'AITA for telling my wife it's her job to babysit the kids, and then leaving the house?'
"AITA for telling my wife it's her job to babysit the kids and leaving the house?"
I (35m) have been married to my wife (32f) for 7 years. We have two children together (6m) and (3f). She takes care of house and babysits the kids most of the time because she's a SAHM but we evenly split chores and childcare on weekends and when I get home from work.
My wife is much more social than I am. We moved to her home state from mine because she was wanted to be closer to her parents and her childhood friends. Now, she is a lot more social than I am. She goes on 3-4 girls trips a year.
I have no issues with that and I'm happy to babysit the kids full time in her absence. I'm more of a homebody anyway so I usually like to just paint in the spare room or play video games every once in a while instead of traveling out of state. I don't really take time off from work unless we do something as a family.
For the past 3-4 months, I was very busy on a major project at work. I've been working 60 hour weeks and frankly I'm exhausted with the stress. So when the project was finally coming to an end, I told my wife I'm taking a day off and I won't be doing any work around the house.
Of course, I'd still clean up after myself but I didn't want to do any chores or childcare on that one day. I told her that 2 weeks in advance and she agreed. I also reminded her three days before.
However, when that day came, my wife 'forgot' about our agreement. I was in the painting room and my wife interrupted me telling me she needed me to give our daughter a bath because she spilt milk all over herself and couldn't do it because she had to wash the dishes. It was annoying but whatever, sh*t happens.
Later on when I was playing video games, my wife tells me our son needs help for his math homework. I ask her why can't she help him herself, she said it's because she has some 'work' to do.
This work was actually her best friend coming over and chatting for an hour. This really p*%$ed me off so after I helped my son and the best friend left, I told my wife I'm leaving the house for 4-5 hours.
She asked me where I was going, I told her I'm just going to chill in the park and do whatever. But then she said she needs me to help out with the chores and with the kids.
I told her that today was my day off from all work including house work and it's her job to babysit the kids on this day before I left the house
When I came back she was acting cold and called me an a**hole for just abandoning her and the kids. I think she's being dramatic but when I spoke to my sister, she said parenting is a 24/7 job. So AITA?
Here are the top rated comments from readers:
ESH. First of all it’s NOT babysitting when it’s your own kids, it’s called PARENTING. Next time you need a day for self care ask your wife in advance to plan something for the kids away from the house like visiting grandparents or something OR you stay in a hotel for a day and night. When there are kids at home there is no day off.
He used the term for both himself and his wife as well as clarified that's the term they use. Why should he have to leave his own home to get some time to himself that he repeatedly OK'd with her?
They're clearly capable of parenting solo and it was selfish of his wife to have someone over under the guise of 'work' and use that as an excuse. Not to mention 60 hours a week is insane and he's working on a major project, it's not like this is a constant thing. NTA for sure.
Because whenever a Bf/husband is clearly in the right lots of people in this sub like to focus on irrelevant details to twist the story into an ESH because it’s very hard for them to choke out a NTA for a man.
I don't think this judgement is standing up to an actual reading of this sub. Even this very thread has a lot more NTA than ESH.
Me, I'm just annoyed about general inability to communicate and get on the same page. The OP is clearly stressed and exhausted. His wife doesn't have it on her radar. She also juggles a lot of stuff. He seems to be conceptualizing childcare tasks as a purely mechanical babysitting, which can't help getting to actual communication.
These kinds of posts usually bore me. OP isn't an AH for needing and wanting a day of rest. He sounds pretty a%#holish in his general attitude. ::shrug::
I feel people are stuck on OP using the word 'babysit' wrongly. If he'd just used it for himself, that would have been an issue. But he used it for himself and his wife. So I just think of it as a mistake. And not the intended meaning.
Having said that, and based on the fact that OP's either working or at home with his family (equally contributing to childcare and chores). And the fact that he let his wife know about his need for a break after a strenuous project and she didn't respect that, despite knowing for weeks, I'm going with OP not being the ah.