" When I get home , I ordinarily bump my husband on the lounge on his headphone , and the kidskin in their rooms wreak video game . "
Recently, Reddit useru/CardiologistLeast404(or Cardio, for short) took to the popular “Am I the Asshole?” subreddit to ask, “Am I the asshole for going out to eat without my husband [and] kids because they didn’t wash the dishes?” and OMG, her story is awildride.
Here’s the story, in Cardio’s own words: “Both my husband and I work full time,” she begins. “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] 8-month-old. My husband has every weekend off. I do not.”
She continues, “I [established] a chore system from the time 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).”
“The house is generally a mess and honestly, the only issue I have is the dishes. I couldn’t give fuck all 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.”
Cardio goes on: “As I said, my husband has weekends off, so he and the kids were home yesterday while I worked.”
“I [picked] up what he said they all wanted and [walked] into my home to find that not a single dish had been washed and there [were] at least 10 more dishes in the sink than when I left that morning.”
" I also noted that only a lode of washables had been launder , and was still sitting in the washer and was never flip to the drier . [ My ] husband was on his roll in the hay on the couch take in YouTube . Thomas Kyd [ were ] off playing video secret plan . Baby in her walker . "
“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.” I left. Maybe 20 minutes later he [called] and [said], ‘I washed the dishes, sorry. I was super tired today.'”
“He had me on speakerphone, so [he] and all the kids laid right into me,” she says. “[They were] asking me to please grab them something from Applebee’s. (It’s our favorite restaurant.) I said ‘absolutely not’ and hung up the phone.”
“When I returned home,” she says, “the groceries had been put away and apparently, [they’d] had grilled cheese and cereal for dinner. My husband and kids are still pissed at me. I told them this is how it will be every single time they don’t do chores from now on. Am I the asshole?”
Commenters on the post came to the overwhelming consensus that Cardio isnotthe asshole and that her husband has some serious work to do.
“This is how you enforce a boundary in a healthy way,” saysu/Old-Paleontologist-1, “to make sure you don’t get trampled on. [You’re] not the asshole, and good for you.”
Saysu/JustehGirl, “[They] seriously sound like toddlers. Ask them to do [or] not do something and they’ll ignore you. The second you stand up, they fix their behavior. It’s understandable when they’re little.”
“Here’s my take,” saysu/mrsedge2009. “Most of the bases have been covered [by other commenters] as far as [your husband’s] utter incompetence in being an equal partner and parent. HOWEVER: he put the call on speaker and allowed the older children to lay into you??? Excuse me? He’s showing your children that it is totally fine to disrespect you and that they should have no consequences for their actions or lack thereof. In what world is that okay?”
“What I find even worse about the husband putting her on speakerphone is that he’s showing their children that it is him and them versus their mom/his wife,” saysu/andmewithoutmytowel.“He’s basically the oldest child while she is the only parent.”
Fromu/ZalutPats: “Weaponized incompetence alert.”
Fromu/ObjectiveLength7230: “Did they care how pissed, hurt, disappointed you were EVERY time they chose to disrespect you and disregard your needs and those of the family? Nope, not until it directly affected them, only then they were suddenly ‘sorry.'”
And finally: “Your kids think it’s fine for them to sit around and do nothing to help out around the house because they see their father doing it,” saysu/mallionaire7.
