One unfortunate thing that comes with adulthood is bills. When you’re young and on your own, things might be difficult, but when you have a family, the stakes are even higher.
A single adult can couch surf when things get tough, but bringing a spouse and children along with them is rarely an option.
A family who is still recovering from financial hardship has some important decisions to make.
While the wife is on one page, her husband is on another.
So she turned to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for feedback, asking “Would I Be The A**hole (WIBTA) about her future scenario.
Throwawayairportaita asked:
“WIBTA if I tell my husband he can’t leave the job he hates?”
The original poster (OP) explained:
“My husband is a tradesman. He’s always wanted his own business as he hates having a boss.”
“He started doing freelance work over the years and felt like he could go out on his own someday. I’m a teacher, and at the end of 2021, my district asked me to head up an initiative that bumped my pay up (quarterly stipends) without a ton of extra work.”
“Around the same time, his company of 8 years got bought over. We decided this would be a good time for him to go out on his own.”
“My teaching job provides steady income, I hold our family’s insurance (we have 3 kids, oldest is 9), and the stipends provided a little cushion. We also had about 40K in savings.”
“Things started out great, but a year later, most of the work in the area dried up. He took contracts out of state to keep working, but didn’t make as much because of lodging and food.”
“He suggested we buy a camper for him to live in when he was away. I agreed. That came with a hefty monthly payment, but it alleviated some of the cost.”
“Then the out-of-state work became fewer and farther between. He was home more making no money at all.”
“My husband is a hustler and was constantly putting himself out there, but the cost of supplies went up, so he had to raise prices for his services. This made things worse, and the cycle continued.”
“As hard as it was to be home alone with 3 young kids when he travelled, it was worse when he was home. He was miserable.”
“A potential contract would cheer him up and then fall through. We went through this for months.”
“Midway through 2024, we were simply out of money. We were living off of credit cards.”
“He took some seasonal work in the fall, and that’s the only reason our home wasn’t foreclosed on. He felt like a failure.”
“Early December, an old friend called him to ask him if he’d consider working with him. There’s a corporate project and they desperately need people with my husband’s skill set.”
“$61/hour + $1500 sign-on bonus if he started within 10 days. We thought it was too good to be true, but 2 days after Christmas he had a contract in his email.”
“He started right after the new year. His first check was like manna from heaven. It’s taken 2 months to breathe again even with my pay.”
“He’s gotten paid 4x & his most recent check was the first time we had money left over after we paid bills. We took the kids to McDonald’s to celebrate.”
“The problem is he’s miserable. It took a week for him to remember why he hates working for other people.”
“I watch his light dim more everyday. He is working overtime weekly & I feel bad he has to spends so much time there.”
“The other day, he fake-casually mentioned that he heard from a company out of state. ‘It’s the opportunity I’ve been waiting for’ he says. ‘It just came a little late’.”
“I love this man, but I don’t think I can support this again. We put 40k+ & about 15k in credit card debt into it.”
“He was gone for months at a time, and it was HARD here. And we still have a huge monthly payment for that camper we can’t sell.”
“Would it be cruel to tell him he can’t quit?”
The OP summed up their situation.
“I wonder if I am being unsupportive/the a**hole by not considering him leaving this job he hates.”
Redditors weighed in by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors decided the OP would not be the a**hole (NTA/WNBTA).
“Your husband is a grown-up. Sometimes we need to suck it up and work jobs we don’t enjoy to support our families.”
“As an adult with basic math skills, your husband should be able to look at your finances and figure out for himself that he needs to maintain his current earnings to help your family climb out of debt that the unfortunate failure of his business caused.”
“He should also be able to understand the impact on his family of him working away from home for long periods.”
“If your husband wants to leave the family and his good-paying job and move back out of state to work, I don’t think you can stop him. You’re not his mom.”
“All you can do, should he make this decision, is have some frank discussions about what you expect and are willing to accept, should he wish you to remain in this marriage.”
“It should also be made clear what his financial obligations to the family will be on an ongoing basis, whether or not you remain in the marriage, should he leave again to work elsewhere—one hopes earning the money needed to support his children.”
“It isn’t cruel to expect an adult man to pull his weight in supporting his children and family. NTA.” ~ Nester1953
“‘I don’t think you can stop him. You’re not his mom’. I think I know what you mean, but I’m really starting to hate when people say you can’t force an adult to do things…”
“In a literal sense, probably not, unless you put a gun to his head. But this man is a husband. He’s a father! 3 Kids!”
“That’s 4 pretty big commitments. You don’t get to decide everything on your own, once you enter such commitments. He could be single if he decides to get a divorce, but the kids are for life. He needs to grow the hell up and deal with it.”
“He can take his time to build his business slowly, or seek alternatives or whatever … but honestly, it sounds a bit like he’s not that good of a businessman, which is no shame. Acquiring clients and deals is hard on top of the actual work.” ~ 3KittenInATrenchcoat
“Your husband needs to grow the f*ck up and gain a different perspective. He hates working for other people? Seriously who the f*ck does he think he was working for as a contractor?”
“It ain’t himself, that’s for sure, other businesses and where I am from anyway, contractors have far less rights than a full time permanent employee.”
“The only difference between now and then is who his bosses are… before, it was different people who were unreliable; now, he has a boss who is consistent, who is reliably paying him a paycheck every week and letting him do overtime.”
“To me, it just sounds like he is being a baby. He liked ‘hustling’ for himself because he had excuses to get out of other responsibilities ‘Sorry, can’t help with the kids, out of state making a dollar’ all the while getting to travel around to different locations and see different things in his very own camper.”
“In what way would this other job be better? He will be away from his family all week, shouldn’t that make him more miserable than having a boss?”
“Every hustler and entrepreneur who I come across who acted like having a BOSS is just about the worst thing in this world, has always been a failure because the reason they want to hustle and entrepreneur is because they think the issue with their lack of success is that they don’t get to be responsible for themselves and they don’t get to dictate the rules of the game, but it’s all bullsh*t.”
“The real reason 90% of the time is most of them lack discipline and just don’t have the talent to be successful based on the rules of the game laid out before them.”
“When they do go on to their own thing, they almost always become miserable when they only have themselves to rely on for being responsible, then get more miserable at their failures of being responsible, and then get more miserable when they realize if they want customers, they’re still going to have to kiss a** and play by the rules.”
“When they fail, they come back to the real world and somehow make it two weeks before they’ve completely forgotten how much of an utter failure they were at being out there by themselves and how miserable that made them by comparison.”
“If he keeps working this job, over time, he will have to work less overtime as you guys catch up. That will give him a better work/life balance, much better than trying to be a contractor out of state again.” ~ Complete_Breakfast_1
“‘I hate having a boss’ is such immature energy. Yeah, man, no one likes having to trade their labour to live.”
“Maybe if you didn’t have a spouse and children you’d have a bit more flexibility, but as it stands you made a choice to be responsible for a family and that’s what you’re going to have to do.” ~ lampcouchfireplace
Reddit was pretty clear in their judgment.
This husband and father needs to put his children’s welfare first, before his own preferences.