I’m divorcing my husband because he screws jar lids too tight — here’s why everyone agrees I should leave
He should really loosen up.
An aggrieved wife on Reddit has vowed to divorce her husband after struggling for five years to open jarred foods by herself — alleging that her future ex was over-tightening the lids on purpose.
The anonymous woman posted about her alleged domestic dilemma in the subReddit r/AITAH, an acronym for “Am I The A–hole?,” where users ask others to confirm or deny whether they are “the a–hole” under the given circumstances.
“Sometimes I literally feel insane for being so upset over jar lids,” she explained in her unsigned rant.
The original poster — “OP” — claimed she’s at her wit’s end with the most recent round of resealed containers, adding that it’s been going on since the couple began dating.
“It’s been a recurring cycle over the past 5 years. It’s just a thing that would escalate until I had a major meltdown and freaked out, screaming, frustrated and seemingly crazy because it’s just a lid. Then it would get better for a while, then it would slowly become an issue again. Just getting worse and worse until I reach a breaking point again,” she began.
Her hulkish hubby claimed he had a habit of tightening extra tight to “keep food fresh.” Still, OP’s inability to access ingredients without him was getting in the way of her day while causing friction in their relationship.
“First it started with just things he used and then over time it became every damn glass jar with a metal lid. He’d tighten them so much I couldn’t open them without assistance. It wasn’t a huge deal if he was there, but if I was alone, it was so annoying. More times than I can count, I’ve opened a new jar of something because I couldn’t get the [old] jar open,” she recounted.
The issue became untenable after her husband left her at home for 10 days without a single loosened lid.
A jar of pickles precipitated the downfall of their marriage.
“First day he’s gone, I discover a jar I can’t open. I was annoyed and was going to the store to buy new pickles when the neighbor said hi and to let him know if I needed anything while [soon-to-be ex] is out of town,” she began.
Her neighbor successfully accessed the pickles on her behalf — but her woes continued.
“The next day I saw him outside and asked him to open another jar. He offered to come open all the jars. I agreed and he came in and he went to the fridge and opened all the jars except 2, which he couldn’t get open,” she wrote.
That’s when the friendly neighbor offered to take the last two jars back to his home where he had a few tools to help pop the tops — and that he did, though his efforts resulted in one shattered jar of figs.
She added, “He said that he’s heard me screaming about over-tightened jar lids a few times over the years and he’s really pondered if I was crazy or if my husband was really over-tightening the jar lids.”
However, after spending his afternoon unscrewing lids for OP, he understood she wasn’t overreacting at all.
“He said, ‘You know this was intentional. It was every jar, and I’m sure he doesn’t regularly use hot pepper paste or mango puree or any of your other fancy cooking stuff.’ Then he held up the two jars he couldn’t open and said, I don’t know why he’s doing it but it wasn’t an accident.”
The realization was so upsetting that OP felt sick to her stomach — “I vomited in the trash can” — and cried on her kitchen floor.
“I couldn’t sleep that night. Tossed and turned all night. I called out of work. By 10 am, I realized that I couldn’t stay married anymore and I made an appointment with a lawyer for the next day,” she said, adding that they have “literally no other issues” in their marriage. “He was absolutely blindsided when he came home and I told him I wanted a divorce.”
OP’s husband refused to confess to his pantry pranks, but she was unrelenting.
“He still won’t even admit that he did it on purpose. But the hot pepper paste is in the back of the fridge. I use it only when I make Indian food. It’s behind other things. He’s never used it. It’s nothing you could put in food without cooking it. The pepper paste could not have been an accident. It couldn’t,” she claimed.
“That’s what my life comes down to. I’m getting a divorce because the lid to my hot pepper paste was over tight,” she concluded, asking other Reddit users to weigh in on her decision. “Most of our friends and families either think I’m crazy or an [a–hole]. What do you think?”
Many users were supportive of OP’s decision to divorce with many agreeing that her strong-arming spouse has been “gaslighting” her.
“No, you’re not getting a divorce because of jar lids; you’re getting a divorce because your husband is gaslighting you for sport,” one wrote.
Read the top comment, “I’m just imagining this dude sneaking into a dark kitchen every night to tighten all the jar lids while manically laughing.”
Though some believed the story seemed too outlandish to be true — claiming it’s likely the handiwork of an AI chatbot — other commenters commiserated with OP’s cooking conundrum, sharing their own shocking tales of hellish husbands.
“My abusive ex would do this too, when I was pregnant and he wanted to control really random things,” said one.
“My abusive ex threw away one shoe of my favorite pair of shoes and watched me destroy the house looking for it for weeks. He only admitted he threw it away during a fight nearly a year later,” echoed another. “He even helped me look a couple times.”
