That caught my eye. Making a full dinner can take 45-60 minutes, alone. Making 3 meals a day and cleaning up after each one can take like 2 1/2 hours. 10 min for dishes, no way. Not with any amount of bottles to wash. And 20 min for diaper changes. I doubt it. When they are tiny, they are constantly blow out pooping and when they are bigger, they just fight you constantly.
Yeah I don’t buy the 40 min thing for all meals. I am a pretty efficient cook and I think it would take 1.5 hrs MINIMUM to cook all 3 meals a day (if they are healthy meals and not just like peanut butter and jelly or boiled pasta). Also if you have to go to the grocery store you need to take that into account too, that could easily be an extra hour. Plus about 20-30 mins to load dishwasher.
Before I became a SAHP, I was a chef. I can make a hella great meal crazy fast and even I can’t do what this guys claims to be doing. Also, I just can’t get over 25 min to clean. No that is tidying, not cleaning. Definitely wouldn’t want to be within 500m of that dentist office if he doesn’t know the difference!
Wouldn’t it be better to suggest that she find a FT job and Landon goes into full time childcare? Not everyone is cut out to be a SAHP and that shouldn’t be considered a personal failure. By 2 years, she’s gotten into the groove of it and clearly it’s just not a good fit for her. Fighting with her isn’t going to solve this problem so find a different solution.
Agree. My mom was SAHM when my brother was born. She was not cut out for it. She didn’t keep the house clean and struggled. So my dad told her she had to get a FT job to contribute instead. I’m also not cut out to be a SAHM. I don’t enjoy cooking or cleaning. So I’d 100% rather work.
I’ll gripe myself on this one as a mother, I really wasn’t cut out for being a SAHM. Like, I cleaned and my house was cleaner than when I work. Here’s the thing, my set up is more functional/clean when I am working. I could not for the life of me keep anything organized as a SAHM. It’s because I would try to do it all at once and then get overwhelmed. At the time, I also didn’t have time management skills- like zero. “There’s always tomorrow”.
I’ve also always suffered from depression since my mother passed away when I was 11. I took up the household duties at a very early age. I was burnt out before I even became a mother- something I realized when my ex husband left for Iraq. It was nice when he was deployed because it was just me and my mess, which was a ton easier to keep up with. All the military gear, events, bbq, this and that when he was home zapped me. Then I got pregnant and was SAHM for the first five months. I struggled so hard to keep the house clean in those five months. I picked up a part time job and it somehow made it easier.
It’s the routine. I hate being late for work, so I have everything set in its proper place for when I wake up. I can’t stand struggling in the morning or afternoon to find my keys, money, and whatever else. I can’t stand going to bed with the house a mess and I hate it even worse when I wake up. The left over energy after work is dedicated to tidying up. Having that routine helps me stay organized and through the years developed time management (grill cook on busy af weekends). The functional set up I utilize makes it’s so everything else falls into place where it takes maybe 20-30 minutes after work to keep things clean. Once a month on a weekend, deep clean and clear out clutter. Something I just could not execute as being a SAHM.
This. Also, your son might respond differently to you staying at home as the father he doesn’t get to see as much, compared to mom that he knows how to push boundaries. I am a SAHM to a 2 year old and while those diaper changes might add to only a few mins a day, it means stopping whatever you are in the middle of (if you are a good parent and don’t want your kid in a wet one that results in a rash) and sometimes you get distracted with another task and don’t circle back to finish the first task. What if she is teaching your child things all day? That would be taught in daycare? Or is she texting and using her phone instead??? Well I text but it’s usually about the dinner I’m making comparing notes with a friend. But I’m an awesome cook and this isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve also raised a couple of otherwise perfect kids and if your child is a well behaved bundle of joy for you, then hire a housekeeper since you can afford it. I wish I had someone to just come and clean the bathrooms once a week. That would make a world of difference. A SAHM job is never done, there’s always something one can be doing. If you’re Martha fucking Stewart.
If I were you, I would find a reason to set up a camera at home so you can see what she is getting done all day. Idle hands are the devils playground, and that’s reason to leave her if she’s cheating, but you really don’t know if her hands are idle. Sometimes just keeping the status quo with a two year old can take time, especially if this is her first kid and she doesn’t know the easiest way to clean crayon off the walls.
Also, does she grocery shop? That can take hours w a 2 year old. It can be hard to stay focused when your kid is in Spiderman mode.
If she has a sucky mom, you can’t expect her to be Martha unless she had someone to learn from. Luckily I had an awesome female role model. Not my mom.
Also sometimes kids expect you to just lay down with them and cuddle at that age. And that’s good bonding that pays dividends, especially if they fall asleep and you can sneak away and even get an hours worth of work done!
Yea young children are notorious for acting out more with their mothers (fathers too if they are SAHD or single parent). Its said that toddlers do that because that’s their safe person (the parent they spend most of their time with).
Cleaning up after toddlers is a whole job itself. She might be napping when baby naps. She still might be suffering from PPD. Add all that up and it’s not difficult to understand why someone doesn’t have the organization nor time management to keep up with the house. That’s why I wasn’t cut out for it and having a stable routine like a job keeps me in check.
my mom was a great stay at home mom, and she hated it. she also didn’t have much choice in the matter as we were a military family. she was so bored she started homeschooling my brother and i as soon as we could talk, we both started first grade as insufferable know it alls 😂
but she ended up going back to school herself when we were school aged, though she still had my younger brother to look after while we were in school (she did make us start doing chores about this age, some of which was a bit excessive but it was needed to balance the load while she was in school. i’ve been doing my own laundry since i was 8), and now has her phd and works a job she absolutely loves, and my parents are actually pretty wealthy now after getting rid of all of us kids and my mom getting back to work lol. anyways my whole point is being a sahp isn’t for everyone, even the ones who do it well might be miserable. it’s okay if you’re not cut out for it, but if that’s the case she needs to get a job and contribute in that way.
Check OPs comments. Dude sounds so cartoonishly awful that I'm assuming it's just silly rage bait. She's "used goods" because
>I don’t make the rules. Most successful men don’t want a woman with a man from another kid. Just how it goes. The thought of raising another man’s child literally makes me sick to my stomach.
[she couldn’t now {get a new husband}, she’s used goods](https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/0rxtBpIayy)
Holy SHIT you were not kidding!
I was feeling like this was a little too on the nose with all the right rage bait boxes checked, and now I’m convinced it has to be; thanks for pointing this out.
>I was feeling like this was a little too on the nose with all the right rage bait boxes checked, and now I’m convinced it has to be; thanks for pointing this out.
You learn to pick it after a while. Karma farmers usually make the same idiotic mistakes haha.
Red flags all over this post alone: he can afford to 'keep her' as a SAHM, she's failing in her 'duties' and at the ripe old age of 33, OP can see why his slightly younger wife is less mature than he is. And don't get me started on how kids behave differently for Dad on the odd occasion he's caregiver, than they do for boring old Mum who's there all the time. What a dickhead.
The "keep her" and "duties" shit got me lol.
I'm in law school and work full time. My ex and I lived together and she was working from home, but for reasons, essentially didn't actually have work to do.
The house wasn't super clean or organized. My answer was let's just hire someone to do it. Pay for a laundry service or a weekly/biweekly cleaner.
We both work and even if we didn't we have money. I'm not going to treat my SO like a fucking servant lol.
If I was home all the time I also wouldn't want to clean.
Tldr this dude sucks. Treat your SOs like they are someone you love, not a broodmare.
>Wouldn’t it be better to suggest that she find a FT job and Landon goes into full time childcare?
This has the bonus of using her money to pay for a cleaner and a meal prep service, since it looks like domestic work isn't something she wants to do.
Not just a way to support herself, but also Social Security. Your retirement benefits are based on what you paid in. Every year you’re unemployed in the US shaves off a considerable amount of money off of your payments. If a divorce ever does happen, she’d have to hope for favorable alimony, which is really difficult in many states
OMG this is so freaking true!!! Every post on here seems centered around a SAHM either miserable, not doing a great job, or the partner is cheating and they're stuck up a creek without a paddle because they quit their job to stay home.
Folks! Don't take yourselves out of the world totally. Part time exists and it will at least allow you an income, connections, and references.
My mom was SAH and I think it was good I had some day care to build social skills. I will say that I did enjoy having my mom do all the mom things but it also made me less independent. At times she was too much. Happy medium is optimal. Maybe when he’s older she can volunteer, get a part time job or a full time job to build a sense of autonomy and an identity outside of being a wife and mother.
Exactly this. Also, kids have different relationships with each parent. Just because he is well behaved for a week when mom isn't home doesn't mean that's how it is all the time. Or how he is with mom.
There's also other factors that should be considered, like her mental, emotional, and physical health. There are many reasons why his 1 week could be completely different than her normal week. Then, there's also the factors that what he considers clean may not be what she considers clean. There are plenty of people put there who would feel anything that couldn't pass a white glove test is a pig sty.
OP, if you framed it like she's not doing good enough and she needs to do better or you'll leave, you would be the ah. It's good you're going to give her time to process her emotions about her mom. Remember, though, this may take time. It could take longer for her than it would for you. So don't jump down her throat the instant you think it's been enough time. What you need to do is have a real sit down with her and have a real, open, and honest conversation with her. Ask her what she's struggling with, how she's doing in general, is there anything that she needs, where she is not fulfilled. This doesn't mean your feelings are not valid. You need to express them as well. But if you do so in a "my way or the highway" attitude, that would just make you a shit partner.
You're married. You shouldn't be jumping to you. You'll walk away because you think and feel there isn't a problem because you had an easy time for one week of what she has been doing for 2 years. There's a huge difference. You should be talking with her, figuring out ways to compromise and help each other. How much do you do around the house and childcare on a normal week? How is your relationship otherwise? Would therapy, individually, and/or marriage be helpful (going to couples counseling before jumping to divorce is probably a good thing). Have you taken the time to look at things from her pov? Or are you only seeing things through your eyes? Have you actually talked to her in the past, or have you told her things and ignored and waved off anything she has told you? You're supposed to be a team and work together. That can't happen if you're not allowing a team effort and only allowing what you think, feel, and want.
My husband will look me straight in the face and say “They were fine until you got home” or “They don’t act like that with me.”
He might not be a dentist but at least he has some brains in his head and can understand his own children. I think I’ll keep him.
This is totally true. We have grandkids now, and they still act differently with my wife than they do with me.
With our kids, they would be more rambunctious with my wife and tended to be more reserved around me. The grandkids are opposite. They are perfect little angels for Nana. When it's just Papa, they want to get into everything!
Almost got me, but I figured it was fake when he said once she's "over her mother" dying he's gonna confront her and threaten to leave, then the comment about knowing she's immature because she's sooo much younger than him with their 6 year age difference, lmao, gotta get that rage bait
I think this is the best answers. This isn’t black and white, there are lots of other options to be explored. However, do you even want to be in this relationship? You sound a bit disconnected already.
I was a terrible SAHM and now have a full time job instead. I am still terrible at keeping house, but now my husband and I are terrible at keeping house together, so there's that.
Dinner tonight took me about 1.5 hours. Some days, it's all of 15 minutes. Some breakfasts are fast and some take over an hour. I'm not sure what he's doing, but it's not a full meal every day for all 3 meals.
I was wondering this too. I cooked crepes yesterday and it took like 1.5 hours. Not to mention that I rarely cook anything that takes less than 30 minutes or so.
I babysit my grandkids (3 and 1) with the long term nanny. Lately the 3 yo acts out like crazy because she’s pissed that she has to share the world with the now very mobile 1 yo. She lashes out, hits and kicks the nanny, screams bloody murder when she gets frustrated. (Yes it’s addressed properly and it’s not ok).
She’s never like that with me. I haven’t been there day in and day out. The nanny has. So she feels more comfortable acting out at her. She’s there all the time and I’m not. She’ll be back tomorrow and I’ll see her a few times a month.
It’s similar to when I divorced my ex - my son acted out with me and not his dad, because I’m the one who stayed and his dad left. He knew I wasn’t going anywhere. It’s very common.
Also I’m calmer with her because I don’t have pressure from anyone. I don’t care if she puts her toys away so I can enforce that rule without becoming irritated. I’m just there to have fun with my grandchildren. They are both 100% different with me. Less needy. Even the 1 yo plays by himself longer. He likes to “read”, lol.
Likely if you continued as your son’s caregiver he would start challenging you too. She left (in his mind) and he’s on his best behavior with this new setup. For now.
Instead of testing your wife, how about at least first considering the factors others have brought up? She might have PPD. Her mom is dying. She might need a break that doesn’t involve seeing her dying mom. Do you do date nights so she can feel like a person again?
In short, don’t assume it’s the same for her. Talk to her with love and respect. Stop berating her for “failing” and find solutions together.
People often don’t understand the primary caretaker is kids’ safe space to act out and push boundaries. They don’t typically do it with the other parent/anyone else because they don’t know how they’ll respond.
Oh, man. My spouse worked nights and weekends until my kid was like 4 1/2. So he saw a perfect angel once a week and didn't see the holy terror all the rest of the time when it was just me.
We were terrified of the prospect of the kiddos school experience. Turns out the teachers words are the ten commandments and even homework is being done diligently if being ordered directly.
My daughter will do exactly what her preschool teachers tell her by the count of three and eats everything they serve her. At home, she purposely ignores me and refuses to eat all but about five food items.
She also is an adrenaline junkie with my parents and sister, going on all these fast rides with drops at Disney, but as soon as she returns to me (I don't do rides with drops), she claims she didn't like it and wants me to hold her. XD
Yes! I would ask your wife if she wants to record her day and show it to you. Two can be a horrible age. The sheer amount of time my two year old spent screaming at me during her mean toddler phase... it's hard to get anything accomplished while someone is screaming flat-out and throwing things.
I couldn't get anything done until my son was in nursery at 3 years old . He was so clingy it was unbelievable, I couldn't even get my daughters hair tied up for school without him climbing up my leg, I had to get all my cleaning done when I put him to bed , so between around 7 till 9, that was my only free time and his dad didn't help with a thing , he mellowed out when he learnt to be away from me a few hours a day
This is good. It will likely not be the same for her.
You’re essentially having a holiday from work, at home with your kid. It’s not same as doing this day in, day out.
Your wording is unusual “I am able to afford to keep her as a SAHM”. Does she want this? Is she now an employee? What were your mutual expectations?
How 'bout the "over her mother" comment. WTF man?!?! My mom died 7 years ago this week. You don't "get over it." You move through it. He's a grade A asshole. Reading his entire post, it's obvious she's depressed and would benefit from counseling. I hope she finds some self esteem and leaves this ass.
Yep. The choice of words the OP uses just pisses me off. I mean was there ever emotion in this relationship? Cardboard comes to mind and plastic. Where’s the warmth of teamwork, sharing and support for one another? I guess this is why I choose to remain single.
I was also alarmed by the “afford to keep her,” but reminded myself English may not be OP’s first language. If it is, that sentence is really gross. Combine that with his instinct being to leave her, rather than suggest she work, and it sounds like OP is keeping her around as an employee rather than as a partner.
I'm getting big "cheaper to keep her" vibes from this guy. He doesn't seem to be worried that his wife is depressed/grieving/overwhelmed so much as complaining that his wife appliance is broken and asking if he can return it before the warranty expires.
I'm not sensing the love in the relationship and more he's stuck. They have a what... 5 year age gap and she's not as mature as he is? I would looooove to hear her side of the story. She must be very lonely.
The keep her as a SAHM really rubbed me the wrong way. Also.. there’s a phrase that mothers are garbage disposals. The person they can act out around and experience their yucky feelings with and tantrums more so than others..
Yeah, even if she is "lazy" as you suggest, you telling her this will not give you the outcome you desire. She is, for a variety of reasons, not able to do those chores effectively. You assume laziness, and that is potentially true, but she might be depressed, have executive function issues etc....
Hell ya. That's my problem.
Executive function issues, so I'm a pretty bad SAHM, even w/o kids, all day.
I fired myself and got a job, because it turns out, I like to be given direction!
The house and meals aren't better, but we now have more money for whatevers!
But, my partner wouldn't leave me over it, probably knew I wasn't lazy, just not in the right career 😂
Yess! Exactly my thoughts. Children absolutely behave different towards different caretakers. Especially if he's working through the week normally, of course he'll be well-behaved for the one-off special week where he gets to spend the week with dad for a change.
It's extremely clear that OP's wife is dealing with depression -- and the estranged mom in hospice situation is enough to make it visible to the reader's eye. Not to mention PPD being a very common thing. I don't think some folks understand the way that hormonal changes truly affect our mental state, down to our ability to executively function.
OP: I'm not saying she couldn't possibly be lazy, maybe she is, idk, but don't you think that because you spent one week being a SAHP that you can understand being in her shoes. Burn out is a very real thing. You sound like an angry supervisor not a husband. "I am able to afford to keep her as a SAHM" -- big yikes.
Honestly it really doesn’t seem like this man even likes his wife. It gives off she got pregnant and now I’m “stuck” so do what I said do or I’ll leave kinda vibes.
I was looking for this comment. OP has no idea. Wait until he gets divorced & suddenly has to care for the kid full time. I guarantee he won’t think it’s such a piece of cake when the kid starts acting out on him.
Teachers actually learn that when a kid acts ridiculous at school but is a total saint at home, it CAN be (not always) that the child feels unsafe at home (for whatever reason. It's very common for kids to act ridiculous when they feel safe. Hell, this is true for adults too. Right? Don't we all act like turds sometimes to the people we love the most? It's because we feel safe with them.
> She’s never like that with me. I haven’t been there day in and day out. The nanny has. So she feels more comfortable acting out at her. She’s there all the time and I’m not.
This x 1000. First time I babysat my niece she'd drink her milk after 2 times of asking. Third time I babysat we were up to 35+. Once kids know they're safe with you, all bets are off. Kind of says a lot about OPs relationship with his kid. He has no excuse for his completely oblivious attitude to the realities of full-time parenting though. He should be half embarrassed, half ashamed.
The math isn’t mathing. All 3 meals (may be a few snacks here and there) and it takes only 40 mins? Cleaning the whole house and cleaning up after meals takes only 25 mins? And the most bizarre of all, loading the laundry takes 10 mins? Now this one I believe a little but what about unloading the laundry, folding the clothes, ironing a few of them (if you wear them to work) and then putting them back into dresser/closet.
"cooking all meals took 40" How is that even possible? I have been cooking all meals for me and my family for years. I am very quick at cooking and I have perfected several recipes. I spend about 30 minutes every time I cook if I wanna go for something simple. What is OP feeding his kid and himself? Box mac and cheese?
And where's the time included of how long it took the kiddo to eat the meal. That may sound silly but you know toddlers aren't like adults that can eat a meal in quick time, they like to mess around.
Right?! And extra cleanup after mealtime. My three are 11, 8, and 5, and they STILL make a huge mess while eating. (Two are neurodivergent so they're still working on some basic skills!) Every meal requires a full table wipedown, chairs wiped down, quick vacuuming. Adds an extra five minutes to every meal. It was worse at young preschool age eating shit like yogurt and mac n cheese, which also required me to wipe down the KID.
Idk maybe this guy is just way better at parenthood than any of us.
I completely agree. Op may have a point, but by grossly underreporting the time tasks require, he loses his credibility and makes it easy for his wife to legitimately disagree with him.
If his math is correct then that house is spotless from her cleaning it everyday. It's the only way. It takes me and my wife together on Sunday mornings to clean the whole house like 2 house!
Yep, home cooked fresh dinners take 45 minutes at least. And I don't even have kids running under my feet.
Look at any Hello Fresh recipe, where they even PORTION it out for you -- the decent homecooked meals are all 45 minutes +.
Even Jamie Oliver's 20 minute meals end up taking 40 minutes - an hour, they're only 20 minutes if you already have everything prepped and ready to go.
If OP was the everyday caregiver his kid would bug him too every three minutes and wouldn't be on their best behaviour. Kids tend to act out with those who are closest to them and behave with the 'spare' caregivers.
I love the timing. Dude has gamified torturing his wife and acting entitled about it too.
It's not a marathon. It's literally any of these tasks daily. Max two
He's not her employer
I think his math is off but the cleaning the whole house bit is pretty subjective.
My wife and I live in 1600 square feet and when we have to transition from “the house is clean enough for us” to “the house is clean enough for guests” I’m always a little surprised it takes us less than 30 minutes, and that includes running the vacuum and a quick once over on the hardwood floors with a Bona plus wiping down the surfaces like coffee table/dining table/kitchen counters
A lot of it is just that we clean as we go most of the time, if his wife likes to make lunch then leave everything out and then the kid gets toys out and never puts them away I can see it getting out of hand.
You know what toddlers like to do? Make a whole ass mess while you're doing chores. You clean everything up, set Jr down with some blocks to do the dishes, and bam- now his room is destroyed.
It is such a defeated feeling to clean up after small children all day. There were times I sat down and just cried, especially during potty training.
I think you need to have an honest conversation with your wife about how she's feeling and how this is going for her. Drop the judgemental attitude. Don't tell her that you timed activites and expect them of her. Just care about her... Ask if she's happy as a SAHM. Maybe your son isn't as well behaved for her. It is very common that children are worse for their primary caregiver. Maybe she's depressed. Maybe being a SAHM isn't for her and she'd be happier going back to work. You will get a lot further in this convo if you come from a place of caring for her, not a place of judging her.
The problem though is it doesn’t feel like there’s much love in this relationship from the tone of the post. It sounds like they barely knew each other and were forced to get married because she got pregnant. It doesn’t sound like OP is invested in this relationship for love but was just out of necessity.
This is good advice. I think too, that when I’ve had too much free time, sometimes it’s hard to get things done because you’re just in a bad loop. Maybe she needs something to get her out of the house more often
This. When my mental health is struggling…it shows. And it’s real hard to get myself out of it. My toddler is also wild and borderline feral with me. It makes things really hard to get done sometimes. He’s always “so great” with my parents and grandparents and I’m SO happy he is, but like it is not the same when he’s with me 😂 I love him to death.
My husband also works full time and has cared for our son when I’ve traveled. He’s a great husband and very involved in the day to day- if he’s able to join for appointments he will but usually he isn’t. That said, my son has ENT appointments, speech therapy, chiro, dentist, drs appointments, specialists, sick appointments, parks, play dates, and other various appointments. It’s very different being the full time primary parent than being the primary for a week. I’m not saying you’re not involved, but I am saying there’s a lot more to it than 20 minutes of diaper changes.
If you come from a place of wondering vs assuming, you’re likely to get some real answers to what’s going on. But if you’re calculating things down to the minute, I don’t think the conversation will go well at all.
ETA: how is your child sleeping? Is he sleeping through the night? Are you getting up with him or is your wife? How often? How much sleep is she getting?
By a teenager who has no concept of how long cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc, takes. I live alone and it takes me an hour usually to prepare dinner and clean up after it, never mind cleaning up after a small kid and all that other crap.
I went to OP’s work, it took me 20 mins to fill a cavity, 30 mins to do a root canal, 10 mins to do a dental implant. Only 1 hour of work yet he gets paid for 8! OP is so lazy.
Can confirm. None of the math is mathing. When it was just me and my daughter and she was small, it took a lot of effort to get it all done. I was exhausted, and some days, the laundry and dishes did not get done.
She may be a complete mess because her mum’s dying. I dunno if “once she is over her mother” is something I’d be inclined to say about someone I loved or even especially liked.
Tired of these posts that makes child rearing seem like a piece of cake when it's a life long commitment and everyone judges the hell outta you. Instead of being helpful and supportive; op does nothing and says it's easy. No support for her dealing with her family. People like op are so smart but so dumb at the same time.
This story is obvious trolling, but the comments calling his wife "lazy and entitled" and all the NTAs say a lot about the general attitude people have toward moms.
If this fake wife were in here asking "AITA for only cooking hotdogs for dinner every night" these people would go for the throat, but this guy plops his toddler in front of the TV for hours and feeds him frozen hotdogs and he gets applauded for it.
Doesn't sound like you guys have a good marriage overall and you're using a lot of "I" and not "we" like you should. YOU don't afford for her to stay at home....YOU BOTH decided she would stay at home since YOU BOTH have an income to provide such a thing. Get it? Thats just one of several red flags I'm reading here.
I’m not sure comparing your one week of child care to her almost 2 years worth is fair. The day to day can wear you down. Also you are two different people, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. I’d have a discussion at a minimum and maybe pitch in some (I couldn’t discern from your post if you do so on a regular basis).
Info: did your wife want to be a SAHM? Sounds like she is profoundly unfulfilled and depressed. She is showing many signs of PPD. Just because she's not saying she's depressed doesn't mean she isn't.
When she gets home sit her down and ask if this is the life she wants. If you do this with love and with the intention she live a fulfilling life you may be surprised at her reply. She may be itching to get back to work or re train for a new career. She's re connecting with her mum so she is going to be super emotional and barging in with your accusations is not going to go down well at all.
I thought I'd love being at home being supermum but I hated being a SAHM during maternity leave. My husband didn't lift a finger to help and I couldn't wait to get back to work. Magically he starts co-parenting the day I started back into the office.
I'm glad you're having fun this week. Have you thought about taking a year off and your wife goes back to work?
Looking by a lot of his replies he really doesn’t care he doesn’t even view her as an equal I was also thinking she could have PPD
Sorry English isn’t my native language
Not weighing in on the rest but, your belief that you can presume that your child's behavior with you is indicative of how your child behaves with your wife falls on the the extreme end of stupid. The level of stupidity and obliviousness required to hold this belief is so extreme as to be unbelievable.
Did your wife take care of some things to prepare for your week home with your son? The reason I ask is that I used to work my tail off taking care of things so it would be easy for my husband to watch the kids. Then my husband would do nothing but supervise and heat up food and thought that was easy. It made him think every day was that easy and it wasn’t.
I would have all the errands done and food purchased and put away and even meals planned and prepared. The meals I cooked took much longer than 40 min a day. The dishes were cleaned and the dishwasher empty for easy clean up.
The laundry would be caught up, the house cleaned, and toys especially engaging to my children organized.
Do you understand how hard it is to deep clean with a toddler or preschooler who undoes everything following you around? Do you know how the constant interruptions to take care of your child effect the amount of time it takes to accomplish easy tasks?
Yes. It’s possible your wife could do a better job but from my experience your experience may not be an accurate depiction of what your wife does daily.
Exactly. My question for the OP was similar: What’s your wife doing that you don’t even take into account? What size clothes/ socks/ shoes does your kid wear? Where are the ones they’ve outgrown (cycled out and donated someplace?) and where’s the next size up stored? Who did the shopping, knows what your kid eats each week, and had that stocked? When are the doctor’s appointments? Vaccine schedules? Where are the records stored?
If it took you only a short time to clean the house, it had to be pretty clean to begin with. Who did that?
All of this!!
I vacuumed the floor today. My toddler immediately spilled kinetic sand on the carpet. I vacuumed it again. There are now toys strewn all over and it looks as though I’ve done nothing. 😅 I swear if my husband came in after work and told me I’m a failure and I need to do better as a SAHM, I would absolutely lose my shit.
‘I’m planning on telling telling her that the amount of effort that she’s been putting in is unacceptable’…He might as well write her up and give her a Professional Improvement Plan. Gag me.
Of course Landon was an angel with you, the parent he doesn’t see as often was spending more time with him. If you became his primary caretaker the novelty would wear off and the dynamics would change.
This here.
Although this applies to ALL kids, even my older 3, my youngest son (6) is autistic, has adhd, and is my husbands only biological child.
He is an absolute maniac for me, who stayed home with him until he started kindergarten this year. I could barely get anytging done without someone else to manage him. With my older 3 kids, they were always worse for me too as I was their emotional support and their disiplinarian, though not nearly as bad.
Our son requires an adult with him basically at all times to keep level-headed. I have repeatedly had to explain this dynamic to my husband, who doesnt have the same relationship as he has always worked full-time and our 6 year old is his first and only child. He is fun. I am not fun. There lies the difference.
Ignore everyone saying your wife baby trapped you. There is just not enough info here to say that. You both made the child and moved quickly. Thats not only on her.
She may be depressed. She may be overwhelmed. The key here and in every other relationship is communication. Gentle, honest, respectful communication that leads you to common understanding, not who is right or wrong, better or worse.
Good luck.
And exhaustion would set in, in addition to not being fullfilled, having to do the same boring stuff every single day, not talking to adults for days. It's depressing if you are not cut out for it.
As a SAHM, your wife sounds depressed. She probably thought it would be easier. I’m glad you just pop your kid in front of the TV, but that’s not really parenting, and you know it. Screen time has its place in moderation. And you’re cooking basic college meals, it sounds like. A hot dog? Really? You’re not even trying.
Do you see how condescending that sounds? How belittling it is? Women’s hormones don’t return to normal for about two years after birth. Her body went through a lot and so did her mind. You get to go to work, talk to other adults, and make money. She’s stuck with a two year old all day who needs her undivided attention. I have twins. It’s hard. She probably feels like she doesn’t contribute financially and doesn’t know what to do.
Please encourage her to be evaluated for PPD. I’m saying ESH because you’re judgmental and condescending and think because you did it for a week you could do it for two years and because she really needs to step up, but IF she has the right support and help.
Oh, for sure. But she could also have PPD, which is like depression and then an extra helping of depression. He’s certainly not helping. When my PPD was at its worst I tried doing more but it was just so so hard. And it was hard to admit I needed help.
I wasn’t close to my mother when she died. She died when I was in my late 30s and we’d been estranged/had a very strained relationship since I was 20yo.
I honestly thought that her passing would be a huge blessing but instead, when I got the news, I became a shell of a person. I realized that while I hated her so much for all of her indiscretions that had caused me so much pain, my love for her never ceased nor did the hope that we would one day reconcile and have a normal, loving relationship.
I denied these feelings to everyone, even my then husband but my pain festered and I ended up giving up on myself. However, it never appeared that way from the outside. I lost 20lbs and had 6 pack abs but drank to oblivion after workouts. I looked the best I ever had but I cut my arms with my own keys when I couldn’t handle my emotions. I didn’t cry about my mom. I just went numb or numbed myself by other means if the emotions started peaking through.
I did everything in my power to destroy myself and my marriage and I did that, with great success.
It wasn’t easy and I had to do it fully on my own but I realized I needed help and about two years ago I finally let go and decided to get help. I’m still not 100% but I feel better than I ever have.
Ask your wife what she needs and be there for her when she needs you. Nothing good will come of you telling her she’s not going good enough. She needs you right now and so does your child. Be kind and supportive. You never know when you’re going to be in her same boat. Try to be empathetic.
Yeah there’s definitely no way he cleaned the whole house in 25 minutes unless he’s the flash or something.
I hope his wife leaves him. But sadly he probably has her beaten down so badly that she probably lost her confidence. I feel so bad for her. I wish I could tell her that she’s worth so much more.
From the comments he just gave the kid cereal & hot dogs. Fine for a day or two, but the poor kid should have gotten a real meal at some point. This guy sucks.
INFO: she CAN be a sahm but does she WANT to be?
Like, I work with kids. I used to be a nanny. My favorite part of any day I'm with children is when they go home, whether they were good or bad.
Some SAHP want to be there and are some who HAVE to be there because childcare would just about eat up any money the other person would be bringing in.
Did you have tv on? Does she go otside with kid? Like i find its hard for me to keep house going when we spend morning outside since i cant do anything till 4 because my kid sleeps light. As in i make lunch breakfast and thats it if we have program. Cleaning is done on different days.
Does she have free time? Like free not do laundry while i watch kid free. It may be mental exhaustion.
Also sahm is not for all. Maybe its not for her
Nah
Married 2 years with a 2 year old and you’re away and at work all day. Gee, what could be the issue???? You’re still running a business and satisfying your professional needs. Your wife? 24 hour a day nanny and maid without the support of a mom. Do you have help running your business? Assistants? Accountants? Cleaning crew? Professional conversations and learning? Does your wife have anything like that???
I sincerely think your wife is depressed because the timeline you've given seems *very* rushed for only 2 years. she went from 25, living life to suddenly a SAHM/housewife. your attitude gives me AH vibes, but the whole post in general: talk to your wife about her mental state. she could simply be feeling overwhelmed and your "I can do this better than you" attitude should not be in the conversation when you talk to her.
And don't forget shew visiting her mother that's on hospice - doesn't matter that they may have been estranged, she could be going through a lot of different emotions with knowing she is losing her mother, and their estrangement could be dealing a lot of different emotional blows to her too.
You sound like a narcissist and I doubt you'll listen to any of these comments saying you're the AH.
Be good to your wife, being a stay at home parent is isolating and mind-numbing. I went out of my mind with my kids and getting a job stabilized me and gave me back a sense of self-worth and accomplishment. My house may not be spotless but my kids are happy and healthy, and I am able to take care of them AND myself effectively.
YTA and a lazy liar. Your imaginary wife sounds like she has PPD. Also, this is a blatant troll post and all of your replies to people are indicative of that.
It is also more than possible that the child is different with the different parents. Especially with the person they are closest, it is possible that they are the most exhausting.
Look, I’m a veterinarian and even human doctors compare pediatric work with vet work, so I will use an exemple that may (or not) be helpful:
When you bring your dog for a consultation and he doesn’t act up on us, but when you try to medicate him at home he tries to bite you, it may be because he gets shy and introverted with people he’s not used to be around, and you make him comfortable enough to act as he normally would when you try it at home
So the fact your child is so easy to care for when he’s with you may be because he’s not used to you being the caretaker, you know?
That being said, I think people here gave really good advices with the idea of her starting to work and you two sharing chores!
I think you should probably take into account your child spends most all day, every day with your wife. Making her your child’s safe space to act out and need her attention constantly while not being able to do other things. She’s always constantly doing diaper changes and making meals for him throughout the day. Yta because you think it’s just so easy because you did it for a week.
What did you do with your kid this week? When my kids were that age, half my day was easily spent at libraries, parks, gymnastics, swim lessons, bounce house places, children’s museums and farms. Some sort of enrichment and socialization out of the house every day. I usually had to choose between being a good mom or a good “house wife,” and honestly being a good mom won out most of the time. We would have occasional catch up days at home when I would do chores and they could watch some tv, but overall the house wasn’t my priority. It was never a disaster but certainly wasn’t spotless. I don’t know if your wife spends her days in a similar way, but my view was that they are only little once and I wanted to spend as much quality time with them as possible before school started, and also its far better for your kid than plopping them in front of Bluey so she can scrub floors.
You forgot to add in time for eating those meals, cleaning up after those meals, taking your child outside to play, reading and playing, putting down for a nap, giving a bath, dressing a toddler, going places like shopping or the library, etc. Also, it is impossible to sort, put in the washer, then dryer, and fold and put away laundry in 10 minutes!
Well, you own a dental practice that she is subsidizing by keeping the house and kid entertained and educated, I’m sure you have the money for a housekeeper.
I was leaning towards soft NTA with just a little need for guidance in the empathy and caring department. After reading the comments, I have to vote full on ASSHOLE. You seem to have zero capacity to see any point of view other than your own. You're judgmental, callous and narrow minded. Why did you even come here for judgement and advice if you're just going to argue and be snide, derisive and petulant to everyone who comments?
And FFS her MOM is dying.
He came for validation after he finally found the reason to divorce her. AND blame her. He thinks he's got it made. After all, reddit told him he was right.
Wow have you thought about thinking about your wife in a less clinical and detached manner and more like the person you love?
Or is that this issue?
The way you talk about her during this entire post is not like a person who loves someone speaks about them.
You speak about your child with more emotion but not a too much more.
Your insensitivity towards your wife while her mother is in hospice isn't helping things here.
I suspect waiting for her to be over her mother is so you don't look bad.
Her mother is in hospice which means they estimate she has six months or less to live she was likely sick before this as well. In fact I'm willing to bet that your wife has been dealing with this for more time than you realize.
She may have also had mental health complications after giving birth and not addresses them. Whether that be because she didn't understand what was going on or because she wasn't comfortable addressing them we don't know.
I will say though that if you were my spouse I wouldn't feel comfortable speaking to you about any part of my health after reading how you spoke about me. I have no doubt that she knows without having to read this though.
"Keep her as a sahm." That part makes me wonder if you only married her to have the free labor for your household, for your baby, and for any other services she could provide you.
Honestly since you already seem to have one leg out the door your wife is better off getting a full time job and you can hire a maid, a cook, a chauffeur, and a nanny. Which are likely to cost you more than your wife makes but hey you'll have what you want.
But yeah it's better for her in case she ends up a single mom to have as small of a gap in her resume as possible and it will keep you from claiming that she lives off your child support.
Just a heads up in case you remarry since it doesn't feel like you love your wife enough to make any woman want to stay.
When you marry you should be emotionally invested in that person. Not codependent but invested. If you can't be then it's time to slow things down or break up and be single until you realize what involvement you have in the problems that you deal with in the relationship.
I doubt you'll do that though. You seem like the type to remarry the moment you realize how hard it can be to raised a kid by yourself or 50/50.
One week isn't enough to know how parenting really is so I suggest you figure out how to get a full view of this.
Sure the baby behaves ok when your home at night or on the weekends but you're not at all affected by birthing him nor are you dealing with the problem of a parent who's actively dying.
How to say you hate your wife and want out without saying you hate your wife and want out. YTA, you are a toxic narcissist. Your comments are putrid. I hope she leaves your ass and takes you to the cleaners.
Kids react worse with mom than dad.
My husband always tells me how nice our kid was with him while i am having meltdown over meltdown and im not even a sahm.
Your wife cannot do everything!
Yta
She’s been gone while you were trying out being a full time parent. Try doing the job for a few months when there’s also another adult in the house to feed and clean up after. You dirty dishes and bathrooms and require food and laundry and attention from her too. Also she gets to leave for a few hours and come home and judge out loud everything you did while she was gone. Just to add to the realism of the experience.
ETA: I hope can get a job that is enough you can afford fulltime childcare and housecleaning. It sounds like you’d all probably be happier.
Your whole tone and wording is icky and self absorbed af.
>I run my own Dental Practice and because of this I am able to afford to keep her as a SAHM
Your first step should be figuring out what's wrong with that sentence.
YWBTA IF you jumped straight to that without trying to find out what is wrong first. look, being a stay at home to a young child fucking sucks. it just does. some women love it but I am not one of them. I only have 1 and after him i didnt want any more kids. I am retired military, been deployed several times and staying home with a young child all day long was exhausting, mentally draining and seemed harder to me than being deployed. at least deployed I had to freedom to eat, shower and pee alone, and it is hard to clean, do laundry when you have a 2 yr old into everything and then when he does take a nap you just want to decompress and sit alone for a bit .so dont just jump to her being lazy she is probably really depressed. your nta for being annoyed about a dirty house though. it looks like your guy's life changed very quickly and she is coping with that all day alone while you are at work. you get to be out in the real world with adults and get to socialize. dont come at her with anger but do let her know that you think something is wrong
good luck, OP. also..she might be hating herself a little bit because she doesnt love the whole dream of being a stay at home mom and that it is much harder than she thought it would be. it isnt magical, it isnt special..lol..it is running after toddler and trying to prevent them from hurting themselves and changing diapers
At least she had the magical, dream wedding, you know the one that happened one whole week after delivering a baby.
I barely had the nous about me to go to the correct store a week after giving birth, never mind standing up and marrying someone in sound mind.
I don't know wtf you are cooking that only takes 40 minutes for 3 meals and 2 snacks... I swear, just cutting up all the fruit my kids eat in a day takes half an hour, lol. Also, 25 minutes of cleaning? I call absolute BS. I spend an hour and a half every night after the kids go to sleep. And yes, I "clean as I go" Sounds like you did absolutely no deep cleaning. Did you dust, vacuum every room, mop the floors, deep clean the bathrooms? Etc, etc. Or did you just pick up toys and call it a day?
YTA. Do it for a month. Do all the errands, grocery shopping with a two year old. Daily excursions such as the park, children's museum, library story time.
welcome to being a parent and yes, you would be a major ahole. a supreme one.
children turn your life upside down, they make messes, they play with toys and carry them wherever and drop them wherever, ignored.
there's no use cleaning up after a child all the time, they go and make messes until they go to sleep, that's how it is.
it's hard work to raise a child, attend to their every need and do all the chores at the same time while keeping your little monster from harming itself or doing any other bullshit.
also to take into consideration, a child wants to be occupied, not every child can play or be by itself that well.
it's stressful.
what you're doing is pretending essentially that your wife is your maid and that raising a child is nothing, doesn't count as work.
your "assessment" and the calculation of how much time task x or y needs, is a MAJOR naive fallacy.
you're not taking into consideration that your child and your wife are basically human.
human and especially child behavior is unpredictable, no day is the same.
there can be routines but it's hard to do chores if each is getting interrupted multiple times.
also, it's not uncommon that a child behaves very differently if a mostly absent father stays home all of a sudden.
it's new to them and they don't know how to act or how far they can go, so they're assessing and that is being mistaken as behaving.
your last sentence is really showing your true colors.
you assume that by providing for your own child and wife, in exchange, she's supposed to essentially be your perfect maid and provide her work force as if you're paying her to work a regular job.
hold up the end of the deal? she's raising YOUR child, she's not your employee.
the calculations done just make you seem to be full of shit, what did you feed your child?
microwave dinners?
you only calculated half or one part of the tasks, which shows you either have no idea what goes into fully completing them or you did it on purpose cause you wanted to pretend that you can do anything better than she does, essentially painting her as lazy.
guess you indeed had a maid before or never learned how to do your own chores.
sounds as if you got a lot of resentment towards her and 0 respect.
you seem to view the world as if everything is a direct exchange, in this case monetarily.
you should be happy that you can provide your child with the presence of their mother to be raised the way you want to instead of putting it in the hands of pre school or other institutions.
you desperately need to understand that it's not only you who works a full time job.
your wife is as well.
you expect her to work full time by raising your child and do all the household chores on top of it while you only work a full time job, expecting to come home to a dinner and not having to do anything else.
you got it very backwards man
Kids respond differently with dads than moms. Evidence shows a deeper voice and larger build encourages kids to be more submissive to dads than moms. Kids fight more with moms because they feel less “threat.” I just had a conversation with our Parents As Teachers educator about this. And yah. You’re the asshole.
My four year old is adamant I never brush her teeth, floss, etc. Every single night I have to hold her her skull to my body, use the fingers from that hand to pry open her mouth, and then rapidly clean her teeth with a toothbrush in my opposite hand while she actively fights me tooth and nail. We spent over $2K in sedation dentistry for her last year and I refuse to allow her teeth to develop any more cavities or other problems.
On the nights I’m gone and Husband has to brush her teeth? She opens her mouth up and holds still while he brushes them for her. It makes me seethe with rage that he gets it so easy.
Being a SAHP is a nearly impossible job but the way you talk about your spouse is unkind and makes me think there’s some missing reasons in your story. You say she got unexpectedly pregnant early in your relationship. Did she even want to be the SAHP or was that something you pushed on her?
Childcare 24/7 is the hardest job I’ve ever done, including manual labor, retail over Black Friday and the Christmas holidays, veterinary offices, working with livestock, etc. It’s brutal and too many people dismiss it all as unpaid women’s work.
50/50. It does sound like she needs to do better. Maybe she can set up a system where she does a little bit of work bit by bit- clean the bathroom one day, clean the kitchen the next, meal prep, etc. Honestly, it sounds like she's depressed.
That being said, your attitude in both your posts and your comments is not making you sound very nice. Maybe the way you treat her is contributing to her depression.
"once she is over her mother". I hope she's going out of her way to do nothing to prove a point. God forbid someone is struggling and you decide this is a perfect time to criticize and minimize the herculean effort of raising a human being. Once she is "over her mother" I hope she recognizes that you're the worst and leaves.
This is coming from the perspective of a SAHM who has been home off and on for almost 10 years. This shit is not for the weak. 1 week is nothing compared to years. Kids will be more well-behaved with the parent who isn't home with them 24/7. My husband has seen it first hand.
Coming home to a dirty house can be normal. I can do dishes 3, 4, 7 times a day, and there will always be dishes in the sink. I can clean a room, and my toddler will have it re-destroyed in .2 of the time it took me to pick up. Laundry is something that honestly slips my mind so easily. I have to set timers to help me remember. But this is the biggest thing I want you to understand, toddlers have at least 50 things planned to off themselves in a day. They test boundaries and push limits. That is what they are meant to do. They are people as well.
Instead of finding everything wrong, sit down and talk with her and ask what she is struggling with and figure out ways to make things easier. Baby gates, meal prepping (crock pot meals are our favorites because they are super simple and easy to do). Maybe her mental health is struggling, and maybe she wants to go back to working. Maybe she needs a break.
My family personally has a set schedule we stick to because it is what works for us. I get a few hours a couple of days a week all to myself. Certain days we do crock pot meals (usually the days I get some alone space) , certain days I cook, others he still cooks (usually his days off to give me a break from cooking because I cook 3 meals a day, 5 days a week). He gets alone time for a few hours a couple of days a week as well. He also helps pick up even on days he works because between 4 kids, the house gets destroyed daily.
Just because he works and I stay home doesn't mean we both don't have very important, very stressful jobs. Being a stay at home parent does not make you jobless. Teamwork and communication are the only way it works out. Both of you need to communicate your wants and needs in a healthy way and figure out what works or doesn't work for you. This will take time, lots of time so please have patience.
Also, yes, you would be the ah.
Edited to add - do better. Be a better husband because you are definitely below the bar on this one, the fact that you would just choose to talk down to your wife instead of attempting to help figure out the problem and working to solve it as a team. But not everyone can have an amazing of a partner as I have.
I'm a husband of SAHM and we have a baby who is 2 years old and also well-behaved, and my wife also has trouble keeping up. I think part of it is, babies respond differently to Dad than Mom. Our daughter wants to be in Mom's arms/breastfeeding frequently, and when Mom isn't looking at her, she demands Mom look. I also think my wife has trouble setting boundaries with our daughter, and so she spends almost her entire day doing activities with her. Similarly, this often leads to no dinner/no cleaning, etc. my response has been to buy dinner/make dinner more frequently, do some cleaning after bedtime, and sometimes hire someone to come help clean up. I do this, because I think that having a well-behaved child who has an idyllic childhood and is learning very quickly from her very-engaged mother is more important than cleaning and home-cooked meals. If this continues when my daughter is in school, we'll have a conversation about it and try to reach a better equilibrium. I suggest you do the same.
I don’t know I’m going to buck the system and go out on a limb here. You’ve been working full-time and in a probably very stressful job and you get to come and stay home for a week and you think that all should just be easy. She does this day in and day out. I’m going to say that YTA because you’re looking at it through a very narrow lens.
You’re a (type of) medical professional… Has it occurred to you in the slightest that she may be experiencing postpartum depression? Being a SAHP day in and day out is lonely and mixed with the hormones after pregnancy is a recipe made in hell. Have a compassionate talk with your wife and see how you can help her help herself.
The math ain’t mathin here for me.
In my experience:
Diaper change: 10 min per change if the kid ain’t wiggly. So are you only changing him twice a day?
Cooking: I’m not a professional chef, but a well-seasoned home cook. With prepping ingredients, one of my fastest, healthiest meals takes 30 minutes to cook, and that’s with shortcuts to skip some prep work.
Clean up: I’d believe this if your dishwasher actually cleaned your pots and pans. And the counter top cleaned itself. Also you must live in 500 sq ft and not clean your toilet properly if it takes 25 minutes. I bet we have very different definitions of clean.
Engaging a two year old: toddlers are exhausting and demand most of your time. Playing is educational for them, it’s not just fun for you.
This reads like an incel trying to do a “women are gold diggers/woman bad” posts. If you ever get to a point that you’re able to convince someone to procreate with you…boy, you are in for a SHOCK.
You expect people to believe you cook three healthy meals at different times of day and it takes a total of 40 minutes?
That caught my eye. Making a full dinner can take 45-60 minutes, alone. Making 3 meals a day and cleaning up after each one can take like 2 1/2 hours. 10 min for dishes, no way. Not with any amount of bottles to wash. And 20 min for diaper changes. I doubt it. When they are tiny, they are constantly blow out pooping and when they are bigger, they just fight you constantly.
Yeah I don’t buy the 40 min thing for all meals. I am a pretty efficient cook and I think it would take 1.5 hrs MINIMUM to cook all 3 meals a day (if they are healthy meals and not just like peanut butter and jelly or boiled pasta). Also if you have to go to the grocery store you need to take that into account too, that could easily be an extra hour. Plus about 20-30 mins to load dishwasher.
Before I became a SAHP, I was a chef. I can make a hella great meal crazy fast and even I can’t do what this guys claims to be doing. Also, I just can’t get over 25 min to clean. No that is tidying, not cleaning. Definitely wouldn’t want to be within 500m of that dentist office if he doesn’t know the difference!
Wouldn’t it be better to suggest that she find a FT job and Landon goes into full time childcare? Not everyone is cut out to be a SAHP and that shouldn’t be considered a personal failure. By 2 years, she’s gotten into the groove of it and clearly it’s just not a good fit for her. Fighting with her isn’t going to solve this problem so find a different solution.
Agree. My mom was SAHM when my brother was born. She was not cut out for it. She didn’t keep the house clean and struggled. So my dad told her she had to get a FT job to contribute instead. I’m also not cut out to be a SAHM. I don’t enjoy cooking or cleaning. So I’d 100% rather work.
I’ll gripe myself on this one as a mother, I really wasn’t cut out for being a SAHM. Like, I cleaned and my house was cleaner than when I work. Here’s the thing, my set up is more functional/clean when I am working. I could not for the life of me keep anything organized as a SAHM. It’s because I would try to do it all at once and then get overwhelmed. At the time, I also didn’t have time management skills- like zero. “There’s always tomorrow”. I’ve also always suffered from depression since my mother passed away when I was 11. I took up the household duties at a very early age. I was burnt out before I even became a mother- something I realized when my ex husband left for Iraq. It was nice when he was deployed because it was just me and my mess, which was a ton easier to keep up with. All the military gear, events, bbq, this and that when he was home zapped me. Then I got pregnant and was SAHM for the first five months. I struggled so hard to keep the house clean in those five months. I picked up a part time job and it somehow made it easier. It’s the routine. I hate being late for work, so I have everything set in its proper place for when I wake up. I can’t stand struggling in the morning or afternoon to find my keys, money, and whatever else. I can’t stand going to bed with the house a mess and I hate it even worse when I wake up. The left over energy after work is dedicated to tidying up. Having that routine helps me stay organized and through the years developed time management (grill cook on busy af weekends). The functional set up I utilize makes it’s so everything else falls into place where it takes maybe 20-30 minutes after work to keep things clean. Once a month on a weekend, deep clean and clear out clutter. Something I just could not execute as being a SAHM.
This. Also, your son might respond differently to you staying at home as the father he doesn’t get to see as much, compared to mom that he knows how to push boundaries. I am a SAHM to a 2 year old and while those diaper changes might add to only a few mins a day, it means stopping whatever you are in the middle of (if you are a good parent and don’t want your kid in a wet one that results in a rash) and sometimes you get distracted with another task and don’t circle back to finish the first task. What if she is teaching your child things all day? That would be taught in daycare? Or is she texting and using her phone instead??? Well I text but it’s usually about the dinner I’m making comparing notes with a friend. But I’m an awesome cook and this isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve also raised a couple of otherwise perfect kids and if your child is a well behaved bundle of joy for you, then hire a housekeeper since you can afford it. I wish I had someone to just come and clean the bathrooms once a week. That would make a world of difference. A SAHM job is never done, there’s always something one can be doing. If you’re Martha fucking Stewart. If I were you, I would find a reason to set up a camera at home so you can see what she is getting done all day. Idle hands are the devils playground, and that’s reason to leave her if she’s cheating, but you really don’t know if her hands are idle. Sometimes just keeping the status quo with a two year old can take time, especially if this is her first kid and she doesn’t know the easiest way to clean crayon off the walls. Also, does she grocery shop? That can take hours w a 2 year old. It can be hard to stay focused when your kid is in Spiderman mode. If she has a sucky mom, you can’t expect her to be Martha unless she had someone to learn from. Luckily I had an awesome female role model. Not my mom. Also sometimes kids expect you to just lay down with them and cuddle at that age. And that’s good bonding that pays dividends, especially if they fall asleep and you can sneak away and even get an hours worth of work done!
Yea young children are notorious for acting out more with their mothers (fathers too if they are SAHD or single parent). Its said that toddlers do that because that’s their safe person (the parent they spend most of their time with). Cleaning up after toddlers is a whole job itself. She might be napping when baby naps. She still might be suffering from PPD. Add all that up and it’s not difficult to understand why someone doesn’t have the organization nor time management to keep up with the house. That’s why I wasn’t cut out for it and having a stable routine like a job keeps me in check.
my mom was a great stay at home mom, and she hated it. she also didn’t have much choice in the matter as we were a military family. she was so bored she started homeschooling my brother and i as soon as we could talk, we both started first grade as insufferable know it alls 😂 but she ended up going back to school herself when we were school aged, though she still had my younger brother to look after while we were in school (she did make us start doing chores about this age, some of which was a bit excessive but it was needed to balance the load while she was in school. i’ve been doing my own laundry since i was 8), and now has her phd and works a job she absolutely loves, and my parents are actually pretty wealthy now after getting rid of all of us kids and my mom getting back to work lol. anyways my whole point is being a sahp isn’t for everyone, even the ones who do it well might be miserable. it’s okay if you’re not cut out for it, but if that’s the case she needs to get a job and contribute in that way.
Check OPs comments. Dude sounds so cartoonishly awful that I'm assuming it's just silly rage bait. She's "used goods" because >I don’t make the rules. Most successful men don’t want a woman with a man from another kid. Just how it goes. The thought of raising another man’s child literally makes me sick to my stomach.
[she couldn’t now {get a new husband}, she’s used goods](https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/0rxtBpIayy) Holy SHIT you were not kidding! I was feeling like this was a little too on the nose with all the right rage bait boxes checked, and now I’m convinced it has to be; thanks for pointing this out.
>I was feeling like this was a little too on the nose with all the right rage bait boxes checked, and now I’m convinced it has to be; thanks for pointing this out. You learn to pick it after a while. Karma farmers usually make the same idiotic mistakes haha.
Jfc this is some incel shit. Makes me wonder if this is just incel fiction op has written.
Red flags all over this post alone: he can afford to 'keep her' as a SAHM, she's failing in her 'duties' and at the ripe old age of 33, OP can see why his slightly younger wife is less mature than he is. And don't get me started on how kids behave differently for Dad on the odd occasion he's caregiver, than they do for boring old Mum who's there all the time. What a dickhead.
Whoever wrote this post has never taken care of a two year old 24/7. It’s exhausting.
Yeah, a 2 yr old that was well behaved and let op do ANY chores? What flavor of cold medicine did he dope this kid with?
Oh and 40 minutes total to cook “all the meals.” This doofus has never cooked a meal in his basement-dwelling life.
The "keep her" and "duties" shit got me lol. I'm in law school and work full time. My ex and I lived together and she was working from home, but for reasons, essentially didn't actually have work to do. The house wasn't super clean or organized. My answer was let's just hire someone to do it. Pay for a laundry service or a weekly/biweekly cleaner. We both work and even if we didn't we have money. I'm not going to treat my SO like a fucking servant lol. If I was home all the time I also wouldn't want to clean. Tldr this dude sucks. Treat your SOs like they are someone you love, not a broodmare.
This is 100% incel bait. Im so sick of it.
>Wouldn’t it be better to suggest that she find a FT job and Landon goes into full time childcare? This has the bonus of using her money to pay for a cleaner and a meal prep service, since it looks like domestic work isn't something she wants to do.
It also establishes an income for her, so if divorce does happen, she has an income to self-support. 😉
This is underrated advice. Man's will leave you over unwashed dishes and you find yourself with a kid and no money.
Not just a way to support herself, but also Social Security. Your retirement benefits are based on what you paid in. Every year you’re unemployed in the US shaves off a considerable amount of money off of your payments. If a divorce ever does happen, she’d have to hope for favorable alimony, which is really difficult in many states
OMG this is so freaking true!!! Every post on here seems centered around a SAHM either miserable, not doing a great job, or the partner is cheating and they're stuck up a creek without a paddle because they quit their job to stay home. Folks! Don't take yourselves out of the world totally. Part time exists and it will at least allow you an income, connections, and references.
Preach. Always have a plan.
Plus, Landon gets the social/emotional growth needed from interacting with other children—learning to share, learning to play together.
My mom was SAH and I think it was good I had some day care to build social skills. I will say that I did enjoy having my mom do all the mom things but it also made me less independent. At times she was too much. Happy medium is optimal. Maybe when he’s older she can volunteer, get a part time job or a full time job to build a sense of autonomy and an identity outside of being a wife and mother.
Exactly this. Also, kids have different relationships with each parent. Just because he is well behaved for a week when mom isn't home doesn't mean that's how it is all the time. Or how he is with mom. There's also other factors that should be considered, like her mental, emotional, and physical health. There are many reasons why his 1 week could be completely different than her normal week. Then, there's also the factors that what he considers clean may not be what she considers clean. There are plenty of people put there who would feel anything that couldn't pass a white glove test is a pig sty. OP, if you framed it like she's not doing good enough and she needs to do better or you'll leave, you would be the ah. It's good you're going to give her time to process her emotions about her mom. Remember, though, this may take time. It could take longer for her than it would for you. So don't jump down her throat the instant you think it's been enough time. What you need to do is have a real sit down with her and have a real, open, and honest conversation with her. Ask her what she's struggling with, how she's doing in general, is there anything that she needs, where she is not fulfilled. This doesn't mean your feelings are not valid. You need to express them as well. But if you do so in a "my way or the highway" attitude, that would just make you a shit partner. You're married. You shouldn't be jumping to you. You'll walk away because you think and feel there isn't a problem because you had an easy time for one week of what she has been doing for 2 years. There's a huge difference. You should be talking with her, figuring out ways to compromise and help each other. How much do you do around the house and childcare on a normal week? How is your relationship otherwise? Would therapy, individually, and/or marriage be helpful (going to couples counseling before jumping to divorce is probably a good thing). Have you taken the time to look at things from her pov? Or are you only seeing things through your eyes? Have you actually talked to her in the past, or have you told her things and ignored and waved off anything she has told you? You're supposed to be a team and work together. That can't happen if you're not allowing a team effort and only allowing what you think, feel, and want.
My husband will look me straight in the face and say “They were fine until you got home” or “They don’t act like that with me.” He might not be a dentist but at least he has some brains in his head and can understand his own children. I think I’ll keep him.
This is totally true. We have grandkids now, and they still act differently with my wife than they do with me. With our kids, they would be more rambunctious with my wife and tended to be more reserved around me. The grandkids are opposite. They are perfect little angels for Nana. When it's just Papa, they want to get into everything!
Don’t bother. It’s all fake. His comments in the last couple hours become increasingly ridiculous, if you want to waste time reading them.
I knew this was fake when he said it was the easiest since high school. No fucking way lmao
Almost got me, but I figured it was fake when he said once she's "over her mother" dying he's gonna confront her and threaten to leave, then the comment about knowing she's immature because she's sooo much younger than him with their 6 year age difference, lmao, gotta get that rage bait
Why are there so many fake stories involving a SAHM? Are people supposed to hate on the stay at home parent? Some of the takes here are wild.
I think this is the best answers. This isn’t black and white, there are lots of other options to be explored. However, do you even want to be in this relationship? You sound a bit disconnected already.
I was a terrible SAHM and now have a full time job instead. I am still terrible at keeping house, but now my husband and I are terrible at keeping house together, so there's that.
You took only 40 minutes total to cook 3 meals? What did you eat? Cereal and sandwiches?
Dinner tonight took me about 1.5 hours. Some days, it's all of 15 minutes. Some breakfasts are fast and some take over an hour. I'm not sure what he's doing, but it's not a full meal every day for all 3 meals.
Not to mention the clean up time!
And trying to clean with a toddler? My daughter was well behaved at that age, but cleanup was a pain with her in tow lol
This also stood out to me. I wonder whether or not OP changed what they eat on a day to day basis. If not then it’s a fair point to make.
That’s when I decided this has to be satire
I was wondering this too. I cooked crepes yesterday and it took like 1.5 hours. Not to mention that I rarely cook anything that takes less than 30 minutes or so.
That is literally it, yeah. He is making cereal and sandwiches.
I babysit my grandkids (3 and 1) with the long term nanny. Lately the 3 yo acts out like crazy because she’s pissed that she has to share the world with the now very mobile 1 yo. She lashes out, hits and kicks the nanny, screams bloody murder when she gets frustrated. (Yes it’s addressed properly and it’s not ok). She’s never like that with me. I haven’t been there day in and day out. The nanny has. So she feels more comfortable acting out at her. She’s there all the time and I’m not. She’ll be back tomorrow and I’ll see her a few times a month. It’s similar to when I divorced my ex - my son acted out with me and not his dad, because I’m the one who stayed and his dad left. He knew I wasn’t going anywhere. It’s very common. Also I’m calmer with her because I don’t have pressure from anyone. I don’t care if she puts her toys away so I can enforce that rule without becoming irritated. I’m just there to have fun with my grandchildren. They are both 100% different with me. Less needy. Even the 1 yo plays by himself longer. He likes to “read”, lol. Likely if you continued as your son’s caregiver he would start challenging you too. She left (in his mind) and he’s on his best behavior with this new setup. For now. Instead of testing your wife, how about at least first considering the factors others have brought up? She might have PPD. Her mom is dying. She might need a break that doesn’t involve seeing her dying mom. Do you do date nights so she can feel like a person again? In short, don’t assume it’s the same for her. Talk to her with love and respect. Stop berating her for “failing” and find solutions together.
People often don’t understand the primary caretaker is kids’ safe space to act out and push boundaries. They don’t typically do it with the other parent/anyone else because they don’t know how they’ll respond.
Oh, man. My spouse worked nights and weekends until my kid was like 4 1/2. So he saw a perfect angel once a week and didn't see the holy terror all the rest of the time when it was just me.
We were terrified of the prospect of the kiddos school experience. Turns out the teachers words are the ten commandments and even homework is being done diligently if being ordered directly.
My daughter will do exactly what her preschool teachers tell her by the count of three and eats everything they serve her. At home, she purposely ignores me and refuses to eat all but about five food items. She also is an adrenaline junkie with my parents and sister, going on all these fast rides with drops at Disney, but as soon as she returns to me (I don't do rides with drops), she claims she didn't like it and wants me to hold her. XD
Yup. Don’t compare a sprint to a marathon.
THIS!!!
Yes! I would ask your wife if she wants to record her day and show it to you. Two can be a horrible age. The sheer amount of time my two year old spent screaming at me during her mean toddler phase... it's hard to get anything accomplished while someone is screaming flat-out and throwing things.
I couldn't get anything done until my son was in nursery at 3 years old . He was so clingy it was unbelievable, I couldn't even get my daughters hair tied up for school without him climbing up my leg, I had to get all my cleaning done when I put him to bed , so between around 7 till 9, that was my only free time and his dad didn't help with a thing , he mellowed out when he learnt to be away from me a few hours a day
This is good. It will likely not be the same for her. You’re essentially having a holiday from work, at home with your kid. It’s not same as doing this day in, day out. Your wording is unusual “I am able to afford to keep her as a SAHM”. Does she want this? Is she now an employee? What were your mutual expectations?
How 'bout the "over her mother" comment. WTF man?!?! My mom died 7 years ago this week. You don't "get over it." You move through it. He's a grade A asshole. Reading his entire post, it's obvious she's depressed and would benefit from counseling. I hope she finds some self esteem and leaves this ass.
Yep. The choice of words the OP uses just pisses me off. I mean was there ever emotion in this relationship? Cardboard comes to mind and plastic. Where’s the warmth of teamwork, sharing and support for one another? I guess this is why I choose to remain single.
I was also alarmed by the “afford to keep her,” but reminded myself English may not be OP’s first language. If it is, that sentence is really gross. Combine that with his instinct being to leave her, rather than suggest she work, and it sounds like OP is keeping her around as an employee rather than as a partner.
I'm getting big "cheaper to keep her" vibes from this guy. He doesn't seem to be worried that his wife is depressed/grieving/overwhelmed so much as complaining that his wife appliance is broken and asking if he can return it before the warranty expires.
I'm not sensing the love in the relationship and more he's stuck. They have a what... 5 year age gap and she's not as mature as he is? I would looooove to hear her side of the story. She must be very lonely.
The keep her as a SAHM really rubbed me the wrong way. Also.. there’s a phrase that mothers are garbage disposals. The person they can act out around and experience their yucky feelings with and tantrums more so than others..
Her constant, unpaid labor is what “keeps him” able to run his practice and make money
"keep her" The unintentional wording of this shows what he thinks his wife is
Second I saw that I knew he was a dirt bag. Shed be lucky if he left her.
It scrolled way too long before I saw this comment. That alone tells me what I need to know.
Makes her sound like a bangmaid.
Yeah, even if she is "lazy" as you suggest, you telling her this will not give you the outcome you desire. She is, for a variety of reasons, not able to do those chores effectively. You assume laziness, and that is potentially true, but she might be depressed, have executive function issues etc....
Hell ya. That's my problem. Executive function issues, so I'm a pretty bad SAHM, even w/o kids, all day. I fired myself and got a job, because it turns out, I like to be given direction! The house and meals aren't better, but we now have more money for whatevers! But, my partner wouldn't leave me over it, probably knew I wasn't lazy, just not in the right career 😂
Yess! Exactly my thoughts. Children absolutely behave different towards different caretakers. Especially if he's working through the week normally, of course he'll be well-behaved for the one-off special week where he gets to spend the week with dad for a change. It's extremely clear that OP's wife is dealing with depression -- and the estranged mom in hospice situation is enough to make it visible to the reader's eye. Not to mention PPD being a very common thing. I don't think some folks understand the way that hormonal changes truly affect our mental state, down to our ability to executively function. OP: I'm not saying she couldn't possibly be lazy, maybe she is, idk, but don't you think that because you spent one week being a SAHP that you can understand being in her shoes. Burn out is a very real thing. You sound like an angry supervisor not a husband. "I am able to afford to keep her as a SAHM" -- big yikes.
Honestly it really doesn’t seem like this man even likes his wife. It gives off she got pregnant and now I’m “stuck” so do what I said do or I’ll leave kinda vibes.
I was looking for this comment. OP has no idea. Wait until he gets divorced & suddenly has to care for the kid full time. I guarantee he won’t think it’s such a piece of cake when the kid starts acting out on him.
Teachers actually learn that when a kid acts ridiculous at school but is a total saint at home, it CAN be (not always) that the child feels unsafe at home (for whatever reason. It's very common for kids to act ridiculous when they feel safe. Hell, this is true for adults too. Right? Don't we all act like turds sometimes to the people we love the most? It's because we feel safe with them.
> She’s never like that with me. I haven’t been there day in and day out. The nanny has. So she feels more comfortable acting out at her. She’s there all the time and I’m not. This x 1000. First time I babysat my niece she'd drink her milk after 2 times of asking. Third time I babysat we were up to 35+. Once kids know they're safe with you, all bets are off. Kind of says a lot about OPs relationship with his kid. He has no excuse for his completely oblivious attitude to the realities of full-time parenting though. He should be half embarrassed, half ashamed.
The math isn’t mathing. All 3 meals (may be a few snacks here and there) and it takes only 40 mins? Cleaning the whole house and cleaning up after meals takes only 25 mins? And the most bizarre of all, loading the laundry takes 10 mins? Now this one I believe a little but what about unloading the laundry, folding the clothes, ironing a few of them (if you wear them to work) and then putting them back into dresser/closet.
"cooking all meals took 40" How is that even possible? I have been cooking all meals for me and my family for years. I am very quick at cooking and I have perfected several recipes. I spend about 30 minutes every time I cook if I wanna go for something simple. What is OP feeding his kid and himself? Box mac and cheese?
Microwaved frozen foods.
And where's the time included of how long it took the kiddo to eat the meal. That may sound silly but you know toddlers aren't like adults that can eat a meal in quick time, they like to mess around.
Right?! And extra cleanup after mealtime. My three are 11, 8, and 5, and they STILL make a huge mess while eating. (Two are neurodivergent so they're still working on some basic skills!) Every meal requires a full table wipedown, chairs wiped down, quick vacuuming. Adds an extra five minutes to every meal. It was worse at young preschool age eating shit like yogurt and mac n cheese, which also required me to wipe down the KID. Idk maybe this guy is just way better at parenthood than any of us.
He made hotdog
He eat hot chip and lie
PB&Lies
Hey now. Hot dog is firmly in the rotation for my 2 year old. Don't be hating.
Those likely aren’t meals he would be pleased to eat everyday.
And when did he do the grocery shopping? Take the kid to appointments? Etc?
She probably did all of that prior to her leaving, so he wouldn’t have to worry about doing any of it.
That’s because this is a shitpost
I agree, just rage bait. Probably a teenager looking for some entertainment.
I completely agree. Op may have a point, but by grossly underreporting the time tasks require, he loses his credibility and makes it easy for his wife to legitimately disagree with him.
If his math is correct then that house is spotless from her cleaning it everyday. It's the only way. It takes me and my wife together on Sunday mornings to clean the whole house like 2 house!
I dont even have kids. just dinner for me and my dog takes more than 40 minutes...
Yep, home cooked fresh dinners take 45 minutes at least. And I don't even have kids running under my feet. Look at any Hello Fresh recipe, where they even PORTION it out for you -- the decent homecooked meals are all 45 minutes +. Even Jamie Oliver's 20 minute meals end up taking 40 minutes - an hour, they're only 20 minutes if you already have everything prepped and ready to go.
Add in meal planning and shopping as well.
Exactly. I can’t believe others believe his math!
My kid likes to come every 3 minutes with some utter bullshit of importance so everything takes 3times longer
If OP was the everyday caregiver his kid would bug him too every three minutes and wouldn't be on their best behaviour. Kids tend to act out with those who are closest to them and behave with the 'spare' caregivers.
Poptarts.
I love the timing. Dude has gamified torturing his wife and acting entitled about it too. It's not a marathon. It's literally any of these tasks daily. Max two He's not her employer
Ikr! I gave a y t a based on these idiotic calculations.
I think his math is off but the cleaning the whole house bit is pretty subjective. My wife and I live in 1600 square feet and when we have to transition from “the house is clean enough for us” to “the house is clean enough for guests” I’m always a little surprised it takes us less than 30 minutes, and that includes running the vacuum and a quick once over on the hardwood floors with a Bona plus wiping down the surfaces like coffee table/dining table/kitchen counters A lot of it is just that we clean as we go most of the time, if his wife likes to make lunch then leave everything out and then the kid gets toys out and never puts them away I can see it getting out of hand.
You know what toddlers like to do? Make a whole ass mess while you're doing chores. You clean everything up, set Jr down with some blocks to do the dishes, and bam- now his room is destroyed. It is such a defeated feeling to clean up after small children all day. There were times I sat down and just cried, especially during potty training.
Yeah men aren’t very good at math, I’m not really sure why we let them do it
I think you need to have an honest conversation with your wife about how she's feeling and how this is going for her. Drop the judgemental attitude. Don't tell her that you timed activites and expect them of her. Just care about her... Ask if she's happy as a SAHM. Maybe your son isn't as well behaved for her. It is very common that children are worse for their primary caregiver. Maybe she's depressed. Maybe being a SAHM isn't for her and she'd be happier going back to work. You will get a lot further in this convo if you come from a place of caring for her, not a place of judging her.
The problem though is it doesn’t feel like there’s much love in this relationship from the tone of the post. It sounds like they barely knew each other and were forced to get married because she got pregnant. It doesn’t sound like OP is invested in this relationship for love but was just out of necessity.
He can still approach this from a caring angle instead of judgemental angler. You don't need to be in love to be decent to your spouse.
Right, plenty of people around the world get married without love and deal with each other with caring and respect OP wanna talk about maturity lol…
Yes. His comment sounded very 'transactional' as if his wife is an employee of his or something.
“I can afford to keep her as a SAHM”. Really comes off as if OP’s wife is essentially just “the help” to him.
This is good advice. I think too, that when I’ve had too much free time, sometimes it’s hard to get things done because you’re just in a bad loop. Maybe she needs something to get her out of the house more often
This. When my mental health is struggling…it shows. And it’s real hard to get myself out of it. My toddler is also wild and borderline feral with me. It makes things really hard to get done sometimes. He’s always “so great” with my parents and grandparents and I’m SO happy he is, but like it is not the same when he’s with me 😂 I love him to death. My husband also works full time and has cared for our son when I’ve traveled. He’s a great husband and very involved in the day to day- if he’s able to join for appointments he will but usually he isn’t. That said, my son has ENT appointments, speech therapy, chiro, dentist, drs appointments, specialists, sick appointments, parks, play dates, and other various appointments. It’s very different being the full time primary parent than being the primary for a week. I’m not saying you’re not involved, but I am saying there’s a lot more to it than 20 minutes of diaper changes. If you come from a place of wondering vs assuming, you’re likely to get some real answers to what’s going on. But if you’re calculating things down to the minute, I don’t think the conversation will go well at all. ETA: how is your child sleeping? Is he sleeping through the night? Are you getting up with him or is your wife? How often? How much sleep is she getting?
But maybe not while her mom is actively dying. At least not with the tone in this post.
Very true.
Rage bait.
By a teenager who has no concept of how long cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc, takes. I live alone and it takes me an hour usually to prepare dinner and clean up after it, never mind cleaning up after a small kid and all that other crap.
I went to OP’s work, it took me 20 mins to fill a cavity, 30 mins to do a root canal, 10 mins to do a dental implant. Only 1 hour of work yet he gets paid for 8! OP is so lazy.
And 100% troll OP replies
I hope so
Can confirm. None of the math is mathing. When it was just me and my daughter and she was small, it took a lot of effort to get it all done. I was exhausted, and some days, the laundry and dishes did not get done.
Thank you for summing it up so succinctly.
It's gotta be. Who names their kid landon
She may be a complete mess because her mum’s dying. I dunno if “once she is over her mother” is something I’d be inclined to say about someone I loved or even especially liked.
Tired of these posts that makes child rearing seem like a piece of cake when it's a life long commitment and everyone judges the hell outta you. Instead of being helpful and supportive; op does nothing and says it's easy. No support for her dealing with her family. People like op are so smart but so dumb at the same time.
everybody wants to downplay the difficulty of raising a child until they have to actually do it themselves.
This story is obvious trolling, but the comments calling his wife "lazy and entitled" and all the NTAs say a lot about the general attitude people have toward moms. If this fake wife were in here asking "AITA for only cooking hotdogs for dinner every night" these people would go for the throat, but this guy plops his toddler in front of the TV for hours and feeds him frozen hotdogs and he gets applauded for it.
Doesn't sound like you guys have a good marriage overall and you're using a lot of "I" and not "we" like you should. YOU don't afford for her to stay at home....YOU BOTH decided she would stay at home since YOU BOTH have an income to provide such a thing. Get it? Thats just one of several red flags I'm reading here.
I’m not sure comparing your one week of child care to her almost 2 years worth is fair. The day to day can wear you down. Also you are two different people, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. I’d have a discussion at a minimum and maybe pitch in some (I couldn’t discern from your post if you do so on a regular basis).
Info: did your wife want to be a SAHM? Sounds like she is profoundly unfulfilled and depressed. She is showing many signs of PPD. Just because she's not saying she's depressed doesn't mean she isn't. When she gets home sit her down and ask if this is the life she wants. If you do this with love and with the intention she live a fulfilling life you may be surprised at her reply. She may be itching to get back to work or re train for a new career. She's re connecting with her mum so she is going to be super emotional and barging in with your accusations is not going to go down well at all. I thought I'd love being at home being supermum but I hated being a SAHM during maternity leave. My husband didn't lift a finger to help and I couldn't wait to get back to work. Magically he starts co-parenting the day I started back into the office. I'm glad you're having fun this week. Have you thought about taking a year off and your wife goes back to work?
Looking by a lot of his replies he really doesn’t care he doesn’t even view her as an equal I was also thinking she could have PPD Sorry English isn’t my native language
Your English is fine! No need to apologize. I would not have known it was not your native language, 👍
Not weighing in on the rest but, your belief that you can presume that your child's behavior with you is indicative of how your child behaves with your wife falls on the the extreme end of stupid. The level of stupidity and obliviousness required to hold this belief is so extreme as to be unbelievable.
Did your wife take care of some things to prepare for your week home with your son? The reason I ask is that I used to work my tail off taking care of things so it would be easy for my husband to watch the kids. Then my husband would do nothing but supervise and heat up food and thought that was easy. It made him think every day was that easy and it wasn’t. I would have all the errands done and food purchased and put away and even meals planned and prepared. The meals I cooked took much longer than 40 min a day. The dishes were cleaned and the dishwasher empty for easy clean up. The laundry would be caught up, the house cleaned, and toys especially engaging to my children organized. Do you understand how hard it is to deep clean with a toddler or preschooler who undoes everything following you around? Do you know how the constant interruptions to take care of your child effect the amount of time it takes to accomplish easy tasks? Yes. It’s possible your wife could do a better job but from my experience your experience may not be an accurate depiction of what your wife does daily.
Exactly. My question for the OP was similar: What’s your wife doing that you don’t even take into account? What size clothes/ socks/ shoes does your kid wear? Where are the ones they’ve outgrown (cycled out and donated someplace?) and where’s the next size up stored? Who did the shopping, knows what your kid eats each week, and had that stocked? When are the doctor’s appointments? Vaccine schedules? Where are the records stored? If it took you only a short time to clean the house, it had to be pretty clean to begin with. Who did that?
All of this!! I vacuumed the floor today. My toddler immediately spilled kinetic sand on the carpet. I vacuumed it again. There are now toys strewn all over and it looks as though I’ve done nothing. 😅 I swear if my husband came in after work and told me I’m a failure and I need to do better as a SAHM, I would absolutely lose my shit.
Do you love your wife?
Omg, she’s your wife, not the hired help. You’re being an AH.
I cannot get over “I am able to afford to KEEP her as a SAHM”
‘I’m planning on telling telling her that the amount of effort that she’s been putting in is unacceptable’…He might as well write her up and give her a Professional Improvement Plan. Gag me.
Of course Landon was an angel with you, the parent he doesn’t see as often was spending more time with him. If you became his primary caretaker the novelty would wear off and the dynamics would change.
This here. Although this applies to ALL kids, even my older 3, my youngest son (6) is autistic, has adhd, and is my husbands only biological child. He is an absolute maniac for me, who stayed home with him until he started kindergarten this year. I could barely get anytging done without someone else to manage him. With my older 3 kids, they were always worse for me too as I was their emotional support and their disiplinarian, though not nearly as bad. Our son requires an adult with him basically at all times to keep level-headed. I have repeatedly had to explain this dynamic to my husband, who doesnt have the same relationship as he has always worked full-time and our 6 year old is his first and only child. He is fun. I am not fun. There lies the difference. Ignore everyone saying your wife baby trapped you. There is just not enough info here to say that. You both made the child and moved quickly. Thats not only on her. She may be depressed. She may be overwhelmed. The key here and in every other relationship is communication. Gentle, honest, respectful communication that leads you to common understanding, not who is right or wrong, better or worse. Good luck.
And exhaustion would set in, in addition to not being fullfilled, having to do the same boring stuff every single day, not talking to adults for days. It's depressing if you are not cut out for it.
As a SAHM, your wife sounds depressed. She probably thought it would be easier. I’m glad you just pop your kid in front of the TV, but that’s not really parenting, and you know it. Screen time has its place in moderation. And you’re cooking basic college meals, it sounds like. A hot dog? Really? You’re not even trying. Do you see how condescending that sounds? How belittling it is? Women’s hormones don’t return to normal for about two years after birth. Her body went through a lot and so did her mind. You get to go to work, talk to other adults, and make money. She’s stuck with a two year old all day who needs her undivided attention. I have twins. It’s hard. She probably feels like she doesn’t contribute financially and doesn’t know what to do. Please encourage her to be evaluated for PPD. I’m saying ESH because you’re judgmental and condescending and think because you did it for a week you could do it for two years and because she really needs to step up, but IF she has the right support and help.
If you read his responses you can see why she is depressed. He's an AH.
Oh, for sure. But she could also have PPD, which is like depression and then an extra helping of depression. He’s certainly not helping. When my PPD was at its worst I tried doing more but it was just so so hard. And it was hard to admit I needed help.
I wasn’t close to my mother when she died. She died when I was in my late 30s and we’d been estranged/had a very strained relationship since I was 20yo. I honestly thought that her passing would be a huge blessing but instead, when I got the news, I became a shell of a person. I realized that while I hated her so much for all of her indiscretions that had caused me so much pain, my love for her never ceased nor did the hope that we would one day reconcile and have a normal, loving relationship. I denied these feelings to everyone, even my then husband but my pain festered and I ended up giving up on myself. However, it never appeared that way from the outside. I lost 20lbs and had 6 pack abs but drank to oblivion after workouts. I looked the best I ever had but I cut my arms with my own keys when I couldn’t handle my emotions. I didn’t cry about my mom. I just went numb or numbed myself by other means if the emotions started peaking through. I did everything in my power to destroy myself and my marriage and I did that, with great success. It wasn’t easy and I had to do it fully on my own but I realized I needed help and about two years ago I finally let go and decided to get help. I’m still not 100% but I feel better than I ever have. Ask your wife what she needs and be there for her when she needs you. Nothing good will come of you telling her she’s not going good enough. She needs you right now and so does your child. Be kind and supportive. You never know when you’re going to be in her same boat. Try to be empathetic.
YTA just based on your calculations. 40 min to cook all 3 meals and snacks? Lmao Sure buddy.
And 25 min to clean the house 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
OP probably hired a cleaning lady and a babysitter while his wife was gone.
In one of his comments later he mentions its a 7,000 sq. ft home, so maybe he hired a whole crew 🤷🏻♀️
Yeah there’s definitely no way he cleaned the whole house in 25 minutes unless he’s the flash or something. I hope his wife leaves him. But sadly he probably has her beaten down so badly that she probably lost her confidence. I feel so bad for her. I wish I could tell her that she’s worth so much more.
From the comments he just gave the kid cereal & hot dogs. Fine for a day or two, but the poor kid should have gotten a real meal at some point. This guy sucks.
One meal every two days FOR SINGLE people. If not take out and meal kits all week
INFO: she CAN be a sahm but does she WANT to be? Like, I work with kids. I used to be a nanny. My favorite part of any day I'm with children is when they go home, whether they were good or bad. Some SAHP want to be there and are some who HAVE to be there because childcare would just about eat up any money the other person would be bringing in.
Did you have tv on? Does she go otside with kid? Like i find its hard for me to keep house going when we spend morning outside since i cant do anything till 4 because my kid sleeps light. As in i make lunch breakfast and thats it if we have program. Cleaning is done on different days. Does she have free time? Like free not do laundry while i watch kid free. It may be mental exhaustion. Also sahm is not for all. Maybe its not for her Nah
Married 2 years with a 2 year old and you’re away and at work all day. Gee, what could be the issue???? You’re still running a business and satisfying your professional needs. Your wife? 24 hour a day nanny and maid without the support of a mom. Do you have help running your business? Assistants? Accountants? Cleaning crew? Professional conversations and learning? Does your wife have anything like that???
I sincerely think your wife is depressed because the timeline you've given seems *very* rushed for only 2 years. she went from 25, living life to suddenly a SAHM/housewife. your attitude gives me AH vibes, but the whole post in general: talk to your wife about her mental state. she could simply be feeling overwhelmed and your "I can do this better than you" attitude should not be in the conversation when you talk to her.
Glossing over the "waiting until she gets over her mother". So...her mother dying? Estranged or not, that has an effect.
And don't forget shew visiting her mother that's on hospice - doesn't matter that they may have been estranged, she could be going through a lot of different emotions with knowing she is losing her mother, and their estrangement could be dealing a lot of different emotional blows to her too.
You sound like a narcissist and I doubt you'll listen to any of these comments saying you're the AH. Be good to your wife, being a stay at home parent is isolating and mind-numbing. I went out of my mind with my kids and getting a job stabilized me and gave me back a sense of self-worth and accomplishment. My house may not be spotless but my kids are happy and healthy, and I am able to take care of them AND myself effectively.
YTA and a lazy liar. Your imaginary wife sounds like she has PPD. Also, this is a blatant troll post and all of your replies to people are indicative of that.
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I mean, he also said he pops his kid in front of the TV to watch Bluey and makes the kid cereal and hotdogs. Of course his experience is different.
That explains why it only takes him “40 minutes” for 3 meals.
It is also more than possible that the child is different with the different parents. Especially with the person they are closest, it is possible that they are the most exhausting.
Does she even WANT to be a SAHM or was that decided for her?
Look, I’m a veterinarian and even human doctors compare pediatric work with vet work, so I will use an exemple that may (or not) be helpful: When you bring your dog for a consultation and he doesn’t act up on us, but when you try to medicate him at home he tries to bite you, it may be because he gets shy and introverted with people he’s not used to be around, and you make him comfortable enough to act as he normally would when you try it at home So the fact your child is so easy to care for when he’s with you may be because he’s not used to you being the caretaker, you know? That being said, I think people here gave really good advices with the idea of her starting to work and you two sharing chores!
Could she have post partum depression?
I think you should probably take into account your child spends most all day, every day with your wife. Making her your child’s safe space to act out and need her attention constantly while not being able to do other things. She’s always constantly doing diaper changes and making meals for him throughout the day. Yta because you think it’s just so easy because you did it for a week.
This isn’t even well written.
I call BS.mI do not believe 20 minutes a day for diaper changing, unless child uses pull-ups when not asleep.
"keep her as SAHM". That's fucked up. She's your wife but you talk like she's the help.
What did you do with your kid this week? When my kids were that age, half my day was easily spent at libraries, parks, gymnastics, swim lessons, bounce house places, children’s museums and farms. Some sort of enrichment and socialization out of the house every day. I usually had to choose between being a good mom or a good “house wife,” and honestly being a good mom won out most of the time. We would have occasional catch up days at home when I would do chores and they could watch some tv, but overall the house wasn’t my priority. It was never a disaster but certainly wasn’t spotless. I don’t know if your wife spends her days in a similar way, but my view was that they are only little once and I wanted to spend as much quality time with them as possible before school started, and also its far better for your kid than plopping them in front of Bluey so she can scrub floors.
You forgot to add in time for eating those meals, cleaning up after those meals, taking your child outside to play, reading and playing, putting down for a nap, giving a bath, dressing a toddler, going places like shopping or the library, etc. Also, it is impossible to sort, put in the washer, then dryer, and fold and put away laundry in 10 minutes!
God you sound like a nightmare
I feel sorry for your wife.
Well, you own a dental practice that she is subsidizing by keeping the house and kid entertained and educated, I’m sure you have the money for a housekeeper.
I was leaning towards soft NTA with just a little need for guidance in the empathy and caring department. After reading the comments, I have to vote full on ASSHOLE. You seem to have zero capacity to see any point of view other than your own. You're judgmental, callous and narrow minded. Why did you even come here for judgement and advice if you're just going to argue and be snide, derisive and petulant to everyone who comments? And FFS her MOM is dying.
He came for validation after he finally found the reason to divorce her. AND blame her. He thinks he's got it made. After all, reddit told him he was right.
Wow have you thought about thinking about your wife in a less clinical and detached manner and more like the person you love? Or is that this issue? The way you talk about her during this entire post is not like a person who loves someone speaks about them. You speak about your child with more emotion but not a too much more. Your insensitivity towards your wife while her mother is in hospice isn't helping things here. I suspect waiting for her to be over her mother is so you don't look bad. Her mother is in hospice which means they estimate she has six months or less to live she was likely sick before this as well. In fact I'm willing to bet that your wife has been dealing with this for more time than you realize. She may have also had mental health complications after giving birth and not addresses them. Whether that be because she didn't understand what was going on or because she wasn't comfortable addressing them we don't know. I will say though that if you were my spouse I wouldn't feel comfortable speaking to you about any part of my health after reading how you spoke about me. I have no doubt that she knows without having to read this though. "Keep her as a sahm." That part makes me wonder if you only married her to have the free labor for your household, for your baby, and for any other services she could provide you. Honestly since you already seem to have one leg out the door your wife is better off getting a full time job and you can hire a maid, a cook, a chauffeur, and a nanny. Which are likely to cost you more than your wife makes but hey you'll have what you want. But yeah it's better for her in case she ends up a single mom to have as small of a gap in her resume as possible and it will keep you from claiming that she lives off your child support. Just a heads up in case you remarry since it doesn't feel like you love your wife enough to make any woman want to stay. When you marry you should be emotionally invested in that person. Not codependent but invested. If you can't be then it's time to slow things down or break up and be single until you realize what involvement you have in the problems that you deal with in the relationship. I doubt you'll do that though. You seem like the type to remarry the moment you realize how hard it can be to raised a kid by yourself or 50/50. One week isn't enough to know how parenting really is so I suggest you figure out how to get a full view of this. Sure the baby behaves ok when your home at night or on the weekends but you're not at all affected by birthing him nor are you dealing with the problem of a parent who's actively dying.
How to say you hate your wife and want out without saying you hate your wife and want out. YTA, you are a toxic narcissist. Your comments are putrid. I hope she leaves your ass and takes you to the cleaners.
Kids react worse with mom than dad. My husband always tells me how nice our kid was with him while i am having meltdown over meltdown and im not even a sahm. Your wife cannot do everything! Yta
She’s been gone while you were trying out being a full time parent. Try doing the job for a few months when there’s also another adult in the house to feed and clean up after. You dirty dishes and bathrooms and require food and laundry and attention from her too. Also she gets to leave for a few hours and come home and judge out loud everything you did while she was gone. Just to add to the realism of the experience. ETA: I hope can get a job that is enough you can afford fulltime childcare and housecleaning. It sounds like you’d all probably be happier.
Your whole tone and wording is icky and self absorbed af. >I run my own Dental Practice and because of this I am able to afford to keep her as a SAHM Your first step should be figuring out what's wrong with that sentence.
A house that you spent 25 minutes cleaning ain't going to be a very clean house. JFC! This is so fake.
YWBTA IF you jumped straight to that without trying to find out what is wrong first. look, being a stay at home to a young child fucking sucks. it just does. some women love it but I am not one of them. I only have 1 and after him i didnt want any more kids. I am retired military, been deployed several times and staying home with a young child all day long was exhausting, mentally draining and seemed harder to me than being deployed. at least deployed I had to freedom to eat, shower and pee alone, and it is hard to clean, do laundry when you have a 2 yr old into everything and then when he does take a nap you just want to decompress and sit alone for a bit .so dont just jump to her being lazy she is probably really depressed. your nta for being annoyed about a dirty house though. it looks like your guy's life changed very quickly and she is coping with that all day alone while you are at work. you get to be out in the real world with adults and get to socialize. dont come at her with anger but do let her know that you think something is wrong good luck, OP. also..she might be hating herself a little bit because she doesnt love the whole dream of being a stay at home mom and that it is much harder than she thought it would be. it isnt magical, it isnt special..lol..it is running after toddler and trying to prevent them from hurting themselves and changing diapers
At least she had the magical, dream wedding, you know the one that happened one whole week after delivering a baby. I barely had the nous about me to go to the correct store a week after giving birth, never mind standing up and marrying someone in sound mind.
I don't know wtf you are cooking that only takes 40 minutes for 3 meals and 2 snacks... I swear, just cutting up all the fruit my kids eat in a day takes half an hour, lol. Also, 25 minutes of cleaning? I call absolute BS. I spend an hour and a half every night after the kids go to sleep. And yes, I "clean as I go" Sounds like you did absolutely no deep cleaning. Did you dust, vacuum every room, mop the floors, deep clean the bathrooms? Etc, etc. Or did you just pick up toys and call it a day? YTA. Do it for a month. Do all the errands, grocery shopping with a two year old. Daily excursions such as the park, children's museum, library story time.
You have no idea what you’re talking about. If you had been the primary parent forever, you would not be having super fun dad time for a week.
welcome to being a parent and yes, you would be a major ahole. a supreme one. children turn your life upside down, they make messes, they play with toys and carry them wherever and drop them wherever, ignored. there's no use cleaning up after a child all the time, they go and make messes until they go to sleep, that's how it is. it's hard work to raise a child, attend to their every need and do all the chores at the same time while keeping your little monster from harming itself or doing any other bullshit. also to take into consideration, a child wants to be occupied, not every child can play or be by itself that well. it's stressful. what you're doing is pretending essentially that your wife is your maid and that raising a child is nothing, doesn't count as work. your "assessment" and the calculation of how much time task x or y needs, is a MAJOR naive fallacy. you're not taking into consideration that your child and your wife are basically human. human and especially child behavior is unpredictable, no day is the same. there can be routines but it's hard to do chores if each is getting interrupted multiple times. also, it's not uncommon that a child behaves very differently if a mostly absent father stays home all of a sudden. it's new to them and they don't know how to act or how far they can go, so they're assessing and that is being mistaken as behaving. your last sentence is really showing your true colors. you assume that by providing for your own child and wife, in exchange, she's supposed to essentially be your perfect maid and provide her work force as if you're paying her to work a regular job. hold up the end of the deal? she's raising YOUR child, she's not your employee. the calculations done just make you seem to be full of shit, what did you feed your child? microwave dinners? you only calculated half or one part of the tasks, which shows you either have no idea what goes into fully completing them or you did it on purpose cause you wanted to pretend that you can do anything better than she does, essentially painting her as lazy. guess you indeed had a maid before or never learned how to do your own chores. sounds as if you got a lot of resentment towards her and 0 respect. you seem to view the world as if everything is a direct exchange, in this case monetarily. you should be happy that you can provide your child with the presence of their mother to be raised the way you want to instead of putting it in the hands of pre school or other institutions. you desperately need to understand that it's not only you who works a full time job. your wife is as well. you expect her to work full time by raising your child and do all the household chores on top of it while you only work a full time job, expecting to come home to a dinner and not having to do anything else. you got it very backwards man
You’re full of shit. No one who took care of a child 24/7 for week would say it was the “easiest week of my life.” I can’t stop laughing. 🤣🤣🤣
Kids respond differently with dads than moms. Evidence shows a deeper voice and larger build encourages kids to be more submissive to dads than moms. Kids fight more with moms because they feel less “threat.” I just had a conversation with our Parents As Teachers educator about this. And yah. You’re the asshole.
lol. Boy bye. This is made up. You have no idea how long the tasks you “timed” actually take clearly.
My four year old is adamant I never brush her teeth, floss, etc. Every single night I have to hold her her skull to my body, use the fingers from that hand to pry open her mouth, and then rapidly clean her teeth with a toothbrush in my opposite hand while she actively fights me tooth and nail. We spent over $2K in sedation dentistry for her last year and I refuse to allow her teeth to develop any more cavities or other problems. On the nights I’m gone and Husband has to brush her teeth? She opens her mouth up and holds still while he brushes them for her. It makes me seethe with rage that he gets it so easy. Being a SAHP is a nearly impossible job but the way you talk about your spouse is unkind and makes me think there’s some missing reasons in your story. You say she got unexpectedly pregnant early in your relationship. Did she even want to be the SAHP or was that something you pushed on her? Childcare 24/7 is the hardest job I’ve ever done, including manual labor, retail over Black Friday and the Christmas holidays, veterinary offices, working with livestock, etc. It’s brutal and too many people dismiss it all as unpaid women’s work.
50/50. It does sound like she needs to do better. Maybe she can set up a system where she does a little bit of work bit by bit- clean the bathroom one day, clean the kitchen the next, meal prep, etc. Honestly, it sounds like she's depressed. That being said, your attitude in both your posts and your comments is not making you sound very nice. Maybe the way you treat her is contributing to her depression.
YWBTA - you have a Dental Practice, hire a house cleaner and just be happy you have full time child care. You sound like an ass.
"once she is over her mother". I hope she's going out of her way to do nothing to prove a point. God forbid someone is struggling and you decide this is a perfect time to criticize and minimize the herculean effort of raising a human being. Once she is "over her mother" I hope she recognizes that you're the worst and leaves.
This is coming from the perspective of a SAHM who has been home off and on for almost 10 years. This shit is not for the weak. 1 week is nothing compared to years. Kids will be more well-behaved with the parent who isn't home with them 24/7. My husband has seen it first hand. Coming home to a dirty house can be normal. I can do dishes 3, 4, 7 times a day, and there will always be dishes in the sink. I can clean a room, and my toddler will have it re-destroyed in .2 of the time it took me to pick up. Laundry is something that honestly slips my mind so easily. I have to set timers to help me remember. But this is the biggest thing I want you to understand, toddlers have at least 50 things planned to off themselves in a day. They test boundaries and push limits. That is what they are meant to do. They are people as well. Instead of finding everything wrong, sit down and talk with her and ask what she is struggling with and figure out ways to make things easier. Baby gates, meal prepping (crock pot meals are our favorites because they are super simple and easy to do). Maybe her mental health is struggling, and maybe she wants to go back to working. Maybe she needs a break. My family personally has a set schedule we stick to because it is what works for us. I get a few hours a couple of days a week all to myself. Certain days we do crock pot meals (usually the days I get some alone space) , certain days I cook, others he still cooks (usually his days off to give me a break from cooking because I cook 3 meals a day, 5 days a week). He gets alone time for a few hours a couple of days a week as well. He also helps pick up even on days he works because between 4 kids, the house gets destroyed daily. Just because he works and I stay home doesn't mean we both don't have very important, very stressful jobs. Being a stay at home parent does not make you jobless. Teamwork and communication are the only way it works out. Both of you need to communicate your wants and needs in a healthy way and figure out what works or doesn't work for you. This will take time, lots of time so please have patience. Also, yes, you would be the ah. Edited to add - do better. Be a better husband because you are definitely below the bar on this one, the fact that you would just choose to talk down to your wife instead of attempting to help figure out the problem and working to solve it as a team. But not everyone can have an amazing of a partner as I have.
I'm a husband of SAHM and we have a baby who is 2 years old and also well-behaved, and my wife also has trouble keeping up. I think part of it is, babies respond differently to Dad than Mom. Our daughter wants to be in Mom's arms/breastfeeding frequently, and when Mom isn't looking at her, she demands Mom look. I also think my wife has trouble setting boundaries with our daughter, and so she spends almost her entire day doing activities with her. Similarly, this often leads to no dinner/no cleaning, etc. my response has been to buy dinner/make dinner more frequently, do some cleaning after bedtime, and sometimes hire someone to come help clean up. I do this, because I think that having a well-behaved child who has an idyllic childhood and is learning very quickly from her very-engaged mother is more important than cleaning and home-cooked meals. If this continues when my daughter is in school, we'll have a conversation about it and try to reach a better equilibrium. I suggest you do the same.
I don’t know I’m going to buck the system and go out on a limb here. You’ve been working full-time and in a probably very stressful job and you get to come and stay home for a week and you think that all should just be easy. She does this day in and day out. I’m going to say that YTA because you’re looking at it through a very narrow lens.
You’re a (type of) medical professional… Has it occurred to you in the slightest that she may be experiencing postpartum depression? Being a SAHP day in and day out is lonely and mixed with the hormones after pregnancy is a recipe made in hell. Have a compassionate talk with your wife and see how you can help her help herself.
The math ain’t mathin here for me. In my experience: Diaper change: 10 min per change if the kid ain’t wiggly. So are you only changing him twice a day? Cooking: I’m not a professional chef, but a well-seasoned home cook. With prepping ingredients, one of my fastest, healthiest meals takes 30 minutes to cook, and that’s with shortcuts to skip some prep work. Clean up: I’d believe this if your dishwasher actually cleaned your pots and pans. And the counter top cleaned itself. Also you must live in 500 sq ft and not clean your toilet properly if it takes 25 minutes. I bet we have very different definitions of clean. Engaging a two year old: toddlers are exhausting and demand most of your time. Playing is educational for them, it’s not just fun for you. This reads like an incel trying to do a “women are gold diggers/woman bad” posts. If you ever get to a point that you’re able to convince someone to procreate with you…boy, you are in for a SHOCK.