My employer gave me the the opportunity to work from North America for a couple of months. So after having discussed it with my wife we descided to go for it. Financially it made more sense even when taking into account the fact that she's now on unpaid leave. plus we're enjoying ourselves a lot, not to mention we have a lot more time for eachother.

For Christmas I asked her for an expensive tool. The tool is something that makes my job easier. I had been delaying the purchase because of the cost but since it's considerably cheaper over here, the time had come.

The manufacterer made a mistake and the tool still has not arrived to this day. She called the company and mailed them a couple of times. To apologize they sent their latest model noise cancelling headset. So she was super proud of herself. 

The evening before yesterday we got back from a superb citytrip and were both nackered. The noise cancelling headset had arrived at the lobby and my wife went to pick it up with some excitement in het trot. I prepared my stuff because I needed to wake up at 0345 for a very long day that included taking 2 flights on loud turboprop airplanes. I decided to make those flights more enjoyable and put the brand spanking new noise cancelling headset in my bag while my spouse was already in bed. I had the intention of telling her but it slipped my mind.

Fast forward to halfway through the next day. I get a text saying it's not nice that I took them with me. The seed for an argument is planted at this very moment. I get that it would have been beter if I told her. She was excited about the product and looked forward to playing with it that day. What bugs me is that I get the impression that she's claiming the item followed by the phrase  "but you can use it from time to time". 

When I got home at 2230 a part of my brain had  already decided to call it a day. So at half capacity we get into an argument about it.

Her arguments were: I should have told her, I could have used her noise cancelling headset I gave her 2 years ago, she wanted to experiment with it first and "We got the headset thanks to me, because I complained about the late delivery". So I can use the headset but she has priority. 

My arguments: I agree that informing her would have been better. Don't know though if that would have prevented rather than moved the start time of the argument. But mostly I reject that it's primarily her headset, the "We've got it because I complained' argument doesn't go down well with me. If that's a valid argument then i can think of many arguments that would validate my claim. That being said, I feel that it's a item that belongs to both of us and that I don't need to be told off for having used it that day. 

The discussion started in bed, I moved to a different room because my bucket of things I could handle that day was full. After a while the frustration subsided, she was the bigger man and invited me back into bed. 

The argument is kind of petty, we both know that. We're over it and we love eachother dearly. The dispute still requires a final verdict though: Who was the asshole?

PS: This was proofread by my wife.