'AITA for not siding with my wife when our daughter got hurt?' 'Her foot was bleeding.'
"AITA for not siding with my wife when our daughter got hurt?"
Last night my daughter was playing with legos before bedtime in the living room. This morning when our daughter woke up she walked onto the living room rug and suddenly began crying out hopping on one foot. It was still early morning and we all were a bit groggy.
Our daughter hopped to her mom looking for comfort. Instead of consoling her, my wife kept insisting she wasn’t hurt saying she just tripped on the rug. Our daughter kept saying she stepped on something but my wife kept disregarding it.
I was quiet about the situation until this point where I stood up for our daughter and said I think she did step on something because she was playing with legos last night and the rug is thick. I looked at our daughter’s foot and it was bleeding, so I cleaned it and put a bandaid on it. I then put on a funny video of people stepping on legos to cheer our kid up and show her it happens to other people too.
After this my wife storms up stairs angrily. I wait a while to see if she comes back but she doesn’t. I decide to put our daughter in the tub then go check on my wife. When I check on my wife, she is brooding and angry. I asked her what’s wrong and she denied anything is wrong.
I asked her why she stormed upstairs if nothing is the matter, she then proceeded to say we were ganging up on her. She said I provoked our daughter to go against her. I told her all I was doing was acknowledging our daughter was hurt when she was denying it. She then said I should have never come upstairs and make her angry.
I told her she was acting childish and the situation was about helping our daughter, not about her. We began arguing, our daughter watching now. Noticing this, I shutdown the argument and took our daughter back to the bathroom to continue her bath and console her.
I now feel like I’m in the dog house for no good reason. I understand my wife may to feel like it’s us against her and probably feels isolated, but I personally feel in this situation, she is being immature and self absorbed. AITA?
INFO: Our daughter was using the potty when I went to check on my wife. She entered the tub when I was with her later.
Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:
kurokomainu said:
NTA. Your wife cared more about being right, even to the point of being upset she wasn't. She viewed the whole thing through a lens of hurt pride and ego, not of concern for your daughter, and so she couldn't even see how you were handling the situation so as to look after and comfort your daughter.
This kind of thing shouldn't be enabled by you going along with being "in the doghouse." She was wrong. Your daughter was hurt and you took care of that. It wasn't a plot to show your wife up. That's the line you need to hold with her.
Fickle_Toe1724 said:
NTA. Did she see that your daughter's foot was bleeding? That's not "ganging up on her," that is taking care of an injured child. If this is her usual reaction to your child being INJURED, get your wife some help. It is not safe for your daughter to be alone with her. To not even check if the child is actually injured? That's not safe.
Echoicembers said:
NTA, your daughter was clearly hurt, her foot was BLEEDING. That's more than "tripped over the rug."
owls_and_cardinals said:
NTA. Your daughter was hurt and it's too bad your wife denied it. IDK if that's a habit for her or if she just misread the situation. Probably she felt self-conscious about the fact that she was wrong or that she denied her daughter's need, and it wasn't ok for her to take it out on you. You consoling a child in need is not ganging up on your wife.
Perhaps in the future you should let her cool off on her own, though. On the surface it seems silly for your wife to say you shouldn't have come up and made her angry but if she needed a moment to herself to regulate her emotions, maybe she should be afforded that space. This whole thing makes me wonder about the bigger dynamics at play to be honest.
Endora529 said:
NTA. So your wife would rather be right than tend to her bleeding child? Sounds like she has an ego problem. Hopefully, this is not something that happens all the time.
kiwipixi42 said:
WTF??? What crazy did I just read. You are obviously NTA, but either something else is going on here that your wife is actually upset about, or she is full on psychotic. You really need to talk to her once things calm down.