When in a relationship the partners typically consider themselves a team. Most of us would be happy to see our partner in a low stress, high paying job.
After both themselves and their partner began working at home during the pandemic one Redditor felt conflicted about their girlfriend’s work habits and turned to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for judgment on their reaction.
Redditor throwaway862610 asked:
“AITA for being frustrated that my girlfriend doesn’t work hard at her job and gets paid nearly twice as much as I do?“
The Original Poster (OP) explained:
“My girlfriend and I both work in tech, she’s a safety validator for software, working at a consulting firm, and I’m doing network infrastructure support. When we both worked in different offices I didn’t know much about her day to day life at work.”
”I knew she made a lot more than me, 120k to my 66k, and she credits a lot of that to job hopping, she’s 25 and has had three full time jobs since college. I’ve been at one place since college.”
“But since we’ve been working from home, I’ve seen a lot of her daily schedule. And hers versus mine are really different.”
“She gets up at 9:15 to drag herself into the home office for her 9:30-10 daily meeting.”
“After the meeting she goes and showers and has breakfast from about 10 to 10:45, answering a few Slack messages and emails on her phone but mostly just listening to podcasts and eating and doing her morning routine.”
“Then she works till noon, and takes a lunch break from noon till 1. Then she works from 1 to 4, often having meetings or working on her own stuff.”
“And at 4 will spend an hour or so doing household chores and stuff while keeping an eye on her phone to answer emails.”
“And outside of 9 to 5 she blocks work related messages from her phone. So basically she actually works about 4 and a half hours daily, and does her own thing for about 2 hours, just paying enough attention to reply to emails that come in.”
“I basically work nonstop 8:30 to 5 or 6 pm, working 8.5 to 9.5 hours a day. I don’t take breaks in the workday to shower or eat breakfast and lunch or do household chores.”
“And a few weeks ago I got kinda frustrated with her for basically hardly doing anything for her job at all. And that they were overpaying her if she was spending half the day slacking.”
”She got frustrated with me and said that they hired her for her knowledge and it wasn’t my place to say what her time was worth, that if her boss and ceo saw the work she produced and chose to pay her what they chose to pay her that it wasn’t my place to undervalue her because I was being jealous.”
”And that she picked her job instead of one that might pay better because she wanted a good work life balance, she was sick of wasting her life away at work that was a lot more demanding.”
“I said that she was being a little privileged.”
“Not a lot of people can just choose to make six figures and wander off from work for practically half the day, and that all I was saying was that she was working half as hard as a lot of people who earn a lot less.”
“She got mad at me and said that it’s not up to me to decide what her time is worth.”
“AITA for what I said about my girlfriend’s work ethic?”
Redditors weighed in, judging the OP’s attitude and words toward their partner with these AITA acronyms:
- NTA: Not the A**hole
- YTA: You’re the A**hole
- ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
- NAH: No A**holes Here
Redditors were unimpressed with OP’s response to his girlfriend’s success, telling OP, YTA.
“YTA. This reeks of jealousy. It sounds like she made smart decisions that are paying off for her.”
“Her bosses (who are the knowledgable people here) seem to think her time IS worth that. Is she supposed to feel bad that other people have harder jobs?”
“I don’t understand what you want from her here. You sound super misogynistic.”~Agreeable-Asparagus
“YTA. Sounds like you’re jealous. Not a good look!”
“If she performs her job duties to the satisfaction of her superiors and they pay her to do that, then ‘her work ethic’ has nothing to do with it.”
“It sounds to me like she got lucky as hell and landed the dream job and you’re Big Mad because you have to bust your a** for less money. That has NOTHING to do with your girlfriend and her work ethic.”
“Get over it.” ~MadPiglet42
“Yep. OP, as Clifford Odets once said, you’re pointing the gun the wrong way. Your job isn’t paying you enough?”
“You have poor work-life balance? Be mad at your job.”
”Be mad at the system that made your job this way. Fight for something better.”
“You know, you could’ve asked your girlfriend for help with finding a more agreeable employment situation, since she seems to know what she’s doing.”
”Instead, you’re mad that she knows the value of her time and knowledge while you continue to make the choice to lick the boot. I wonder if she would still help you, now that you’ve thrown this tantrum.”
“Honestly, if a guy came at me with this bull, especially knowing how hard it is for women in STEM, I would seriously rethink the relationship. YTA.”~aoife_too
”Seriously. My wife makes way more money than I do and I’m grateful that we’re able to afford so many things that I could never afford on my own. But she’s also stressed as hell from her work.”
“I would happily give up on some of the nicer things we have if it meant she could work fewer hours and wouldn’t be under so much stress. But she also loves her work, so the most I can do is try to support her and pick up the slack when I can.”
“YTA, OP. Here’s some free advice. It’s not ‘Me vs. You’. It’s ‘Us vs. The Problem’. She’s not your adversary. If you don’t get on her team and support your partner, you’re gonna be alone soon. Grow up.”~LegendaryOutlaw
Reddit has spoken.
Now whether or not the OP chooses to hear the message is another matter.