'AITA for not wanting to close my girlfriend's closet?' GF RESPONDS

"AITA for not wanting to close my girlfriend's closet?"

My gf [24F] and I [23M] have been together for almost 3 yrs now. We get along well and didn't fight much which is why l'm confused over this situation. Gf lives on her own in apartment and works full time. Where as I am still living with my parents until I finish college. I was originally planning on moving in with my gf into her apartment once she renews her lease until we had our disagreement.

my gfs place is pretty basic, I guess you can say it's got a "modern and minimalist" look, that is until u go to her bedroom. 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.

To help with her anxiety she placed the stars as a guild to help her see if there was a silhouette either in front of the door or if the door was open? (idk if that makes sense). She said she only asked that I keep that door close especially at night.

I was understandable about the situation. So when I first spent the night over, I made sure to check if the closet was closed while she slept earlier. Months went by and there were instance where I did accidentally forgotto close it. She’d wake up the next day and ask me about it "hey did u forget to close the door last night.” I apologized for it, and she’d saying something like please don't forget next time.

I had no problem with it at first, though lately it's been getting annoying. It felt like that's all she wanted to talk about first thing in the morning. I voice my feelings on it one day and she just responded by saying "well then please close the door, it's not that hard. I sometimes deal with sleep paralysis" I got irritated by that because it felt like she just wanted a reason to nag me.

One day, I went over to visit her, I decided to purposely leave the closet door open while she slept in her bed while I slept on the living room couch just to see what would happen. assumed nothing happened since I didn't hear anything.

However the next day when I woke up, she was sitting at the kitchen table looking she had been crying since her eyes were puffy. Before I could even say a word she said "I've told you many times that I wanted that closet door closed. It's all I ever asked of you and you can't even do that".

Here's where I might be the ah, I got angry that she was already nagging me about this first thing in the morning so I 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 she needed to get over it. She told me to leave so I did because I was mad. It's been a week since then and I haven't heard anything from her.

I don't want to break up over this but I wanna know if what I said was wrong. My parents and friends are saying my gf is being dramatic but I want some unbiased opinions on the subject.

Edit: I want to clarify that my gf never leaves the closet door open. I would go in to get something and would occasionally forget but the door also makes this unbearable squeaking noise when you’re trying to close it back up. So that’s why I also leave it as it is.

Here's what people had to say:

CakeEatingRabbit 22984 wrote:

You judge her about wanting one thing for her comfort and are here whining about "she bothered me in the morning"? You being unable to think of one single, simple thing, is somehownher fault because she only expect this of you because she wants to nag you? Do you hear yourself?

You INTENTIONALLY went over to trigger her as some kind of revenge and when she is suffering, you again whine about "it being morning"? YTA

Wise-Championship745 said:

Maybe her therapist recommended it to her. Did you ask? And you’re clearly acting as if her trauma was something to get over it so easily. And since you’re treating it like it’s something minor, what was this trauma that she needs to “get over”?

Then, OP replied:

She said that her therapist recommended her putting something in the door to give her comfort. Like I said in another comment, I just think instead of being afraid she should face her fear

Wise-Championship745 said:

How?! She literally gets paralyzed from fear, what’s she supposed to do, not be paralyzed? And you still haven’t answered my question!

OP replied:

Like I said it’s not that big of a deal of what her trauma is.

Wise-Championship745 said::

No I want to hear it. Would you have been unfazed by what she went through? I don’t know what happened to that poor girl but dear lord I hope she finds someone better than your ignorant ass

OP replied:

She’s told me that a homeless man snuck into her parents home and hid in her closet and when she woke up she could see his eyes in the dark staring at her. He was, thankfully, arrested and nothing happened to her.

IntrovertedBookMan said:

YTA. She asked one simple thing of you that clearly means a great deal to her and is incredibly easy for you to comply with. You deliberately did what she asked you not to, as some sort of stupid test, then insulted her when she was upset by your actions. I doubt it matters whether or not YOU want to break up. It sounds to me as though your ex-GF has already made up her mind about the matter.

OP replied:

She’s not my ex. We haven’t broken up. And is it wrong to make sure someone isn’t lying about something so serious?

A few days later his girlfriend shared her side of the story: "I dumped my BF for leaving my closet door open."

My ex posted on aita with the “aita for not wanting to close my gfs closet” and I just wanted a place to respond. My now ex bf (23m) and I (24f) we were together for 2yrs, would’ve been 3yrs next month. We meet through a mutual friend (my roommate at the time) because of our similar interests.

• For context: I’ve lived in my apartment for about 4 yrs, the mutual friend stayed in the beginning but they move 3 yrs ago, so since then I’ve been living on my own. I was originally going to have my bf move in with me once my lease ended, but of course, change of plans.

• So my ex posted on aita for leaving my closet door open yet he missed very important details. One question the kept appearing was why didn’t 𝘐 close the door even though I👏NEVER👏LEAVE👏IT👏OPEN👏. Ever since I was little I’ve trained my brain to always make sure the closet door was closed.

I’ll add a TW here just in case, but when I was 6, I was sharing a room with my older sister, one night she went over her friends house for a sleepover. My parents and I got home a bit late. I remember it being hot since we had the ac on. I went to bed but was tossing and turning because it’s 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 hot. I kept hearing a noise from somewhere but wasn’t sure from where and just assumed it was the ac.

I laid on my back just staring at the roof and heard my closet door being open. My bed was faced towards the closet so when I moved my head down, I could see this old man coming out of it. I screamed and my parents came running in.

My dad grabbed me and I saw my mom hitting that man with one of her favorite pans. We called the police and later found out that the man was homeless, must’ve snuck in while we were away and hid in my closet when he heard my parents car come in.

Since then I’ve suffered from ptsd in fear of someone coming in my closet again. I slept with my parents for a few years after that. We moved to another state once I hit high school. Parents got me a therapist when the incident occurred and to this day, I’m still going to therapy.

I felt like it wasn’t working tho because it just like I was venting and the therapist would go “uh huh, and how does that make you feel?” Instead of suggesting something to help me. That was until my current therapist, she suggested that I could use something like a nightlight and place it by the closet, then I asked if I use something else like something that could stick onto the walls.

It was first these big glow in the dark Dino stickers. I felt kinda silly about it first when I did put it up but when I had my sleep paralysis, I was still scared but was now able to tell what was sleep and what wasn’t and fave me a sense of comfort. I changed the themes occasionally to dinos, planets, and now stars. For the past 7 years, it’s worked for me.

I moved out of my parents home at 20 to live in an apartment with my friend who I meet in college (I only went for 2 years). I explained to her about my situation because we shared a room and there’s only one closet. She understood me completely. She only ever left it open once when she came home from a Night Shift. She was remorseful and never did it again when she saw how bad I suffered from it.

Now to me ex: we pretty much clicked when we met. Had similar hobbies, liked exploring new foods, it was fun. I also told him about my trauma. Asked that I didn’t mind it being open during the day, but at night, it needs to be closed no matter what, he could still put or take something out of it but to close it back up. He complied throughout the entirety of our relationship.

It wasn’t until a few months ago where he started to act very controlling. He would say small comments about certain foods I would eat, like how it’s affect my liver or something and recommended other things.

I brushed it off thinking he’s just looking out for my health. It started getting to a point where he suggested I quit my job at one point when he finished college and moved in but I told him that it’d be beneficial for 𝘣𝘰𝘵𝘩 of us to be working.

He never asked again, however he did start asking things like if I could cook for him even though I said I was tired from work, would I stop working if he made enough money for the both of us, if I still wanted kids. I think he wanted to ask me to be become a stay at home wife/mother but I could be over analyzing.

• On the night before we broke up: when he decided to “test me”, I had the worst hallucinations since I was a teenager. I wake up, see the door open, and start to imagine the man I saw all those years ago.

When I woke the next day it was around 4 am, I was able to move and started to cry immediately to a point where I couldn’t shred anymore tears and apart from the migraine from crying too hard, I felt a numbness. So when he woke up a few hours late I waited for him in the kitchen just honestly feeling tired, I didn’t yell just spoke in a monotone voice.

I told him how I had one rule and that was to close the door, he got defensive saying he felt like I was lying about my trauma just to see if he would care for me. I told him to leave while I thought things over. I never ignored him and he never texted me the whole week.

But now I know for sure that there’s no saving this relationship. And you can get your stuff from your brother, I already told him what you did. So good luck. 👍 I’ll be moving in with my sister out of town, I’m not renewing my lease, I just want to be with people who actually support me.

In the comments, she shared her answers to some common questions she's been getting:

Why did he keep going in the closet? I feel like ppl are assuming he would go in at every hour but no he would just come in to get his text book if he was studying an exam. And it was like once every few weeks and I’d still be would be awake watching a movie on my phone.

Why didn't I close the door? I do, I always do. Right before I go to bed, first thing I do is close the closet. It’s like if you turn on the lights, YOU who turned it on is YOU who will turn it off. Why am I going to get up from bed to close the closet if he’s the one who left it open, especially if I’m dealing with sleep paralysis.

What was his alternative? He commented on how the closet squeaks, I told that I did find it annoying at first when I move here but our friend said that it’d be a good way to heard if someone was moving it. So this is why it was never really fixed. He wanted to remove the door or put a lock on it. I told him that although I did want to put locks , my landlord wouldn’t allow any changes to the any of the door knobs.

Are we still together? NOOOOOOO. Are his friends and family on his side? No, turns out his just told them that I got angry about him leaving the door opens once. Never mentioned why.

Of course, her boyfriend commented on her post:

So you had time to make a post about me but can’t even answer the phone?

His (ex) girlfriend replied:

Shoot, I forgot to block you on here too