Parents are sick, mom wants to host SIL and kids, dad won't help, mom calls him lazy.
When this husband is fed up, he asks Reddit:
'AITA for leaving my sick wife to deal with two toddlers on her own?'
Id like to give a little bit of background first. I (M36) and my wife (F35) have a 3 year old daughter. I have long standing issues with my wife's SIL, because I think that my wife constantly panders to her, and caters to her every whim, often at the expense of me and my daughter.
Recently we had a huge fight about her saying something offensive to me in a public setting in defense of SIL, at our daughter's expense, and up until this point she has tried to do better.
We've both been floored with flu for the past 10 days or so (negative COVID tests). She seems to have had it slightly worse than me, so I've been tagged in to do all chores, childcare and cooking while she's tried to get as much rest as possible.
This has now trickled into a week I booked off work on holiday, which doesn't bother me in itself, because I'd rather make sure they were both ok. I am however, starting to feel really run down myself now. I'm tired, I've had limited opportunity to rest and catch up on sleep, and I'm sore.
Today my wife woke up at around 915 AM (I'd been up since 630 with daughter), and said she was feeling a bit better. I said that's great, and maybe she could hold the fort while I went for a nap?
She said that what she was ACTUALLY thinking, was inviting SILs youngest round for a playdate, to keep our daughter occupied. For reference, she is 3.
This isn't an uncommon thing to happen - SIL often brings her kids to us (and for reasons I still don't understand, our daughter is never invited to spend an afternoon with them in their house).
I said that I really wasn't feeling up to it today. My wife said that I wouldn't have to do anything to entertain them (to which I was skeptical about), so I agreed.
So about 15 minutes after she arrives, I'm asked to get them drinks and snacks, and then play games and occupy them.
Now, I'm aware that I'd have needed to do this for my own daughter - but going from 1 to 2 toddlers is such a huge leap in terms of the demand on your time and energy.
Add this to the fact that I was feeling lousy, and it just wasn't a good mix. I'm off work this week, and on top of my illness, I didn't sign up for extra childcare duties.
After about 2 hours, I told my wife that I was going up to my mum's house to get a sleep. The whole way up, she was phoning and texting me, absolutely furious that I'd left her to deal with it.
I'm literally lying in my mum's spare bed writing this now, but my brain is too wired to sleep. AITA? I know it's shitty leaving her while she's sick to deal with two toddlers, but after so long holding the ball, I've reached my limit.
Let's find out.
oddpolyglot writes:
NTA at all. You told her you needed rest and she decided to have a guest over?! You should've just went to take a nap as soon as the other kid arrived.
Curious954 agrees:
Yeah, she seems irresponsible and insensitive to your needs. It sounds like everyone could have used more rest. But ultimately, you are doing what you need for you after doing everything for her and your daughter.
This isn't a relationship ender obviously. But she needs to listen to you, let you have your rest time, appreciate what you did, and apologize for ignoring your needs.