'AITA for telling my spouse I needed 30 mins alone?' 'I had failed at my ONE task.'

"AITA for telling my spouse I needed 30 mins alone when they just got back from a trip?"

My spouse (33F) and I (35F) have 2 kids (2 and 4). My spouse was recently away for 4 days for work. My parents were here while she was away, leaving about 8 hours before she was back. Having them around is probably net helpful but is also draining as they are high conflict, and my dad in particular often makes demands/asks questions at inopportune times.

The other context is that we have had guess staying for all but 5 days for the last month, and my father in law was flying back with my spouse to stay. He is nice but doesn’t help (eg generally doesn’t clean up unless explicitly asked).

Anyway, at 7pm, I started getting the kids ready for bed. By 8:30, the eldest was still awake, pulling various delay tactics, and announced she was hungry. At this point I was annoyed as I still needed to clean up downstairs before my spouse and FIL arrived.

My spouse text me at that exact moment to stay "Just landed. Kids sleeping? I responded "I have been trying to get Kid asleep for 90 mins but she’s still awake. I suck."

Clearly I should have said "welcome back!" but I felt like I had failed at my one task and was overwhelmed at the possibility of more hosting without a break. My spouse said "she’s probably just excited" to which I responded "I just wanted like 30 mins alone without hosting someone."

At this point, my spouse interpreted this as me not wanting her to come back. I apologized and explained that this was totally unrelated to her and I just wanted a break before hosting her dad, but she insists on seeing it as me not wanting her home and is now basically not speaking to me except about administrative things.

I realize I should have said "welcome back" but also expected her to be more understanding of how draining and two little kids is. So AITA?

Here's what people had to say about this one:

Miserable_Ebbntide said:

NTA. She lives there so you aren't hosting her, so I'm confused on her anger. Being alone (even with your parents you are still the only parent there) taking care of two kids, especially young ones is hard.

When I get back from being away or my partner does we both give the other person time alone when we get back so they can reset like we were able to even if it's just a short period of time. You do need to say no to guests if that is an issue. I don't think anyone is the ahole here but everyone needs to communicate better.

Longjumping_Mood9835 said:

NTA. Could you have said it better? Sure. But if the text said "I just need 30 minutes alone without hosting" then that means anyone outside of your immediate family. Why are you both hosting so much anyways? You both probably need a break from it.

Secure-Flight-291 said:

NTA. There was nothing wrong with your reply and your spouse should have accepted your explanation rather than insisting on interpreting it as a reason to be offended.

My spouse and I both traveled for work when we had 3 under 5 and whoever traveled understood their job was to swoop in and immediately give the non-traveling spouse a break when they got home. Are you sure your parents are the only high-conflict people in your family?

Pristine-Mastodon-37 said:

You don’t host someone who lives there. Clearly you weren’t talking about her. She’s being drama here NTA.

Ok-Perspective5262 said:

NTA. 4 days of sole responsibility for everything and a rough day of to boot. I’d have asked for them to not bring dad and say exactly what you said. “Can we see dad a later time. It’s been a long 4-5 days and I just need a break from hosting for at least 30 minutes.”

My husband did 4 hours of my day and when I woke up from my nap he was basically kissing my feet and said “I can’t believe this is some of what you do. I couldn’t handle 4 hours and you do it every day."

West-Scale-6800 said:

NTA - but you don’t suck and don’t tell yourself or anyone else otherwise. Kids are hard man. My almost 1 year old woke up at 8:30 after bed time last night and didn’t go back to bed until after midnight then decided 5 was perfect time to try to poop.

My husband wants his mom this weekend, his father next weekend and his friends to stay the weekend after that for my husbands birthday and I am already beat. You need and deserve more than 30 minutes alone and if wife takes that personally I would question her as a possible A H. Happy sMothers Day!