Man Cuts Work Hours To ‘Prove Point’ To Stay At Home Wife Who Wants Him To Help Around The House More

It used to be expected that women should do all of the child-rearing and housework while a man went out and worked. Thankfully, those traditional gender roles have changed into something more egalitarian, and men are beginning to pull their weight at home too. However, sometimes the dynamic still gets skewed, and sometimes guys end up getting the short end of the stick.

That seems to be what happened with one guy on the AITA subreddit. The poster, who’s 38, admitted that the cut back on work hours in order to help his wife, who’s a 30-year-old stay-at-home mom, with housework. However, that didn’t go over too well when she realized other things would have to change.

OP said that his wife is “usually an angel of a woman” but recently started up a friendship with another woman he deemed a “bad influence” who seems to be really into “radical misandry.” It’s because of this woman that his wife apparently started “pressuring [him] to do more around the house.” He added that he and his wife already split chores and child care but that his wife does more given that she’s at home all day.

According to OP, “I take out the garbage and I do laundry, and I deep clean the bathrooms once a week. I do also help with our boys homework and such. She insists that I am not doing enough and that I should be doing more around the house.” He said that his wife even threatened him with divorce at one point and told mutual friends that he uses her as a “house slave.” The next day, the man asked his boss to reduce his hours for a while because of stress.

OP then says he “took over everything in the house” and started cooking all the meals, cleaning the entire house, washing all the dishes, etc. He explained, “My wife was blindingly happy and bragged to her friend that she finally had me ‘worn in.’ She didn’t lift a finger for around a month.”

His wife wasn’t too happy with the new arrangements

However, that bliss was short-lived as everything else they used to enjoy fell by the wayside. The wife began asking him why they stopped going on dates and complaining that she needed to get her nails done. Instead, he offered for them to have a movie night in and said he’d paint her nails for her, which she wasn’t into.

While OP asked his wife if she wanted to get a part-time job now that she has more free time so she could pay for her luxuries, she lost it. She then told her husband he should “be a man” and ask for more hours at work. He responded by saying they could go back to splitting the chores again, in that case.

“Which is when she began to catch on that the two were related. She yelled at me that I was being a manipulative a**hole for doing this and even claimed it was financial “a-word”. I stood strong for a while but now I am questioning my methods, because even I feel what I did was a bit underhanded,” he wrote.

As you can probably imagine, most people were on OP’s side and insisted he’s in no way in the wrong.

“Stay at home means you do most of the housework. I’m not sure why your wife doesn’t understand that. Dude – you said that your wife is an “angel,” I’m not really seeing it. Threatening divorce to bludgeon you into doing more housework is a pretty big red flag,” one person wrote.

Another commenter said: “Wtf is with your wife? She expects you to work all day and do ALL the house chores and take care of the kids? While she uses your money to pamper herself? Her priorities are so wrong on so many levels. She lucky she ain’t my wife. With that attitude and disrespect I would have agreed to divorce and said I’ll see you in court.”

“NTA. You did what she asked. Reading stories like this really make me question if I want to get married,” a third person added.

Jennifer Still is a writer and editor with more than 10 years of experience. The managing editor of Bolde, she has bylines in Vanity Fair, Business Insider, The New York Times, Glamour, Bon Appetit, and many more. You can follow her on Twitter @jenniferlstill
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