AIO for being upset that my partner keeps talking to me like I’m stupid?
My (24M) partner (22F) has this habit that I’m starting to find really toxic.
When I do something “wrong,” she’ll often respond in this sarcastic, patronizing tone like, “Babyyyyy no, that’s not how you do it,” or “This is not it,” but the vibe is very much that she thinks I’m stupid. Sometimes she basically says the thing I did was stupid too.
One example: she asked me to get the usual bread she buys from the market. I’ve never bought this bread myself before, and I honestly had no memory of what it looks like when it isn’t already cut. Whenever she bought it before, she had it cut there, so that’s the version I’d seen. I got to the market, saw two types that looked plausible, and chose the more expensive one because I figured that was probably the right one.
When I got home, she started whining in that sarcastic tone about how it was the wrong bread and how I “should know what the bread looks like,” and that she thinks it's stupid that I don't know how the bread looks like.
Then today was the tipping point. She was sitting on the toilet with hair dye in her hair, and I was nearby. She sounded slightly panicked and said something like, “My hair is falling down, can you please grab the towel?” I interpreted that as her wanting me to help put her hair back up because there was dye in it. Apparently she wanted the towel around her neck so the dye wouldn’t get on her body.
Instead of just clarifying, she again responded like I was dumb for not instantly knowing what she meant. But from my perspective, how am I supposed to know she wants it around her neck if she doesn’t say that?
There was also another moment a day or two ago where she jokingly said something like, “Oh, you shut up and just look good,” which maybe was meant as a joke, but combined with everything else, it rubs me the wrong way.
The issue isn’t that I got the wrong bread or misunderstood what she wanted with the towel. The issue is the way she talks to me when something doesn’t go exactly how she expected. I’m a capable adult, I’ve built a solid career, moved countries on my own, and I’m someone people trust to handle things. So being treated like I’m stupid or helpless over normal misunderstandings feels disrespectful. I can take correction. I can admit when I got something wrong. What I’m not okay with is being mocked, talked down to, or expected to magically know what she means when she hasn’t actually said it.
I’m now at the point where I feel like I’m about to blow up at her, because I don’t think it’s okay to talk to your partner like that. AIO?
EDIT: To add some context, we did have a couple of discussions about this, and they got slightly heated. She ended up doubling down, saying things like "I do think it's stupid that you don't know what the bread looks like." She also accused me of trying to make something bigger out of it than it is. I told her exactly: "You are admitting to have done things in a pattern, and yet you're trying to measure how much it affects me rather than treating it as something you've done wrong." Unfortunately, things didn't get resolved.
There was also another instance where we were going to her younger brother's 3rd birthday and she asked me to pick a toy for him. While I was doing it, I found myself second guessing every choice, already anticipating that she'd say something dismissive about whatever I picked. That's when I realized this had started affecting how I act around her.