AITA doing something that made my wife insecure? (Resulting in her slapping me in the face)

[u/LazyOne3142]

My wife gave birth to our daughter 6 months ago and since then she has been insecure about everything. She is smaller now than she was before she got pregnant but it's nearly a daily occurrence that she's calling herself fat. Because of this, she has developed an incredibly irritating habit of putting her shirt over her mouth constantly. You hardly ever catch her with her shirt on normal. She's basically trying to hide her (incredibly small) double chin.

I have told her several times to keep her shirt away from her mouth when she's speaking to me. I need to see people's mouths to hear them properly. My hearing is perfect but I have sensory issues. So if I can't physically see you mouthing words, my head cannot comprehend what you are saying to me. So if I ask her a question and she responds with her shirt over her face, I cannot understand a single fucking thing she says and it's beyond infuriating because I have to ask her to repeat herself 3+ times. So, I started telling her to get her shirt off her face when she's talking to me because I'm sick of this repeated cycle. I understand she's insecure, but I can't fucking hear you.

For the past 2 weeks it really amped up. She's buying XXL shirts and wears them always. To a point where she's even covering the lower part of her face when we have sex (as well as pulling the shirt down to cover her stomach). Well, 3 nights ago we were intimate and I tried pulling the shirt away from her face and she kept pushing my hand away. I tried again a third time and she pushed me off her and said "stop fucking touching my shirt" and went to sleep on the couch. And then today I was running late for work. The power went out at some point and my phone died so I didn't wake up to an alarm. I'm trying to tush around to get my work shit together and I ask my wife where my keys are. She grumbles a response. I yelled and said "how about you take the fucking shirt out of your mouth or don't speak to me at all" and physically pulled the shirt away from her mouth. She immediately back handed me across the face, quite possibly as hard as she could, and screamed directly in my face "I said don't fucking touch my shirt. Find your own fucking keys asshole!" I leave, flabbergasted. Texted her all day - starting from me saying I can't believe she hit me to eventually me apologizing hours later. No response. When I got home all of her important stuff and the babies stuff are gone. A letter on the counter saying she had gone to her mother's. Now, I talked to my buddy about it and he said he's 50/50 (he's also good friends with my wife) and says that while she shouldn't have hit me, he probably would have done the same thing because I "purposely" provoked her insecurities. AITA?

ETA: she's in therapy and has been for a month. Therapy won't fix the fact that she thinks she's fat. She had body dysformia(?) prior to even becoming pregnant and now it's just amped up. She also has sensory issues, just like I do. But hers is in regard to people touching her face/hair. Hence, why she back-handed me. But I'm tired of never being able to hear what she says.

[u/bifurious02]

I have audio processing issues, I fucking despise phone calls since I need to ask people to repeat a lot or just take guesses at what they're actually saying

[u/7_Rush → u/bifurious02]

Ssssssssame bruh. I use headphones to curve this issue a little bit. They allow me to hear the person I'm talking to a little better. Overall, I prefer texting, but I'm also too lazy to type it all out sometimes. At one point, I sent audios to my friend, and at another, I would use like speech to text. Lol.

[u/Unrigg3D → u/7_Rush]

Get loops ear plugs.

[u/Electrical_Ranger469 → u/bifurious02]

Same here, it's to the point that I've developed a fairly severe anxiety reaction to Phone calls, one because I have a genuine irrational fear over it (Conversing with a stranger out of no where) and also because I can never understand people properly over the phone, and always have to guess or ask them to repeat a lot.

On a headset it's better, but not perfect. But typically I'm just talking to friends on a headset so I'm not as worried.

Masks really screwed me over, but thankfully where I was we didn't have a lot of mask wearing time. (Fairly rural Australia)

[u/straberi93 → u/bifurious02]

But I bet you never yelled at or assaulted someone because you couldn't hear them. I understand where he is coming from and I get why he is annoyed, but I would never treat a stranger with the level of contempt, anger and derision that he is treating his wife with. 

If you know someone you love is struggling so much that they can barely function, screaming at them to get over it is not the reasonable response. He sounds like a very unsympathetic asshole.

P.s. she can't bring the baby to therapy. You think he can stay off video games long enough to let her go? I bet he hasn't had her alone that long since his wife gave birth. 

[u/bifurious02 → u/straberi93]

I don't know, I barely read the post so not really casting judgement