Here's the original post:
I M32 am the sole income earner in our household and my wife is a sahm (she had a job but could no longer keep it due to health problems). We have a year daughter at home as well.
Eversince I started working from home my wife started treating me as if I was available to do whatever she needed me to do like fix the faucet or deal with leaking roof. But I work long hours from home and I need to be comitted and professional otherwise I'd risk losing my position.
She interrupted my work several times already. I had a conversation with her about it and asked that she stop asking me to do things until I'm done working and she said okay but it happened again days ago when she barged into my office with our daughter all of a sudden telling me to keep an eye on her while she visit the clinic.
I paused my work session because I was caught off guard she didn't tell me beforehand. She said that she suddenly started feeling pain in her belly and needed to see the doctor asap. I explained that I had important work and could not stay with our daughter or keep her in the office while working. She said she won't be long but I urged her to call her sister and let her come stay with our daughter.
In my opinion this seemed to be the one reasonable solution for both of us but she lashed out at me saying no because this was an emergency while my work could wait. She said she had no time to wait til her sister come over but I said I'd call her myself and tell her to come. I even suggested I pay here and all my wife had to do was wait few minutes til her sister arrived.
She stormed out of the office with our daughter after calling me a selfish jerk with no empathy to keep her waiting longer before visiting the doctor. My sister in law came some 20 minutes later and my wife left then.
I tried calling her to check on her but she purposely hung up on me few times and when she got home she was still pretty pissed at me which I don't get because I think that I provided a solution that allowed her to go to her dr appointment and allowed me to resume my work session but no,
she kept talking about what a horrible partner and father I was to refuse to provide help when she needed it and refused to sympathize with her difficult situation and making her wait for her sister when she needed to see the doctor asap. She's now refusing to speak to me altogether. I think my compromise was reasonable, I don't really get why she got so mad over it. Was I TA?
bubbsnana said:
Good thing her abdominal pain wasn’t an aortic aneurysm. Imagine the inconvenience of pausing work long enough to deal with a coroner removing her dead body, and geez funeral planning and just everything would really cut into your “big provider” important time. YTA.
[deleted] said:
YTA. Why have kids if you don't want to parent?
capresesalad1985 said:
YTA. If the sister in law was coming, you couldn’t watch your daughter for the 20 minutes so she could go right away?
uhno28 said:
ESH. I get that some people get confused with WFH and how the lines blur when you actually need solid hours of uninterrupted work. Your wife is failing to recognize the difference, and failing to take your job seriously. However, in this specific situation, you were definitely in the wrong. She was in pain, she needed to go to the doctor.
What you do is take the kid. You don't decide to stand your ground when your wife is in pain and needing to make it to a doctor's appointment. If this appt was pre-planned then I'd call you N T A, but sometimes you just snatch an appt and have to make it. I get your frustration with her not respecting your work time, but you picked the wrong time to make a statement here.
PugRexia said:
YTA. I'd be with you if this hadn't been a medical emergency. Why couldn't your wife have gone immediately and you waited with your daughter for those 20 minutes? I get that you had work to do but I'm sure you could have spared 20 minutes so your wife could've got medical attention sooner
MissContrariwise said:
YTA ordinarily I would agree with you that when you work from home, you need to treat it like you are going into an actual office without random interruptions. However, this was an emergency. If you were at the office and she had called you saying she was having a medical emergency, would you have said no then too?
Bc if so you’re an AH. A medical emergency comes first before work (whether in office or WFH) in both scenarios.
And Anonabears said:
YTA sorry it’s such a iNcOnVeNiEnCe to watch your own child.
Consensus: YTA. Do you agree?