'Consider Your Wife': Internet Slams 'Selfish' Husband Who Wanted to Create a 'Man Cave'

The internet has slammed a husband who said in a now-viral post that he wanted to turn his basement into a "man cave."

Posting to Reddit's "Am I The A**hole" forum on Monday under the username u/Evening-Section2887, the man explained that he and his wife recently purchased a five-bedroom home with the intention of starting a family.

He added that the home contains two living areas—a "main floor living room" and a basement.

"I figured my wife would want to take priority over the main floor, so I said that she could design the main floor living room the way she would like as well as the master bedroom, but I wanted to design the basement living area the way that I want," he wrote.

When his wife asked why she couldn't help design the basement, the man explained that it was because he intended to turn it into his man cave. But his wife didn't like the idea.

"My wife was angry when I mentioned what the space would be used for and she said that she did not want to space to be turned into a man cave and that we both had to agree on how the basement living area would be designed and what it would be used for," he claimed.

In an attempt to plead his case, he told her she could use a spare bedroom as "something extra" for herself, but she didn't budge.

"After I said that my wife started guilt-tripping me saying that she was offended that I was 'excluding' her and how this is not just my house, but how it's our house," he recalled, adding that she'd also called him "selfish."

"The term 'man cave' first cropped up in 1992 in John Gray's Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, earned itself a hashtag circa 2008, and gained a foothold over the last 30 years as the number of women working outside of the home grew," Esquire previously reported.

Speaking to Vox, however, sociologist Tristan Bridges argued that the concept of a "man cave" dates back decades before the official term was even coined.

"[Bridges] points out that the concept of the 'bachelor pad' was invented by Playboy in the 1960s, essentially to train men to be consumers of superfluous homegoods in the way that women were, and that the man cave postdates the bachelor pad," reported Vox.

"[Bridges] estimates that it emerged in the early 1970s as a reaction to the women's movement," the outlet continued.

Despite the fact that many men have been creating and escaping to their own spaces for decades, many Redditors argued that u/Evening-Section2887 was wrong to want the entire basement to himself.

"YTA [you're the a**hole], it's not a question of who designs which area; it's the fact that you're saying she can design two areas which will be for both of you, and you will take one entire section of this house as your own. This is something that should have been discussed before you bought a home," commented u/Opinionated_123.

"The fair thing would be to make the basement an entertainment room that you both design. You don't need a man cave, consider your wife," wrote u/MyRockySpine.

Redditor u/Padloq asked: "You are going to use the main living area and the master bedroom, even if you 'let' her design them. But you think it's fair that you get to have the whole basement as your 'man cave?'"

"You don't get to unilaterally decide and take over one of the two main living spaces for yourself! That is selfish and unfair," said u/sllimaraik_sllim.

Upon reading through Redditors' comments, the man edited his post to say that he would not be going through with the design.

"So far it looks like almost everyone agrees that I am an a**hole," he said. "I can see why I was wrong here and I was definitely excluding my wife here. I plan on apologizing to my wife as well as asking her what she would like to do."