Husband scolds wife, 'do this and 90 percent of your sloppiness will be fixed.'
When this husband is annoyed with his wife, he asks Reddit:
'AITA for offering to help my wife with the dishes?'
My wife (26f) and I (26m) both work 4 days a week, I work 12hr shifts and she works 8hr shifts.
She would work more, but our daughter (1f) needs to be picked up from daycare. I leave for work before they wake up and some days get home after our daughter has gone to bed.
This week, our daughter's daycare provider was sick, so my wife took the week off of work to care for her. I worked an extra day to make up for her lost income, so it all worked out fine (or so I thought).
She seemed stressed still, so I asked her what was wrong.
She broke down, saying that she is struggling with balancing work, caring for our daughter throughout the week, and keeping our house clean/cooking/etc. I responded calmly by saying that I can't miss work or reduce hours. We simply cannot afford it.
She responded by saying she knows that, but it is overwhelming for her, and the house chores are piling up. I told her 90% of the problems with messiness could be solved if she picked up after herself.
If she just put the used butter knifes in the sink after she was done, and rinsed bottles/cookware/etc. I will happily do the dishes when I get home from work. Hell, I'll even put them away after. But I do not want to play scavenger hunt and look around the house for things to wash.
She did not respond to me after I said that other than a quiet okay before going to console our daughter who woke up early from her nap.
She still seemed upset with me still, so I vented to my coworker about what happened. He says I was being an asshole because I didn't even listen to what she wanted. I feel like I was perfectly reasonable. Am I the asshole?
Let's find out.
phephelagrou writes:
You’re not the asshole for “offering to help with the dishes” but YTA for telling her that “90% of the problems with messiness could be solved if she picked up after herself”. Like what were you thinking?
deathflower writes:
YTA. Honestly OP is blaming the wife who already does most of the time consuming chores for the mess. It’s especially bad when you realise how infantilising his way of putting it is, like that’s how I explained tidying to the little kids I babysat.
And it’s particularly shitty to have that attitude when your wife is opening up about being overwhelmed and struggling with balancing the house, her work, and childcare.
rosagarusa78 writes:
This crap has been going on between husbands and wives for many years. Wives need to vent, and husbands wrongly assume they’re looking to him to solve “their” problem.
I’m aware I could do a more efficient job house-keeping, but I don’t need to hear hubby’s solution (guess what? It involves more stuff for ME to do) when I’m exhausted.
Hey hubby, have you ever tried to clean house with a one year old infant to care for? Doesn’t sound like you have, OP. YTA