What's the most WTF assumption you've heard about yourself.

[Motorwayview]

Mine is a hum dinger.
DH is significantly older than me - he is retired and I work PT. We have planned carefully so we were able to retire somewhere sunny. During our 35 years together he was a medium earner and I was the higher earner - his job was flexible for school drop offs/ pick ups ect. We have 2 adult DC and grandchildren.
He has joined a hobby group and last night they had a social evening so I went along.
Random woman - who was the wife of the organiser I found out later- " Well, you've landed on your feet - HIS children and ex wife must hate you " said very loudly in front of a group of people I don't really know.
I did put her straight , but WTF !

Yes mine centres around my job and what my earning potential is. My mum asked me if it was worth me going back to work if I wasn’t going to have any money left after paying nursery, shock horror when I told her I didn’t take home £1k a month and yes it was worth it.

Funnily enough though my husband and I work in the same industry and when he tells people what I do they ask him why he’s still working as my job is so good apparently! It is a good job tbf it’s just funny to see the other side of it!

BIL/SIL complained to MIL that I had never contributed to the household for the entire time I’ve been with DH (and therefore should inherit nothing if something happened to him). In fact I always worked, paid half the mortgage etc. My SIL hadn’t worked for decades at this point and not contributed but apparently I was the issue.

I have lots which I'll post as separate comments!

A particular favourite moment of mine was on holiday.

As a British person abroad, many think that we cannot or do not try to speak the foreign language.

We were on holiday in Italy; just sat down in a restaurant awaiting a menu, when 1 of 2 waiters standing together made a physical comment about me.... I was almost delighted to retort in a similar tone! I can still see the shock on his face! 😁

When you return from a holiday abroad, looking as pale as when you left; people presume either it's a) rained on holiday or b) you've been ill on holiday.

No, I'm just a 'sun-shader' not a 'sunbather'.

My DH took DD1 to an event when she was 13. He bumped into one of his old teachers who thought DD1 was his wife. She looks a bit older than she is, but I wouldn't have thought she looked old enough to be married to someone in their mid 40s.

When I say my Husband isn't British, people assume I've been 'targeted' by someone who wants to live in the UK legitimately.

My Husband is French and we met in the UK where he lived and worked..... 🙄

Like you OP. DH is older than me. I have been told to my face I’m a gold digger. He hasn’t worked full time n 24 years due to Ill health and I’ve been the breadwinner all that time. When I got pregnant with DS 1 one of the wives of a friend of his looked me up and down and said ‘you’ve got your feet under the table good and proper now, haven’t you’. We have been together 25 years, have two DCS and I am breadwinner and career to him. Also like OP I had someone say to me ‘you’ve landed on your feet, haven’t you?’ This was in front of DH and he put his arm around me and announced proudly to this butch’ yes I certainly landed on my feet with Muffin, didn’t I’.

That’s funny as I’m also a ‘sun shader’ but when wandering about, exploring, I go really brown, really quickly. Everyone assumes I am sun worshiper because i come back from holidays really tanned. DH always corrects them in a funny, frustrated way as it takes him ages to tan

I once met a horribly arrogant man who told me I was a Marxist before I even opened my mouth. The only prior knowledge he had was that I was a teacher.

Decades ago at a party. A very well dressed, bright young woman, started chatting and asked me what I did. When I replied I was at home, looking after the children, she turned her back on me and went off to find someone more important/influential to speak to. She looked panic stricken later when she realised I was DH's wife. She was his pupil!

This has been said by a few different people but a presumption that I only listen to classical music. I am quite quiet and well spoken but I'm surprised that translates to "listens to classical music" for some people.

I've nothing against classical music but I don't generally choose to listen to it. I like heavy metal!

I’ve had people assume that the maintenance money my EX pays me keeps the roof over my head. I was the main breadwinner and he pays me zero maintenance!

I’ve also had people assume I rent my house (nothing wrong with renting) as I couldn’t possibly afford to have a mortgage for the house I live in.

I also had one bridezilla say the ‘ooh, the stripper’s arrived’ in a very loud voice when I arrived at her wedding. She didn’t like the fact that her husband had female friends and I’d been to the (very low-key) stag do. I guess that’s not really an assumption, it’s just being a complete cow! (I can’t imagine being so vile to a guest on your wedding day.)

People are strange.

A slightly different 'WTF' moment happened to me this week.

Sad yet humourous in a way. 🥹

We met a Husband/Wife couple on holiday years ago. I very rarely meet someone that I have an instant connection with and yet me and the other lady did not stop talking and laughing for the entire holiday.

We were both shocked at how well we got along from a chance meeting on holiday and she used to make a joke that you only truly know how someone regarded you if they leave you something in their will.... it became a joke of hers to say "I don't say this lightly but I'll leave you £100 in my will and coming from me, that's really something".

We ended up meeting up on holiday - same hotel - multiple times. So many good memories.

Unfortunately she became ill and told me she hadn't got long to live. She was adamant that I was not to see her, as she wanted me to remember her in 'holiday mode'.

This week, I received a Solicitors letter; she left me £100 in her will.

xxx I miss you S xxx

I've used my experience from my varied career to build a small but profitable consultancy business, working completely remotely, and have been the breadwinner for many years, due to circumstances requiring it.
The number of people who assume that I'm a SAH lady of leisure is staggering and bizarre.

That I needed to be sectioned. I was fully compliant for 3 whole weeks with 247 supervision by an RNM. I was like, what do you think I'm going to do? Break for the Mexican border? I had just had surgery on my hip so couldn't run away!

A friend of a friend assumed my kids were my ex’s. My ex and DH look pretty similar so I see why she thought it, but it was quite funny. Saw her in the supermarket back home and she said “aww he looks just like his daddy” and I was like “oh you know DH?” And she was like “what?? I thought his name was (ex’s name)” and I had to explain that no, they’re not his kids I just have a type. Totally could pass them off as his kids though I can’t lie.

I moved out of London after I was widowed back to my home town. In London we lived in a housing association flat and in my home town I’d get people saying to me ooh I bet you made a packet selling that London property didn’t you? Er no it was a rented flat.

I was at Uni with dh and worked in the same industry for a while. I then was a SAHM then returned to a low paid caring role. Dhs colleagues are mostly old money, second homes and boats. As a couple we confuse people. Some of DHs friends and associates are shocked by my job and ask if I have considered retraining to return to the industry. They cant understand why i do what i do. A colleague of mine said I had been lucky to marry Dh cos he is successful, that was fairly insulting. Funnily enough the old money people are quite open minded and respectful about my low paying job. It's the MC hardworking people who can't understand what they perceive as a lack of ambition and lowering earning potential.

I had the exact opposite. I did a training course in France and the tutor made a huge joke of me being, "Anglo Saxon" which to her, was shorthand for ultra right wing scumbag.

It was over a discussion about what the, "Liberté" in "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité" meant. I didn't really even discuss. I just looked a bit confused. My fundamental problem, apparently, was that I didn't understand that freedom comes through the state to ensure equality and is regulated for social cohesion.

Which didn't sound very free. But Liberté doesn't exactly mean freedom. Anyway, it went on and on, then branched off into Laïcité until she got utterly frustrated and said I should naff off back to, "My friend Donald Trump. Voilà. Anglo Saxon."

I'm not even American. Never mentioned Donald Trump.

All I could think of was, "Anglo Saxon Attitudes" by Angus Wilson and started day dreaming. The next thing I remember from the lecture was her telling us again about the seminal moment Simone Weil took her hair down from a chignon on a talk show.

From then on though, everything I said was proof of me being, "Anglo Saxon." Didn't matter what it was.

I did actually pass the course. By virtue of being the only person to turn up to all of it, right to the end. In fact, she got sick of me a week early and just wrote out the certificate, giving herself an early Christmas Liberté, not through the state.

Although I think everyone passed. Even though they'd used their Liberté to stop going. I wonder if they went through the state for that Liberté?

I think she quite liked me in the end. She even wrote on my pink slip, as it were, that I was, "Very assiduous."

Three of my oldest friends (we met in primary school and are now in our early 50s) all assumed that I am an in-the-closet lesbian and childless by choice.

No, I’m plain, introverted, and didn’t meet anyone who wanted to settle down and have a family with me. They just didn’t bother asking me.

People often suspect I'm slightly younger than I am and dh must be the oldest instead of me , and they often think my oldest dc is my step child , rather than his.

Quite a lot of people don't know my teen , only the younger dc . I get patronised a lot and told to wait until I have teenagers.

We were at a “celebration” event once, I think we only knew the person who was having the event. I went with one of my DS, who was a young adult at the time, and had a couple of people (separately, and who we’d never met before) who assumed we were a couple! 😂 admittedly I did used to look young for my age (before I woke up suddenly looking like an old hag sometime during Covid) and I did have DS earlyish 20s, and clearly my ds must’ve looked older but it was a really weird thing and they were quite embarrassed when I told them 😂

That I'm academic, did ballet and am Italian.

Sadly not for all three 😭.

I was born and raised by third generation immigrants in a Commonwealth country, but all my life people have assumed I must have moved here from England as a child/teen. Apparently I sound English (I'm fairly sure I don't).

I have an east London/Essex accent, am a bottle blonde, long nails and fake eyelashes.
I have a 1st class honours degree and 2 Masters degrees. I own and run 2 successful businesses.
But I’m just a silly dense Essex girl.
OK 😂😂