AITA because I will not watch anything more complicated than a Hallmark movie with my wife?

A Reddit user shares his frustrations over watching complex movies with his wife, who struggles to keep up with intricate plots. Although he appreciates her intelligence in many areas, he finds it easier to stick to simpler movies they can both enjoy.

However, after a recent experience watching a challenging film with friends, she’s upset and feels he’s underestimating her by choosing only straightforward films. Is he being unfair by avoiding complex movies with her?

‘ AITA because I will not watch anything more complicated than a Hallmark movie with my wife?’

I love my wife. She is intelligent, and sweet. Also she is beautiful inside and out. She teaches high school English and Social Studies. She loves novels and usually has several on the go.

However she cannot follow the plot of a movie to save her life. Unless it is about a big city lawyer visiting her home town to shut down the local factory but instead reconnecting with her high school boyfriend who is also the local baker and mayor.

I’ve known this about her for years and I have accepted it. I just like vegging with her so I am happy to see white people rediscovering the magic of Christmas. Or whatever.

When we were dating we watched The Matrix. The questions she asked had me wondering about her. Ditto for anything complex. Even The Usual Suspects where they lay everything out for you she didn’t get the ending.

We had her sister and brother-in-law over for a couples night on Friday. We made supper and the plan was to watch a movie. Hee sister wanted to watch Shutter Island. I will not spoil it but the movie has many twists. The ending is awesome.

I tried my best to suggest anything else. The new Laura Dern movie where she bangs the kid from Hunger Games. They all ganged up on me and said we were watching Shutter Island.

My wife proceeded to embarrass herself by not understanding the ending and asking questions that were not great.
Her sister and her husband were looking at my wife like she was Simple Jack. I tried my best to cover for her or telling her I would explain it later. She got mad at me for not just answering her questions.

After they left she started in in me. She said that she noticed that we always watched a certain kind of movie and that she thought I enjoyed them. I said I did because we got to spend time together and that mad me happy.

She said that she was not an i**ot and that she just didn’t concentrate on movies. She recited the plots of several novels to prove her point. I said that I had never commented on her intelligence and that ahe was smarter than me. She says that I’m a j**k for not watching movies I enjoy with her.

So I agreed and we watched Memento today. I think her head almost exploded from bot asking questions. I saw her on Wikipedia reading the plot.
AITA for intentionally not watching complicated movies with my wife?

Here’s what people had to say to OP:

aldergirl −  NAH. I can understand why you picked movies you could both enjoy, and I can see why she might be a bit miffed at the miscommunication.
Having said that, maybe she’s already found the solution to the problem. You both watch the complex movie together, and then she reads the plot summary so she can process the information in a way that makes sense to her. Then she doesn’t have to ask questions, and you can both enjoy movies together.

Depending on how her brain works, she might even enjoy reading the plot summary first, and then watching it with you. She might be able to enjoy the movie even more. It’d be like when you watch a movie about a book you read, but this time everything is accurate because the “book” is the plot summary.

DissconnectNotReady −  Have you tried turning on the captions? She might process information by reading so that could help her. Also if you always watch with them on, maybe that’s what’s distracting her. I know I miss some scenes because I’m busy reading, I have to rewind it a bit.

nblackhand −  INFO: Did she “embarrass herself” or were *you* embarrassed on her behalf? By which I mean, was she upset by not understanding the movie, or just by the way you were reacting? How sure are you that the negative vibe you got from her sister was about her asking dumb questions and not her sister being concerned about you trying to shut her down?

Like, there’s no way she and her *sister* haven’t watched movies together before, right, her habit of wanting movie plots explained while watching them cannot possibly have been news.

It’s fine and normal to not prefer to try to answer questions while you’re trying to enjoy a movie, but imo you should try to separate the issue of what *you* need in order to enjoy a movie from the question of whether simpler movies are also to *her* benefit.

If she enjoys watching complicated movies so long as she has someone to talk through them with, that’s a different problem from her not wanting to watch them because it’s stressful to try to follow but feeling obliged for other people’s enjoyment.

Organic_Draft_4578 −  Not sure how to vote, but leaning towards YTA. While it does sound annoying for you, the way you talk about your wife is kinda condescending.

It’s like you think that because she has trouble following one specific type of movie (cerebral + plot twisty) that she can only handle crappy chick flicks (AND you’re embarrassed for her by that). You also basically talked down to her in front of her sister and BIL. Are you even so sure they really thought she was so stupid? Or that they were that bothered by her not getting the twist?

What I really don’t get is this: why is the only alternative to movies with plot twists designed to mess with your head Hallmark movies?
Like, there are plenty of other genres out there. Pick something better than Hallmark but with not so many plot twists. It can’t be that hard.

(Or, as someone else suggested, if you HAVE to pick something with a big reveal at the end, let her read the plot summary on IMDB either before or after the movie so she can process it better.)

No_Beautiful5200 −  YTA. There are so many good movies out there. But all of your examples are from the 2% of movies that are deliberately confusing or known for their plot twists. If you look at IMDB’s “Best Movies of all time,” while I strongly disagree with the list, I’m sure she’d be fine the large majority of movies there.

It comes across like you’re searching hard for some way to put her down. You’re embarrassed by her because she didn’t get the plot twists of Shutter Island? She likes to watch movies, it’s an activity you do with friends, but she’s only capable of movies that are famously stupid?

Ok_Homework_7621 −  NAH. It’s actually not uncommon to process written language better than spoken. I’m not as severe as your wife, but if I have the option, I always go for subtitles. And yes, sometimes I need to read something for it to sink in. I can’t listen to podcasts, they are like an annoying itch in my head.

I’m just a bit surprised she’s not more aware of the issue. Maybe she can talk to her GP? Sometimes the upside is mostly some tools and tips on managing her condition to make it easier.

Sigh_Bapanaada −  YTA for selecting Memento as the film you tried to bring her in on for the first one, you knew what you were doing and there are hundreds of brilliant films that don’t completely challenge how films are structured.

Why not just be done with it and choose Tenet? Some films are hard to pick everything up on first time and Nolan is a master at this. Very unfair thing to do imo. Should’ve picked a good film without an intentionally complicated structure.

Reina_Royale −  YTA. It’s small and you can come back from it, but there are things to address:
1. It doesn’t sound like you ever tried to talk to her about this. Adults communicate. You didn’t.

2. It seems like your plan was to watch a kind of movie that neither of you particularly enjoyed. Thus, neither of you got any enjoyment out of it. This is a terrible plan.

3. Her sister is definitely aware of your wife’s tendency to ask questions during movies. I doubt she was surprised and I’m sure she wasn’t thinking she’s dumb like you assumed she did.

4. This whole things comes off as you believing it’s an intelligence issue instead of anything else. And that’s not a great way to think about your wife.
Ultimately, it’s just kind of condescending. That, plus your failure to actually communicate the problem means she’s totally justified in being angry at you.

You need to apologize for not talking to her like an adult, and ask her what would help her follow the plot of movies better.
Then, hopefully, you two can actually enjoy watching movies together.

Snow2D −  It would be one thing if you had communicated to her that you don’t want to explain movies to her. But instead you manipulated her into thinking that you only liked simple movies.

Not only that, but you seem more concerned about her coming across as dumb than you are concerned about having to explain the plot. Bruh, it’s her sister, surely her sister knows that she’s bad at understanding movies. YTA. You should have communicated like an adult.

sunlightanddoghair −  she finds reading more engaging than watching. I saw her on Wikipedia reading the plot.This sounds like a really great solution. I’d say ask her if she enjoyed that way of watching with you, but I think it’s too sensitive of a topic to bring up right now.

You kind of s**k for being inauthentic towards her. instead of just putting on movies you think are easy to follow you could have asked, hey let’s find something that doesn’t require a lot of concentration to follow, what would you like? things like cooking shows or stand up comedy don’t really require you to pay constant attention either.

I think what makes YTA is that it sounds like when this happens you just look at her like she has five heads. if you know she’s smart but has trouble paying attention, then just explain to her without the weird judgement.