AITA for telling my husband he’s no better than his on dad?

A Reddit user, 35F, is struggling with her husband, 35M, who she feels has become increasingly absent from their twins’ lives as they’ve grown. While he was very involved when the children were babies, he now primarily shows his love through money and gifts rather than quality time or meaningful interactions.

After a heated argument about his lack of engagement, the user told her husband that he’s no better than his own father, who was largely absent during his childhood. This comment left him furious, and now she wonders if she crossed a line. Read the full story below to see if you agree with her actions.

‘ AITA for telling my husband he’s no better than his on dad?’

My husband (35M) and I(35F) have been married for 14 years. We have twins. One daughter and one son. Both 10. When we first meet, my husband always said he wanted to be a dad. He grew up poor and his dad wasn’t in his life much. He probably saw his dad once every few years. He always talked about wanting to be there for his future kids.

I always wanted kids, so my husband was happy. When we had kids everything was great. When they we’re babies, he did everything he could for them and more. He really went hard on making sure they had the best he could buy.

As they got older, he became less and less involved. He would work, come home, say hey to the kids. Ask how school went. Have a quick 5 minute conversation and that would be it. Every week he gives them money to get whatever they want.

If they ask him to buy anything, he just does it. Never anything deeper. Never spend any time with them. When suggested, he would say no. He belive he’s doing a great job with them as they are taken care of it.

I tried to explain to him that giving them money and buying them nice things is only one part of taking care of them. I’ve tried so hard to explain that you need to interact with them more or they would see you as a piggy bank and not a dad who they could talk to.

This all came to a head when I was taking the kids out to eat, but he didn’t want to go. I told him he hasn’t spent time with them since they were babies. This lead to a argument and we both got mad. It ended when I told him he’s not acting any different than his own dad. I’ve never seen him look and sound angrier in my life. That was all yesterday. AITA for telling him he’s no better than his own dad?

Take a look at the comments from fellow users:

Comfortable-Sea-2454 −  NTA. This all came to a head when I was taking the kids out to eat, but he didn’t want to go. I told him he hasn’t spent time with them since they were babies. This lead to a argument and we both got mad.

It ended when I told him he’s not acting any different than his own dad. I’ve never seen him look and sound angrier in my life. That was all yesterday. Sounds like he should have heard this a long time ago. Do the kids directly ask him to do things and get told no?

IAlmostPetRexy −  NTA, and here’s why. Nothing with them for years besides a check in, constantly gently pushed to follow thru on QT and after numerous gentle attempts she slapped him in the heart with a fact. He’s NOT doing them any favors by making excuses not to spend time.

If he died next week what would his kids remember of him?. Not much. We don’t keep our memories from infancy very often. They aren’t going to remember doting daddy when they were small small. They’re going to remember that he never spent time with them, mom told him he needed to and no matter how many times he was asked he NEVER did.

Dame_Twitch_a_Lot −  NTA. I can confirm that this doesn’t end with a relationship between kids and a father. Mine was a pilot and he provided quite well for us. He is now 80 and I am around out of a sense of duty and love for my mother who has dementia.

She’s the one who raised my sibling and I. She’s the one who knew who we were, our likes and dislikes, our trauma and joys. To this day I barely know who the man is, how to have a conversation with him, or have any deeper connection to him other than the income he provided for our family.

Wild-Strategy-4101 −  NTA. Sounds like my ex. He also said he didn’t want to be like his self-centered father(n**cissist these days). Yep he turned out the same even worse. I told him many times that he acted like his father and he’d curse me out. His behavior never changed.

I divorced him, got the kids full-time, he had little interaction with them. Now he’s in a nursing home, MS, and while at my youngest daughter’s house she was asked when she last saw her dad. Youngest saw him 4 years ago, son saw him 3 years ago, and oldest saw him 2 years ago. I asked how they feel about not visiting him.

The younger two, son and daughter, said they could care less as when they had visited him, he ignored them just watching TV like he did when they were kids. Oldest daughter, a RN Supervisor in cardiac care who’s usually very sympathetic, said she had it with him hollering at her two young daughters (6 & 3) that they were too loud and not to touch his stuff.

They only stayed for 10 minutes. He has never seen his other 3 grandchildren as my kids don’t want him to mistreat them. My kids are doing fine although my son always asks, “I’m not like Dad am I ? He’s not, I’m sorry his dad couldn’t be a better man and father but there’s nothing I could do about it except finally leave.

Pladohs_Ghost −  NTA. If he can’t see the pattern, calling him out exposes it. Now is when you find out if he truly wants to be different feom his father.

_Aeou −  Mixed, it sounds like he did better than his own father but perhaps not good enough. Perhaps it would have been better to say that he is “going down the same route” and try to get him to change course. When you directly attack someone they get defensive and rarely does the message really get through.

fdumbanddumber −  NTA he’s an absentee parent at best. Truth hurts and better to hear it than allowing his negligence to continue.

Haggis_Hunter81289 −  NTA. He is still around, but is essentially absent. You can’t expect any kind of relationship with your kids if you don’t do anything but pay them to go away.
INFO: have they expressed to you/him that they want/need time with him? If not, then they might need to. If he still ignores them, maybe it’s family therapy time.

in_formation −  NTA but couple’s counseling is needed ASAP. So many adults don’t realize good parenting is a LEARNED skill. His father wasn’t present, so he has no proper firsthand examples of what it. looks like to be a good dad.

All he knows is he’s doing better than what he got, and so you probably really bruised his ego by letting him know he only hit the bare minimum of his goal. It also seems like his n**lect is unresolved, because he lacks the emotional maturity to foresee the consequences of his children having a father who is physically there but emotionally absent.

I’ve seen a lot of parents distance themselves emotionally bc their children trigger childhood wounds unexpectedly, and they don’t know what to do about that. Therapy therapy therapy!!!

Roroin −  NTA.Even though your husband thinks he’s being a great father, he’s not. He’s only doing little part. Not spending time with your children means he doesn’t know much about the other facets of your children’s personalities, which in turn means your children only have a cordial relationship with their father, but not one where there’s great trust.

Your husband’s father isn’t physically or emotionally supportive, and your husband isn’t giving his all emotionally.