AITAH for learning a foreign language without telling my wife?

A Reddit user shares their experience of learning Spanish in secret for a year without telling their wife, who is Japanese. After struggling with learning Japanese due to a learning disability and previous difficulties with English, the user decided to study Spanish, assuming it would be easier. Not wanting to create pressure or disappointment if they failed again, they kept their studies hidden.

After a year of successful learning, they finally told their wife, who became upset—not about the choice of language, but about the secrecy. The user wonders if they were wrong for keeping this secret. Read the full story below to understand their dilemma.

‘ AITAH for learning a foreign language without telling my wife?’

English is my native language, and I struggled to learn it due to a learning disability. As a child I studied Spanish in school, but suffered from a combination of my disability and learned helplessness. Needless to say, I never really learned spanish.

Fast forward 15 years, and I’ve been happily married for four years. My wife is Japanese, so naturally I tried to learn Japanese to share a bit of her language and culture with her. I’ve tried off and on to learn Japanese for around two years, but I always fell off the wagon after a month or two and never made much progress.

A year ago I decided to learn Spanish on a whim. I knew it would be easier than Japanese, and I secretly hoped that I would actually be able to learn it since my struggles with English as a child have made my monolingualism a source of insecurity.

I didn’t tell my wife when I started for two reasons. First, I expected to fail like I had failed many times before with Japanese and didn’t want to make learning Spanish into a “thing” only to abandon it shortly after. Second, I thought that my wife would be disappointed or even offended that I was investing my time into learning Spanish instead of Japanese.

To my surprise, I actually stuck to learning Spanish and made progress, and before I knew it I was 6 months into studying it and could actually understand intermediate level Spanish. I thought about telling my wife then, but wasn’t sure how to break the news.

Another 6 months later and while my Spanish is far from perfect, I’m around a B2 level and can converse, watch TV, and read comfortably in Spanish.

I finally broke the news to my wife and she was pissed. According to her, she’s less upset about me learning Spanish instead of Japanese, and more upset about me never mentioning that I’ve been learning it over the past year. From her perspective I basically lied to her for an entire year.

This is sort of true, but on the other hand, if I had spent the last year mastering Tetris without telling her I don’t think she would feel the same way. For that reason, I feel like deep down she’s really upset that I learned Spanish instead of Japanese, even though the two languages are vastly different in terms of difficulty for an native English speaker.. AITAH?

Here’s the feedback from the Reddit community:

applebum8807 −  I think YTA. You reasons for not telling her was valid in the short term, but definitey not for a whole ass year. It’s concerning behavior when someone goes out of their way to hide even harmless things to their spouse for such a long period of time.
If you could hide this from your wife for a year, you could hide almost anything. It’s not a good look.

EDIT: For the people spamming “he didn’t LIE, he just never TOLD HER!” Don’t get married, heck, if you think this, you are nowhere near mature enough to be in a relationship.

EDIT 2: Because many people seem to have missed it. OP does admit in another comment chain that he had let his wife think he had taken on extra hours or that he was going to the gym while taking lessons.. That is what one would call lying.

originalfeatures −  INFO. I just don’t even understand how you were able to put in the time and effort necessary to attain an intermediate level of understanding within 6 mos without her knowing.

We are all e**itled to some degree of privacy and independence in our relationships, but what kind of lies must you have been telling? Did you regularly say you were at the pub w friends, or working late, when you were really at class or the library? I can see how that would undermine trust.

Illustrious-Fox-1 −  Soft YTA. You basically had an emotional affair with the Duolingo owl.
According to your comments, you spent an additional 1-2 hours in the office every day learning Spanish and concealed it from her for months. That is enough reason to feel hurt.

At the very least, you could have told her “I have a new hobby project I’m working on at the office after hours, so just let me know if you want me to come home on time.”

I also disagree with the people who say choosing another language is a neutral option when your wife speaks Japanese. If there’s no pressing need to learn Spanish for work or migration, prioritising Spanish does mean you chose hobby value over deepening ties with her and her family by showing a commitment to their language and culture. That’s fine, but you shouldn’t expect her to be excited about it.

Unrelated_gringo −  INFO : Why are you explaining all of this as if you **had** to hide stuff from her? It makes no sense. You even include another example of unnecessary hiding from her as a defense.

What makes you want to hide so much things from the person you love most on earth? Also, when do you do those things? Aren’t you absent during the courses/lessons? Do you lie to her about where you go or what you do?

recoveringchurchgirl −  INFO: during this year that you spent leading Spanish, did you have to lie to your wife to be able to have the time, because that might be why she’s mad. If she’s looking back over the past year and realizing that you lied to her all this time when you told her what you were doing, where you were, ect and not necessarily mad that you learned Spanish?

Acciosab −  I don’t think you’re an a**hole for choosing Spanish over japanese. But keeping a secret from your partner is a little s**tty, especially a year.

While I completely understand your intention, that’s still tough on her side to feel like you didn’t trust her with something you’re proud of doing. She would have understood if you communicated and shared your fears. If not, then that’s another conversation worth having.

mother-of-trouble −  NTA, you did something to give yourself a little challenge and this thing has zero impact on your life or relationship. If this were my husband, I might be surprised but I don’t see what there is to be mad about. Especially if the fact you didn’t learn her mother tongue is not the issue.

andr386 −  I’ve always had this concept of a secret garden in my relationships. I don’t need or am e**itled to know everything about my partner. I am taking the person as is. Unless something in their past is relevant it doesn’t need to be revealed unless they want to.

I adhere to the similitude with playing Tetris here. I see nothing wrong in learning a foreign language. It’s not relevant to her at all in any ways. She didn’t even realize it. She didn’t suffer from it. What does she have to complaint ?

wildflower7827 −  NTA – I can relate to why you didn’t tell her, I understand the struggles of having a learning disability. I can also imagine that you didn’t tell anyone that you were giving this a go for the same reason so keeping it from her was nothing personal.

It’s also the same as trying to quit doing something, like smoking or drinking (etc), if you tell it’s a lot of pressure and people tend to give you a hard time if you give up. I think if you want to do something to better yourself and it doesn’t impact someone else’s life, they don’t have the right to get mad about it.

Own_Reflection3428 −  NTA, it’s not like you didn’t tell her something major. You were learning a language, for goodness sake. Honestly, I think if people think you’re an AH for this, then they haven’t experienced things that are genuinely an issue. Would I be surprised if I were your wife? Sure, but annoyed is a bit much.