This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/Still_Screen8186 on 2023-08-07 05:28:49.
My husband and I have been married almost 4 years, together 8. We have two young kids together (both 2 years old). About 2 years ago, it was decided that he be a stay at home parent, while I work (1 full time and 1 part time job) as I bring in more income. My mother also lived with us at the time to help with the kids. I decided to hire help for the usual things (yard work, pool cleaning, weekly deep housecleaning), which were things he couldn’t do, and it worked for a bit. When my mom decided it was time for her to move out of state with my dad, we decided to get a nanny for 36 hrs a week (Monday-Thursday, 8am-5pm) while my husband still stays at home. He’ll do a lot of the chores from a list I’ve premade (girls laundry, load and unload dishwasher, restock diapers, change diaper trash, take trash to curb) and watch the girls on Fridays until 3pm when we have a babysitter come for date night.
Every day, we wake up with the kids together, I’ll change them and he’ll warm up their milk. Then he’ll take over for about 30 mins until the nanny comes. Once the nanny leaves at 5, we both feed them dinner and get them ready for bed.
The weekends are a bit different- while our morning routine is the same, I’ll try to go back to sleep for another few hours while he watches them. We then both care for them for the remainder of the day, although sometimes I do need to finish a few additional work things. He’ll also watch them if I need to run an errand or decide to get my hair or nails done for an hour or so.
I’ve given him full day breaks occasionally, and the household tasks take at most 2-3 hours/day, on top of watching the kids. There are sometimes other random things that need to get done, but I try to plan these out well in advance for him, and they never take the full day. I also do several household chores (laundry, cooking dinner).
I calculate that he should have roughly 5-6 hours a day Monday-Thursday where he can take a break. And he does- he goes golfing at least once a week and works on an old car at least once a week, when he’s not just playing his PlayStation.
Here’s where the argument came in- it’s Sunday and after a difficult weekend for us both, I said to him, “At least tomorrow you’ll be able to have a break.” He replies, “No, you keep adding things to my list.”
After going back and forth a bit, I just said, “Ok, if you’re telling me that your work at home (the daily chores) is just as difficult and time consuming as a regular job, then you should get a job and we’ll split chores evenly.”
He thinks I’m being unfair and that I’ll regret it because he does so much around the house. But I know what’s involved (I made the list!) and if he is unappreciative of the down time he gets, then I see no incentive to keep the situation going.
AITA?
TL;DR: AITA for asking my husband to return to work since we have a nanny and he complains about having to do too many household chores?
Quite a bit of them aren’t real. There was someone on here recently openly admitting to getting off on the role playing and creative writing of it all and did it in various subreddits over the years.