I can’t tell who’s in the wrong here, but I want to arm myself with some great reasons WHY he’s the asshole. OR, conversely, back off and let him do his thing.
My husband has 15 days of sick time and 4 weeks vacation. He’ll randomly decide to take a day, probably once a month, to chill at home after he drops our toddler off at daycare.
I work from home. I don’t have as generous vacation or sick time.
When he takes his sick day, he takes over the office and games all day. Totally fine, he grabs our extra monitor from the basement and sets up my station for me at the dinner table.
BUT I get really annoyed that he has all this bonus time that could be used to toss a load in the laundry (5 minutes) or get dinner ready so that I don’t have to try to balance my last hour of work (4-5pm) with trying to get supper ready before my toddler gets home (at 5pm).
He says that he wants me to pretend that he’s still at work, so that he doesn’t have to do anything. That he’s choosing a chill day. He says he won’t take them anymore if I’m just going to guilt him, but I literally just want him to take the last hour of the day to do some picking up, and make dinner.
AITA?
Comments
^^^^AUTOMOD Thanks for posting! READ THIS COMMENT – DO NOT SKIM. This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything.
I can’t tell who’s in the wrong here, but I want to arm myself with some great reasons WHY he’s the asshole. OR, conversely, back off and let him do his thing.
My husband has 15 days of sick time and 4 weeks vacation. He’ll randomly decide to take a day, probably once a month, to chill at home after he drops our toddler off at daycare.
I work from home. I don’t have as generous vacation or sick time.
When he takes his sick day, he takes over the office and games all day. Totally fine, he grabs our extra monitor from the basement and sets up my station for me at the dinner table.
BUT I get really annoyed that he has all this bonus time that could be used to toss a load in the laundry (5 minutes) or get dinner ready so that I don’t have to try to balance my last hour of work (4-5pm) with trying to get supper ready before my toddler gets home (at 5pm).
He says that he wants me to pretend that he’s still at work, so that he doesn’t have to do anything. That he’s choosing a chill day. He says he won’t take them anymore if I’m just going to guilt him, but I literally just want him to take the last hour of the day to do some picking up, and make dinner.
AITA?
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
Welcome to /r/AmITheAsshole. Please view our voting guide here, and remember to use only one judgement in your comment.
OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> Am I the asshole for expecting him to contribute when he has a random day off and wants to chill?
Help keep the sub engaging!
Don’t downvote assholes!
Do upvote interesting posts!
Click Here For Our Rules and Click Here For Our FAQ
Subreddit Announcements
Follow the link above to learn more
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
NTA. You’re a family. That time is the family’s. Can he reserve a large portion of that for his own use? Absolutely. But doing 30-45 minutes of house work to make the whole place run easier for everyone is absolutely reasonable.
NTA. He expects to eat dinner every day, right? When he has literally nothing going as far as obligations the least he can contribute is making dinner for himself and his family. Same with some laundry. It’s not hard but takes extra steps for you in a busy work day.
Info. Does he help on other days?
INFO: Do you get days off where you contribute nothing to the home and get a “chill day?”
If yes, then he should get as many of those as you get. If no, then this needs to be equalized — either he needs to be just as responsible for the home and family as you on days off, or he needs to make space for you to have days that you take completely off just like he does.
Info: Did you tell him that you would only want him to take the last hour of the day to do helpful things?
NTA
INFO though – how many times does he make dinner during hte month? Laundry? General division of labour?
If he is refusing to pitch in on a day off to lighten YOUR load, then maybe it’s time to revisit the household chores in general to ensure everyone is responsible for their fair share.
My guess is also he expects you to do those things ‘because you work from home’, and you don’t get to say ‘pretend I’m at the office, so I can’t put your load of wash on for you’.
NTA. You’re asking for something he has the capability of doing, on or off his self-made vacations. You’re not asking for too much!
I feel like NTA. I work 50 hours a week and get 18 days of sick/vacation time all rolled in one in a year. When I take a random off day, I WANT to spend that catching up on chores or getting ahead. I don’t get his logic of acting like he’s still at work and leave him alone.. he sounds INCREDIBLY selfish imo. I feel like asking his help for maybe 30 mins to an hour of his day is NOTHING.
NTA.
He’s taking over your workspace to game on these days. That’s already an imposition. Asking him to take an hour out of his 8+ hours of recreation to participate in family life so you don’t have to juggle chores AND work seems more than fair, and the idea that he’d literally rather work the whole day than do that seems beyond absurd. Call his bluff.
ESH. Lightly. It’s clear you want some extra help *in general* and that needs to be a separate conversation. You need breaks too and do need to prioritize yourself. Your husband is the asshole for not helping work together towards the needs you’re expressing. You’re also the asshole for expressing them poorly.
The time to ask for extra help is NOT when your husband is having a much needed mental health day. I’m assuming that he helps in the normal expected ways after 5 on these days off work. If he’s taking a day off work, I’m assuming he’s at his limit and needs to recharge.
What I’m seeing from you that is asshole behavior is feelings of jealousy and unfairness cropping up when he gets to take a break and you don’t. You’re a team. You both need breaks and need to cover for each other.
Give him his bonus days off. It changes nothing for you from him working, but does give him extra time to recharge.
Additionally, talk to him AFTER about ways he can help make sure you get days to recharge too. You say you don’t get vacation so maybe that looks like a weekend day every month where he handles all the chores and toddler care.
Try to reframe this jealousy/fairness response in your thoughts and your words to him. You should be happy he gets time to recharge. You also want time to recharge, and he should help you find that.
NAH: this is not about one person being right or wrong, but two people compromising and helping each others needs
NTA
It’s not unreasonable to set aside an hour of the day for chores and dinner.
Rest is important but the household doesn’t stop being everyone’s responsibility.
> He says that he wants me to pretend that he’s still at work, so that he doesn’t have to do anything
Then he should get out of the house and stop kicking you out of your office so he can fuck around. NTA.
> day. He says he won’t take them anymore if I’m just going to guilt him
Good.
Nta
Don’t make any dinner on his days off.
NTA. That’s a weird form of entitlement going on there. My boyfriend thinks like this too, that a day off is for doing nothing. I never get to do “nothing” because we have a home and pets to maintain. His getting a day off from work doesn’t give him the day off as your partner.
NTA. He has a lot of time off, he’s super lucky! He absolutely should be using part of that time for household chores. Why is it your responsibility while you are actually working? Taking a couple of days solely to yourself is fine but not all the time and not while expecting your partner to pick up your slack. Plus – no way should he be inconveniencing you and taking over the office to game!
NTA. Has there ever been a day where you get to contribute absolutely nothing to the household? A day where he gets hours of uninterrupted video game time is a “chill day.” Especially if it is a day you are working, he can at least make provisions for dinner. He is a capable adult that chose to have a family. It is very manipulative to say he wont take them anymore if you guilt him by asking him to take one single task of your plate, as if him spending an entire day of gaming makes a positive contribution to your life at all. Hold him to it. If you requesting he share a few maintenance tasks around the house is too much, then he can go to work and not take your office space.
Leaning towards ESH. First of all, he should game in the living room and you should continue working in the office. If he objects to that – tell him you are pretending he’s not home, like he asked, so you are working in the office. It is stupid for him to ask you to move. Stop doing that.
As for chores, he shouldn’t have to take over your chores just because he has a day off, that is not fair to him, so here you are wrong. If you in general have unfair distribution of chores – that’s a whole different conversation that needs to happen, but he should not be required to do your part just because he lucked out with his employer.
NTA. A day off work is not a day off family division of labor. And if he needs it to be, then he has to add those chores to the other days of the week AND give you a similar day off family chores. But the more insulting thing to me is that he punts you to the dining table and acts to be completely left alone. He acts like he’s 14 years old. His day off work shouldn’t make your day harder.
NTA, I exploded when he chucked you out the office.
NTA. This is common male behavior though. You know a woman wouldn’t take a day off like that and 100% chill and do zero chores for the entirety of the day.
Full days off to recharge are really useful, when they’re available to you.
Does he have enough spare holiday (more than you) that he could take 2 days off at a time?
The first day could be a “pretend I’m not here” zero responsibilities relax day. The second (now he’s relaxed) he could catch up on stuff around the house – laundry, “feed the freezer” cooking (not just dinner for tonight), etc.
Or he might agree to do a bit of extra effort the night before his days off. If he pushed himself after work to do some laundry & maybe cook a dinner for the following evening, then he could smugly relax the next day, knowing that he’d achieved both objectives.
Separately, maybe you can (together) figure out ways to solve the “end of day food effort” problem. Eg aim to only cook every second day – then microwave (healthy) leftovers the other day. Or cook more on weekends. Whatever.
But currently NAH (or E S H) – assuming he’s helpful the rest of the time.
You just need a different solution that doesn’t (always) take from his rest days.
NTA.
He’s a partner and a parent. He doesn’t get to not do chores on a day he IS working, so why does he think he’s exempt from chores on his day off?
The compromise is that he needs to do an hour of chores on these days off. He can make dinner, do laundry, run errands, anything he wants. He can even pick WHEN he does this hour of chores. He could do it first thing and pretend he’s on vacation the rest of the day.
What he doesn’t get to do is takeover YOUR OFFICE and put you out, then check out of all his responsibilities for 24 hours.
The LEAST he could do is pick you up lunch.
NTA. He can’t have it both ways where he gets to take over your office and contribute absolutely nothing. You can’t “act like he’s not home” because he’s displacing you. He wants to act like a teenager again, but that’s not how life works once you have a house and family.
NAH
> Totally fine, he grabs our extra monitor from the basement and sets up my station for me at the dinner table.
If I were to pick one “wrong” thing here, it would be this. He can put his gaming ass at the dinner table, you’re working, you should get the office.
Beyond that, I totally get where he’s coming from – he took a day off to unwind, not do chores all day. If you push him on this, he’s still going to take days off, he just won’t spend the time at home. Want to make a man take up fishing, golf, and puttering around the hardware store? This is how.
NAH, although him booting you to the dining table is getting pretty close. If you’re going to fight a battle based on internet recommendations, fight to keep the office while he plays on the table. Then, since he’s already out there, you’ve got angles like:
He is the A. A big one
Why the heck does the dinner fall on you just because your office is in the house. He is terrible
NAH
I see both of your positions.
The BEST thing I learned is it is you two against the problem, not you two against each other. Or try to better communicate a way that makes you both happy.
Options to try:
The day before he has a game day, he can do a half hour or hour of cleaning or laundry or whatever.
The day of gaming, he gets delivery for dinner or maybe takeout near daycare as he picks up the kid. Then he has all day free.
That takes care of both of the wants I see you asking in this post.
Try this for other things too! I sense that you would prefer him to take over more chores and mental tasks. Maybe do that list everyone talks about where you each write down all that you do, then redistribute things.
Good luck!
Why doesn’t he do this on regular workdays?
YTA and I’m with him, the entire point of taking a day off is to relax
NTA
Like… I like a day off from work as much as the next person, but just because you’re not getting a check for it doesn’t mean there isn’t stuff that needs doing. Life at home goes on the same as any other day, and my family needs me for stuff. It’s a team effort; everybody contributes what they can.
I can take a PTO day, and doing an extra load of dishes or taking a minute to put some laundry in the washer doesn’t change that it’s a break from work.
Depends on the dynamic.
If I take a day off it is usually to work on a big project around the house, not for personal enjoyment..
If I were in his shoes, and it were my wife and I started one task or completed 3-4 she would not stop and the whole day would be gone to her micromanaging. Does that happen?
NTA. Selfish partner you got there.
NAH, I can understand where both of you are coming from. It sucks that you don’t have the luxury to take a random day off. From his perspective, I understand how important it is to have a day where you just don’t do anything. If it fits your budget and lifestyle, maybe these nights could be days where you order delivery for dinner? That way he can still relax and you don’t have to feel the frustration that comes with taking care of dinner after you’ve been working all day and he’s had all day to get stuff done. You could even pick out the restaurant and what you’re ordering the day before so you don’t have the dreaded, “well what do you feel like eating?”, conversation. Make it easier on both of you.
NTA he gets a day off work but not the home.
NTA, doing a load of laundry or 2 doesn’t take that much time away from a full day gaming session.
My ex husband was this way and it’s why he’s an ex. I used all my vacation days to see him overseas. When he came home he said he was on vacation so didn’t need to do chores. Needless to say, all my stuff was clean, his was thrown in a dirt pile out back for him to clean himself since he just left it thrown all over every room. His cups and plates remained dirty, mine got clean.
If he has the energy to play a game, he has the energy to chip in around the house.
Edit for NTA.
[removed]
INFO: do you ever get any “pretend I’m not here” 100% off zero responsibility relaxation days? Where you’re off work and also he covers absolutely all household responsibilities?
NAH the issue isn’t his day off, it’s what he does on all his regular days. If he were pulling his weight, you wouldn’t have a much of an issue with a day off. Even still, he’s allowed to do nothing for a day and you should be, too
NTA. Being able to take time off work is great but family and household duties don’t also disappear. Unless you are also getting equal time of “pretend I’m not here” with no household or family duties, that is very unfair. The fact that he also kicks you out of your workspace makes it worse. Making dinner after an entire day of gaming is not an unreasonable ask.
ESH
He should not boot you from the office to play games because he took the day off. Taking a break from work is necessary at times, disrupting your routine to do so isn’t.
If he was at work then he wouldn’t be doing chores at home anyways. You sound jealous of his ability to call off and take breaks. It sounds like you might need a break but it also shouldn’t come at his expense. This needs to be worked out separately.
You’ve stated in another comment he cleans nightly, cooks once a week, and is a great father. If you need him to do more that’s a different conversation but those extra chores shouldn’t take place during his typical work hours because he’s not typically at home.
I understand you might do small tasks during your working hours, and wfh accommodates being able to do so. You might want to re evaluate if this is something you actually enjoy or maybe you and your husband can find a different split for chores to be done after working hours
Edited for clarity
NTA. why does he get to take over your office to game?? Why can’t he set up in the basement or the dining room? House responsibilities should be shared equally and if he is off, he should step up to the plate. Not that he shouldn’t step up to the other days too.
NTA, I do both of the things you’ve asked during a WFH day, he can certainly find time to do it while he’s gaming.
NTA. A “bonus day” off isn’t just a free pass to act like he’s single and 22 again. If he’s home, he’s still a partner and a parent — which means pitching in. Tossing in a load of laundry or getting dinner started isn’t “ruining” his chill day, it’s being a functioning adult in a shared household.
Wanting him to do literally one small thing so you’re not drowning during your last hour of work isn’t guilt-tripping — it’s asking for basic teamwork. Marriage isn’t about pretending he’s at work when he’s not, it’s about balancing responsibilities together.
NAH – for the question asked.
I do think it’s assholish to kick the person who is actually working out of the office, but if that doesn’t bother you then 🤷🏻♀️
But I think the real issue is that chores are uneven. I’m a single mom and yes, most sick days and vacation days are spent catching up on chores, but I also don’t think he’s wrong to want to have a chill day. The difference is the work should be evenly distributed all the time so that you don’t feel so unfairly burdened that you need him to do extra chores on a day off. He should have assigned tasks/chores all the time and he can choose whether he does them after work or wants to spend his vacation time doing them.
Then he can have a chill day without you asking him to do anything special bc he’s already pulling his own weight
NTA. Pretend he’s at work? What audacity. He can at least use a half hour to get some things done. Tossing laundry into the washer then the dryer isn’t a herculean task. The day he has off is the day you don’t make dinner even if you have to go out and eat alone. He can figure out something to eat.
Info: what do you do on your days off?
If you worked away from home, you would not be there to police him. Adults, right?
Everyone deserves time off. He was able to find a job that made that available to him. Is his time off yours too? If he gets a bonus does he have to split it with you? What’s the house work/budgeting in the house look like? I can be jealous that my partner gets pto, but pto is earned time off, to be used as I want. Whether it be a project or just playing videogames and enjoying my LIFE, cuz that’s what I work for. Inconsiderate, yes, but he’s not an AH he’s just a human that works hard enough to enjoy some time off. Get there yourself, it’s actually really nice to have some PTO and not have some one fuming because you have a chance to relax
NAH.
He’s entitled to enjoy his day the way he sees fit AS LONG as participating in day-to-day household upkeep is the norm already.
And it’s understandable that, working from home, you are frustrated or envious that he’s able to take the time do have fun, because you see it. If you were working in the office, you wouldn’t see it, it wouldn’t bother you as much.
I believe that if the roles were reversed, everyone would be cheering for her to not do anything on her day off and that her husband should do everything else that’s necessary. OP never mentioned how they divide household duties, how long he works, etc.. what’s wrong with a day off once in a while. Laundry can wait a day, dinner can be take-out, and dishes should be maintained by everyone in the house. It’s one day a month, not a week a month.
ESH
Him taking over your office is an asshole move, but you trying to take away his day off is also an asshole move. He’s right, in that there’s no point in him trying to take a day off to relax if you’re just going to fill it up with chores, but he’s definitely in the wrong for kicking you out of your office.
NTA. If he’s taking a work day off to chill, that should be no more than 8 hrs anyway, not the entire day. Come 5 o’clock he’s on family time. But kicking you out of your office and refusing to do anything all day long is AH-ish behavior and also immature. OP, do you ever get a day to do absolutely nothing? He’s not a single dude, he has a family. He needs to grow up.
WTF. He gets a day off to play and displaces you from your work place AND does nothing around the house? Does he do 50/50 chores the rest of the time? Do you spend your weekends and after hours doing house chores ?
Unless the answer is yes he does his fair share of chores and no you don’t spend your spare time doing household management he needs to step up on his day off AND give you back your office.
NTA. But your husband is a gigantic one. If he wants to burn his time off that way, fine. It would bug me as the WFH spouse but whatever. But the fact that he actually takes over the office you WFH in and then does literally nothing all day and then expects you to pickup the slack after you are done working. Hes literally a gigantic AH for that. In really cant even put into words the level of AH he is. He wants to stay home and be a child for a day, fine. But he shouldnt be disrupting your work day AT ALL. And he can find an hour to do some work around the house while he is home. Honestly it sounds like your husband is 15 and not mature enough to be a father or husband yet.
NTA he believes his time, regardless of how he’s using it, is more valuable than yours. He’s choosing his rest and pleasure over relieving even a little bit of your load.
Info: do you get to take days off where you can take over whatever rooms you want in the house and do no chores?
NTA. What about thinking outside the box:
–on these days he goes out and gets takeout for all of you so you don’t have to cook dinner.
–he shouldn’t be kicking you out of the office. I don’t know how to solve that but it just doesn’t make sense.
–for each of these days the proceeding weekend he gives you some extra time while he watches the kids and you go do something to unwind. It doesn’t have to be the whole day, but a few hrs at least to go out with friends, movie, dinner etc. Something you like that isn’t chores.
NTA. I have some thoughts but I will be nice.