Relationships

Woman Leaves Husband In Grocery Store Because He Won’t Stop Using Baby Talk

As the pandemic continues, couples are dealing with all sorts of stress. Sometimes, stress causes annoying or enraging behaviors. Or you’re constantly around this person and small things start to bother you more than usual.

What if your partner picked up a super embarrassing habit that causes you to leave them at the grocery store and refuse to have sex with them? That’s the problem one Redditor is facing. Seems that her husband started talking “baby talk,” and it’s driving her mad. 

“We all go through phases and pick up annoying habits, and sometimes we just need our loved ones to gently tell us if we’ve picked up a particularly egregious habit. Sometime in the last year, my husband has picked up a habit where he talks like a baby. At first it was funny, but passed into embarrassing, cringeworthy behavior quickly. Examples: doggo, pupper, woofer/subwoofer, pibble, hooty-boy, peepo, birb, meowmeow, sammy, sammiches, sammywhammy, chicky nuggies, chicky tendies, adding a toddleresque “lisp” to words, and the ones that really get gross are childish euphemisms for genitalia or sex,” the OP writes. “We have not had sex for six months because he cannot stop talking about my ‘boobies’ and it makes me sick.” 

“I don’t know where it came from. I don’t know why he’s doing this. I finally hit my limit when we were grocery shopping and everything seemed normal and fine until he gasped like a kid, ran to the ice cream section and jumped up and down yelling ‘ICE CWEAM ICE CWEAM! I WANT CHOCWIT!’ I was MORTIFIED. People were staring at him and me. He kept going and kept saying ‘CAN WE GET POPSICOOOS?’ and I just said, ‘Either talk to me like an adult or I’m leaving.’ 

The OP’s husband told her to lighten up, which caused the OP to leave the store and walk the mile home because she “couldn’t even look at him.” 

“Since then, things have been very tense, and he keeps telling me that he wants an apology for embarrassing him by leaving him in the store. I told him that people don’t get to demand apologies, if someone wants to apologize, it’s up to them, and I am absolutely not going to apologize for saving myself the embarrassment of a 35 year old man with a mortgage and retirement account asking for ‘CHOCWIT ICE CWEAM.’ He got his f***ing Mom involved, no joke. She keeps telling me it’s just a phase and that he’s probably bored and I should be happy this is his midlife crisis, rather than him f***ing 19 year olds at the local bar.”  

The OP says she is going crazy. What should she do? 

“I’d sit him down and have a serious heart to heart. I did not marry a toddler. I married an adult partner to build a life with. I have told you repeatedly that this is not a joke, I find it annoying (and whatever other adjectives you’d like), and it has caused me to lose all sexual attraction to you and not having sex for 6 months is a problem. And instead of modifying your behavior and trying to respect my feelings you bring in your mother to our relationship ship to justify your actions. If you are truly a little boy who wants his mommy you can pack up your stuff and live with her. If you are interested in saving this marriage, you will not only go to a regular doctor for a check up to make sure there isn’t some underlying medical condition for this change in behavior you will start marriage counseling with me immediately. So if this behavior is in response to some subconscious need you are not having met, we can figure it out together. These are your options. Fight for our marriage as an adult or be a child that’s not old enough for any sort of meaningful relationship and go live with your mother,” advised Befub14435. 

“Encourage him to go to the doctor. With the sudden change in his behavior you’re continuing talks to him about it and six months without sex and he still hasn’t admitted there’s a problem. he needs checked out there might be something serious medically going on,” suggested Captain_no_legs. 

“This is not the first post I’ve seen on AITA that sounds like a low-key psychological break brought on by lockdown. There seems to be a sharp increase in people suddenly acting out with seemingly-benign but very bizarre behaviors and digging their heels in for no reason when they’re called out. It doesn’t sound like an organic problem because he can ‘turn it off’ and is clearly aware of it and willing to argue about it, but being so stubborn about such a strange and antisocial fixation definitely makes me think there’s some deeper psychological issue stewing under the surface,” said hyperotretian. 

“NTA, what the actual f***. My boyfriend and I are in our thirties and will admit that our speech can be fairly young – there are doggos, things with cronch, and our pet name for each other is a similar cutesy derivative. But that’s, you know, at home. And we’re both down for it! What boggles my mind is when people say, ‘I can’t believe you’re making a big deal about X!’ when the issue is actually, ‘I have told you repeatedly that X action bothers me a lot, but you keep doing it. Why aren’t you respecting my boundaries?’ Legit though, I feel like he needs some individual counseling,” said Blueberry_Lemon_Cake. 

“If it’s a fetish he needs to be upfront about it. At this point, since he is being a baby I would send him to live with mommy. NTA,” said SwiggyBloodlust. 

“I saw an uptick of this gross speaking when the Teletubbies came out. I have actually, stopped talking to ppl for less. But very much NTA, you’ve spoken to him, the joke it not funny anymore. It reminds me of when a little kid does something that is funny once, and can’t let it go after all the funny has been drained from it,” noted Noirjyre. 

“As someone in the age regression community I’m wondering if It started with quarantine? Sometimes people age regress due to stress. It happens more often than people want to think or admit. I talk “little” with my boyfriend almost all the time. But never outside… (it’s not a sexual thing either) PLEASE get your husband a doctors appointment and into some therapy. If he is age regressing due to stress I can already tell you are 100% not someone safe for him to be around right now mentally. I know I’ll probably get crucified for this but I don’t particularly care. He responded angrily and defensively because it’s a comping mechanism. AGE REGRESSION AND LITTLE TALK IS A COPING MECHANISM,” said Raineydays1998.

What would you tell the OP to do in this situation?

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Patricia Grisafi

Patricia Grisafi, PhD, is a freelance writer and educator. Her work has appeared in Salon, Vice, Bitch, Bustle, Broadly, The Establishment, and elsewhere. She is passionate about pit bull rescue, cursed objects, and designer sunglasses.