AITA for researching stuff when my wife corrects me or tells me something I didn’t know?

A Reddit user shares that his wife often gets upset when he googles or researches things she tells him, especially when he questions or doubts her statements. Despite explaining that his intent is to expand his knowledge and not to undermine her, she perceives it as a sign of distrust. The user wonders if his actions are justified or if he should change his approach to avoid conflict. Read the full story below to learn more about their ongoing disagreement.

‘ AITA for researching stuff when my wife corrects me or tells me something I didn’t know?’

My wife and I have been married for 6 years, and recently, we’ve had some tension around a habit of mine. When my wife corrects me or says something I don’t know, I tend to look it up or research it to better understand the topic.

I know it’s probably not the best practice, but I’ve explained to her that I do it because I want to improve my knowledge, not to challenge her. I’ve told her I believe what she says but I’m just curious to know more or understand why I was wrong. Unfortunately, she gets upset, saying it feels like I don’t trust her or what she’s telling me.

I’m really not trying to be dismissive; I just genuinely want to learn more. But she seems to think I’m undermining her authority. AITA?

Here’s what Redditors had to say:

insurancelawyerbot −  Please don’t do this to your wife. Even though you are not technically TA (the best kind of course), it is still really rude. If you think she is right 95% of the time, let. it. go. You are creating ‘gotcha’ moments. Those are just terrible for married partners. If she is correcting you all the time, that is rude as well. We really don’t have enough information to give you a good opinion.

CasualCrisis83 −  YTA – how many times does she have to say it before you are willing to believe her? Put your phone down and be in the room with her. The specific details are not important. She just wants to connect to you.
The information will be there when she’s not.

cr3t8r −  Info: do you believe her when she says things, or do you need to google it first?

Valentinethrowaway3 −  NAH. Women are used to being second guessed and doubted even if they’re experts in their fields. You are allowed to research. Just don’t do it in front of her.

Annual_Fall1440 −  Wait..you do it in her face?? If so, YTA. You can’t wait for her to leave to do it?

NeighborhoodFine5530 −  My bf does what you do and it pisses me off so much. I’m on her side just don’t look it up.. Edit: YTA!

DaxxyDreams −  NTA. I’m a woman, and I look everything up, including fact checking my own statements. Is your wife worried about being proven wrong? Looking things up is a great way to verify info. There’s nothing wrong with that. Plus you might learn something new. I’m always more suspicious of people who refuse to be fact checked or verify accuracy. Then it lets me know something is off.

riontach −  This completely depends on how you do it. There is a way to do this that conveys that you are interested and grateful that she taught you something, and you want to learn more. I doubt that this is how it’s coming across.

CaffeinatedHBIC −  INFO: Are you fact checking her saying s**t like “Cottonmouths chase people!” Or “Christianity stole the pagan holidays, Easter was about Ishtar” (both common myths that are easily debunked) or her saying logical common sense things like “I don’t think it’s safe to leave that meat out on the counter overnight” and ” I think my boss passed me over for a promotion because he’s a sexist and the new guy is his nephew” (both things that are probably true, and you lose nothing by believing her? )

Let me see if explaining it this way helps: I say, to my husband, as we are making our morning coffee “Refill the water on the Keurig, it glitches out if the water is too low” and instead of doing what I ask he replies, “there’s enough water!”

if he BELIEVES ME and does what I asked, the Keurig will not have any issues. Even if I was wrong, there is no harm in topping it up. I did the mental labor of remembering how it works and he respected that and did as I asked, doing the physical labor to keep our interaction balanced.

If he DOESNT believe me, and I was right, I will have done the mental labor (remembering that the Keurig has a problem) the social labor (reminding him and arguing about it) MORE mental labor (troubleshooting the Keurig) and then Physical labor (fixing the Keurig and topping it back up.

if he DOESNT believe me and doesn’t do what I asked, and he was right, I will still have to top up the Keurig after the next cup, meaning I did the mental labor (remembering how the machine works) social labor (reminding him and having him argue with me) and physical labor (topping up the machine). So yeah. Are you correcting her on identifying a species of bird or disagreeing with her because you like telling her no?

Primus_is_OK_I_guess −  NTA – I could see how some people find it annoying, but my wife and I both do this to each other all the time. We would both rather know when we’re wrong. Usually the conversation goes “Really? I had no idea. Are you sure” Then either, “Oh, yeah you’re right! Wow!” or “Oh, it’s actually this.”