I (34F) have been married to my husband (36M) for almost 7 years. We’ve got two kids under 5. I work part-time from home, and I’m the one doing everything else—childcare, cooking, cleaning, school stuff, errands, all of it.
Lately, he’s been making these really smug little comments like, “Must be nice to stay in bed all morning” or “You wouldn’t last a day doing what I do.” The other night he said, “You do realise I actually work for this family, right?” Like I just hang out all day watching cartoons and eating snacks with the kids.
It’s not just the comments he makes though. He’s been really off. Distant, secretive with his phone, changing passwords, staying late at work when he doesn’t need to. I went through his emails a couple months ago after a gut feeling I couldn’t shake. Hotel confirmations. A weirdly flirty voice note from someone he’d “been mentoring.” That kind of thing. I didn’t confront him. I don’t know why. Partly because I’ve already been holding onto things I haven’t told him either.
We had a rough patch early in our marriage, before the kids. There was a break, some space. I ended up pregnant not long after we got back together. He never asked questions. Just assumed. I never said otherwise. I didn’t lie just never corrected him.
Anyway, after one too many comments about how I “don’t contribute,” I lost it. While he was at work, I spent six straight hours rearranging every room in the house. I flipped the living room completely, moved his office into the kids’ room, switched every cupboard, swapped all his clothes into different drawers, swapped all his precious artwork around, even moved his toothbrush to a different bathroom. Not in a rage, just deliberately.
He came home confused and quiet. Kept opening doors like he didn’t trust anything anymore. I said, “Since I don’t do anything all day, I thought I’d change that.” He didn’t laugh. Just stared at me.
Now he’s saying I’m “not acting normal” and told his sister he thinks I’m “mentally unwell.” He’s been tiptoeing around me, asking if I need to “talk to someone” or “take a break from the kids.” He has no idea I know what he’s done.
So. AITA?
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I (34F) have been married to my husband (36M) for almost 7 years. We’ve got two kids under 5. I work part-time from home, and I’m the one doing everything else—childcare, cooking, cleaning, school stuff, errands, all of it.
Lately, he’s been making these really smug little comments like, “Must be nice to stay in bed all morning” or “You wouldn’t last a day doing what I do.” The other night he said, “You do realise I actually work for this family, right?” Like I just hang out all day watching cartoons and eating snacks with the kids.
It’s not just the comments he makes though. He’s been really off. Distant, secretive with his phone, changing passwords, staying late at work when he doesn’t need to. I went through his emails a couple months ago after a gut feeling I couldn’t shake. Hotel confirmations. A weirdly flirty voice note from someone he’d “been mentoring.” That kind of thing. I didn’t confront him. I don’t know why. Partly because I’ve already been holding onto things I haven’t told him either.
We had a rough patch early in our marriage, before the kids. There was a break, some space. I ended up pregnant not long after we got back together. He never asked questions. Just assumed. I never said otherwise. I didn’t lie just never corrected him.
Anyway, after one too many comments about how I “don’t contribute,” I lost it. While he was at work, I spent six straight hours rearranging every room in the house. I flipped the living room completely, moved his office into the kids’ room, switched every cupboard, swapped all his clothes into different drawers, swapped all his precious artwork around, even moved his toothbrush to a different bathroom. Not in a rage, just deliberately.
He came home confused and quiet. Kept opening doors like he didn’t trust anything anymore. I said, “Since I don’t do anything all day, I thought I’d change that.” He didn’t laugh. Just stared at me.
Now he’s saying I’m “not acting normal” and told his sister he thinks I’m “mentally unwell.” He’s been tiptoeing around me, asking if I need to “talk to someone” or “take a break from the kids.” He has no idea I know what he’s done.
So. AITA?
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> The action I took was rearranging the entire house while my husband was at work to prove a point after he kept making comments about me “doing nothing all day.” I believe I might be the asshole because it was passive-aggressive and disruptive, and instead of talking to him directly, I chose to mess with his environment in a way that clearly confused and upset him. Even if I felt justified, it may have come across as unstable or childish, especially since he had no idea it was coming.
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
🤣🤣 No! NTA!
NTA. Get a lawyer. Protect yoyrself and your kids. This give them a terrible example, and tvey should not have to see you being treated this way.
ESH. Obviously your husband is an AH for the way he was talking to you.
Your response to this was petty though. Rather than try to solve the problem with adult communication, you made things worse.
You are in your mid thirties and have two children. The time for pettiness is over.
I don’t think he’s going to get your point because he isn’t going to see rearranging something as contributing anything if it didn’t need doing.
Are you hinting that you cheated on hin during your rough patch?
He sounds like a complete AH, but your behaviour is bizarre. How does moving everything around prove anything?
If you want to prove a point, then maybe just do nothing for a day. I’m sure he’d get the point when he comes home and there’s no food in the cupboards, and no clean towels in the bathroom, and no dinner waiting on the table for him. Soft YTA because there are way better ways of putting your point across, but you have my sympathy for being married to this AH.
NTA. But you’re burned out OP, you really need to take a break with all of this.
Just stop doing everything. Dishes, cooking, cleaning literally every thing.
Also he’s cheating on you and gaslighting you.
Leave him with the kids all day while you go talk to a lawyer. I bet he can’t handle two kids all day on his own. He’s obviously cheating. Why haven’t you confronted him about that?
He says you don’t do anything all day, then you find/create all this time to do something extreme.
In trying to prove him wrong, did you in fact prove him right?
(I know you do things all day. I know parenting is exhausting. I just don’t think you proved it. And did you hint that one of the children isn’t actually his? What is going on?)
ESH
He’s an abuser and using this last shenanigan of yours to try to prove you are mentally unstable.
Read this book, get a lawyer and exit this marriage asap.
Big hugs.