Making my boyfriend cry because of a joke I made about his clothes?
I (24F) moved in with my boyfriend (22M) about a week ago.
We were tidying and organizing our clothes in the wardrobe when i indicated him that i left two free drawers for his underwear and socks, he said he wouldn’t need them because all of his went to laundry, then I asked jokingly “do You only own 3 of each?”.
After this he said yes and left the room, went to the bathroom and locked himself for an hour, then when he went out he sat on the floor in a corner with a “sad face” for almost a whole other hour.
I kept organizing things and then proceeded to clean the rest of the apartment just ignoring it.
I was truly cringed out about his attitude and left the appartment as soon as I finished cleaning.
EDIT: He doesn’t come from a poor family and he has a full time job and very little economic responsibilities, he can afford to buy underwear.
Netizens’ comments
- This is an Orange flag… not the sad sack thing, more about not having purchased sufficient clothing for himself even though he has the means. That reads to me that it’s likely this was always done for him. I’m NOT blaming his mother, some people just have a failure to launch into adulthood right away.
If you haven’t already, I think you need to have an honest conversation about expectations and responsibilities for the house and to each other. You’re his partner, not his parent. - INFO: has he explained why this made him so sad? You said in a comment that he can afford to buy more, so why would your joking hurt his feelings so much?
- This sounds super weird, like he has some sort of trauma regarding clothing. You said he didn’t grow up poor, but what is/was his relationship with his parents? Could it be that they were bizarrely strict about things like clothing, or spending money on clothing? Did he get punished for tearing his clothes? I got beat by my stepmom for things like staining a towel when I was young.
At any rate you need to use your words, and try to work on this with him, because you already sound frustrated. Living together is only going to exacerbate these issues if you don’t figure out what’s going on.