'AITA for telling my GF that she should go back to work?' 'She doesn’t want to take care of our baby.'
"AITA for telling my GF that she should go back to work if she doesn’t want to take care of our baby?"
My fiancée (24F) and I (28M) welcomed a baby 5 months ago. My work offers 4 months paid parental leave and I added another month of PTO on it, give me 5 months to bond with the baby and help as much as I could.
We’ve also decided that she would stay home for a year and a half since we don’t want to send the baby to daycare so young. So for the time being, I’m paying for everything entirely…which is fine, I make more than enough.
During the last 5 months, I have been completely invested in the baby. She is not a night person, so at night I pretty much took care of him. She goes to bed around 9pm and I take care of him from that time to 5am.
Doesn’t mean I stay up til 5, just means if he wakes up and needs something, I take care of it. At 5 am, she picks up the responsibility. By 8-9 am, I would again pick up from her so she can sleep a little bit more. She loves her sleep. We did this for the whole 5 months I was.
During the day we also shared the responsibility when I was off. I changed him, bathed him, and fed as much as she did. At the same time, I made dinner every night, wash the dishes and even clean the house sometimes. She hates doing any of that stuff. We used to have a cleaning lady but I stopped paying for it since my bills are much more now.
I was ok with doing most of the work since I figured she just gave birth after a long pregnancy, it was my turn to put in some work. However, now I am back at work. But I feel like she still expects me to be doing everything still. I work from home so it doesn’t feel like I have gone back to work and she expects the same level of involvement I had.
We agreed that I would take care of the baby up to 3 now instead of 5, which is very late for me since I have to be up and running by 9. She still expects me to cook lunch and dinner, do the dishes. What bothers me the most is that she also expects me to take of the baby during the day as much as she does.
She will just come into my office and hand me the baby, saying it’s my turn. Because I spend a lot of time at night with the baby, I think the baby prefers me to hold him when he’s sleepy, so she will just bring him to me when he’s fussy and wanting to sleep. This is making it hard for me to concentrate.
I tried telling her that I can’t do everything I was doing before going back to work, but her thing is that I can’t expect her to deal with him by herself for 8 hrs straight…mind you that’s the reason she’s staying home in the first place. So I told her if she doesn’t want to take care of him during the day then she should go back to work and we can send the baby to daycare.
But I can’t do all of it once: making the money, and at the same time cooking, cleaning and taking care of the baby. Now she is telling lies to her mom that I am not helping her enough with the baby. Am I the ahole?
Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:
aeroeagleAC said:
NTA, she very much can take the baby for 8 hrs and if she cannot then as you said time for daycare and her to go back to work.
Smart-Caterpillar696 said:
NTA - she should go back to work. What’s next? A nanny for the daytime?
EntertainmentDry3790 said:
NTA, tell her mother the truth as well.
skorvia said:
NTA. She's just being a burden, does she have PPD? It's very strange what she's doing, it's like she doesn't want to be a mother, I think she needs to see a specialist and if she's just being selfish and not changing, under no circumstances should she continue in the relationship.
EquivalentCookie6449 said:
8 hours straight…I guess she didn’t know parenting is 24/7 for BOTH PARENTS. I wouldn’t have any more kids with this person. Sounds like she likes the idea of a baby but not actually being a mother. Good grief. She’s lazy. At least she can contribute money. This would (and did actually) make me extremely bitter and resentful. NTA.
TNJDude said:
NTA. She's nuts if she believes she can't be expected to watch the child for 8 hours. That's literally what stay at home parents do. If she doesn't want to do parenting, then go back to work.