No matter how woke you think you are, trying to figure out an equal division of labor at home is hard. Like, really hard. It’s especially hard when one partner is pregnant, nursing or otherwise rearing small children. Children are exhausting, period, no matter what age they’re at.
But on the flip side, if the other partner is putting in long hours to help pay for said children, that can really start to become a grind, too. Call it an impasse — no one is super happy.
One man took to Reddit to ask if he’s an asshole for telling his wife they’re essentially both pregnant because he has to work such long hours.
You can read the full tale below:
AITA for telling my wife that we’re BOTH pregnant?
I know this sounds bad, but hear me out. im using a throwaway cuz my wife uses reddit, so please don’t upvote this. I just want honest feedback.
My wife (29f) and I (27m) do well financially, so we decided to have our fourth child. Every single pregnancy we’ve been through my wife has been a complete nightmare. Some things I can deal with, like waking up to the sound of her puking her guts out every morning, but when she starts demanding I go to the store every day to get her snacks or set up her foot bath thingy because her feet are swollen, I get a little impatient. I work way longer hours than her in a much more physically demanding profession (I’m a plumber, she’s an engineer) so I think we’re putting an equal amount of effort into this baby.
And it’s not like I don’t help around the house, either. She does all the cooking and dishes, but I do laundry, take out garbage, and mow the lawn (we pay someone to do the floors and bathrooms weekly). My MIL comes over to help with the kids because she says I’m useless (ive been meaning to make a justnomil post about her), and while I appreciate the help I’m sick of her crap. Just because I want one hour of video games to myself a day instead of cleaning up messes in the kitchen doesn’t mean I’m “useless”.
This all came to head yesterday when my wife screamed at me from the kitchen to get off my ass and entertain our twins so she could focus on her meatloaf. I made a dumb joke about how this is the third meatloaf we’ll be eating this week, and she. lost. her. shit. She told me how I have no sympathy for the fact that she’s pregnant, I should be taking on more of her chores since I can’t breastfeed, but then I reminded her that I still work a lot more hours than her, so I think we’re basically both pregnant.
She got really quiet, and has only spoken to me regarding the kids since. I don’t think I’m wrong but I’ll apologize to her if it makes her happy.
AITA here?
Reddit users had A LOT to say to this guy. And most of it wasn’t very nice. If he was hoping Reddit would provide a little sympathy, he was sadly mistaken.
One commenter even went so far as to say that this guy is heading toward a divorce:
Another user pointed out that if he wants to play video games, he needs to sacrifice some of his own time to do that:
Other users wondered if he was being overdramatic even in how he wrote the post:
Plus, they astutely noted that being in a marriage isn’t about tit for tat all the time:
And that he’s not doing anywhere near the amount of work his wife is doing anyway:
And he gets to play his video games. Did he ever stop to think about when his wife gets downtime?
Bottom line, the dude’s a big ol’ asshole:
This one seems pretty clearcut but of course, there are always shades of grey. You’ll notice that the original poster edited his post to say that his wife actually found this thread and wants to get couples counseling.
We hope he agrees to go and that he takes it seriously.
What’s your take? Is this guy overreacting? Should his wife be more understanding? Something else in the middle?
Let us know in the comments!