We’ve all heard that sex and money are two key issues that can ruin a relationship if the couple does not agree about them.
But the distribution of labor in the home is another key subject that couples need to discuss, negotiate, and agree on before moving in together if they want to have a successful relationship, argued the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITAH) subReddit.
Redditor CardiologistLeast404 was fed up with her husband and teen children never doing their share of the household chores and even angrier that her husband never assisted in encouraging their children to be responsible.
After working a weekend shift, only to return and find her family had done none of their share of tasks for the day, the Original Poster (OP) finally put her foot down.
She asked the sub:
“AITAH for going out to eat without my husband and kids because they didn’t wash the dishes?”
The OP had become fed up with her family’s lack of involvement around the home.
“My husband and I work full-time. I work in real estate, and he works at a shipyard. We both collectively work around 50—to 60-hour weeks. We have four kids (13-year-old twins, a 12-year-old, and an eight-month-old).”
“My husband has every weekend off. I do not.”
“I have had a chore system since my kids were little. But ever since I had the baby and since the kids are older, ALL of them have slacked off tremendously (including my husband).”
“I pick our baby up from daycare around 5:00 PM, and when I get home, I usually find my husband on the couch on his phone and the kids in their rooms playing video games or watching makeup tutorials.”
“The house is generally a mess and honestly, the only issue I have is the dishes. I couldn’t give less of a f**k about anything else (because the rest of the house generally isn’t dirty-dirty, just cluttered).”
“But I have expressed several times that I am tired of having to wash all the dishes in order to cook and have lashed out in some not-so-nice ways (shut off the Internet entirely and took the chord with me to work so no one could use the wifi/watch tv, canceled family trips, groundation, got into big arguments with my husband, etc.).”
“Things will change for a week to a month and then switch right back to them refusing to help. I’m honestly so tired of it that I don’t even have the energy to speak up anymore.”
But the most recent weekend with a sink full of dishes was the final straw for the OP.
“As I said, my husband has weekends off, so he and the kids were home yesterday while I worked.”
“Before I took off for the day, I told them, ‘You guys, the chores had better be completed by the time I get home.'”
“They said, ‘Yes, ma’am,’ and I left.”
“I texted my husband around 4:30 PM, asking what they all wanted for dinner because I had to stop off at the grocery store. I picked up what he said they all wanted and walked into my home, only to find that not a single dish had been washed, and there were at least ten more dishes in the sink from when I left that morning.”
“I also noted that only a load of laundry had been washed and was still sitting in the washer and was never switched to the dryer.”
“My husband was on his a** on the couch watching YouTube. The kids were off playing video games. The baby was in her walker.”
The OP had a delicious serving of petty revenge.
“So, I put the groceries on the table, packed a bag for the baby, and told my husband, ‘Have at it! I’m going to Applebee’s!’ and left.”
“Maybe 20 minutes later, he called and said, ‘I washed the dishes, sorry. I was super tired today.'”
“I told him that was zero excuse at all. There are three older kids who have chores and he couldn’t even step up and tell his kids to complete anything, either. It’s pure laziness at this point.”
“He said, ‘I know, I’m sorry, I’m trying to work on it. Can you just come home, I don’t know how to make this dish.’ It was a pretty difficult dish, but Google is free.”
“I told him no and that I was sitting at Applebee’s and would be enjoying my steak and shrimp with the baby in peace and that he and the older kids could fend for themselves because apology or not, I was not letting him off the hook this time.”
“He had me on speaker phone, so he and all the kids laid right into me, asking me to please grab them something from Applebee’s (it’s all of our favorite restaurants).”
“I said absolutely not and hung up the phone.”
“When I returned home, the groceries had been put away and apparently, they had grilled cheese and cereal for dinner.”
“My husband and kids are still p**sed at me.”
“I told them this is how it will be every single time they don’t do chores from now on.”
“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 applauded the OP for standing up for herself and her boundaries.
“This is how you enforce a boundary in a healthy way to make sure you don’t get trampled on. NTA and good for you.” – Old-Paleontologist-1
“The next time you leave for work, tell them, ‘If you don’t want grilled cheese and cereal for dinner, the kitchen needs to be clean when I get home.’ Do not relent!” – SuluSpeaks
“NTA! In fact, BRAVO!”
“Your husband is the AH here. He’s the d**n parent and for him to sit on his a** and wait for you to do everything is total f**king bulls**t.”
“Stand your ground! If they’re supposed to do laundry and don’t, then take your clothes and the baby’s to a laundromat and let them figure out how to clean their own clothes.” – tonyrains80
“This was crap behavior, but I encourage OP not to let it touch her emotionally at all.”
“She is an immovable object. She told them what they needed to do, and they didn’t do it. This is a very reasonable consequence, and now they are paying for it.”
“The husband, though, is a complete manipulative jerk.” – sanityjanity
“OP communicated the expectations. If they’re not met, she can enjoy Applebee’s and the dad will have to step up.”
“He also has to understand it’s not okay to put a conversation between parents on speakerphone AND allow the kids to disrespect her. Once she communicated that she could go have fun and if anyone was confused, they gotta get their act together.”
“Clean kitchen? Dinner at home. Filthy mess? Mom is having a date with the only person that cares about her: herself.” – orchidlake
Others argued that the OP was setting up her kids for success while her husband was setting them up for failure.
“NTA. He’s an adult, and the older kids are old enough to make sandwiches. I did the dishes almost every night growing up, it was my contribution to the house.”
“What are they all going to do when they grow up and move out?” – VioletBewm
“At this rate, they’ll do like their dad and find someone like OP to treat like their maid. Or they’ll live alone in a dirty apartment eating cereal for dinner out of a mixing bowl.” – jesssongbird
“The dad needs to step it up and tell the kids to do their chores when their mom is not home. And all other chores in the house are his, as well.”
“It’s his time to be the bad cop because he already threw the OP under the bus with the speaker phone thing.”
“He’s awful. He is enabling their s**tty ungrateful children by not enforcing mom’s rules. They are following his bad example. It’s his responsibility to shape up and make a change for his kids.” – Flat-Cupcake-6467
“Dad should know how to make more than grilled cheese and cereal. He is showing his children the worst example. He’s teaching them, ‘Everything is on mom and she delegates to us. Dads/men are incapable of tasks unless given explicit instructions by a woman.'”
“This guy’s just an all-around loser! NTA, OP.” – kieraey
“Super tired from what??? Sitting on his a** all day long? Plus, unless he told her first, having her on speakerphone was a total b***h move.”
“NTA, OP. Good for you for standing your ground, and keep up the good work. Too d**ned bad they’re p**sed. They have nobody but their own lazy a**es to blame for that.” – PrideOfCapetown
“Seriously, what a lazy jerk. When my brothers and I were about this age, my dad had a full-time job, and my mom was pursuing her master’s degree at a university a couple of hours away, so she was gone two to four days a week for a couple of years.”
“Did my mom ever come home to a mess for her to clean up? Absolutely not!! Yeah, my brothers and I dragged our feet and if it were up to us, we probably wouldn’t have cleaned up much, but my dad made sure my mom had a decently clean home to come back to every week.”
“And yes, he did chores with us, he wasn’t sitting on his a** bossing us around. To be fair, my dad is a retired marine so he ran a pretty tight ship, but this dude really just has no excuse for not putting in the teensiest, tiniest bit of effort.” – lowkeydeadinside
The subReddit empathized with the OP’s situation and applauded her for standing up for herself and her very realistic expectations for her home.
As much as her husband might not like it, she was teaching their children a vital lesson for their future as adults, and realistically, if he wanted to be with her forever, he needed to start acting like it, too.