Someecards Logo
ADVERTISING
'AITA for not doing chores after my wife goes to bed?'

'AITA for not doing chores after my wife goes to bed?'

ADVERTISING

"AITA for not doing chores after my wife goes to bed?"

tinselpartyaita

My wife (39F) and I (38M) have been married for 10 years and have 2 kids (7 & 5). We both work full time and our kids are in school during the day. We've developed a system for childcare and chores that works for us in terms of splitting duties.

Neither of us has set chores. We alternate bedtime routine pretty much every night and the person not doing bedtime will do dishes, get laundry going, do a quick clean, etc. This helps us stay on top of things without one person feeling like they're doing more than the other.

A few months ago my wife was put in a new role at her job. It came with a small pay bump, but also increased her workload and is more stressful. As a result, she has a lot less energy at the end of the day.

If I am the one doing bedtime, instead of doing chores, she goes straight to bed. If she's the one doing bedtime, she goes to bed immediately after the kids go to sleep.

For the first few weeks, I was OK with doing all of the evening chores because I knew she was tired from her new role and I wanted to give her time to adjust. But when her early bedtime routine continued, I started to get frustrated.

We had a talk about it and she apologized for not keeping up with evening chores, but she made excuses about being tired from her new job and simply not having energy at the end of the day. I told her that I'm tired at the end of the day too, but it's not fair to me for her to just go to bed at 9pm every night and leave me to do all the chores.

She said she would try to get better, but nothing has changed and I'm tired of doing all the dishes, laundry, and cleaning every night. Not to mention that we usually use that evening time for time together, which has been non-existent since her new job as well.

A couple weeks ago, we had another talk about it and I told her that if she's going to keep going to bed early every night, I'm not going to continue to do all the evening chores on nights I also do bedtime. If she's doing bedtime, I will do all the chores. But I won't do them every night anymore. She said she would do better about keeping up with them.

But she didn't. She kept going to bed early every night. Which meant that if I didn't do the evening chores, they would pile up and I would end up having to do 2-3 days worth. So, I just stopped doing them too.

By the time we got to the weekend, the kids didn't have clean clothes, there were dishes piled up in the sink, and the house was pretty messy. My wife stepped on a toy that had been left out and got angry that the house was a mess.

She scolded me for not doing the chores the night before since she had done bedtime. I reminded her that she hadn't been holding up her end of the chores for weeks and she got mad at me.

She told me that she's still adjusting to her new workload and that I need to pick up some slack in the meantime. She thinks I am being a jerk by not being more understanding of her new job and how stressful it is.

Here's what people had to say to OP:

Does she work longer hours at all now that she's taken on more responsibilities at work?

OP responded:

Nope, hours are the same. Just a heavier workload and more stressful work.

Is she offering any alternatives to help re balance the cleaning situation, or is she just ignoring it until she can't anymore?

OP responded:

The times I've talked with her about it she says she will make an effort to do better and keep up with things, but nothing changes.

NTA, but for your own sake, it might be time to reassess how chores get handled. Maybe some get done in the morning, maybe the kids learn to do some chores like loading the dishwasher, putting things away, bringing their laundry to the washer (or door to the place where the machines are), folding and putting their clothes away, etc.

OP responded:

Our mornings are hectic enough trying to get everyone ready and out the door. Adding more to our mornings is not a viable solution.

Rapeap

NTA Wash the kids stuff still but don’t pick up her slack. Let it get to the point where she’s going to work in dirty clothes, day after day. She’ll wake up.

KronkLaSworda

NTA. Your wife needs to do her share. You both work, therefore you split chores close to 50/50.

Hadtosignuptofothis

ESH, the old system doesn’t work, figure out a new one.

UnhappyTemperature18

This. They both made the mistake of trying to keep the old system going even after what sounds like a pretty drastic primary workload change on her part. The whole thing needs to be redone for both fairness and practicality.

OP, maybe those chores get done on the weekend. Maybe you use some of her higher salary to get a dishwasher, or hire a once a month cleaning service. Maybe you sit down together and figure out what's going on with how tired she is, and decide that she steps back down from the promotion. But whatever you do, this ain't it fam.

Solid_Internal_9079

You guys need better communication. You need to chat and set up a plan. If she doesn’t stick to it you reevaluate. After a particular period of time, if she is unable to adjust, her job way be too much for her. She needs to choose between family and work. NTA.

bap707

i wanted to say NTA but ill settle for a ESH . u communicated ur needs to her multiple times and she pretty much ignored them. it seems that u need a new chore schedule or plan that adjusts to her workload.

maybe instead of at night, she can do her chores earlier in the morning? no idea. the reason i say ESH is because u have children and the children are the one suffering the consequences. no child deserves to wear dirty clothes, or live in a dirty house, regardless of the reason. if u love ur kids, u can wash their clothes. its unfair to them.

So, married friends, what would you recommend?

Sources: Reddit
© Copyright 2025 Someecards, Inc

ADVERTISING
Featured Content