All too often, moms find themselves carrying a greater mental, emotional, and literal workload than their significant other. Some are thoroughly fed up and over it, preferring to be divorced than care for an uninvolved partner and a child. That seems to be how a mom on Reddit is on her way to feeling, given her husband's self-centered behavior, which she recently shared in a post in the Am I the A–hole subreddit.
The woman started out by sharing how her husband plays rec hockey.
"I absolutely don’t mind that he does, but it’s the result of his playing I mind and need to set boundaries with," the original poster wrote. "That and a few other major, similar annoyances. He doesn’t exercise outside of his once a week game, and he gets hurt pretty often. Today he’s laid up with a thrown out back because a guy ran him into the boards head first."
She noted that getting hurt would be one thing, but "he always seems to be going through SOMETHING that absolves him of solo parenting duties." The OP elaborated, "I’m parenting our kid solo for basically the third day in a row and this is pretty typical. It’s a special treat for me to have alone time. It’s not often offered, I always have to ask."
And therein lies the crux of the OP's bone to pick with her husband.
Not only does she feel like she has to ask for time to herself, but he sleeps in and has "bad boundaries" that have resulted in him allowing his 72-year-old mother to move in with them (although he refuses to ask his mother to help out with their child).
"I’m at my wits end," confessed the OP. "I feel like he has terrible boundaries and self-care habits, and I pay the price for them. I’m not going to parent full time and pay for him overextending himself with my personal time. From now on, parenting time is 50/50 and IDGAF if he got himself injured playing hockey or he’s busy doing [expletive] for the condo or he didn’t sleep well. His mother can mother him."
She also noted that he claims he offers her time for self-care when he asks, "What do you want to do today?"
The OP said this happens on weekend mornings, and he feels asking this question "absolves him of responsibility, because what he really meant was 'Would you like free time today?'"
She continued, "I’ve always taken it as what the family would do today and he’s never put an emphasis on ME or my needs that day. Now he says I’m partially responsible for this situation for not communicating properly. I still standby the fact that I’m being the better partner and have the moral high ground here because I am proactively giving him alone time without being asked in order to meet his needs, and him not reciprocating without being asked and then making it my fault feels like he’s literally trying to make me crazy."
She also wrote that they are both in individual therapy and have "failed out" of couples' therapy three times.
"He doesn’t want to do the work together, and he gets too worked up during sessions to make them worthwhile," she shared.
The OP then turned the situation over to her fellow Redditors to ask if she's the a–hole for expecting more from her husband.
The community was almost entirely on the side of the OP.
"I'm not sure why you married an oversized toddler and not a grown adult," wrote one commenter. "He clearly does not want to be a father or husband, since you have to nag him like a mother in order for him to do absolutely anything. I highly suggest couples' therapy, although I doubt he'll agree to it. This is pathetic, childish behavior on his part and you're already practically a single parent to one baby, you really shouldn't have to parent another."
Another noted: "These are huge red flags. Your relationship does not sound healthy. Time to get couples counseling or consider separating."
A third concluded, "It's time to look at divorce lawyers."
The OP then admitted that she had actually started doing some of the legwork to prep for divorce -- and her husband knew.
Yet he continued to behave the same way he always has.
Here's hoping the OP sees she has the green light to go through with walking away. As one Redditor pointed out: "He's not going to change, nor does he want to. His life, his time, his family don't matter more than you, but he's proven over and over that he's 100% incapable of seeing this. And honestly I fail go see how he's anything other than a bag of sand pulling you down. You've threatened divorce before and he's still not changed. Either he called your bluff, and knows you'll forever cave, or he believes you might one day divorce him and he doesn't care."
Either way, it's clearly time for the OP to go.
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
