Mom fed up when husband with a cold says he's 'too sick' to brush their 2-year-old's teeth. AITA?
"AITA for expecting my husband to parent while being sick?"
I feel really silly posting this because I've never posted anything like this before. Me and my husband are both 25 and have a 2.5 year old. Married 5 years. My husband got sick with a cold yesterday and so today he stayed home from work.
I usually handle all the parenting and house chores (at least most) during the day so it wasn't hard to leave him alone to rest in the morning. He played some video games and laid in bed the whole time.
By afternoon, I logged in to work so I let my toddler run around around the house, in our room, wherever. I wasn't really paying attention since she was fed and happy and my husband was downstairs while I was upstairs in my office.
As dinner time rolled around, I logged off and made dinner. He still was laying around, which was fine because he is sick. After dinner, I went to his parents with my daughter just to drop off some things and help out my mother in law for an hour.
When I told her my husband was sick, she gave me a bunch of food for him and kept asking if I gave him medicine and that was only then when I began to get a little irritated.
I got home and my daughter was fussy since it was a little past her usual bedtime. The house was a mess, dinner still needed to be cleaned up. I already knew I would need to but for some reason I just felt so frustrated in the moment. My husband walked out and I just began to clean, letting him deal with our daughter.
At first, it took him 20 minutes just to get her into clothes. By then I was finishing up cleaning. He put her in bed without brushing her teeth and I had to remind him to brush her teeth. That's when he started grumbling about how he's sick and he doesn't have energy to handle her when she's fussy.
I lost it and almost yelled at him to just brush her teeth and go to bed. He said I was being unreasonably mean. We haven't really talked much after. He brushed her teeth and they both went to sleep right away. I just can't sleep. I'm so frustrated still.
When I'm sick, my routine doesn't change. The only thing different is that I either don't work, or work half as much hours. When I'm sick, I still do all the house and parenting duties. Am I really the AH for expecting him to do parenting duties while sick?
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
NTA. There's obviously a sliding scale here. If he was genuinely down and out with, say, a bad flu and said he was unable to get out of bed, I would hope you'd work around that. Then again, I would also hope he'd do the same for you-- and this post gives me a lot more reason to doubt the latter than the former.
On the other end of that spectrum, asking him to brush your toddler's teeth while suffering from a common cold (after most of a day of laying around convalescing!) is hardly unreasonable.
A bad flu means not being able to play video games or watching anything, because the headache is really bad and even keeping your eyes open is painful.
NTA. That’s weaponized incompetence‼️‼️‼️
NTA. Unfortunately, this situation is very typical! Your mother-in-law's comments show why your husband thinks he needs to be waited on hand and foot when he's sick. She and his father clearly raised him to think people need to behave that way around him.
The other parent should make an effort to take some of the pressure off when one parent is sick and you have done that. But your husband can't expect you to do everything. He is not in the emergency room or dealing with a life-threatening illness. He has a cold! Parents don't get to clock out for colds!
You need to sit him down and explain what you explained here. YOU don't get to clock out. Why does he expect that something as minor as a cold means he doesn't have to do basics? You are not his mother. It is not "mean" to expect him to parent his own child. Explain how angry you are.
ThrowRA_flu (OP)
That what it feels like. Because when I'm sick, it's like nothing changes. He gets upset if I didn't do what I usually do. My mother in law also suggest I go to the store to get an energy drink if I try to ask for help when running a high fever. But when he's sick, she will bring food and everything.
I do understand that I didn't communicate to him though. A lot of people say that here too that I should talk to him instead of snapping and I agree. I will talk to him tomorrow.
Yes, talk to him. Don't give in. You need to both make an effort to do more when the other person is sick but unless it's a life threatening illness, the other person should do some things. Good luck.
You let your resentment build up and instead of having a calm conversation you "lost it." Sit him down and tell him what it's like when you're sick. Come up with a plan to manage sickness in the house. What each parent needs to do.
Also why do you do all the house and parenting duties when you work too??? I would have this conversation too. You aren't a SAHM. You need a partner to work together with, not another dependent. My husband and I are both currently sick (kids sick last week). I slept in this morning, hubby is having a nap now. When we're both awake, we're both parenting.