AITA for masterbating while my kid (3y) was in the other room.
For context mid-June, I was released from my job in a crappy way.
My wife and I have 1 child, a 3-year-old boy. To take care of our finances, he stays home 3 days a week while I am not working.
I had a vasectomy performed just before I was let go. It was something that we briefly talked about when we decided we didn’t want any more children. The doctor that performed the procedure requires 2 semen samples to confirm there are no sperms present.
Fast forward to yesterday. I hadn’t submitted a sample since the surgery and have a job lined up to begin 8/5. Friday, it was the boy and I at home. We were plating outside, it was hot, so we went inside to cool off. I set him up on his tablet, watching something on YouTube kids, and decided I would check the paperwork about the sample submission.
It recommends calling the doc office to make sure someone is present to check the sample. Upon calling, I found out the doc is in till 11am. It was currently about 830am, so I decided to collect a sample.
After confirming, he was good and would not bother me while I was doing the deed. I snuck off to quickly collect.
The boy and I then go to the docs office to submit the sample and run another errand while out.
At about 1pm I get a call from the docs office saying there was no spern in the sample and to submit the next sample after 10/14. I went to text a friend who also had the procedure done with a joke(actual text I sent), “Shooting blanks… now how do I tell the wife I did the test while I was supposed to be watching the boy 🤔”
I didn’t realize I had actually sent this to my wife. She is livid that I had done this while he was at home, calling me a “pervert” and telling me I need to get out of the house.
We do have our issues, but I don’t feel this was a huge deal, enough to warent wanting me gone out of the house. I was busy for 5-10 mins top. I had confirmed our kid was safe and happy with a snack and drink to keep him busy. I was in the bathroom no more than 20ft away with the door closed. If he yelled for me or needed me, I could hear him. When I returned to him he was happy and content with his juice, snack, and show.
AITA?
NTA.
Also, you wife isn’t mad that you jerked off at home. Your wife is mad that you were joking about or possibly seriously discussing how to reveal information to her.
Often people don’t know what they’re mad about, and will latch onto something concrete in order to express anger about something less concrete.
She’s mad that you think of her as someone to be managed from an information/perception perspective, but because that’s harder to articulate she latched onto the concrete scenario of you jerking off while the child was in the next room.
So you are NTA for jerking off in a non-empty house, but YTA for joking with a friend about how to manage your wife’s perceptions.
And she’s TA for being unable to articulate what actually bothers her, and for not making the effort to develop that ability, and hence sowing confusion with her knee-jerk accusations.
I recommend you get some shrooms and take them with your wife, on a day when the kid is away with family.
Also, YTGOAT for re-activating this dead community.
Thank you for your feedback. I have a good relationship with my male friends. The one I had meant to text, laughed at it after i relized my mistake. I agree that i could have been construed as derimental to her.
My biggest struggle I have is trying to figure what kind of conversation we are having. According to “suppercommunicarors” by Charles Huhigg there are 3 types of conversations
Conversations can be any one of these. Probing questions are important to determine the type of conversation. If the type of conversation is not met, conflicts occur.
As you started, we are not talking the same way. Hence, TAH and NTAH are both situations are possible. I plan to ask her about the differences we have