'AITA for not acting impressed that my wife got her GED? It's not graduating college.'
"AITA for not acting impressed by my wife's accomplishment?"
My (28M) wife (26F) and I have been married for close to 7 years. We currently have five kids together- 6M, 4M, 3F, and my wife gave birth to fraternal twins ( son and daughter) a year and a half ago.
My wife intended to graduate high school the year we got married but life got in the way. My dad had given me an investor relations type of role at his company so we were traveling a lot and then after that our kids needed our attentions.
After our twins were born my wife was bedridden for longer than we and even the doctors expected. Since we had to hire extra hands to do the childcare tasks that involved mobility my wife had some time on her hands.
Her mother told her that her friend who proctors at a testing center said that they give GED tests basically every week (at least across the state of Idaho) and that she should dust off her general education knowledge. She started browsing her laptop and decided to enroll in a GED prep class online.
It seems she was better at self paced learning than classroom learning because the stuff they were testing her on came way easier to her now than it did then even though she's been away from structured classroom instruction for many years now. Even after she was back on her feet, she'd be studying for it after she dropped the older two off to their respective schools.
I would see what she was studying and it looked pretty rudimentary and I knew that getting a GED basically means nothing and that she probably wouldn't be able to apply it to anything career wise, or commit full time to community college, where I doubt the job prospects for students are that great right now either.
So my wife ended up taking the test and the other day she bounded into the room and said ' Yes! I passed, I passed!' I knew she would since she was doing well on the practice tests and the GED consistently tests on the same rudimentary topics. I did not gripe at her but merely nodded at her and went back to answering an important email from a client.
My wife seemed to get upset and I asked her what was wrong. She said I didn't seem that excited and I said that it's great that she passed but I have been telling her that it was easy and no big deal, but if she needed something to prove to herself she knew the high school concepts, I guess the money was well spent.
She got even more upset and said she worked very hard and this was the essential building blocks to being able to start a career. AITA? My wife passed her GED test, but she wasn't exactly graduating from college and wouldn't be for at least 15 years.
I just didn't see any immediate applicability to her test, but I am glad she had something to challenge her while she was coming off being unable to fully care for the kids.
Let's find out.
pilotenvironment writes:
YTA. Your a major AH. Your wife is trying to look after five children and found the time to get her GED. Why don’t you let her go out of town for a week and see how hard it is to look after five small children .
Would it have killed you to get up hug her and tell her how proud you of her? Maybe take her out to dinner one night to celebrate? Wow. I hope this isn’t indicative the respect you give her the rest of the time.
trappergraves writes:
I also noticed that rather than look after the children while she recovered, he hired help until she could 'fully care for the children'. He helps make them, but doesn't seem to look after them at all. In light of this incredible lack of support, her working and getting her GED is an even bigger accomplishment. Heaven forbid she should want to go further with her education. Whoops, almost forgot: YTA.
turtletuttle writes:
Right, OP YTA. I tried to help my ex get her GED, we moved and I arranged a job where I could walk to work while she was at school, so she could take my car, and she would pick me up after.
I got 'excited' about all her practice test scores with her. It may occasionally feel fake or cheesy to be supportive but doing it anyway is love, and it feels more natural the more you do it. I hope for the sake of all 6 members of your family you figure that out soon.