Today’s Reddit story is about a good husband. He’s a man who works a full-time job, comes home to take care of his pregnant wife, performs 100% of the chores around the house, all while his wife doesn’t do anything and just uses her phone all day.
One day, the husband was exhausted from work and said “no” to one of his wife’s requests; he got called out for saying no by his wife and his mother-in-law.
The Story
A person with the username fruitsnackk94 posted his stressful story on the AITA subreddit – where people ask about their situations and if they did the right thing or not. Here’s his story:
“Alrighty Reddit, here we go. My (29M) wife (27F) is 24 weeks pregnant and so far it has been a fairly easy pregnancy (according to her and her doctor, not making assumptions of course). I have done my best to be a good husband. I work full time, started doing all the chores (cooking/cleaning/pet care), and of course try my best to accommodate her cravings. She has been taking it easy and spends most of her day relaxing. She says she’s “never felt better.”
“Being completely honest, I’m starting to get a little burnt out. I love my wife and want her to be comfortable while pregnant but working full time and doing 100% of the chores is very draining. I recently had two separate conversations asking if she’d be willing to do a 80/20 chore split instead, but both times she got offended. She says that it would stress her out and possibly harm the baby, which scared me (I don’t want anything to happen to our baby), so of course I didn’t push it.
“Yesterday morning (2am) my wife woke me up and asked me if I could go to the store for fruit snacks. She was craving them badly. I have made many late nights runs but this week has been so stressful for me; I worked overtime the entire weekend and a deadline is approaching. I told her I was sorry but I really needed to rest, I was exhausted.
“She did not like this answer. First she tried to beg more but I kept saying no. This went on for a half hour. Then she started crying and telling me what a shit husband I was being. She also said she’s “scared to see me as a father if this is how selfish I am.”
“I snapped at her. I told her I’ve been taking care of 100% of the responsibilities for the past 6 months. She’s been sitting on her phone every single day and hasn’t had to lift a finger. Then I said I was done doing 100% of the chores and we need a more even split because I was losing hair from stress. I will admit I had a tone and was obviously irritated. This caused her to cry more and she kicked me out to the couch.
“This has caused a huge rift between us. She was pissed at me the entire day and locked me out of the bedroom tonight. My MIL has texted me to call me an a**hole. They both said the stress I am putting on my wife will hurt the baby so now I feel super guilty. I need perspective.
AITA?”
The Responses
I think we all know where this is going and how the responses will be. The awesome community at Reddit came to this man’s defense and supported him wholeheartedly. For context, NTA means “Not the A**hole.” Here are some of the best responses:
Reddit user DaisyInc said:
“NTA. Most women literally hold on to their full time jobs 6 months into their pregnancy and beyond. Why is she not even capable of doing light housework?
“The fact that she pulled “it would harm the baby” out of nowhere at being asked to take on even the smallest of responsibility is so manipulative. Her saying you not bending to her whims makes you a bad father was totally out of line too. Never forget, you are both the child’s parents. You get to evaluate her as a mother and as a spouse as much as she does you. What does her current behavior say about what kind of mother and partner she is?
“Edited to add: OP, I hope you are seeing the literal dozens and dozens of mothers who replied to this comment sharing their stories of higher risk pregnancies, more hectic home situations and more demanding jobs than your wife who continued to work and contribute to their households throughout their pregnancies with no adverse effects, all the way up to the month/week of labor. This is what a loving and respectful marriage should look like.”
Another user, cookiemonster730, said:
“My moms a parent class teacher and she does ultra sounds and she encourages mothers to be as active as possible. (Also NTA what their doing is guilt tripping and threatening you which is emotionally abusive)”
Sleepy-llama commented:
“NTA – she’s using her pregnancy as a tool to manipulate it you and use you as slave you around basically man, sorry. And no, doing chores and saying no will not stress her enough to hurt a baby.“
This post has over 2.5k comments, where most pregnant women commented on how they worked during their pregnancies. You can read all of the comments on Reddit here.
Our Take
NTA. This man is a caring human being, and he’s being manipulated. We think he did nothing wrong by saying “no” one time. We sincerely hope this man finds balance and peace in his life and his wife appreciates him for who he is.
Source: Reddit – AITA for refusing to get my pregnant wife fruit snacks and demanding she do more chores?
What’s Your Take?
What’s your take on this story? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Well, you are NTA. She is and the MIL. Maybe she should go stay with her Mom for awhile and let her wait on her while you work and get some much needed rest in the evening. Ya’ll can talk on phone or visit when neither of you is stressed. My daughter, a nurse, worked until she went into labor, she also had a bad gall bladder that couldn’t be removed until the birth. She had a C section. Doing chores will not hurt her, she is playing the lazy card. Prayers.
This pregnant mom is worse than entitled and is MILKING her husband to death. I worked full time and kept house and made meals while pregnant. And since I can even remember hauling groceries up the stairs to our upstairs apartment I didn’t get much help there either. I even took exercise classes during my pregnancy–like who is she kidding?
She is the A**hole not him. Makes you wonder what kind of mother SHE will make!! I hope we get to hear how this turns out. Stand your ground young man, stand your ground!!
She is taking advantage of this man,exercise is good for an expectant mother and the baby,she is not even that far along in her pregnancy,there is no reason to sit all day long unless the dr put her on bed rest
Doing this means, if he doesn’t make a change, he will work full time, looking after the baby, do everything in and around the house. He’ll be burned out in no time and they will separate, and I wouldn’t blame him. She’s a spoiled and lazy brat.
While I agree that she is manipulative; this is exactly the reversal of what often happens. I worked full time, did all of the housekeeping, childcare, cooking and everything else around the house like many women did and do. Poor baby is so stressed his hair is falling out! Try doing all of that and being pregnant at the same time. THEN tell me who is stressed. If he didn’t see these signs before, there is no hope for him.
She’s an entitled lazy, spoiled brat, that’s going to kill her husband, because it’s only going to get worse when the baby is born.
Omg, she is a literal piece of trash! I had a miscarriage and still took care of household chores while still pregnant with one of the babies. She is so effing lazy so you can see how the rest of your life will be. Most likely she will have ppd. God help you man!!!!
If this is how she is now being pregnant it will be much worse when the baby arrives. He is stressed out enough he is loosing his hair! He needs to get a counselor involved or start divorce proceedings.
LOL If he didn’t know her before, too bad. He is looking for sympathy.
You are NTA. However your wife is a great big AH. She’s mentally abusing you, running you to death, using a perfectly healthy pregnancy to manipulate and use you, while she sits on her ass all day playing on the phone. She is causing herself more harm and than good, she’ll be the size of a house by 8 months, her delivery is going to suck. What kind of woman wakes her wore out husband in the middle of the night for a snack run? And call him a bad father for refusing to give in, and guilt you over it! I’m sorry to say this, your wife is lazy, selfish, irresponsible, worthless excuse of a wife. She should be ashamed of her self and her mother’s a AH too. Put her out the front door and tell her she can come visit when she learns to treat you with respect. Like WTF, who the hell is she? I would put her out of my house if I were you. I’m 55 years old birthed 4 babies, my first pregnancy almost ended when I was 5 months, his placenta came loose, I was hospitalized the rest of that pregnancy, ten years later I had a miscarriage, a year later I became pregnant with my daughter, developed toxicema / dangerously high blood pressure, gave birth to a healthy baby girl, 5 years later I became pregnant with my second daughter, her umbilical cord was wrapped so tight around her neck and she pooped inside of me and all of that was in her lungs she was blue when she was born. 4 years later I became pregnant with my son he was facing up coming out, I can’t describe the pain I was in, but he was healthy as were my other 3 kids. I worked a very physical job sanding and refinishing hard wood floors. 5 sometimes 6 days a week. I worked up to my ninth month quitting 1 week before birth only because I was extremely miserable in the dead heart of summer 3 times. After work I came home and my husband and I cleaned house “together” he cooked and I cared for the kids, if I had cravings I went to the damn store and got what I wanted, we did laundry together, the only thing I didn’t do was push a lawn mower. We were a team. After delivery I returned to work 6 weeks after birth, 10 weeks after my last baby due to having my tubes tied. I helped paint my kids rooms to get the nursery ready. We took late evening walks and parks. My kids weren’t born stressed out or unhappy. We had trying times but it wasn’t from anything I did, it’s part of life and delivery. A car crash would be stressful for the baby or a house fire, but dishes and vacuums are pretty safe. Fighting and screaming = stress, a mop will do her good, she could be working outside the house. Put her ass in the car and take her to the gym. A toilet brush isn’t going to hurt your baby and neither with the washer and drier. She shouldn’t try handling a chainsaw though. give her the damn Windex bottle and rag and tell her to get up off her big ass and do something other than pull the wool over your eyes feeding you shovels of bullshit. And tell her mother to kiss your ass! This post has me pissed. It’s her mother’s fault she’s like that. People are so entitled these days. BTW she can wash the car and scrub the bathtub too. The rate she’s going that baby will have to raise him/her self, poor child will be cooking dinner by age 4. You’re right pregnancy is not a illness unless it’s a high risk pregnancy. It’s a choice. The more she sits on her ass the bigger she gets, the bigger she gets the harder it is to lose the weight. Put your foot down NOW.
SMH! Wow.
Missis, you’re a credit to womanhood. Top marks to you. 🙂
She is treating you this way, but you are encouraging/allowing it! Do nothing, if this is what you want for the rest of your marriage or, get professional help. You need to consider that your child will learn from your behaviour. I know so many men who allow their partners to abuse them, and they just accept it.
I agree with you there, but part of the problem is the attitude of the police these days. Where the law (in theory) says “innocent until proven guilty”, the police’s attitude (certainly with regard to a “domestic situation”), is automatically to act as though the man is at fault. I’m a victim of domestic violence (which I stuck for 7 years). On one occasion they instantly threatened to arrest me, but then dropped the threat, and on another occasion they arrested me and dragged me out of the house in handcuffs, and then subjected me to several hours of threats and abuse, because in their inexcusable, deliberate ignorance, they completely ignored the truth, which was well documented by the psychiatrist, and the psychologist who my then wife was being counselled/treated by, AND the family health visitor & colleague, who had personally witnessed her blow up, PLUS a letter which she wrote to me, apologising for attacking me. The man is definitely at a disadvantage, a fella is automatically condemned by the police’s attitude, in any domestic aggro, the man’s automatically in the wrong just because he’s a man. Finding out the truth is too much work for them, they’re only interested in taking the easy way out. I’ll never trust the police again.ever. P.s: I’ve never been charged with anything. Firstly, that would have meant some work for them to do, and secondly, any (and all) the evidence they would have come up with would have shown that (they were wrong, and that) I was the one who was the victim. One fifthif all domestic violence victims are men. Thats nearly a quarter.
Just move into a guest bedroom, go off to work and carry in a solo dinner each day for yourself. Get a few good books, grab an ice tea and lay down by 830 each night. Lock your door and watch her loose it. Do not falter. Either she will grow up or not but in 20 days. Or less you’ll know if she’s worth your time. Baby or not, she’s a narcissist jerk. Stand up for yourself.
I second that motion!
NTA. I’ve had my share of miscarriages and 4 successful pregnancies. I worked until the day of my scheduled c-sections for almost all of them. the miscarriages had nothing to do with changing, or not changing, my daily routines and activities; especially after already having kids! she’s being manipulative and unjustly cruel! I have a wonderful man, like you!, that has helped me thru each pregnancy and subsequent baby (the youngest will be 2 next month!) and I’ve never used a pregnancy as a weapon like she is.
NTA! I worked full time up until the day before I delivered. I can’t imagine myself being that selfish to a loving, supportive husband!
With my first pregnancy I was working full time up to my fifth month, then I was doing all the housework, and working out at the gym everyday. With my second I was at home, but I was still doing all the housework, cooking and working out. How in the world is this woman going to handle being on call 24/7 with a baby?
Too right! You can’t switch a baby off like you can a machine. A baby makes great demands (not deliberately, or selfishly, its just the way things are. No baby can help its self, so if she can’t get off her idle butt now, how isshe going to cope after the birth, when the child needs it’s nappy changing, bottle sorting, bathing, keeping warm etc., etc. She needs to grow up and get real.
You are not the a**hole. Your wife is taking advantage of you. My second pregnancy was ab at risk because of my age and I worked, cleaned house and exercised. I didn’t bother my husband for late night cravings etc.
Your wife is taking advantage of you and your MIL is using old school tactics on you.
Pay attention because if this is how your wife is now, the behavior could get worse once the baby is here.
I think she’s just an idle “user”. Too right about the majority of mums to be who still do work of all sorts until well after the start of pregnancy good for them. And as for your mother in law, what a rotten mother she is, for having let her daughter grow up into a spoilt brat who thinks she has to have everything handed to her on a plate.