Husband Gives His Wife The Cold Shoulder For Taking A Day Off From Work — People Say She's In The Wrong
Her husband asked for her help, but she told him to "suck it up."
Khosro and Krakenimages.com via Shutterstock / Annie Spratt, Nathan Dumlao and Zachary Kadolph via Unsplash / Windawake via Canva A 40-year-old woman went on AITA in order to ask whether or not her husband was overreacting.
Her 38-year-old husband took issue with the way she decided to spend her Monday, but she doesn’t think it’s a problem at all. She has a very demanding job working as the regional park district manager where she’s often called to work during the weekend, but he feels as though there isn’t a fair division of labor.
Her husband gave her the cold shoulder after she decided to take a day off from work.
She explained that the two of them have been married for 8 years and have a 4-year-old son, but recently, things have gotten pretty hard — and the problem is the job that she’s been working at since before she and her husband even got together.
“The summer is by far my busiest time of the year and I routinely work 6 days a week,” she explains in her post. “If I can make it work, I will take a day off during the week to offset my hours because our weekend events are the ones I'm most needed at since they are bigger.”
This is something that they’ve fought about frequently as he thinks that she should be asking for other people to cover those weekend shifts. She works those events every single weekend, leaving him “stuck” with taking care of their 4-year-old son.
“I feel like he needs to suck it up because this isn't new to anyone and it's only a small portion of the year that my schedule is like this,” she says. “His argument is that there is nothing he does that leaves me parenting by myself for similar amounts of time and that there needs to be more of a balance in that area.”
Things came to a head when she took a nap on her day off instead of tending to housework.
This past weekend, things went the same way — two 8-hour shifts on both Saturday and Sunday — so she decided she would work from home on Monday. She ended up falling asleep on the couch and taking the day off, but without telling her husband.
When he came home on his lunch break, he found her sleeping on the couch and gave her the cold shoulder. “He said it's not fair to him to work 5 days a week, then be [a] solo parent all weekend while all I do is work and sleep.”
Photo: Reddit
Everyone thought she was in the wrong for the unfair division of labor.
Although the title of the post is asking if she was in the wrong for taking the day off, people claimed she was in the wrong for another reason entirely — she’s leaving him to be a solo parent on the weekends.
“[You’re in the wrong.] Not for the day off. Everyone should get one from time to time,” the top comment reads. “[You’re in the wrong] because [your] husband is 100% parent during every weekend of the summer months, in addition to also having a full-time job Mon-Fri. He's asked you to talk to your bosses about getting more people, but you've refused.” Not only that, but she told him to just “suck it up,” which is no way to treat a partner.
It’s completely fine for her to take a day off — she works very hard. She works a lot of hours and does a lot of work outside, of course, she’s tired. However, she still has an obligation that she signed up for by entering into a marriage with her husband and having a son.
An unfair division of labor goes both ways and although it’s typically seen as the men failing to carry the mental load in relationships, that doesn’t make it right for her to ignore her husband’s concerns.
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor for YourTango who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics.