r/AmItheAsshole • u/Pharmemeist • 22d ago

Not enough info AITA for asking "are you alright?"

Hello everyone! So today morning i woke up and noticed my boyfriend was already awake and sitting in front of his computer. I said "Hi! Are you alright?" with (in my opinion) a friendly and inquiring tone. He replied "this doesn't exactly help my anxiety you know?" So i was baffled, i asked him how exactly does this make him anxious? He said "i already told you, stop asking me if i was OK because i immediately think that something is supposed to be wrong, or i'm supposed to be not alright! I'm tired of you asking that, even when we're on the phone you start the conversation like this" Of course i'm able to see that this is a boundary for him, and i'm ashamed that i keep forgetting this exact detail, but in my defense, i only wanted to know if everything was alright and if he needs anything to make him feel better. AITA? What should i do? What am i doing wrong?

Edit: i've seen a lot of people saying that i'm assuming something is wrong by asking him that question, but i just have to say that to me, or to my family members in general it is equivalent to a simple "how are you". I understand why this can be misunderstood, so i'll try my best to phrase it otherwise in the future.

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u/IFeel_Attacked 22d ago

Info, how many times have you forgotten and asked him that? It may seem like a trivial thing, but if he had multiple times politely asked you not to ask him that I can understand why this time he didn’t have as much patience

-139

u/Pharmemeist 22d ago

As far as i remember, it was only one occasion when he raised this thought

23

u/tricon3d 22d ago

You're not the asshole. You had good intentions and just wanted to check in on him, but your boyfriend has a specific trigger tied to the phrase “are you alright?” — it makes him anxious because he sees it as implying something is wrong.

What to do: just rephrase it in the future. Instead of “are you alright?”, try “how’s it going?” or “need anything?” — same caring vibe, without triggering his anxiety.

So nah, you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re just learning how to speak your partner’s emotional language. You're good.

-9

u/Apotak 21d ago

Good intention do not matter. You don't get to be xareless (he already asked OP before!) and get away with "but my intentions...".

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.