Man Leaves His Girlfriend's Closet Door Open On Purpose Despite Knowing It Triggers Her — 'She Needs To Get Over What Happened To Her As A Kid'
He left the closet door open, she left him out on the curb.
Ground Picture via Shutterstock / Reddit A man on Reddit recently posted about an argument that he and his girlfriend had gotten into. He decided to take this argument into the “r/AmItheA--hole” forum, where people decide who is in the wrong in a given situation. He claimed to not understand the reason this issue became an argument in the first place, but Redditors were quickly able to humble him into deleting his post after collectively agreeing he was ultimately in the wrong.
The man asked if he was wrong for not wanting to close his girlfriend’s closet door while she slept.
The 23-year-old man explained in a Reddit post recounted on TikTok that he and his 24-year-old girlfriend had been together for almost 3 years now, and although they didn’t fight much and got along well, this one thing seems to have driven a wedge between them — and rightfully so.
“[My girlfriend] lives on her own in [an] apartment and works full-time, whereas I am still living with my parents until I finish college,” he writes in the now-deleted post. “I was originally planning on moving in with my gf into her apartment once she renews her lease until we had our disagreement.”
Their disagreement? Keeping the closet door closed.
He writes, “There’s a lot of these glow-in-the-dark stars all over her closet door and wall. I remember when I asked her about it she told me that when she was young she experienced a traumatic event.”
According to her, the glow-in-the-dark stars act as a guide to help her see in the dark at night in order to reassure her that there are no silhouettes either in front of the door or if the door were open.
He continued leaving the closet door open despite her anxiety.
“There were instances where I did accidentally forget to close it. She’d wake up the next day and ask me about it, ‘hey did you forget to close the door last night.’” he explains. “I apologized for it, and she’d [say] something like please don’t forget next time.” Except, he did.
He claims that lately, it’s been getting “annoying” for him and that it seems like that’s all she wants to talk about first thing in the morning.
“Well then please close the door, it’s not that hard. I sometimes deal with sleep paralysis,” she told him, but all he thought was that she just wanted a reason to nag him. Brilliantly, he decided to purposely leave the door open one night as he slept on the couch. He awoke to his puffy-eyed girlfriend sitting at the kitchen table.
“I’ve told you many times that I wanted that closet door closed,” she said. “It’s all I ever asked of you and you can’t even do that.” He flipped out on her, and told her that “she’s a grown woman and can’t rely on some dumb stickers to help her over something that happened to her years ago, and that she needed to get over it.”
She told him to get out, and he hasn’t heard from her in over a week, so it’s safe to say that in the minds of everyone else besides him, they’ve broken up, but he doesn’t seem to think so. Regardless of what his opinion on their relationship is, everyone agreed that they should no longer be together and that he’s a major “a--hole.”
Successful relationships rely on mutual respect.
If your partner asks you to do something, you should be inclined to listen. Successful relationships require trust, communication, and mutual respect. When your partner communicates to you one of her traumas and something that you can do to ensure her trauma isn't triggered, you should just follow through.
Despite not understanding her, or maybe even thinking her coping mechanism is silly, he should have put the effort into making her feel safe and understanding that it means something to her. Loving her means respecting the boundary that she has created. She wants things to be a certain way in her own home, and her boyfriend should be more than happy to oblige by her wishes, especially when it costs nothing to him.
Instead, he was worried about himself and the way he felt because of how she reacted to his disregard for her emotions and trauma.
People agreed that the man didn't handle the situation the right way.
While exposure therapy can be an effective means of getting over fears, this man is not qualified to be giving any sort of advice or treat her trauma. Her method of coping works for her and is harming absolutely nobody, so next time, he should just listen.
Photo: TikTok / @bridge_truth
“I'm completely disgusted by you,” one commenter wrote, cruelly. “Your GF is supposed to be someone you love and care about, but you don't care about her trauma at all. I hope she's dumping you. I hope she finds a partner who loves her and that you can't sucker her back into a relationship.”
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor for YourTango who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics.