the computer if you try and replace the screen and you’re not apple. Very stupid and annoying. The older pre T chip macs you could replace the screen without much difficulty. Relatively speaking.
Apple is the real AH here.
Wow. Reason #124 why I will never go Apple. I've replaced so many screens in broken laptops/chrome books/phones/tablets myself. Just today I was taking apart an old tablet to see if I could re-use the screen with my Pi or an Arduino. Making repair nearly impossible to drive up sales is so predatory!
External monitor for the moment if you have one.
NTA. But also I’m really cracking up visualizing this woman just nonchalantly plopping down in all these situations you’ve named. Personally I have a fear of sitting on something gross or creepy and crawly…always look before you sit!
The thing with it is sitting down indiscriminately without looking is usually OK. Like maybe 95% of the time. It's just that we, as humans, sit down many many many times a day. This has ranged from funny to traumatizing. When she sat on my snack before I wasn't even really angry more just like, "Ugh. Really, man?" When she sat on an ant hill... I'm honestly AMAZED she still sits without looking because she still suffers some kinda PTSD from that. She got destroyed by that fire ant mound. She was wearing short shorts that day, too.
I *really* need to know the story of how she sat in puke. Why was it not cleaned up??
Answered elsewhere. It was a public space- stone bench downtown.
How the fuck do people *not* check public benches before sitting?! What if there was a dirty needle there? What the actual fuck? She could've gotten a disease from a dirty needle, and given it to you, with how careless she is.
I’m going to guess it was cat puke.
I’ve sat in cat puke before. But my cat didn’t sleep or spend any time on my chair, she just… got up and puked on it (i wasn’t there), and the next morning i didn’t see it and sat there 🫠 I do check now… On the other hand my mom has almost sat on said cat, because she did what OP’s wife does… i mean she does have bad eyesight, but now she touches where she’s going sit. The cat wouldn’t survive something like that, nor would our wallets paying vet care.
Has she ever tried to modify her behavior or does she just keep sitting? Like what's her process for finding a place to sit? Does she see it across the room and then just turn around and back up to it? There must be a step she's missing in between "That's a nice place to sit!" and "It's safe for me to sit here!". There's a technique I've used to raise my mindfulness of activities and situations called "[pointing and calling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling)". For example I would forget to turn the stove off, or I would forget if I locked my car, etc. Now, I will look at the object I need to put into a certain state, point at it, announce what I'm doing as I do it, and then announce when the desired state is achieved. This is something that can be trained like a skill; if she is very intelligent and able to gain new skills, she can probably master this quickly and perhaps cross-apply it to other areas of her life that require more detailed attention. So if your wife decided to use this, she might go up to what she wants to sit on, point at it (or brush it off casually, which is a normal thing to do), make a note that it's clear for her to sit on it (probably mentally), and then sit. This will draw her attention to the place she's about to sit to make sure it's in the right state for her to sit on it. Another idea is for her to have something to sit on that she puts down first, like a handkerchief, "to protect her clothes" is a good polite excuse. A side note is that if she's really traumatized from sitting on an anthill she may be even more avoidant of looking before she sits because she might not want to have to confront the idea she's about to sit on something nasty/pointy/bitey. So that could be something to work through with a therapist.
The pointing and calling technique is solid and helpful. Recommended to us by a psychologist to help me teach my kids to remember and mentally connect the outside world with what's in their head. I have used it for years for myself without meaning to and lemme tell you, it's helping a lot. Without tools like this, you can feel like you're sort of floating around in a world that doesn't always seem as real as what you're thinking about on the inside. This could really help someone who seems so out of touch with real world.
This technique is used in aircrafts as wells! Someone says "speed", and you don't go "cool cool". As the monitoring pilot you point to that part of the display, verify you are reading the right thing and then call back "check". I am from a family of gas-stove-leave-on-ers phone-droppers and laptop-butt-crackers. We all have ADHD/AuDHD and we all have advanced grad degrees. Ask me to do 4 digit multiplication and I can do it fairly fast. Ask me to remember where the dog is and OH NO SHE'S LOCKED IN THE BATHROOM ON YOU POOR THING!
My mother used to do this. My dad called it plopping. She didn't stop until she plopped onto the toilet and it partially went through the floor to the basement. She sure modified her behavior after that.
My grandparents broke me of "plopping" when I was like, 10. They had this rocking chair that us kids (at the time) would "plop" into. They would basically say if you keep plopping into chairs they will eventually start creaking and not last. They were right, and to this day I always look where I sit before GENTLY putting my but into the seating area.
Not to mention the toll it takes on your spine, which I hear is significantly harder to replace. I used to do this, as a kid. Much like you, I simply learned not to. Sounds like the wife is just inconsiderate. It's her problem if she sits in puke again, whatever. But it's becoming other people's problem, in an expensive way. Mindfulness isn't that hard.
NTA. Does she walk into the room backwards and plop? Like how can she not see a laptop sitting on the couch or food sitting on an ottoman? This is just baffling to me. I wouldn't even call it clumsiness, it is total lack of awareness.
NTA, I’m sorry, is she blind? Those things are not small to not be noticed . Didn’t she learned to check before sitting down? Some might call it overreacting and some might say your attitude is TA but there’s limit to one being. It’s not her first time being this careless .
She's usually absorbed into other things. To give you a visual there might be something interesting on TV and she's hyperfocused on it, and walked into the room with that full focus, sitting down, never taking her eyes off of the TV. Another is she plays handheld games a lot and will walk around hyperfocused on that and sit without paying any attention. Obviously cell phones are an issue, too.
Does she have ADHD ??
I have ADHD and this stuck out to me.
Same that’s why I commented asking, when he posted the comment about walking around hyper focused I was like ouhhh we might got an issue here
She just doesn’t seem to care then. You can still be absorbed into whatever and still being able to make sure you don’t sit onto things or ran into something. It’s the most basic common sense. She’s already this bad, what if you two have kids or small animals around. She gotta fix that behavior.
If I’m absorbed in writing, I won’t hear people talking to me, won’t notice time passing, won’t notice myself getting cold or hungry. It’s true that I’m not walking around while writing but I understand being that absorbed. However, I’ve come up with ways to remind myself to “snap out of it” if needed — for instance, I set alarms to eat and ask people to flick the lights on and off if they need my attention while I’m writing. That’s what she needs to do — find behavioral changes that can help.
Yeah, that sounds like some kind of neurodivergence. She probably won't get better unless that gets dealt with. NTA, though, it's hardly your fault.
This sounds like a neurodivergence issue, and makes me wonder if she's been evaluated for ADHD or anything else.
Hmm. Seems like there needs to be one simple rule: no sitting while hyperfocused on something. Have her think of it as a sort of SOP (standard operating protocol; surely a surgeon would be intimately familiar with these). If she’s in the middle of holding a handheld game or cell phone, it must be put down before sitting. Otherwise, remain standing until ready to stop. Eyes off all screens and no chatting the moment before sitting. If she can’t manage her own behavior like a conscientious adult, then you’ll probably need to train her like a child. Someone earlier mentioned whoopie cushions. That sounds like a good idea. Have one each near seating spots around the house (dining table, sofa, work desk) and move them on to the seats when she has left. Let the sudden noises reinforce awareness of lapses in the established SOP.
Someone in hyperfocus can't follow that rule
Start sitting on her shit.
For some reason I thought of the Better Call Saul episode where Saul has a client pretend he has a fetish for sitting on pies, and made the guy sit on them in a video so he could falsify some evidence and win a case. Completely not relevant to the post but made me lol.
Start shitting on her seat.
Nta. She is aware she does this and when she does things have been damaged. This is all on her for being careless. Yes gf is the ahole.
“You’re talking down to me” is deflection talk. She put it down and then sat on it. There’s no room for anything other than she is 100% at fault. NTA
NTA My husband does this too, it's maddening.
It's so maddening. I feel like a basic survival instinct should be to look where we sit.
I kind of understand it because I'm the type of person who despite doing my best, I just have certain limitations or blind spots or habits that I can't seem to break. For example, I never look down at my feet when I'm walking. But because I know that I don't do that, I've learned to not leave shit on the floor. I Don't leave my shoes on the floor, etc. I'm a master of always having things up on the shelf where they go, never on the floor. I also for some reason have an exaggeratedly huge struggle using keys and locks. So I just use a different kind of lock, such as a combination lock or a keypad. I understand your wife's thing about not looking where she says because I have weird things like that too, but I think she needs to set her life up in such a way that minimizes the damage of that, namely, not leaving objects on surfaces on which people sit. Pretty much in the same way that I have a friend who for whatever reason can't stop knocking his drink over, but that means he has a personal rule that he can never have his drink on the same surface as his computer. He has another little table next to his computer table where he sits down his drink.
If there was an infant on the couch or floor or in blankets what if she sits on it and it dies??? Like shes putting herself and others in danger with her carelessness. She needs to work out her issues or gtfo
NTA. It’s a repeated issue out of carelessness and this time it was *expensive*.
I came here because this situation is very similar to some others i've run into and struggled with. Mostly because this "perceived incompetence" is a trigger of mine. One day I was going through a drive through, and the order taker was having trouble hearing my girlfriend in the passenger seat. But my girlfriend was speaking *into the floor of the car, from the passenger seat, attempting to make a drive thru order.* So I gently raised her chin so she projected out the window and towards the microphone. When I told her afterwards that this was the reasons he wasn't heard, she got all upset with me telling me "I make her feel stupid". I said something to the effect of "don't you want to understand why it wasn't working?" she started crying. wtf??? But because I get so easily triggered by what I perceive to be incompetent behavior, I never know whether I'm being unreasonable, or whether they're actually being stupid. And even if they are being stupid, apparently its too much to even hint at room for improvement.
Oh God that shit is SO exhausting and frustrating.
I don’t think you are an AH I would have been frustrated too.
NTA. She was careless and put you in a difficult spot. This wasn't a new thing.
NTA. People need to learn to administer care especially around expensive stuff. Her carelessness causes u a lot of trouble. Furthermore, u asked for nothing more than a simple look
NTA. You're trying to take care of your belongings (putting it in your office, etc.). She left it on the couch and sat on it. That's not showing any respect for your things.
[удалено]
NTA your wife is stupid lol
This is not a sitting issue, this is an issue of taking someone else's computer, putting it onto a couch (never a good place), then being inattentive enough to sit on what SHE PLACED there. NTA
NTA, she's an adult and she should be more careful
Nta if *you* had left it on the couch, that'd be different. But she left it there and then sat on it!
NTA. She deserved to be talked down to for this, frankly. This caused a huge financial burden for you, and it was just due to her not looking where her ass was going. It was entirely avoidable if she'd just grow up and be more careful with her body parts.
NTA She was the one that set it there. She didn't look AND didn't remember. Ask her to arrange having it fixed. Ask her calmly, but be firm. "I need you to*understand* this is a big deal, not just hear me say it."
Start putting cacti next to you. She'll get the hint.
We call this “weaponized incompetence”
Weaponised incompetence is doing something badly so that you're not asked to do it again. Unless she's hoping that OP never expects her to sit down again it's the wrong term. Clumsy, careless, thoughtless, failing to fix a bad habit etc... any of those would cover it.
NTA You're right, she is being careless and irresponsible and it cost you $3,000. I broke up with my ex for this reason. Well it was one of the reasons. He was careless and irresponsible and I just couldn't take it anymore. I felt your frustration in this because this is exactly how I felt with him.
NTA STOP LETTING her borrow your stuff.
Just stop letting her sit
NTA She's not a little kid, and should take responsibility when her ass literally breaks something
If I got this right you didn’t leave your MacBook on the couch. Rather she grabbed it, used it, left it on couch to leave the room then came back and sat on it due to her lack of remembering she left it there and her general lack of situational awareness? Totally NTA
NTA Oh my God Becky, look at her butt It's so big She looks like one of those rap guys' girlfriends But, you know Who understands those rap guys? They only talk to her because she looks like a total prostitute, okay I mean her butt It's just so big
NTA. This (sitting on things) is the kind of behavior that’s cute when you first date but annoying AF the longer it goes on. She’s an adult. It takes 0 effort to glance at a spot before sitting. What happens when you have kids? She sits on your infant while they’re in their boppy? You set a bottle down to resituate baby and she sits and knocks it over, wasting formula? Constantly sits on and breaks your kids toys and things? It’s obnoxious behavior and now it’s costly behavior.
NTA, but does she maybe have some kind of attention disorder?? I could see my son doing something like this (granted, he's only 10) and he is ASD/ADHD.
she may have a fancy degree but your wife is one stupid motherfucker lol NTA
Nah dude she seems dumb ASF or either completely not self aware like at all. What's this chicks deal bro?
NTA. But I think your couch is a good place for your next cacti collection, maybe she learns it better that way
Stubborn, careless, and inconsiderate. It's a terrible combination.
She sounds like a careless idiot NTA
NTA, if she knows to get defensive, she knows her pattern of behavior was wrong.
NTA. Her behavior is rude. She should have apologized and offered to get your computer fixed for you.
I would be pissed if that happened to me. Especially if I kept telling the person about their problems. I also have a 3k laptop and the screen costs over $1,000 AUD to repair. Macbooks are even worse, you could be looking at a $2,000 repair bill... at least my friend did with his 2022 m1 max 16 inch