Even those who pride themselves on their punctuality have been late once or twice in their life.
As sometimes things beyond our control result in our being late, despite leaving more than enough time.
It becomes more difficult to forgive tardiness when it is a common occurrence, or when the tardy individual doesn’t show even the slightest bit of contrition.
The wife of Redditor Own_Luck_3968 sadly fell into the latter category.
Constantly returning home from a weekly gathering far later than she told the original poster (OP) she would be.
When this happened once again, on a day the OP told her she absolutely, positively could not be late, they were forced to take matters into their own hands.
Having some doubts about how they handled the situation, the OP took to the subReddit “Am I The A**Hole” (AITA), where they asked fellow Redditors:
“AITA for going to my wife’s book club and giving her the kids?”
The OP explained how their wife’s eternal tardiness resulted in their wife’s book club having two unexpected visitors:
“My wife has a book club that meets up every Sunday at her friend’s home.”
“It is supposed to be a lunch thing, and she always tells me that she will be home around 3.”
“Every single time she has been late, the worst was getting home at 7pm.”
“They went on a shopping outing.”
“I have talked to her multiple times and I have expressed it is disrespectful.”
“I am fine watching the kids ( 8 and 10).”
“What I am not fine with is her lying to me about what time she will get home.”
“It also just makes my life harder since she usually doesn’t get home in time for me to hang out with my own friends, so I have to cancel.”
“We both work, and the kids are in school.”
“I am an active parent.”
“I don’t have a schedule to get out of the home time like my wife does.”
“So yesterday, I made it very clear that she needs to be home before 4 at the latest because my Uncle is in town, and we are supposed to grab dinner before he heads back to his home state.”
“Well she told me she would be home at 3 and at 3:45 she wasn’t home.”
“I drove to her friend’s house with the kids.”
“When her friend opened the door( it’s around 4:15 now), my wife was there, and I handed off the kids to her.”
“I told her I was going to meet my uncle and didn’t answer any calls during dinner.”
“I got home, and we got into a huge argument.”
“She thinks I am a huge jerk for humiliating her in front of her friends.”
“I told her this wouldn’t have happened if she just came home on time.”-
“AITA?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in on where they believed the OP fell in this particular situation, by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
The Reddit community was in agreement that the OP was not the a**hole for showing up at their wife’s book club and dropping off their kids.
Everyone agreed that the OP’s wife blatantly broke her promise. Since she goes to her book club every week and the OP’s uncle was in town for a limited amount of time, it was more than reasonable for the OP to drop their kids off at her book club.
“NTA.”
“She backed you into a corner.”
“She is the one who brought humiliation onto herself by disregarding your needs and going back on her word.”
“You shouldn’t have had to sacrifice time with your uncle.”
“I don’t think anything would have been solved by you sitting home one more time stewing and trying to talk to her about it again later.”
“That wasn’t working, and repeating the cycle wasn’t going to end differently this time.”
“To those saying you brought the kids into it, she is the one who forced your hand.”
“I generally don’t like this kind of solution, but it was the only option left when SHE wasn’t playing fair.”- Playful_Pianist_16
“NTA.”
“What I’m seeing is her deciding she can do what she wants every single Sunday.”
“She sets up a schedule with you then goes against it without warning or even the courtesy of telling you she will.”
“You asked for 1 important thing, and she knew it, so she had no respect for it.”
“She’s mad she was embarrassed because she lied to you and her friends got to see it.”- Colanasou
“NTA.”
“Wife had already said she would have been home at 3:00.”
“Nothing else had motivated her.”- Having-hope3594
“NTA.”
“My Mom did this to my Dad when they first got married and had kids.”
“Dad had his hang-out time, and my Mom had hers, and she was tired of being late to hers cause Dad didn’t want to leave the bar.”
“So she loaded up my sister and brother and walked into the bar and handed my Dad my toddler sister and baby brother and told him if he was ever late again to expect a divorce cause her time was just as valuable as his.”
“He was never late again, and they just celebrated 47 years of marriage last month.”- MillieFrank
“NTA.”
“You told her you needed her to take the kids by 4 pm.”
“She was obviously not going to do that.”
“It is disrespectful to be continually late.”
“Once is an accident.”
“Twice… yeah maybe you got caught up.”
“But people who are continually late without even giving you a heads up are disrespectful and crappy people.”- lovesorangesoda636
“NTA.”
“Normally I wouldn’t agree to such tactics, as I think embarrassing someone only makes a situation worse.”
“But sometimes, it takes things like this to light a fire under someone’s tail to make them realize their own shortcomings.”
“Your wife was the one that failed to keep her end of things and what happened was a consequence of that action.”
“If she doesn’t want it to happen again, then she needs to be more respectful of your time and not act so inconsiderately.”- Old_Inevitable8553
“NTA.”
“You’ve asked her before to be home when she says.”
“She keeps ruining your social time.”
“She promised to come home by 4.”
“She either deliberately chose to ignore you or accidentally stayed out later.”
“Either way, she doesn’t care about your asks.”
“She deserved this.”
“My only quibble is with the children.”
“It can’t have been fun for them.”
“Are they ok?”- CornishSleuth
“NTA.”
“If you are both working full time and equal parenting responsibilities it’s not fair that she gets every Sunday to hang out with her friends while you are stuck with the kids.”
“You need your free time to be social and decompress as well.”
“She deserves to be embarrassed like that for not sticking to the agreed upon plan of her being home in time.”
“You need to have a serious talk about how you are going to navigate your free time in the future.”
“I could see this being a relationship ender if it’s not resolved now.”
“The resentment is already building in both of you.”- buttpickles99
“NTA.”
“Also, for those worried about the kids, it’s not traumatizing to go for a car ride and be dropped off with the other parent.”
“It doesn’t sound like they had to witness a huge argument or anything.”- jmbbl
“NTA.”
“Hope she learns from this to just be honest about staying longer and communicating.”
“Ignoring your calls is disrespectful, she has it coming.”
“Don’t feel bad at all.”- YOLO_626
“NTA.”
“She broke her word when she said she would be home by three.”
“Sometimes humiliation can be a motivation to change.”- Having-hope3594
“NTA.”
“You communicated your plans clearly and gave your wife ample notice.”
“Parenting is a partnership, and your time is just as valuable as hers.”
“Dropping off the kids after she failed to uphold her end of the agreement doesn’t make you an a**hole, it makes you someone standing up for your own time and commitments.”-ParticularNational75
“Honestly glad you both have a social life.”
“She’s definitely in the wrong here but have you considered hiring a babysitter for Sunday afternoons so you both can schedule some friend time?”
“Or work on arranging play dates for your kids at their friend’s homes?”
“As your wife sucks for ditching you, but this doesn’t have to be a relationship struggle.”
“It’s supposed to be you two versus the problem, not you two versus each other.”
“I’d be signing up for some therapy and working through this situation (because this lack of communication and respect needs to be dealt with directly) but also getting childcare in place so you both can have fun on weekends too.”
“NTA.”- ASlightHiccup
The fact is that the OP asked their wife to be home by 4 p.m., and she said she’d be home by 3 p.m.
Not only did she not fulfill her promise, but she didn’t even begin to offer an apology when the OP showed up and saw her, with no intention of leaving despite already being late.
Understandably, she might have been humiliated by all this, but then again, as the OP told her, had she been on time, none of this would have happened.