AITAH for accidentally making my girlfriend believe I’ve secretly looked down on her for our entire 2 year relationship?
My girlfriend (24F) and I (24F) have been together for almost two years.
Recently, she spent hours helping me find a flat because I'm shifting, and I genuinely appreciated all the time and effort she put into helping me. I asked her help because I am not very fluent with the language and there are chances the realtors will use it to scam me with a flat hunting
The issue is that I'm extremely picky about where I live. I have a few non negotiable requirements (my own room, an attached bathroom, a clean place, etc.) because I'm the one who's going to be living there.
She kept telling me she understood and genuinely wanted to help. However, many of the flats she sent either didn't match the requirements l'd been trying to explain or were outside my budget. That made me feel like I wasn't communicating my requirements properly, so I kept trying to explain them not because I thought she wasn't helping, but because I felt I wasn't expressing myself well.
I even started by saying things like:
"I don't wanna be a brat or spoiled."
and
"I'm very different with the flat thing."
because I didn't want her to think I was just being difficult.
She then asked me,
"Ma why do u think its being so hard to find it then?"
I replied,
"It is just a standard."
Then I said:
"You have different standards & i have different standards and it's not like yours is bad or mine is good."
My very next message was:
"There is no scale to measure the standard."
Then i sent :
"it's more likely. I will be comfortable with this, and I won't be settling for anything less."
And immediately after that I clarified that what I really meant was that l'd simply be more comfortable with certain types of places and that I wouldn't be comfortable settling for something else.
Looking back, I completely agree that "Standard" was the wrong word. I should've said "Comfort level", "requirements", or "preference" instead.
Unfortunately, she understood it as me saying that I think I'm above her.
She then told me that this made her realize I've apparently always looked down on her throughout our relationship. She even said:
"I don't think I even know you as a person after all these two years"
She broke up with me, blocked me on almost everything, and refuses to answer my calls. Every time l've tried to say it was a misunderstanding, she comes back to that one word. I haven't been given a chance to explain myself over a call or in person.
To make things harder, we're both at our hometowns riaht now. over 1.000 km apart.
We normally work in the same city, but neither of us will be back for another 12-13 days, so I can't even meet her face-to-face.
What hurts me most is that this doesn't match how I've viewed or treated her over the last two years.
I've always admired how independent she is and have told her countless times how proud I am of everything she's accomplished.
People who know us have often commented that I'm a completely different person around her. I'm usually emotionally guarded with most people, but with her l've always been much softer and more affectionate.
Our relationship has always had a playful dynamic where she usually took the lead, and l've never felt the need to be "above" her or treat her like she was beneath me. That's why this accusation has completely shocked me.
I know I chose the wrong word. I don't deny that. If I could go back, l'd absolutely use different wording.
But I genuinely never meant what she believes I meant.
AITAH for the way i worded it?
What does it read more like I communicated my point badly then I actually believed I was above her
Alsooo :
There had already been tension in our relationship because of a friend in my friend group whom my girlfriend strongly dislikes. In the past, this person had tried to flirt with me, which made my girlfriend understandably uncomfortable. The specific incident she was upset about was when I attended another friend’s father’s funeral, where this person also happened to be present. From my perspective, I was there to support my grieving friend and didn’t feel I could avoid going, but my girlfriend was hurt because the person who had previously flirted with me was also going to be there.
Edit: since there is some questions regarding the flat hunt. I am not gonna say I was a saint with how I communicated to her. I should have also been better and the whole Flat situation is for context:
I was the one finding the listings and collecting the brokers’ contact numbers, while she helped by calling them. I usually communicated with the brokers through text, and she handled the phone calls because it was easier to get information that way. And my requirements were, I wanted a room to myself in a shared flat, my own attached bathroom, and a clean place.
The only reason I was looking to move was to be closer to her. The place I’ve been living in for the past two years already meets all my requirements and costs much less. Even though we lived in the same city, we were about an hour and a half apart. We both felt that if I moved and was only 20–30 minutes away, it would be much better for our relationship. That’s why I started looking for another place.
The Flat we both looked at was the same, but that was a difference in the budget that was quoted to us . The budget changed because my girlfriend mentioned to the broker that I owned a four-wheeler. She only did that to explain that I didn’t need a flat near the metro since I’d have my own transport. I had asked her not to mention it because I was worried the brokers would assume I could afford more and increase the rent. From my experience, some brokers use details like that to quote higher price