'AITA for yelling at my girlfriend and kids for constantly waking me up after a long day?'

"AITA for yelling at my girlfriend and kids for constantly waking me up?"

Okay so I am the sole provider in our house. I work 60+ hours a week, 12 hours a night. 10pm to 10am. I get home from work around 10:30 every morning and hang out with my girl and the kids for a couple of hours then lay down around 12:20-1pm. Normally this sleep last around 2-3 hours before I’m up again because the oldest gets home from school.

I’m up from then, til around 7pm and then I lay back down because I get up at 9pm to start getting ready for work. But there’s never a guarantee that I’m actually getting any sleep. Kids are noisy, and I don’t fault them for that, the youngest that are home all day are 4 and 1. Usually I can sleep through them playing.

But what I can’t sleep through is my girlfriend constantly screaming at the top of her lungs at them every time they inconvenience her and make her get off the couch where she plops herself most of the day.

Normally I don’t say anything and try in vain to fall back to sleep. So most days I’m usually only getting 2-4 hours of actual sleep before I’m back at work for another 12 hours. Yesterday, I just couldn’t take it anymore, and I went out there and screamed at her to shut up.

My thought on this are, if you don’t have enough respect for me and the fact that I bust my a-- 12 hours a day, 5-6 days a week to provide for you and our family, to try and limit your screaming and nonsense all day, then I’m not gonna respect you or the fact that I had to get out of bed to come do this.

She proceeded to start sobbing and sent the kids to their room and to be quiet ‘because I’ll come out and scream at them again’. She tried to make it seem like she was the victim. And it bugged me, because normally I’m very mild mannered and I understand that the kids aren’t going to be completely silent all day.

But there’s only so much sleep deprivation I can’t take before I finally hit my limit. So my question is, AITA for finally losing it and yelling at her?

The internet did not hold back one bit.

Tangerine_Bouquet wrote:

Probably ESH, but it's hard to tell exactly what you said or did and how you said or did it.

Your girlfriend shouldn't be screaming at kids. That's awful, even if you aren't sleeping, and she needs to parent appropriately.

You don't fix that by yelling yourself. Even though you do need sleep (and may need to make changes like white noise, earplugs, even soundproofing or making some parts of the house off-limits at certain times), this is something that everyone involved needs to approach as a problem to solve together.

If you're so frustrated that there's no potential for reasonable discussion, move out if at all possible. Set up custody times and be done with it. Otherwise, a counselor may help (although it may be hard to find the time and money, I know), or parenting classes for your girlfriend. Sorry you're dealing with this, because everything is harder without sleep.

OP responded:

What I yelled at her when I went out was exactly this ‘can I have one day where’s it’s possible for me to get 3 hours of consecutive sleep without being woken up by you screaming at the kids, or the kids screaming right outside the bedroom door, you all need to keep it the f#$k down!’

Should I have yelled? Nah prolly not. But it’s every single day and you can only take so much when you’re not sleeping and don’t feel appreciated for working hard to provide.

NCKALA wrote:

NTA. She can take the kids outside for some exercise to help them burn off that energy. You have to get some good rest, even if it means you may have to rethink this relationship. So there are at least 3 children at home, are any/all of these children your bio kids. How long have you been dating/living together?

OP responded:

Three kids yea. The oldest 2 are hers, youngest is ours. But I consider them all mine. We’ve been together 3 years, but only living with each other for 3 months.

justalibbygirl wrote:

You need to invest in some earplugs. They saved my relationship when I worked night shift. Why are you getting up when your oldest gets home from school? Is it out of necessity or because you can’t sleep through the commotion? This isn’t sustainable. It’s horrible for your body and your mental health.

OP responded:

I get up because I wanna be present in my kids lives even tho I am working. Also, I need to cook dinner for them.

capmanor1755 wrote:

You absolutely cannot keep living like this. It's bad for your health and it's bad for the kids. Stop the madness.

Stop having kids with someone who parents by sitting on the couch and screaming at the kids. Get an appointment for a vasectomy set up tomorrow.

Tell her she needs to get a full time job now so her salary can cover daycare for the two youngest. Get the two youngest on 2-3 daycare waitlists since it might take a while. They deserve to spend their days someplace where they can play without their mom screaming at them.

If she refuses to get work or routinely gets fired, leave her and get a family law attorney to file for 50/50 custody.

OP responded:

Crazily enough, I’ve had two vasectomies. The 1 year old is courtesy of the first one, that failed ha. I’ve brought up her working, but it’s always ‘I’d just be working to pay for daycare’ response.

Kyurengo wrote:

NTA.

Lack of sleep is dangerous for someone's mental health. It's normal that you're more irritated than usual. I worked 3 years in the night shift and I understand not being yourself. In your case it's worse because it's everyday.

Go to a hotel to sleep a couple of days and then talk to your GF. She needs to respect your sleep. Either she starts working too and you pay for someone to care for the kids while you sleep during the morning (family cant help?) or you go to another place to sleep at least 6 hours.

cuttiepook wrote:

NTA. Running on 2-4 hours of sleep is basically operating on hard mode, and your girlfriend is out here treating the house like a live-action loudspeaker. Yelling wasn’t the best move, but honestly? After getting woken up that much, it’s impressive you didn’t just start speaking in pure rage gibberish. Maybe a serious talk (while fully awake) about noise control and respect is overdue.