A recent thread on the Am I The A**hole (AITA) subreddit saw a man asking if he was wrong for not keeping up with his wife’s cleaning habits.
This man has been with his wife for six years and married for three.
His wife is extremely clean, and he regrets waiting until they married to move in together as he didn’t know the full extent of her cleanliness.
His wife is the reason his house looks like a model home. She hates his style of cleaning (leaving dishes to soak for a few days) and prefers to wash things up immediately.
She spends her days off scrubbing the bathroom because “in her mind, they should be cleaned weekly.”
She doesn’t let her husband bring his shoes inside and insists he showers the second he gets home before lying in bed.
You Might Also Like: A Grown Man Blamed His Wife For Not Packing His Pants For a Work Trip
Her cleanliness started hurting their marriage when they had kids.
They have a two-year-old and a one-year-old, and the husband is a stay-at-home dad.
He left work when their youngest was born, and their disagreement over how clean the house should be began to get out of control.
His wife expects him to do most of the chores since he became a stay-at-home dad.
He would be okay if the chores were reasonable, but he doesn’t think they are.
His wife wants the kids bathed daily, whereas he thinks every 1-3 days is fine.
His wife wants all the toys put away at the end of the day, but he thinks it’s pointless as they’ll be all over the place again the next day.
His wife wants the dishes done daily, the house bedding washed weekly, and a weekly house vacuum and also wants him to mop every 3-4 days as the kids spend a lot of time playing on the floor.
This man disagrees, saying his kids will be fine if he only mops every 2 weeks.
He explains that because he doesn’t “play along with most of her demands,” she usually does most of the housework when she comes home from work or on her rare days off.
His wife works 40-80 hour weeks, which he agrees is a lot but thinks “she does it to herself.” He does what he feels is reasonable around the house.
All of this quarreling over cleaning built up to the events that inspired his post.
His wife got home and saw that he hadn’t washed the dishes and that there was still food in some greasy pans on the countertop.
On top of this, he still needed to take the trash cans in from two days ago.
You Might Also Like: He Went to the Gym For a Work-Out and Took Off His Wedding Ring, She Saw Him, Assumed He Fancied Her and Has a Meltdown
His wife “flew off the handle,” calling him lazy and a slob.
She asked if he would like to return to work, as she thinks he’s doing a poor job and the money he’d earn could go to a nanny and a weekly housekeeper who “wouldn’t leave the kids in pjs all day.”
He got angry and called her crazy, accusing her of getting worked up over small things. He said he would not be leaving his kids with a stranger.
His wife packed a bag for herself and their kids and went to her mom’s house. He ended the post by saying, “I’m furious. Am I the a**hole?”
Reddit overwhelmingly thought this man was in the wrong for how he acted.
Suspicious-Hat6285 had the top-voted response, with over 20,000 likes. They said, “You’re a stay at home father all of the stuff you listed that she wants is normal things an adult does. Your standards are too low. YTA. Bathe your f***ing kids.”
Donkeh101 agreed, saying, “Out of all the things listed, bathing the kids made me recoil. I am not the tidiest of persons. All the others I can give a sort of leeway. To certain degree. But not bathing the children??? That would be my priority. YTA (You’re The A**Hole) OP (Original Poster).”
Just_Me1973 responded to the thread with a comment that got over 11,000 upvotes. They said, “YTA. Her cleaning habits are fairly average. You’re just a slob.”
The common response from other Redditors was that the man was lazy and said the dad YTA, but what do you think? Was the mom too fussy?
Our article has been inspired by Reddit and does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Career Step Up.
This article was produced by Mama Say What?! and syndicated by Career Step Up.
Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock / Txking. The people shown in the images are for illustrative purposes only, not the actual people featured in the story.