Mom reveals plan to take solo vacation for birthday; husband says, 'you're selfish.'

Getting rest and recuperation is essential if you want to maintain some semblance of sanity while raising a family. The problem, of course, is that getting the rest is hardest when you most need it. And it often requires the support of a partner or extended friends and family in order for it to even be feasible.

In a perfect world, everyone would have the village they need to support them on their path. But in an increasingly expensive and isolated world, it's harder than ever to achieve rest - particularly for moms.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a woman asked if she's wrong for wanting to take a vacation away from the family.

She wrote:

AITA for wanting a week's vacation, alone, away from my partner and children?

Me (32F) and my partner (37M) are in a disagreement. He thinks I'm selfish for considering this. I don't think I am. He suggested I post here to see what you all say. We have been together 12 years. My partner has two responsibilities in terms of the house. He walks the dogs in the morning and he goes to work full time (8-6). More often than not, he falls asleep at 8pm. He works in IT.

We have three children (7, 4, 2) and I am fully responsible for their care, as well as every household duty, laundry, cooking, cleaning. I am a SAHM, but I am also self-employed, so after I look after the children all day, I then work for a couple of hours on my laptop. My birthday is coming up. I asked my partner what he would think if I booked myself a vacation, for a week, on my birthday and went on my own.

If he could use his PTO to take time off to look after and spend the week with our three children - taking them to school and taking care of the house. He told me I was selfish. 'It's selfish to want to go on holiday for a week for my birthday?' He said yes. My partner hasn't done a load of laundry in ten years.

He cooks dinner 'occasionally' (2 x a month). He doesn't hoover, mop, or mow lawns. I get it, he's tired and he works full time, but I work too, and I don't feel appreciated. I just want a week where I don't have to placate a crying child, or stop the toddler from running into traffic, or worry about everyone else's good time while sacrificing my own.

The last time I spent time away from the children/house was when we went out for dinner for his birthday in March (After they were asleep. I organised the babysitter). Oh, and my pap smear, which he tried to make me take the children too even though he was home.

The holiday would be paid for entirely by me. He gets 28 days of PTO, not including bank holidays. Last year, he lost 12 PTO days because he didn't take them. (We're in the UK) AITA?

Her post inspired a lot of spirited responses.

Sea_Rise_1907 wrote:

You’re not a SAHM. You have a part-time job. Your division of home labor is insanely unbalanced, and all of it falls to you. Of course your husband refuses to let you take a holiday, he’d have to actually lift a finger to parent his own children if you did.

Please for your own sake book that holiday and inform him you will be going. Perhaps if he had to do a fraction of everything you’d done for years he’d finally see how unfair he’s been to you.

internethussy wrote:

NTA. Just the childcare you're doing is a full-time job with children those ages. Added to that you're doing all the housework, all of the cooking (two times a month is not frequent), AND 2+ hours of self-employment working from home. It sounds like you have multiple full-time jobs, while he has one. Consider pricing out what it would cost to have someone do your work full-time as an experiment.

How much would it cost to hire a nanny for three children of those ages full-time? How much would it cost to hire a maid to complete the house chores you do? How much would hiring a lawn service cost? How much would having a home cook, or having meals delivered every day cost? Do you walk the dogs outside of the time he does in the morning? If so, add it to the list.

Those are the costs of your labor. That's what the two of you save by you doing that work. There's a decent possibility those labor costs would cost more money than he makes, and the hours those people would need to work to complete the work you are doing easily total more than the hours he's putting in at the office and walking the dogs in the morning.

This doesn't even include whatever you make at the work-from-home job you do after dinner. A reasonable split would be that you do the same eight hours of work he does (be it caring for the kids, cooking, cleaning, etc.) and then the two of you split the remaining duties relatively evenly.

When he comes home from work, he thinks of it as him clocking out of work- but when do you get to clock out? Because it's not after just eight hours of work. He's not pulling his weight here, and it seems like he's not even appreciating the fact that you're doing the vast majority of the work in this situation.

I know this hurts to hear, but I'd recommend you seek out counseling on your own to decide whether this is a healthy relationship for you to stay in.

And whether he's capable of making the changes needed to make your marriage into a partnership instead of you doing all the child-rearing and house labor while he is free to work without even doing the basic amount of housework he'd do if he were a single man with no kids.

FlagCityDiva wrote:

NTA. There is nothing wrong about wanting time alone and being responsible for only yourself. In fact, it could be beneficial for everyone. When people burn out, it affects everyone around them. If your partner is adamant about a whole week, perhaps they'll be amenable to a three-day weekend. I hope you get a much-needed break.

LetPrior7218 asked a crucial question:

Running a household while juggling children is a job. And i say this because I’m living that life. There are no days off, no sick days and you're on call 24/7. Why can't you get a week off? And tbh your husband needs to do more especially for his kids on regular days.

Does he help with Bath time? Bedtime? Anything? NTA. Can your mum or anyone else look after them? Because that’s what I would do. Wouldn’t even let him know my plans.

And OP answered:

He puts them to bed most evenings (the older two), but doesn't do the bath or story part, it's mostly just tucking them in and sitting with 4M until he falls asleep. (Then he often falls asleep, that's why he's asleep by 8pm). If he doesn't feel like putting them to bed, I find out when I'm working and all of a sudden I hear children running riot upstairs while he's on his phone.

yespleaseforcheese wrote:

NTA you are currently a single mum with a lodger (all he does is pay toward living costs). From what I’ve read you contribute equally in terms of money while he does nothing for the family. You realize if you divorced you’d be better off?

You’d only have the kids half the time, so you’d have more money cus you could work more and downtime when the kids are with dad. He’d be forced to step up and you would be able to have a life.

OP is definitely NTA, if anything, she's overdue for an overhaul of her marriage.