A man has taken to Reddit to declare that he ‘hates’ his wife’s new job because all of the household responsibilities - including caring for their children - are now on his shoulders.
In fact, he hates her job so much he wants her to quit altogether.
Posting in Reddit’s 'Am I the A**hole' forum, the disgruntled husband explained his new family dynamic.
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The 38-year-old man shares three children - aged 10, eight and six - with his wife, 37, who he has been married to for 12 years.
Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, his wife was able to work from home full time and her productivity increased after the change. Due to this new way of working, she was able to pick up the kids from school and daycare while her husband dropped them off in the morning.
“She was able to keep up with a few things around the house during the day, we saved on gas and car maintenance, etc,” he wrote in his Reddit post.
Everything changed when she was contacted by a recruiter about a job ‘a few months ago’ with a nice step up in the career path and a ‘boost’ in wages.
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Unfortunately, the company had no work from home policy and she’d be expected to be in the office, which would mean a 45-minute commute.
The husband recalled the concerns he communicated to his wife about the job opportunity, writing: “We talked it over a lot and I expressed my concerns about how this would impact our daily lives.
"I told her that I don't necessarily think that the bump in pay is worth the major changes to our daily lives.
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"Not to mention the stress that a long commute can have on people and that could impact their mood and how they interact at home.
“She assured me that everything would be fine and that we would adjust as a family and soon the new routine would just become our new normal.”
His wife took the job and 10 weeks passed before the man reached his boiling point.
“To say it has been an adjustment is an understatement,” he said as he described how his wife has to wake up and leave before their kids get up and now the ‘entire morning kid routine is on me’.
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He also has to do the drop-offs and pick-ups for all three kids and keep them distracted while he makes dinner.
The man said his wife’s commute home now takes an hour due to construction and because of her new work hours, she goes to bed early, too.
“I told her that I feel her new job has put an unfair amount of household and childcare duties on me and that she is being far less present in our lives when she's home,” he said. “She told me that we just need to give it more time to adjust and things will get easier. I told her that 10-weeks is a pretty good adjustment period and I hate it so far. She told me I'm being an unsupportive jerk and I need to give it more time.”
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After asking Reddit if he’s the a**hole in the situation, he was met with a lot of criticism.
“You’re getting the work that women have done since the dawn of time,” one commenter wrote.
Another Reddit user said: “Why is it too much to expect men to support their partner's advancement and career when women do it all. the. time. Suck it up, soldier. They are your children, too.”
While a third shared: “Man is just finding out what parenting is.”
Gregory Robinson