Husband asks if he's wrong for putting his mental well-being over child and wife. AITA?
"AITA for putting my(M33) mental well-being as a priority instead of my child and wife(F33) after she requested an open marriage?"
Decent-Special-1562
First of all, I apologize for the grammatical errors, English is not my first language. My wife and I have been a couple for 9 years and married for 7 years, we have a son who is currently 6 years old, we both work and take turns doing both household chores and homework with our son.
Now, I have the mentality of "I am my priority" which my parents taught me since I was a child. If there is something that threatens my own peace, I am simply going to leave it and that's it, no matter how much it hurts at first.
Now, my love life with my wife has always been quite active, although it was reduced a little years ago due to the issue of pregnancy and childbirth. That, little by little, was resolved and we ended up having a good love life again, at least that It was what I believed.
My wife recently told me to talk. She told me that, even though she loves me, she feels that ours has become a little monotonous. I told her that I had no problems with that.
But she told me that what she was meaning was that she wants to try new things but with other people, that I could do it too and that it doesn't have to affect our relationship or our family.
I'll be honest, her proposal hurt me a lot, she told me to think about it, that she wasn't going to force me. A couple of days passed in which, at my request, she slept with our son while I stayed in our room, where I cried as much as I could and thought about what to do.
I came to the conclusion that I didn't want the open marriage, and that it was going to disturb my peace as much as possible. So I talked to my wife and told her that I wanted a divorce if she wanted her open marriage and that she could have the child 5 days a week while I can have him on the weekends.
She immediately said no, that she doesn't want to end our relationship, that we don't need to end it because that would affect her and our son. I responded, "And why should I care? If it affects me, it's the most important thing for me." Which she didn't take very well. She accused me of being selfish, manipulative and a bad father.
I told her the truth, I told her that if we divorced, yes, our son would have a hard time, but that he would end up getting used to it like every child, what's the problem then? I told her that I've cried enough and that all I want is a little peace, and that her desire to walk around like a drunk teenager having orgies would not give me that peace.
Just as she made her intentions clear about wanting an open relationship, I made mine clear about keeping my peace, even if it means separating from them, AITA for that?
Here were the top rated comments from readers:
MagicCarpet5846
I’m fine with leaving your wife, but how come you want to be a weekend dad? No. YTA for that. Do 50/50 custody. 1-2 weeks on 1-2 weeks off. You can’t just not prioritize your kid. He didn’t choose to be born.
You can choose to prioritize yourself over your wife and you can understand that divorce is better than an unhappy marriage for kids, but saying “I’ll take the kid 2 days a week” just like that is an awful thing to say.
3rdDegreeYeets
Especially when those two days are the weekend. He gets to be the fun dad with little responsibility and she has to be the mean nagging mom who has to deal with school and homework.
Tasty_Doughnut_9226
NTA but why not 50/50 custody?
Throwra98787564
Right? Not wanting to open up a relationship is more than understandable, but going on about keeping his peace and then saying he wants only 2/7 of the time with his kid and it's not the 2/7 that include things like school. That's not a great combination.
Spirited_Community25
Because he wants her to do the day to day stuff (school, homework, laundry, etc). He can be the fun weekend father.
Kikubaaqudgha_
Maybe others had better experience with "weekend dad" than I did but wanting to be the weekend dad feels like you've already checked out of that relationship.
NuzlockeJoe
Nta for not wanting to deal with an open marriage. But 100% YTA for this whole “me first” mindset. I get it, if you’re in a bad place emotionally it’s difficult to support or help others. But if anything whatsoever disturbs your peace, you just leave? Why even have a kid in the first place? This is the mindset of a child, not a grown adult.
scooties2
Esh. And y'all both have very poor communication skills. Your wife would have already known your stance on monogamy by 9 years in and sprung her request on you with no regards to your feelings.
When you expressed you want a divorce over it she shut that down as if her opinion is the only one that matters. I am assuming you have a weekday job here so correct me if im wrong about your schedule. But you don't get to say:
"Fine we'll get divorced and I already decided you'll take the kid 2.5 times more than I will and you'll have to deal with all the weekday BS (school, daycare, packing lunches, homework, etc) while you go to work then I'll take him on my days off on weekends when there are no responsibilities and we can have fun." To say it doesn't matter what's best for the child because he'll get over it is cruel.
I'm not saying stay married. Getting divorced may be best for the child so he can learn how a healthy couple should look and right now y'all aren't it. But your job is now to co parent to the best of your ability to give your kid safety, security, and love.
There's no space for your "rub some dirt in it" mentality here. Your child will have a hard time with this. You and your wife need to work together to make it as easy as possible for him. You need to coordinate a fair schedule that doesn't leave one part doing a majority of the responsibilities.
You need to go through the court system, figure out who pays what, treat your son like he matters and his hard feelings aren't an inconvenience to you, you and your wife are responsible for putting him trough your divorce so you are both responsible for helping him cope with it and manage his feelings in a healthy way.
No "getting over it, not a big deal, everyone else is fine, my feelings matter but my kids don't" BS. You're not an a$$h0l3 for asking for divorce. You are an a$$h0l3 for trying to insist you get to be an unequal parent because that's easiest for you.
karidru
Also his thing about “if something threatens my own peace, i am simply going to leave it and that’s that” is a super unhealthy mindset for a parent to have. If your child is threatening your peace, you DO NOT get to just abandon them.