No one is perfect, and while we can honor and even appreciate that, we also have to understand that sometimes our imperfections can inconvenience or hurt other people.
When what we do hurts other people, we either have to let go of the behavior or we have to let go of the relationship, pointed out the members of the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITAH) subReddit.
Redditor Impossible-Mud2449 had gone through a lot of troubling times with her husband because of his drinking habits and his refusal to respect her boundaries.
But when he went so far as to put salad croutons into their baby’s baby formula instead of baby cereal while he was drunk, the Original Poster (OP) banned him from taking care of their baby alone.
She asked the sub:
“AITAH for telling my husband I’ll divorce him after finding croutons in our baby’s formula?”
The OP had a terrible start to her day because of her husband drinking the night before.
“This morning, I (31 Female) woke up to find my husband (43 Male) not in our bed. I figured he fell asleep on the couch like he often does after drinking.”
“I was slightly annoyed because he’s responsible for bringing the baby monitor into our room with him since he stays up much later than me. Since he didn’t come into our room, the baby monitor never did either, and our nine-month-old is getting over an ear infection and has been waking up crying once a night (I can’t hear this without the monitor as both doors are shut and I have a fan running).”
“As I was making the baby’s bottle this morning, I opened the pantry to find a bag of croutons I had made inside the formula, with a few croutons loose in the formula, and the top of the formula container gone. I became instantly furious.”
The OP’s husband had a recurring habit of breaking promises and crossing boundaries.
“For context, before we had our kids (a toddler and an infant), my husband said he’d stop drinking once we had kids.”
“When I was pregnant with our first, I’d wake to a loud noise and would walk out to find my husband passed out on the floor, so intoxicated he fell asleep on a chair sitting up and fell onto the floor and still, did not wake up. This happened at least three times. Since then, I’ve found him passed out on the couch several times, and passed out in the toilet a handful of times.”
“On New Year’s Day, we had a serious talk about him needing to slow down/stop the drinking, as I was at my wits’ end with it. I told him then that if we had to have this talk again, it would be a much different talk.”
“Since then, I’ve found him on the toilet at least once, and just six weeks ago, I woke up one morning, thinking a homeless person had rummaged through our cupboards. There was lettuce all over the kitchen, a cereal bag that looked like someone chewed through it to open it and then poured a bowl onto the floor, and I found my raincoat soaking up a random mess in the entryway.”
“I’m not joking when I say I checked the security cameras, thinking someone broke in and had a feast while we slept. He tried to blame it on the two-year-old, but the folded-up cereal box was a dead giveaway.”
The croutons in the baby formula were the final straw for the OP.
“So that brings me to today. He told me he had two drinks and didn’t know how he ended up in the guest bedroom or why and thought it was our bed. But the guest bed didn’t even have any sheets or pillowcases on it.”
“Then finding the croutons was really just the tipping point. I confronted him and told him what I found and that there’s no way he only had two drinks and ended up doing something like this (he’s six feet, four inches tall, and 265 pounds).”
“He swears that’s all he had, and I told him if he doesn’t stop drinking, I’m filing for divorce.”
“He went to work, and we finally talked after the kids went to bed. He said I’m overreacting, he doesn’t have a problem, and it’s not fair to give him that ultimatum.”
“I told him it’s my life, too, and I don’t have to stay in a marriage where I don’t like the level of drinking, especially with two young boys.”
“If anything, I could have waited until tonight to have a better talk, but I think he needed to know this morning how serious I am in order for him to make a change.”
“If he doesn’t make a change, I’m keeping my word and will file.”
“AITAH?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
- NTA: Not the A**hole
- YTA: You’re the A**hole
- ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
- NAH: No A**holes Here
Some understood what the OP was feeling and reassured her that she was NTA.
“The OP might be worried about the house being unsafe for her baby, but it’s already unsafe.”
“I know finding croutons in the formula isn’t the same as setting the house on fire, but it’s still unsafe. Contaminated formula could cause a lot of problems for the child. What if it had been something else that got added to the container and she hadn’t noticed?” – Emmie12750
“Her house is NOT safe with a drunk adult in it! That man could trip and fall on a kid, he could start a fire, he could do or say something emotionally scarring. You have to protect those kids from his alcoholism.” – Candid-Ability-9570
“As someone who was married to and had children with an alcoholic, honestly, it is likely nothing will change until something drastic happens. It is your choice right now if that will be because you decide to stand up for yourself and your children.”
“You have shown your partner that they can take advantage of you. Time to show your kids a mother who is strong and who will protect them at all costs. You do not get this time back.” – sittinwithkitten
“Separate now, and let him sort out his drinking. Your baby is not safe in this household, and you don’t need all the extra work of cleaning up after your drunk husband.”
“If he can’t sober up convincingly, then it’s divorce.” – DrunkOnRedCarpet
“You might as well call a lawyer because he isn’t going to stop. What he will do is get sneakier and hide his drinking. People with substance abuse problems have to really want to quit.”
“He isn’t there, and I doubt threats are going to make him want to quit. People like that will lose everything before quitting. You can’t make someone quit drinking.” – mcmurrml
“Your husband is in a place with his addiction where he could kill your children due to his intoxication. What happens if he picks up the baby and stumbles to the ground, passing out? Your baby could easily die from blunt force trauma.”
“Make an ultimatum: AA, he lives outside of the home, and with proven sobriety, you can consider trusting him again. Don’t risk your baby’s life. Don’t do it. Please, I beg you, keep them safe.”
“I know this is hard. NTA.” – inmylovelydreamera
“Five years ago, we were at a family-friendly New Year’s Eve party, where the kids all partied upstairs and the adults partied downstairs. I’m not normally a big drinker, but I got pulled into party drinking games (my fault), and had way more than I should have.”
“I ended up spending the rest of the night puking in their bathroom. My kids witnessed this, and I am mortified. They still bring it up from time to time, still five years later.”
“And that was only a single time. I can’t imagine my kids having to witness scenes like that on a regular basis.” – PurplePufferPea
Others hoped that the OP would set boundaries for herself and her baby.
“Boundaries only work if they’re enforced. When are you going to put actions to your words?”
“He said he would stop drinking when you got pregnant, but he didn’t.”
“You asked him to stop drinking because you were at your wits’ end, but he didn’t.”
“You told him if you had to have the talk again, it would be a more serious talk, but then you find him two more times having been drunk as f**k. Now he’s lying about his drinking and trying to blame your CHILDREN for his behavior. AKA: …He didn’t.”
“So when are you going to enforce the boundary you set? You’re not following through, so he has no reason to change. He’s an alcoholic, and he’s not at a place where he can admit that.”
“He’s lying about his drunk behavior, he’s lying about how much he drinks, and now he’s downplaying a very serious situation to gaslight you into believing he’s fine and make you feel guilty for pointing out his drinking problem.”
“He does have a problem, people only drink regularly until they pass out like that if they’re an alcoholic. He cannot admit he has a problem because then he’d feel obligated to do something about it. You cannot change him or force him to change himself because then he’ll just try to hide it from you.”
“Ask yourself, do you love him and want him in your life and your children’s lives as the person he is right now, or do you feel like his behavior makes you and your kids unsafe in your own home? If you can’t accept his alcoholism, then you should leave for the sake of your and your kids’ mental health and well-being.”
“Being raised by an alcoholic is traumatizing, and it takes a long-term toll on both the children and the partner who’s putting up with it. Don’t set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm, it never works out.”
“Source: a person raised by an alcoholic parent.” – theOTHERdimension
“Seriously, OP, one day you may have the urge to start encouraging your kids not to talk, to save you from this. This will have horrible repercussions on your kids for the rest of their lives, and they will never tell anyone anything, even if someone is hurting them.” – Outrageous_Tie8471
“OP, wait till your toddler tells a teacher or another adult that their daddy is passed out drunk a lot. That he was naked, vomiting, etc. Kids say things as they are. They don’t filter the truth because this is the life that they are living.”
“You might find your home deemed not safe for kids. This option may be taken out of your hands, OP.”
“I hope for the sake of the kids that you put them first and not your partner.” – disconnectmenow
“It took me close to two decades and lots of therapy to finally forgive my mom for staying with an abusive alcoholic for too long. We have a great relationship now, but for a long time,e I thought she was a horrible person for choosing to keep her children in that environment.”
“My thoughts about her, and the way I spoke about her, were very unkind. My thoughts, when I let myself think about the alcoholic, remain very unkind. Don’t put your kids through what I went through.” – LAPL620
“If the OP doesn’t do this, THEN she will be the AH.”
“They will also come to resent OP, consciously or unconsciously. She may well end up with kids who won’t speak to her one day. Put bluntly, her behaviour is that of a codependent enabler at the expense of her children right now. She is choosing to enable an adult addict while offering the kids as a sacrifice to make that happen.”
“Having kids with an alcoholic on the promise of sobriety was a HUGE mistake. It’s now time for OP to fix this situation. She is endangering her own kids by letting this go on. They will end up with severe psychological issues without question.”
“It’s time to actually take some action. No more chances for this time. An exit plan is the only thing needed here. These kids need one parent who is actually protecting them. Right now, they don’t have one.” – The_Nice_Marmot
The subReddit was alarmed by all of the boundaries that the OP’s husband had already crossed, and they hoped that the croutons in the baby formula would be the final straw.
It was time for the husband to prove that he wanted to be in the OP’s and his baby’s lives by putting their needs before his impulses.