Man Shuts Off WiFi So His Pregnant 'Workaholic' Wife Can Take A Lunch Break, She Claims He's 'Controlling'
He might've had good intentions, but it was executed poorly.
Amina Filkins / Pexels "I have been married to my wife, Jen, for three years, and she is also 32 weeks pregnant with twins. She's my best friend and I absolutely adore her, with one minor flaw, she is a huge workaholic/perfectionist."
A man decided to post to the subreddit "r/AmItheA--hole" (AITA), explaining that he took matters into his own hands to stop his wife from working.
The subreddit is an online forum where users try to figure out if they were wrong or not in an argument that has been bothering them.
He shut off the WiFi so his pregnant 'workaholic' wife could take a lunch break.
In his Reddit post, he wrote that while he and Jen both have "well-paying jobs," hers is significantly more stressful and time-consuming than his, and she'll often work an average of 60 hours a week both at home and in the office.
"This wasn't a problem before, but about two weeks ago her doctor told her to take a step back from work (i.e., go on leave early) because the stress was starting to cause her a couple of health issues, even though the babies are fine."
Despite the doctor's request, his wife is too much of a "workaholic" and will still work from her laptop for six to eight hours daily.
While he understands her desire to work, he pointed out that she'll work too much and often forget to eat, and will even sometimes fall asleep at her desk.
When he caught her sleeping at her desk, he woke her up and told her she needed to go to bed.
"She insisted she was fine and said there was an emergency with a client of hers and she just needed to finalize some things for a coworker."
He tried arguing, telling her she needed to eat and get some rest, but she was adamant that she needed to continue working, and that she'd be done in an hour.
"I told her fine, but no longer than an hour even though I was pretty annoyed."
However, when he came back two hours later and saw that she was still working, he became frustrated and decided to unplug the wifi in their home, and even went and hid it so she couldn't plug it back in.
His wife called him 'controlling' for preventing her from working.
"The only purpose of this was to cut her off from work on her laptop because she clearly had no intention of stopping," he assured.
When his wife realized what he'd done, she became angry, telling him that he was "treating her like a child" and accused him of being controlling, condescending, and "borderline abusive."
"I told her that she is being stupid and just to let the coworker that asked for her help handle it."
He continued, saying that she still had the option of using the cellular hotspot on her phone, or "figure out the router," but he would eventually plug it back in when he woke up in the morning.
His wife was upset by his decision and chose to sleep in the guest room for the night.
"When I went to apologize the next morning for calling her stupid (not for cutting the internet) she said that she can't even look at me. She hasn't said another word to me yet."
Now, he's starting to think he might've taken extreme measures when the situation didn't call for that but promised that it was all out of "concern" for his pregnant spouse.
Most Reddit users agreed that he was in the wrong.
"Your wife is an adult and gets to make her own choices," one Reddit user wrote.
"If you disagree so vehemently with those choices, you can choose to make an issue out of it, but just unilaterally making the choice for her, over her objections, about her own health, is everything your wife told you it was."
Another user added, "You two need to have a serious conversation. You need to fully understand the implications that slowing down will have on her career."
"She needs to listen to her doctor and take the time to take care of herself."
A third user pointed out, "Controlling is controlling, you aren’t her parent and you don’t get to decide how she spends her time."
"Figure out a better strategy for communication before your kids are born; if you think you have problems now, just wait till you have twin babies and you are both sleep-deprived."
Nia Tipton is a writer living in Brooklyn. She covers pop culture, social justice issues, and trending topics. Keep up with her on Instagram and Twitter.