'AITA if I stopped babysitting the kids of my husband's female 'friend' from work?'

"WIBTA if I stopped babysitting my husbands female 'friend' kids?"

I will put some context before I try explaining the situation I'm having an issue with. My husband and I have been together for 17 years, married for 14 years and we have 2 kids. About 4 years into our marriage, I found out that my husband had cheated on me. I debated for months if we would work through it or end our marriage. We ended up trying to fix things my husband quit drinking, and we started therapy.

I thought we were doing good, but he has this bad habit of trying to come to other woman's rescue. Our therapist told him to stop, that married men shouldn't have female friends and that if he wants friends find other males. My husband said he understood. It's been a few years since all this has happened, and thing were going well. so now to the reason I'm posting.

My husband had come to me a couple weeks ago and was talking about a woman at work. He told me that her and her boyfriend broke up. That he was threatening to call CPS on her if she leaves her kids (5 & 9 yrs old) home alone while she goes to work. My husband and her work 3rd shift. Needless to say, he then told me " I told her that you could watch them since you are here and you all will be sleeping anyways."

Then he stated but that's only if she has to. I said we'll see. Last week Sunday night rolled around, and her and her kids showed up to our house and I was told that the school had called CPS on her and she guesses she can't leave her kids home alone all night. I have been watching them all week which has been easy enough. They are good kids.

Now what is upsetting me started on the Friday before she showed up, I was relaxing on the couch watching something on my phone and he stood in front of me and flung his hand while saying must be nice to be so lazy. He spent the weekend making digs at me. to be honest it's not new behavior, so I usually just laugh at him and then ignore him.

I know I'm not lazy I work, clean, take care of the house and I run the kids all over for their school activities. All of my work vacation is used down to the last hour on my kids' activities. I don't want to miss any of their games. He does get to me I have to list all the stuff I do so that I can remind myself that he is wrong about me. It doesn't always work there are times I need my sister to talk to me about it.

Then on Monday night he was telling me a story about work and how him and the guys talked about who you would do if you had to and they asked each other for both genders. I asked what his answers where and he told me, well I had to pick someone around my age, so he told me he picked her. I was like that's messed up and weird, but I was like whatever.

Second incident was our daughter snuck a kitten in the house; I told her she had to get her dads permission. He hates cats, he's a dog person. I figured it was going to be a bit of a fight, but he just let her keep it and told her she is in charge of taking care of it. That weirded me out. He complains about the cats nearly every day, but we took the win.

What really sent me over the edge was what happened Thursday morning. I got up and got the 4 kids ready for school while also getting ready for work. I hadn't had much of a chance to talk with my husband that week due to kids' sports, his work meeting and working different shifts. So, when he got home a bit earlier than normal, I was like yes, we get to talk a little.

We talked a bit about our kids' afterschool activities. Then his coworker walked in, and her kids yelled "Mom's home!" it was cute and funny, until I noticed my husband decided to play along with a big grin. I was not very happy with him talking about another woman like that.

After that he completely ignored me and started talking to her and they started talking about how they were going somewhere next week after the kids go to school. I asked him twice "what? What's up?" and he just ignored me and kept talking with her. I stood there for maybe 2 mins. like a ghost.

I just left for work. He normally says, "Love you, have a good day.", but this time he just said bye. I didn't know what to do so I called my sister, and she told me this was messed up and he shouldn't be "white knighting" another woman.

I haven't said anything to him yet, but I keep going back and forth. I am not sure if I'm reading into it too much, because of our past issues or if there are some vibes that I'm picking up on. I don't know if I should listen to my gut or not. I think I think too much. I'm tired, ha-ha. AITA if I stop babysitting?

In the comments, she added:

Added context: I suppose I forgot to add why I had agreed to watch her kids to begin with. I had met her once prior, and she seemed nice enough, so when I heard what was going on, I felt bad. As a mother, I wouldn't be able to live without my kids. I couldn't imagine them being taken away. I thought I was just helping another mother till she could figure out what to do.

I did find out that the father of her kids is court ordered to pay for child care. I told her she should do that, but she told me she doesn't want to switch shifts and deal with trying to make the ex pay for child care. She does know I am not a permanent fix for her issue, but I also don't know how long she will take to fix her issue.

What do you think? AITA? Do you think her gut feeling could be right? This is what commenters had to say:

AtomicFox84 said:

My gut feeling and opinion is that hes cheating again or is trying to. He seems to be putting her before you in many ways. His comments are not helping either. Stop watching her kids. Its not your or his responsibility to do so.

dldanni65 said:

JMHO. You need to cut your losses and run. He is purposely hurting you and is having fun with the new "Mom" in his life. This was a gobsmack from the beginning.

Glum_Computer1963 said:

Nah, call CPS for her lol. Stop babysitting and if you really think this is worth it, then back to therapy and a call to your husbands HR for inappropriate behavior on both of them. I bet fraternizing with coworkers and talking “locker room” crap with guys is just disgusting and weird.

He’s probably doing more than “white knighting” her. Ugh, I’m sorry youre going through this mess but you both chose to work on it, and he definitely didn’t keep his end of the bargain.

AnnNonNeeMous said:

Ma’am, you are nannying his girlfriend‘s children. For free may I add.

Good-Sheepherder-364 said:

Babe. He's cheating. And it's not even the first time.

Love yourself more than you do him and leave.

Pedal2Medal2 said:

He’s gaslighting you. He’s having a relationship with this woman & being very obvious. Don’t do this to yourself or your kids. Separate