The post was shared on Reddit’s Am I The A****** (AITA) subforum with the title “AITA for leaving my girlfriend behind because she was taking too long to get ready?” In the post, user Junior-Coyote-5116 said she got “really annoyed” at her girlfriend, Hannah, after the user’s repeated reminders that they needed to leave soon to avoid being late for the wedding.
She later told Hannah that she’d leave without her if she wasn’t ready in 10 minutes. “I don’t think she believed me: she just laughed and told me I’m being silly. I ended up leaving without her because by 11:30 she was still in her pjs. I managed to get to the wedding on time and it was great,” the original poster said.
But after the ceremony, the user noticed Hannah had been “blowing up” on the user’s phone and accused the user of being “a selfish jerk.”
Hannah, who was allegedly “screaming” on the phone, told the user that she is “obsessed with being ‘ridiculously early to things.’” She said the user needs to be “more understanding,” claiming that if she had waited five minutes, she would’ve been ready.
The user said: “Since then, Hannah has been ignoring me and I’m wondering if I was in the wrong.”
Was It Wrong To Leave the Girlfriend Behind?
Emma Jackson (E.J.) Smith, a licensed professional counselor in private practice in the U.S., told Newsweek that there are several other questions to look at before determining whether the user’s behavior was wrong or not.
Smith asked: “What do we mean by wrong? Was it wrong to leave the girlfriend behind? Would it be more wrong to miss someone’s wedding?
“Let’s look at it in a different way—did that decision meet their goal? If the person wanted to preserve their relationship with their girlfriend, then the move was perhaps not most aligned with that goal.
“If the person wanted to honor their commitment and desire to see their friend get married, then it might have been the right move for them, even if it caused their partner pain.”
A March 2021 study in the peer-reviewed Journal of Family Issues said: “Understanding how conflict sources affect relationships may help couples navigate conflict to preserve the relationship.”
The study found that “communications was the most frequently reported conflict topic for all couples.”
Time management was also among the common conflict topics reported among the couples in the study, along with personal/partner habits, household chores, finances, decision-making, quality time, sex, screen time and role expectations.
Time management was “positively associated with relationship satisfaction” as well as “associated with a decrease in dysfunctional conflict behaviors,” according to the study.
Not Communicating Love and Respect
According to the original poster, Hannah, who is “super into makeup and hair,” was still not ready at 11:20 a.m., after allegedly being reminded at 10:30 a.m., 10:50 a.m. and 11 a.m. that they needed to leave soon as it was a two-hour drive to the wedding, which began at 2 p.m.
The user explained: “I started getting panicky and told Hannah to please hurry up. Hannah got mad and said that she’s told me she’s nearly ready.”
According to Smith: “We can’t know if the girlfriend fundamentally feels or doesn’t feel for the [original] poster, their words or their wishes in general.”
“What we do know is that her behavior did not leave the poster feeling like their words or wishes were respected” and “that her behavior did not communicate love and respect,” which may or may not have been intentional, the counselor said.
How Could This Have Been Better Handled?
A better way to handle the latest situation may have been to “sit down together and discuss the logistics for the trip,” Smith advised. “Make sure the partner understands the importance of this wedding and the partner’s value of being on time.”
Then the couple could have taken steps to “problem solve together,” the counselor noted.
“I am someone who is chronically late if left to my own devices. I’ve often had partners who valued punctuality. In an effort to respect their need for punctuality, I have often had to set alarms or other reminders for myself. If the situation unfolded as it did [in the latest post], it might have made more sense to let the girlfriend know they were leaving,” Smith said.
Is There Another Underlying Issue at Play?
Smith said: “Yes, I would say that there is likely something else going on here and this particular situation is the most visible symptom. At minimum, it sounds like there might be a communication gap. Or maybe there’s an issue with feeling respected or having their (either partner) needs met.”
Smith thinks both partners may need to re-evaluate how they feel about the relationship and whether it’s a good fit for them.
“Not whether they are a bad person, or the other person is a bad person, but simply—is this person a good fit for me? Are they aligned with my values? It doesn’t sound like the poster feels that way,” the counselor said.
She Disrespected Your Time
Several Redditors sided with the original poster in the latest viral post.
In a comment that got 22,700 upvotes, user Glass_Status_5837 said the original poster was “NTA [not the a******]. To people saying you were being too conservative are the ones who are habitually late…You gave her a time to be ready. Even pushed it back by half an hour. She needed to start getting ready earlier. She disrespected your time. That is what it is. Disrespect.”
User DNRmyDNA agreed, saying: “She had time and she knew it was important. She clearly didn’t bother caring about OP [original poster] putting in the time limit because she went over it. By at least a half hour, if not more. You don’t agree to be ready by x time and keep getting ready past it. And to get mad at OP for being ‘conservatively early’? So what? OP plans for the unexpected, like a traffic jam or a pee break…,” in a comment that received 5,500 upvotes.
User kouturecrochet said: “Sorry but how do [you] not realize that it’s 11:10 and it’s 10 minutes after you should have left and there is a person telling you that. She realized. She just didn’t care.”
Newsweek has contacted the original poster for comment.
