Sometime in the last year, my husband has picked up a habit where he talks like a baby. At first it was funny, but passed into embarrassing, cringeworthy behavior quickly.

Examples: doggo, pupper, woofer/subwoofer, pibble, hooty-boy, peepo, birb, meowmeow, sammy, sammiches, sammywhammy, chicky nuggies, chicky tendies, adding a toddleresque “lisp” to words, and the ones that really get gross are childish euphemisms for genitalia or sex.

I cannot emphasize this enough: it is not endearing or sexy to have my husband talk about my “boobies” and his “weiner” and “weenie” and “wee wee”, “hoohas” and “bajingos” (Nostalgia for Scrubs be damned). We have not had sex for six months because he cannot stop talking about my “boobies” and it makes me sick.

Just before the pandemic hit, we were out at a restaurant with some friends, he actually ordered a “chicky sammy” like, said that exact phrase. Chicky. Sammy. Look, it’s totally fine that he ordered the chicken sandwich. That’s not the issue. Our friends noticed the baby talk, because he insisted on continuing the “joke” and even started talking with this god awful toddler…

lilt? Accent?

After that, I just couldn’t stomach the idea of going out with him to adult places. I’d go out to the brewery with friends, but god forbid he join me and say “Me wanty ‘nother beer!” or something.

I don’t know where it came from. I don’t know why he’s doing this. I finally hit my limit when we were grocery shopping and everything seemed normal and fine until he gasped like a kid, ran to the ice cream section and jumped up and down yelling “ICE CWEAM ICE CWEAM!

I WANT CHOCWIT!”

I was *MORTIFIED*. People were staring at him and me. He kept going and kept saying “CAN WE GET POPSICOOOS?” and I just said “Either talk to me like an adult or I’m leaving.”

He started saying OOOOOO YOU MUST BE FUN AT PARTIES and LIGHTEN UP, WILL YOU? And shit like that. I just said fuck it, and left the store, leaving him to walk home (like a mile, it was fine) because I couldn’t even look at him.

Since then, things have been very tense, and he keeps telling me that he wants an apology for embarrassing him by leaving him in the store. I told him that people don’t get to demand apologies, if someone wants to apologize, it’s up to them, and I am absolutely not going to apologize for saving myself the embarrassment of a 35 year old man with a mortgage and retirement account asking for “CHOCWIT ICE CWEAM.”

He got his fucking Mom involved, no joke. She keeps telling me it’s just a phase and that he’s probably bored and I should be happy this is his midlife crisis, rather than him fucking 19 year olds at the local bar.

I’m going crazy. AITA? Do I really just need to let my husband continuously embarrass me like this?

**Edit:** Sorry, there was only so much space. I *have* talked to him. Multiple times. Especially about the sexual comments. I’ve made it extremely, abundantly clear that him using terms like “boobies” and “wee wee” are absolutely *repulsive* to me, among other things he says.

**INFO:** Does he have a job? Yes, and he acts completely normal as far as I know. He worked from home for a while during lockdown, and I never heard him talk like this to anyone he worked with.

**Does he do it with friends?** Sometimes, and it’s generally meant to annoy them or gross them out, but he stops. He has friends where they think its “cute” to embarrass each other.

**Is this a kink/fetish?:** If so, I’m absolutely done.

**Has he seen a doctor?**: No, but I’ve asked him if he needed to talk to someone because he was acting strange, and he accused me of being stuck up and judgmental. Given that he doesn’t act like this with his coworkers, or his family, and only jokes around with his friends, I’m willing to bet that this is an indication that he’s trying to force this fetish on me nonconsensually, or trying to get me to leave.

**Is it a tumor?**: I don’t know. Like I said above, I asked him if he needed to see someone. I can’t force him (even if I want to, just find out if there’s any way we can salvage this), but after this post closes I will try to get him to. Maybe his sister can encourage him, even though he acts completely normal around them.

**Does he have childhood trauma?:** As far as I know, and I’m relatively close to his family and would likely know, the most traumatic thing he had happen was a minor car accident when he was around 13 years old. No injuries, no death, etc. He hasn’t been in a car accident in the past two years or anything like that, and I haven’t, and AFAIK no one else in his family has been, etc.

**I want to send you a chat instead of my comment getting lost**: Please don’t. I’ve had a number of people repost this to make fun of me because I didn’t respond the way they wanted, etc. Just comment, I can at least to respond to those and help others get an idea of what’s going on.