A wife questioned whether she should’ve handled things differently after asking her husband to watch their kids while she enjoyed a night out with friends, only for him to complain about having to do it in the first place.
Posting to the subreddit r/AITA, the 37-year-old mom of three claimed that her husband wasn’t receptive to the idea of taking care of their children for a single night on his own.
He threw a fit over his wife asking him to watch their children while she went out.
In her Reddit postshe explained that she and her husband work full-time and spend most of their days running around and being extremely busy. Their two oldest children, ages 8 and 6, have also recently started doing sports and other activities that require them to be shuttled around.
To maintain even an ounce of peace, she usually tries to coordinate a happy hour outing with a group of friends on Tuesdays. Sometimes, she and her friends just meet up to enjoy an appetizer and a drink before going home, and she’s never out for more than an hour. Other times, they order a full dinner and spend at least 4 hours catching up and laughing.
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No matter if you’re a stay-at-home parent or working parent, it’s so important that you’re taking time outside of parenthood to nurture your hobbies, goals, and personal life.
Especially as a woman and mother, your identity shouldn’t be solely tied to being the primary caregiver, which is why going out and enjoying your time away is essential.
“Last night was one of the long gossiping nights because one of my friends had gone through a break-up,” she recalled.
“My husband sent me a text around 7:30 p.m. asking when I was going to be home because he was having trouble getting our 3-year-old to bed and needed help. I cut the evening short and got home shortly after 8 p.m.”
When she got home, she confronted her husband about what the “huge problem” was that made her end her plans early to rush home, and he told her that their 3-year-old was refusing to go to bed without her.
He was throwing a tantrum, screaming, and at the end of it, her husband just left the room while he handled getting their other kids to bed.
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She pointed out that his reasoning wasn’t good enough for her to come home.
“He told me that he just asked when I was coming home; he never told me that I needed to come home right away. He said it took me over 30 minutes to get home anyway, so I must have kept talking for a while,” she continued.
She insisted that her husband was more than capable of taking care of their children for a couple of hours while she was out of the house.
That only made him angry. He claimed that he could handle their children but would just like to know on the nights that it’s just him when she’ll be home so that he could relay that message to their kids.
He argued that her spending three hours at happy hour wasn’t working for him anymore and that he needed her to provide him with a more structured plan.
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Considering it’s just one night a week, he should be able to handle a couple of hours of taking care of the children without immediately trying to rush his wife home so that she can take over.
She shouldn’t have to drop her plans to cater to his needs when he’s just as much of their parent as she is.
It’s possible that she is partially to blame for his inability to parent without her.
Unfortunately, taking on the bulk of the childcare responsibilities seems to have given this husband a get-out-of-jail-free card when it comes to parenting.
According to VeryWellMindthis mom is partially to blame, however. Sometimes, one partner will take on the role of parenting their spouse. Unfortunately, that’s not a healthy dynamic, and it will eventually cause resentment, as in this case.
Whether this dynamic was created by her husband’s weaponized incompetence or her own desire to be needed, it now isn’t serving either of them.
To heal, VeryWellMind notes that it’s important to let your partner do things their way and make mistakes or make choices that you wouldn’t make if you were there. He can’t become a more active parent if he isn’t given the chance to parent.
“He said he’s glad I’m getting social time but that I need to be more respectful of how that impacts him and the kids at home. I told him that one night a week is not too much to ask and that he still could’ve handled things by himself if he just took a breath and stayed calm.”
While that’s good advice, the best choice moving forward is to allow herself more time away from home and simultaneously give her husband more alone time with their kids.
Nia Tipton is a Chicago-based entertainment, news, and lifestyle writer whose work delves into modern-day issues and experiences.
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