Man slammed online after blaming wife for “embarrassing” state of house
A man has been judged unworthy by the online community after complaining that his wife, a stay-at-home mother, didn’t clean the house well enough prior to the last-minute arrival of his guests.
The 36-year-old took to Reddit’s ‘AmIthe**hole’ section to ask whether he was in the wrong for telling his wife their house was “embarrassing” after inviting guests over at short notice.
To provide some context, the man wrote that he was the breadwinner of the family, while his wife stayed home and looked after their three children, all of whom are under ten.
“My wife does her best to keep up with the cleaning and keeping the house tidy and I feel for her, I really do, so I told her she doesn’t have to clean up all the time since the kids are running up and down all day and making huge messes,” he wrote.
He continued to say that the only caveat to their deal was that she had to ensure the house was clean when they had guests visiting, “and she agreed with me”.
“Well, the other day I brought over some friends from work and when I opened the door all I could see was an utter mess, food and toys and clutter everywhere,” he recounted.
“I was shocked, I was embarrassed and just mortified that my friends saw my home looking like this.
“Also I have a couple of guys who came over for the first time so the first impression must’ve been horrible to them.”
The man said he took his friends to the “least messy” part of the house, but they kept “making indirect comments about the state of the home” and giving him “weird looks” during their visit.
“I was livid, I waited til they left then went into the bedroom to see that my wife was actually sleeping, I woke her up to ask why she didn’t tidy up the house knowing I was going to bring friends over,” he continued.
“She said she didn’t know but I sent her a text letting her know and she said she didn’t see it. I told her it seemed like she did see the text but decided to ignore it? She said no but she wasn’t feeling well and had a headache so she thought of getting an hour-long nap.
“I told her that it was so, so embarrassing that the house looked like this when my friends came over and that this was avoidable had she cleaned up and prepared the house for the guests.”
His wife said the kids had caused the mess and that he should have double-checked with her about the guests visiting, which he said was blaming him for “her own actions (or lack of)”.
He continued to say she was partly to blame for the house being “out of control” and in an “embarrassing” state.
His wife then called him a “jerk” and left the room, and continued not to speak to him about the situation.
Many users were quick to share their judgement that he was in the wrong for multiple reasons.
However, moderators were forced to lock the thread after commentors violated Reddit’s ‘Be Civil’ clause.
The Reddit thread was eventually locked to prevent more people from commenting after the site’s ‘Be Civil’ rule was violated multiple times. Image: Reddit
“You basically spring this upon her, didn’t check to see if she happened to see the one (1) text where you just casually decided to spontaneously bring home people that day, and showed literally zero care that she wasn’t feeling well,” one user wrote.
“SAHM stands for stay at home mum, not stay at home maid. Her priority is the children. Not to be on call to make the house look unrealistically tidy in an hour’s time.”
The man later clarified that they usually communicate via text, and that it was unusual for her not to check her phone.
"Even if she saw the text, who's to say that was enough time to do all the cleaning needed? Or that she didn't have another obstacle like being out of the house for the afternoon or being sick, like she was," another user said.
"[You're the a--hole] for assuming she generally has tons of time to clean while parenting, for giving her inadequate notice about guests, for telling her about guests, not asking if it was okay to have guests over, for not feeling any responsibility to help clean the house the night before if you're planning on asking people over and for generally treating her like your maid and not working to come up with other solutions to keep the house to your desired cleanliness."
Image: Getty Images