Photo: FamVeld / Shutterstock.com
She's not the maid.
By Isaac Serna-Diez — Written on Oct 24, 2022
After her husband accused her of neglecting his kids, a work-from-home wife went to Reddit to see if she was really in the wrong for what she did or if her husband was the one to blame.
The subreddit “r/AmItheA--hole” (AITA) is a forum where strangers can post their predicaments to get a second opinion from other strangers about who’s in the wrong.
In this case, many people believed that the wife was actually in the right.
The work-from-home wife ordered takeout for her husband’s kids after she was asked to make dinner for them.
In order to give everyone a clear view of the picture, the woman provided some context behind her relationship with her husband and her current employment situation.
She’s been married to her husband, who has two children with two different, uninvolved mothers, for six months.
Since the children are seven and ten years old, they need to be provided for and looked after, which the husband expects her to do for him very often.
“I work long hours and it's a demanding job time-wise,” she reveals about her work. “My husband thinks that just because I [work from home] that I can pause whenever but it's untrue.”
Working from home isn’t more or less strenuous than making a commute to work, but the husband disagrees, having asked her to do things for him or the kids during her work hours.
“I told him I'm working and unavailable during those hours, and that the kids are his responsibility til I'm done,” she wrote.
Their argument started when he wanted to go to his friend’s engagement dinner.
He asked her to make dinner for his children since he wouldn’t be able to, but she refused, reminding him that she had to work and didn’t have time to either.
“He later said fine and that he was going to cook dinner then go to the party,” she explained.
As directed by their father, the children approached her at exactly 7 PM and told her that they were hungry, asking her to cook for them since their father left without feeding them.
“I took a few minutes off the meeting and ordered takeout from the nearby restaurant and fed the kids, then had them watch tv [and] then go to sleep,” she said.
When the husband got home, he accused her of not having her priorities “in order.”
The husband was upset with her for not cooking food for the kids and for feeding them takeout instead.
She, of course, argued back that he shouldn’t have tried tricking her into cooking for them sinc she had work to do.
“He ranted about how I care more about work than my stepchildren (God forbid) and called me selfish then went upstairs and refused to talk to me,” she wrote.
“He's still sulking about it today and says I need to get my priorities ‘in order’ cause they're messed up.”
Redditors took her side of the argument and claimed that her husband was the ‘a--hole.’
Many pointed to the clear neglect of his own kids.
“Wait, wait, wait.....he told YOU that YOU need to get YOUR priorities in order when HE left HIS CHILDREN UNFED to attend a PARTY?????” one user wrote. “Why did you marry this ‘man?’”
“You married someone who does not respect your work or your time, is willing to let his kids go hungry in order to force your hand, and is now using emotional blackmail to punish you,” another user wrote.
“This is a fundamentally broken approach to relationships and it's honestly not hard to see why he doesn't have relationships with either of his kids' mothers.”
A lot of people told her to bail, questioning why exactly she was with this man and asking what he brings to the table, considering that it isn’t food for his kids.
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics. Since graduating from Rutgers University, he spends most of his free time gaming or playing Quadball. Keep up with his rants about current events on his Twitter.