Dad Calls Out Wife For Refusing To Help Him With Any Yard Work On Her Days Off From Work

By the time I was nine, I did all of the cooking and most of the grocery selection. My divorced Mother paid for it, but I picked out most of the food that required cooking. My Mother did all of the yard work and everyone—me and my Mother and one older and one younger Sister—cleaned the house.

If there was a major chore like repainting the house or winterizing it—in Northern Maine this included putting on storm windows, putting plastic around the foundation, etc...—just my Mother and I would do it together.

My Mother could be verbally volatile—mean, hypercritical, impatient—when chores were difficult. But I could give back as good as I got—if not better—from a very young age.

So we could do these tiring, tough, tedious chores together while verbally eviscerating each other and my Sisters found places to "hide" until everything was done.

Honestly, it was for the best. We'd have eaten them alive. They each got roped into helping once and it didn't go well for them.

The one thing my Sisters were allowed to do that I was banned from was yard work. Mowing the lawn or pruning branches was a solo chore, so my Sisters had no issues doing it.

I was allowed to use the push lawnmower and the pruning saw once and banned out of fear for my life and limbs. When we got a riding mower, I managed to get myself banned on that as well.

I don't do well with power tools outside the kitchen for some reason. If there's a way to get injured or accidentally destroy something, it'll happen.

Which is unfortunate, because some of them look really fun to use.

A husband frustrated over the division of labor in his family turned to the "Am I The A**hole" (AITA) subReddit for feedback.

Thereisnoweaita asked:

"AITA for calling my wife out for never doing the hard chores?"

The original poster (OP) explained:

"My wife (40, female) and I (39, male) have been married for 7 years and have 2 kids (4 & 2). We both work full time, but have different schedules."

"I work a standard M-F 40-hour week. My wife's job requires her to work Saturdays so she takes random days off during the week to compensate. Both our kids are in daycare during the week."

"When my wife takes a day off during the week, she will get chores done like cleaning, shopping, laundry, etc... Which is great that she can get that stuff done on her off days."

"But these are things that can also be done on the weekend. She will leave other, more labor-intensive chores for me to do on the weekend."

"We have a 1-acre yard so there is always yardwork to be done. And it is nearly impossible for me to do that kind of work on Saturdays when she's at work and I have the kids."

"I've talked to her numerous times about doing yardwork on her days off when I'm at work and the kids are in daycare. But she refuses because 'it's too hard'. Which, yeah, I know."

"I'm the only one who does it. It's even harder when you're chasing around 2 kids. This means that I have to spend pretty much my entire Sunday doing yardwork. Every single week."

"We've argued because she gets a work and kid-free day to herself to get things done. But she picks the easiest chores and leaves the hard ones for me to do on my one remaining weekend day."

"I work M-F, then have the kids by myself all day Saturday. I just want to spend some time on Sunday watching football and relaxing. But I can't because of the yardwork."

"This past week, my wife took Thursday off and got some chores done. When I got home with the kids that night, she made some comments that pissed me off."

"She kept saying 'We still need to mow the lawn this weekend'. 'We need to trim some bushes and trees and bring the brush to the yard waste site'. 'I think we should rake up all the fallen pine needles and pinecones to use as fire-starters'."

"I snapped at her and asked her which of those things she was going to do, since she kept saying 'we'. She got defensive and said that she is going to be watching the kids so that I can get that stuff done."

"I told her that I think she is using the word 'we' incorrectly then, because it sounds like I'm going to be the one doing all of it. She then went off about all the things she got done on her day off."

"Then I told her that I could do all of those things on Saturday, even with the kids, but she refuses to do any of the hard stuff. I then asked her if she could tell me the last day she had the kids by herself when I wasn't home."

"She couldn't answer and called me a jerk."

"I told her if I can learn to fold a fitted sheet, then she can learn how to use a rake, a lawnmower, a weed whip, etc... I also told her that I am going to start planning things for myself on weekends, so that I have my own time, even if it means hiring a sitter."

"She thinks I'm overreacting and expecting too much of her because the yard work is hard."

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
• INFO - not enough INFOrmation to make decision

Redditors couldn't decide if the OP was the a**hole or not, with "INFO" getting the most upvotes.

"INFO: Why did you buy a house with 1 acre if you both hate yard work? Could the house be the a**hole?"

"If she does yard work on her day off, will you happily do the cleaning, shopping, and laundry on Saturday?" ~ TheBookishFoodie

"INFO: I grew up in a house with a 1-acre yard and i am confused how there's enough yard work to be done every weekend that it takes a whole day. Mowing and weedwhacking should not take you longer than an hour."

"Maybe two. and that's in the summer, in off season you don't need to mow every weekend. So like... what's going on here?" ~ Cold_Animal_5709

Some felt the OP was the a**hole (YTA).

"YTA for presenting this as being about equal labor when it's really about football. You seem to think that her midweek child free day to clean the whole entire house entitles you to a child free day to sit on your back side watching TV."

"All you are proving here is how little respect you have for the things she does to keep the household running smoothly. You seem to feel like it's not real work."

"Get earbuds and stream the game to your phone while you work, if it's that important to you. Or hire a lawn care service." ~ Independent_Prior612

Others thought OP wasn't the a**hole (NTA).

"NTA - I think it's a little weird that you guys have chosen your chore division to be 'first come, first served' but it's clear that it's not working."

"If your wife is physically unable to do outside chores you have three options: Move somewhere without these chores, hire out, or give her all of your "easy" chores so you only have yardwork to worry about (I would also suggest doing some of the work in the early weekday mornings if you can so that you can enjoy the Sunday)."

"If your wife is physically able to do these chores and is just refusing, then beat her at her own game. On Saturday, you should go to the grocery store, and do laundry, and clean, etc... even if it was just recently done on Wednesday or something."

"Don't do the outside labor, let it pile up, and every Saturday continue to  do the easy chores. Continue this until she is willing to be reasonable and reassess the labor division to be more equitable."

"There cannot be anymore first come first serve division since that doesn't work, you guys need a list of everything that needs routine maintenance, and you just need to divy it up ahead of time."

"Also, you could invest in a driving lawn mower so she doesn't have to push."

"If none of this works, then maybe this isn't the right house for you both anymore." ~ starbiebarbie99

A few decided there were no a**holes here (NAH).

"OP, I'm gonna go with NAH. It doesn't seem like the issue is yard work. from your post and comments it sounds like you just really need time to be alone in order to feel recharged and feel resentful towards your wife because her work schedule allows for it while yours doesn't."

"Which is totally fine. It's human. I don't think either of you are doing anything 'wrong', you're just both tired parents of toddlers, you're both working full time, etc. past a certain point you can't expect much in the way of calm rational handling of emotions from either of you when you essentially both have two full-time jobs."

"Your wife may not be aware of how much you really do need alone time to recharge; some people don't need it, so maybe that's her deal, or maybe she's just not aware of how much it sucks to never be alone since she has that day off during the week."

"Whatever the deal is, the solution is definitely not to get into a nitpicky spitefight about who does what and what counts as more work or harder work or whatever (not blaming just you for that, blaming both of you, lol). It's to straight up tell her you need time to be alone in order to feel like you're not constantly running on empty."

"Which i know is going to be hard to do when you're currently running on empty, lol. But still. Less 'me vs my wife/ me vs my husband' and more 'the two of us vs the Ordeal of having two toddler-aged children and working full time'. She loves you enough to start a whole ass life with you."

"I doubt she wants that life to be unsustainably exhausting for you, it's just that you're both caught up in being reactive towards each other instead of being thoughtful; which is, i stress again, not your fault or hers."

"You're both working two full-time jobs, and contrary to popular belief human beings are not limitless, our cognition and ability for problem-solving suffers under high stress. Perks of being a meat-brained animal."

"There are a lot of ways you can get the time you need. Maybe a dedicated 3-4 hours on Sunday, maybe after work on the day she has off. If it's okay with the both of you, you could relax on the yard work."

"The house/yard does not need to look impeccable. If she's not okay with that then you can maybe talk about switching tasks, or hiring help. But really, what's the issue with waiting a week or so before you remove needles? There's going to be more the next week; it's fall, that's par for the course."

"You should also 100% tell her that when she adds more stuff to your 'plate' during your down time, even if she's just trying to be helpful which is likely the case, it just increases your stress. Just like if you started listing tasks she needs to do when she's trying to unwind."

"That's just stressful for people in general; it's not actually down time if you're spending it worrying about sh*t you have to do. My partner and I used to get snippy about that with each other so we bought a whiteboard and we now just write stuff down on there if it needs to get done."

"This way neither of us feel like we're being 'nagged' when we're trying to unwind, and the other one doesn't feel like we're being snapped at for trying to (in our mind) be helpful."

"So i mean saying all that it looks like the conflict was really: you're running on empty because no alone time. She lists off stuff that needs to be done, says "we' presumably because it's your (plural) house, which just adds more stress to you."

"You respond in a stressed-out type of way, she responds in a stressed-out type of way, you both start nickel-and-diming each other on domestic labor, and the actual issue (you need alone time or you will continue running on fumes indefinitely) gets lost in the details of the argument."

"I could be wildly off-base because this is a Reddit post, and I don't know you. But hopefully, some of this resonated or helped at all." ~ Cold_Animal_5709

While some opted for ESH, everyone sucks.

"I own a house with a large garden. I pay a landscaping firm to do the spring de-winterizing and fall winterizing and whatever re-mulching needs to be done each year. I also pay someone to mow my lawn, and if I don't feel like blowing my own leaves that week, my guy will do that, too."

"I weed a part of the garden each weekend in the summer on Saturday or Sunday because that's what I decided I was willing to do, and then the other part gets weeded the next weekend. I'll rake the paths, fill the bird feeders, pot annuals, plant some new perennials, etc. Those are the things I actually enjoy…"

"But I knew going in that I didn't want to do all those 'big' jobs, and I wouldn't have considered buying the house, period, if I hadn't been in the financial place where I could pay to do what I didn't want to. You'll never see me breaking my back over yard work."

"I think I vote ESH here because they clearly bought a house on a plot that was too much for them, and both can't seem to recognize it." ~ Owl_Resident

With such diversity in responses, the OP can pretty much find any answer they want.