Contrary to infuriatingly popular belief, being a stay-at-home mom (SAHM) is a job in itself. Looking after tiny humans to ensure they’re fed, clean, safe, not wiping poop all over the walls, and refraining from any activity that could result in a trip to the ER is exhausting in every sense of the word, and guess what? That exact description applies to a line of work that is considered a full-time job: child care. Funny how it’s no longer conceived as work when it’s your own kids rather than a stranger’s.
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For one Reddit woman, this is just the tip of the iceberg in regard to a disagreement she’s having with her husband. Explaining her situation in an “Am I the A**hole” post, she shares she’s been with her partner for 12 years and they have three children, ages 7, 4, and 2. The woman writes that she is “fully responsible for their care, as well as every household duty, laundry, cooking, cleaning.” In addition to being a SAHM, housekeeper, and personal chef, she says she’s also self-employed and works from her laptop for a few hours after she spends the majority of the day caring for her kids — no big deal.
So since Miss SAHM-Housekeeper-Personal-Chef-Self-Employed-Superwoman has an overflowing plate of responsibilities within their “shared” household, you’re probably wondering what exactly her husband does to match her workload. This man walks their dogs in the morning and has a full-time job in IT. That’s it. “My partner hasn’t done a load of laundry in ten years,” the woman writes. “He cooks dinner ‘occasionally’ (2 x a month). He doesn’t hoover, mop, or mow lawns” — and she adds that he’s usually asleep by 8:00 pm.
So, when she explains that she wants to book a week-long vacation for herself, by herself, for her upcoming birthday, and relays that her husband calls the idea “selfish” — as if he’s not spent the past seven years (at least) being astonishingly lazy and unappreciative of the wild amount of weight his wife carries in their relationship — it’s not exactly surprising that fellow Redditors deemed the entire situation a fiery plane crash in which not even the black box might survive.
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Where the Problem Took Flight
Image Credit: Getty Images. Bless her considerate heart, the woman writes, “I asked my partner what he would think if I booked myself a vacation, for a week, on my birthday and went on my own.” She adds that her ask included him taking PTO and spending the week looking after their kids, taking them to school, and keeping up the house. Like, you know, she does every day without being asked.
“He told me I was selfish,” she revealed. “‘It’s selfish to want to go on holiday for a week for my birthday?’” He said yes.” File this man in the “Useless” folder with every other trash dad of Reddit. She’s selfish?? She is selfish? We’re manically laughing in that slightly scary humorless way on her behalf, because wow. You really can’t make this up.
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The Resentment Is Rising In Altitude
Image Credit: Getty Images. Trying to see the situation from her husband’s perspective, the woman writes, “I get it, he’s tired and he works full time, but I work too, and I don’t feel appreciated.” She adds, “I just want a week where I don’t have to placate a crying child, or stop the toddler from running into traffic, or worry about everyone else’s good time while sacrificing my own.”
To add insult to injury, the exasperated mom continues, “The last time I spent time away from the children/house was when we went out for dinner for his birthday in March (After they were asleep. I organised the babysitter).” But wait, it gets worse. The poor mama adds, “Oh, and my pap smear, which he tried to make me take the children to even though he was home.”
His birthday, y’all. Because the world clearly orbits around no one but him. And of course this guy wanted her to go get her vagina scraped with her kids in attendance. While he sat on his lazy, ungrateful a** at home. It really tracks at this point.
“The holiday would be paid for entirely by me,” she continues, mentioning her husband receives 28 days of PTO plus bank holidays — and last year, he lost 12 of his days because he chose not to take them. So PTO is surely not a problem here. She asks the almighty question: “AITA?”
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Reddit Says a Solo Trip Isn’t the Only Thing She Should Book
Image Credit: Getty Images. While many Redditors suggested couples therapy, a lot of users also said “Screw that guy” and jumped straight to divorce.
One person replied, “You’re not a SAHM. You have a part time job. Your division of home labor is insanely unbalanced, and all of it falls to you.” They continued, “Of course your husband refuses to let you take a holiday, he’d have to actually lift a finger to parent his own children if you did.”
“Please for your own sake book that holiday and inform him you will be going. Perhaps if he had to do a fraction of everything you’d done for years he’d finally see how unfair he’s been to you,” they concluded.
Another user wrote, “I’m not sure you need a holiday as much as you need couples therapy tbh. This sounds like a hugely unfair set up and no wonder you are feeling so burned out.”
They sympathized with the woman, continuing, “He’s not pulling his weight at all here — sounds completely draining to be married to a partner who does so little and apparently is willing to do so little more (take your kids to an invasive medical test?! No thanks).” The user concluded, “I think you need to address that underlying issue. You’re NTA for wanting the holiday but it’s a symptom of a much bigger problem.”
Another Redditor responded, “I know this hurts to hear, but I’d recommend you seek out counseling on your own to decide whether this is a healthy relationship for you to stay in and whether he’s capable of making the changes needed to make your marriage into a partnership instead of you doing all the child-rearing and house labor while he is free to work without even doing the basic amount of housework he’d do if he were a single man with no kids.”
And one person simply screeched across the internet, “PUT HIM IN THE BIN.” Pretty much sums it up.
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