Among his regulars was L, a striking woman cloaked in gothic elegance, her appearance a sharp contrast to the mundane setting, yet her kindness and warmth shone through like a beacon. When their paths crossed in the supermarket, the collision of two worlds—his loving family and the enigmatic passenger—set the stage for a poignant exploration of acceptance, identity, and the unseen connections that bind us all.
I (M36) work as a bus driver. I’ve been doing the same route for about five years and I’ve gotten to know my regulars pretty well to the point where I’d consider most of us friends.
I enjoy my job and conversation and socialising comes easily to me. My wife (F36) works in an office and drives so she’s never really met any of my regular passengers.
So I’ve been married for about five years now and we’ve got two little kids (M4 and F1) and every few weeks we do The Big Shop where we go to the big Asda (Wal-Mart for you Americans!).
Everything was fine and we were getting through the list with the kids sat in the trolley when I hear my wife make a noise of disgust and I look up to follow her gaze and see one of my regulars, getting her own shopping done, let’s call her L (F27).
L is a goth. Very monochrome colour scheme, always in black velvet and lace, black lipstick, powdered white face, some visible tats, the works. But she’s a lovely girl, very sweet, works as a sign-language interpreter at a local secondary school, involved with Age Concern in her spare time and working towards a PHD.
All-round nice young lady. My wife launches into a snarky tirade about her appearance (“Look at that, why would you choose to look like that? Just asking for attention then probably complains she can’t get a job.
She looks like a witch, it’s creepy, wouldn’t want that in any place of work, probably on drugs, etc etc”)
I told her to stop it, as she was being very rude and judgemental but kept going and saying increasingly worse things about L, not even toning down her vitriol in front of the kids.
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t the best guy when I was younger and if I’d seen L when I was in school I probably would have made fun of her too but we’re all adults here and I think it’s time we left that attitude behind us.
Even if I didn’t know L, I’d think that sort of talk inappropriate, especially as my oldest is very impressionable and due to start school in september and I don’t want him thinking that’s an acceptable way to behave.
My wife was bullied severely during her teen years and she’s told me how much of an impact it has to this day.
Eventually I just told her to shut up and stop acting like the same bullies that made her life hell when she was in school. She shut up quick. She hasn’t spoken to me since and I got an angry text from SIL telling me I hurt my wife ‘beyond words’ and how dare I compare her to her school bullies who traumaised her so badly as a teenager.
I’ve tried explaining my side and how I want to set a good example for the kids and also that L was a friend of mine (who gave us a congratulations card when we had both our children) but neither one will listen and I’m thinking I might have gone too far.
TL;DR my wife went off on a spiteful, judgemental rant about the appearance of someone she doesn’t know and I called her bully, knowing her painful history with bullying.
Conclusion
The husband found himself in a severe conflict between defending a stranger from his wife’s harsh judgment and acknowledging his wife’s past trauma from bullying. His immediate action was to stop her verbal attack and use the comparison to her own bullies as a silencing tactic, which successfully ended the rant but severely damaged their communication and trust.
Was the husband justified in using the painful memory of his wife’s bullying history against her to stop an inappropriate public judgment, or did invoking her trauma cross a necessary boundary in their relationship? The core question is how to balance advocating for kindness toward others with respecting a spouse’s deeply held emotional wounds.
Here’s how people reacted:
You’re right, your wife was being inappropriate and setting a bad example to your kids. Considering her experience, to be ranting on like that is almost transference i.e. taking out her experience on someone else who is ‘different’.
I guess you could argue that she wasn’t berating ‘L’ directly to her face, but to me that’s irrelevant. The wife thought she was justified in being obnoxious and being obnoxious (for no good reason) in front of her own children.
It’s horrible to think that her actions may lead your kids to believe that thinking that way is acceptable and vocally denigrating someone is also acceptable (for any reason. let alone something so trivial as you don’t like the way someone dresses).
If she wasn’t acting like a bully you’d have had no reason to accuse her…she brought those harsh words upon herself. I feel sorry for your kids if that’s the way the most formative adult in their lives behaves.
I think that both of you have a communication problem. If you can’t be heard when you say “drop it, that makes me uncomfortable” and she keeps going, that’s a big issue. It’s also an issue that in order to be heard you go for her trigger points.
(I’m gonna call her Julia)
-Julia, C’mon now, how’d you feel if someone talked that way about you. You went through that pain, would you really want to put an innocent soul through that pain? You’re better than that. I know so.
Still NTA but I sympathize with your wife
Your wife is a MAJOR asshole, and you’re 100% NTA.
Your wife probably does this because she was bullied in her youth, so doing it to others makes her feel better about herself and her past.
Most importantly, I’m glad you stood up for L in front of your kids. They need to learn now that this kind of behaviour isn’t acceptable.
If the bully shoe fits…
She was essentially doing the thing that she was supposedly hurt by to someone else. You called her out on it, which is good. People need to understand how their actions affect others. Instead of being mad at you for defending someone, she should look inward to figure out why someone’s mere existence bothered her so much.
Ultimately, as a victim of bullying, she should understand the effect that words have on others. Going around and being cruel to your friends is unacceptable.
If what she endured was much worse than people saying snarky things behind her back then she’a probably upset because it feels like you’re minimizing what she went through.
edit: QUIT WASTING YOUR MONEY ON ME!
Sometimes the truth hurts. You asked her to stop (did you tell her that L was your friend) and she wouldn’t lay off. She may not like the feedback she received, but that’s mostly because a part of her knows it’s true.