'AITA for asking my husband to give up some of his social activities during my maternity leave?' UPDATED
"AITA for asking my husband to give up some of his social activities during my maternity leave?"
"I especially would like to hear from men."
I had a baby 8 weeks ago. My toddler is only 1.5yo, so 2 under 2. I took 3 months unpaid maternity leave (had to save up during the pregnancy to afford it). My husband didn’t get any leave and had to keep working. He works from home.
During these 8 weeks, my husband has gone out to a couple of dinners. A late meeting (neighborhood committee), a wedding (that I had to tag along to, unwillingly, at only 6 weeks after a c section, to make him happy), late drinks following one of the dinners (he came home at 430am last week).
And he is scheduled to go on a bachelor trip later on (that was supposed to be a weekend in New Orleans and is now a 4 day international trip to Jamaica). He also told me about having three couples over to our house, which then turned - without my previous knowledge - into a FORTY TWO person get together (yes, you read that number right).
And he’s telling me he can’t end that event at 7 so we can put the kids to bed because “he can’t ask people to leave”. So he has not been deprived socially in any way. Now he’s saying he wants to go to a double birthday party in NYC this Friday, which will naturally mean a late night.
I’m arguing that, as a father of two very young kids in the trenches of postpartum, he should be sitting out of some of these events to stay home and help me at night. Our nanny is off the clock at 7pm, 5pm on Fridays. So it’s at night that I need him the most.
He argues that he’s home all day instead of going out to the office and having drinks after and he’s able to wake up early after a late night to help with the kids. However:
It’s not my fault his job is from home and I tell him he shouldn’t get to be out for drinks every night if he has a baby at home that needs him and...
While he does wake up at 7am after a late night, he then proceeds to be in a sour mood about how exhausted he is and I end up picking up all the slack for the next couple of nights to help him recover. So it all falls back on me anyway.
Of note, while I am on maternity leave now, I’m with the kids all day along with the nanny, so I’m not sitting around doing nothing. I also have a mental illness that requires me to prioritize my sleep, particularly in the postpartum period.
I have been completely putting this aside in order to favor my husband getting good sleep because he’s working. Also he gets reasonable chunks of “break time” throughout the day, so he is not working nonstop by any means.
Am I being unreasonable? Isn’t it fair that, as a father, he gives up some of these social events while his baby is a newborn? Should I just suck it up and let him be out and about for as many late nights as he wants?
EDITED TO ADD:
I am the breadwinner. I make more than triple what my husband makes, so I am not a gold digger.
Because I work, I hired a nanny. I simply didn’t want to fire her just for three months of leave and lose her, so I saved up during pregnancy to be able to keep her. Working people need childcare. Simple as that.
My husband isn’t a terrible person or I wouldn’t have married him. When he’s home, he’s absolutely a dad to his kids. Specially on weekends when he’s off work. It’s this ONE issue about the crazy amount of social events during this period that I’m having a problem with. We did get tons of women’s opinions in a FB group, so then my husband asked if we could also get men’s.
I didn’t know this would be a problem before kids or even after the first kid, because this all began after my husband went back to school for his masters and met all these friends that he now believes it’s crucial he network with. They’re not coworkers.
We are not relying on the internet to fix our marriage. We have recently started marriage counseling. We were simply curious what everyone else - unbiased third parties - thought because we both believe we are right.
Here's what people had to say to OP:
Odd_Welcome7940
NTA... As a man, he sounds like a lazy ass father. I don't want o verbally attack him too much because we only have 1 side. That said, I was super cringing the whole time. He sounds like one of those dads who is why people always say "oh are you babysitting today?".
dncrmom
If my husband told me I needed to host 42 people with a newborn less than 8 weeks old, I would have taken the baby & gone to a hotel or my parents for the night. He could figure out the logistics while watching the toddler for the evening. You have a very self centered husband. NTA.
Additional_Assist523
NTA in this situation. I can understand his need for social engagement but he is taking it too far. As a father myself, I can see what my wife goes through and I know the need to help. Being married is a 50/50 thing and with children involved it is even more needed to make sure everyone does their part.
On top of it all my wife also had to get a c-section for the children to be born and that was very hard on her body. He needs to be doing a lot more to help in your recovery. That is a major surgery that sliced you completely open. All this activity is not good for you. He should step up more, do less social activities, and offer more support. Having a job is no excuse.
Edit:For people saying marriage should be 100/100, the math doesn’t work out. You both can’t change a diaper individually for 1 dirty diaper, that means a clean diaper would be changed.
You both can’t discipline a child separately for one bad act or they will be double punished. 50/50 just means it requires equal work from both parties to complete all needed/wanted task and so that no one burns out or builds resentment.
I can see where you all are coming from, that is why each person should put 100% in the task they do. Marriages fall apart just as fast from someone doing to much as they do from someone doing to little.
WoodenLock1242
NTA, but your husband is. As a bloke, I can safely say that your husband is a selfish git. He's not even acting as a Father, he's just the partner of a Mother. Parenthood is meant to be a joint venture, (including the sacrifices), but he somehow managed to miss that memo. Sit him down and tell him straight to buckle the hell up and pull his weight.
mdmartini
He's an idiot. Grow up and be a man. Take care of your wife and be there for your children. OP is NTA.
Updates from OP:
1. He agrees he’s in the wrong and says he feels terrible that he’s been so inconsiderate. He says he knew it after the women commented but just wanted to hear what men had to say too. He says he will cool it with the events.
And continue to work on this in therapy. He should’ve seen my point just because I made it, but we’re both super opinionated, so I guess he was being either stubborn or simply delusional.
2: I decided I’ll be taking a one week trip abroad with my BFF when baby is 6 months (I don’t want to do it any sooner) and husband will manage kids on his own
In another post OP shared a lot more detail about her life:
"AITA? Husband thinks I don’t do enough around the house because I sit down."
My husband and I both work. I make almost 4x what he does, because he recently switched careers and started over (I fully supported his decision). I grew up in a third world country with cheap labor, so my mom hired and managed the help, and ran the house.
Naturally, I’m not super inclined to do home chores I didn’t grow up doing - like cooking and cleaning - so I hired (pay and manage) a nanny to care for the kids while I’m at work and make us dinner on weekdays, a cleaning lady to clean the whole house and do laundry every two weeks, and DoorDash on weekends, out of my own salary.
We consider all money “ours”; I’m just pointing out that I work extra to cover all those things, since I don’t do them myself, therefore I am not burdening anyone else. Of note, his mom never outsourced anything and did all those things herself; so there’s definitely a cultural element.
My husband does more of the physical labor around the house - random gardening, fixing things, taking out the garbage, etc. He does organize things when they get messy, which I’m much more relaxed about because we have 2 under 2, so things get messy again as soon as you tidy up
I do all the invisible load stuff - make and ensure we keep appointments, buy/stock everything everyone needs (including groceries every week), plan schedules and classes and trips, etc. I basically keep the house running, like my mom did when I was growing up.
Like I said, we have two young kids. I take care of them when I get home from work while the nanny cooks. Husband and I each do one bedtime. On weekends, we each do one wake-up. So we try to split it pretty evenly. Once the kids go to bed, we both have a couple of hours to unwind.
I work at the hospital. Husband works from home and has a ton of downtime during the work day (hours when he works out, does whatever he wants, and does things around the house).
Is what I’m doing my fair share for the family? Husband sometimes thinks I should do more, because what I do “can easily be done sitting on the couch”. He basically hates it when I sit down, use my phone, or have the TV on (even if I’m holding/feeding the baby, watching our toddler, making calls or setting up appointments, writing schedules, ordering groceries, etc).
He wants me up and at it, visibly doing stuff around the house. He does not wish me to hire more help. He wants ME to do it.
In my opinion, that fact that the things I do can be done while sitting down does not make them any less crucial. Not to mention, he’s not very good at doing them himself. For example, we’ve been seeing a marriage counselor for our issues - that I naturally scheduled and paid for.
I told him that since he thinks making appts is so easy, he could handle booking the counselor. Once it became his job, it NEVER got done and he straight up said to me “Nevermind, we don’t need a counselor. Our marriage is fine”.
What do you think? I believe we both do things for the house and family that play to each of our individual strengths and what we grew up learning to do. Is our arrangement fair or should I step up and do more in my limited time?
Edited to add:
1. I am not incapable of doing house chores and I do contribute to them getting done myself: I tidy up the living spaces, I do dishes if I see them sitting in the sink, I wash and sterilize the baby bottles, I set and/or clear the table, and whatever else on the day-to-day.
When the nanny is on vacation, I do ALL OF IT myself. I simply never learned to cook dinner or clean a big house. I’m sure I can read a recipe and put ingredients in a pot. I can iron a shirt and do laundry.
I can learn to clean a house. It’s not “weaponized incompetence”. It’s just not my forte or something I wish to use my time on if I can spend it with my kids (which is worth way more to me) or simply resting and recharging after working a very demanding job as a doctor.
2. I did not grow up rich most of my life; my husband did. I was a good middle class until finances changed and I was actually poor for a good 20 years. I went to medical school on a full scholarship and did it with no books of my own (either borrowed or downloaded for free), no computer, no internet, etc.
We still had help at home because we took on a lady that would work for us in return for housing/food/other necessities (we love her and consider her part of our family). I worked my ass off to come this far and be able to provide for my family. So spare me with the “you’re insufferable and rich”. That’s why the disclaimer is there
3. My husband works from home on a desk, so he sits down for that. But on his free time, he’s always going around doing things around the house, on his feet. We DO outsource gardening and have a handyman.
We don’t just pay for the things I don’t want to do. But he still finds things to do/fix/clean around the house. According to him, there’s always things to do and that’s what he wants me to help with.
4. I ONLY mentioned that I make more money to point out that 1. I’m carrying my weight financially and 2. I’m specifically paying for those chores I don’t want to take on myself, instead of dumping the responsibility on my husband to work more to pay for it.
If I DID NOT clarify that I’m making that money, you would come after me for being a gold digger and making my husband pay staff so I don’t do anything. Again, it happened on another post.
ETA #2: 5. My husband was in a different field that could easily make him almost as much as I do. He decided he was unhappy and wanted to start over doing something different. I fully supported him. He went back to school (with a crazy tuition, as it was Ivy League) and took on this entry level position.
So he chose to make less money to follow his dream. I have no problem with this at all, I don’t want him to be unhappy just to make money. But I believe it is a privilege that he can afford to follow that dream and let me carry the financial burden (my job is already my dream, so I’m happy).
Here's what people had to say to OP about "sitting down":
You sometimes sit down? Outrageous!
Crafty-Comfortable54 OP responded:
Apparently, “most of what I do” can be done sitting down because there’s a lot of phone calls, texts, online stuff, etc. He seems to want me to get up and do things - in addition to what I already do, both for work and at home. Whereas I think we both do things that play to our strengths and that it’s a fair arrangement.
He wants a version of his mother-WHO DID EVERYTHING-that you are able to pay for someone else to do. Sit him down and tell him: if I get rid of all the help and do it myself then I have to QUIT my job that pays 4x what yours does. Then I’ll do everything we can do on your income. Oh wait-you only make 25% of what I do. So, gym membership?
Out. Extra night out-nope. Door dash on weekends? Nope. Sleeping in on weekends? Nope since I’m home all day YOU have weekends. Now help me submit my resignation and pink slips for the people who depend on the jobs they have. So I won’t have time to sit.
That's the vibe I'm getting. He resents the fact she makes so much more than him. So he's criticizing her about this stuff...it seems like these type of stories on reddit where the woman earns more always have the husband feels resentful