AITA for going out to eat without my husband/kids because they didn’t wash the dishes?

In a household where both parents work full-time and responsibilities are shared, this mom has been struggling with getting her family to help with basic chores. Despite setting up a chore system, her husband and kids have become lax, leaving her to pick up the slack.

After repeatedly expressing her frustration about the dirty dishes, she came home from work to find the mess untouched again, and this time, she decided to head out for a solo dinner with her youngest. Now, her husband and kids are upset that she didn’t bring them food.

‘ AITA for going out to eat without my husband/kids because they didn’t wash the dishes?’

Both my husband and I work full time. I work Real Estate and he works at a shipyard. We both collectively work around 50-60hr weeks. We have 4 kids. 13yo twins, 12yo, and 8mo. My husband has every weekend off. I do not. I implicated a chore system from the time my kids were little.

But ever since I had the baby and since the kids are older, ALL of them have slacked off tremendously (including husband). I pick our baby up from daycare around 5pm and when I get home, I usually find my husband on the couch on his phone and the kids in their rooms playing video games/watching make up tutorials.

The house is generally a mess and honestly, the only issue I have is the dishes. I couldn’t give f**k all about anything else (because the rest of the house generally isn’t dirty-dirty, just cluttered).

But I have expressed several times that I am tired of having to wash all the dishes in order to cook and have lashed out in some not so nice ways (shut off the Internet entirely and took the chord with me to work so no one could use the wifi/watch tv, canceled family trips, groundation, got in to big arguments with my husband).

Things will change for a week to a month and then switch right back to them refusing to help. I’m honestly so tired of it that I don’t even have the energy to speak up anymore. As I said, my husband has weekends off so he and the kids were home yesterday while I worked.

Before I took off for the day I told them “you guys chores had better be completed by the time I get home”. They said “yes ma’am” and I leave. I text husband around 4:30p asking what they all wanted for dinner because I had to stop off at the grocery store.

I pick up what he said they all wanted and walk in to my home, to find that not a single dish had been washed and there was at least 10 more dishes in the sink from when I left that morning. I also noted that only a load of laundry had been washed and was still sitting in the washer and was never switched to the dryer.

Husband was on his ass on the couch watching YouTube. Kids off playing video games. Baby in her walker. So, I put the groceries on the table, packed a bag for the baby and told my husband “have at it, I’m going to Applebee’s” and left.

Maybe 20 minutes later he calls and says “I washed the dishes, sorry. I was super tired today.” I told him that’s zero excuse at all. There’s 3 older kids who have chores and he couldn’t even step up and tell his kids to complete anything either. It’s pure laziness at this point.

He said “I know, I’m sorry, I’m trying to work on it. Can you just come home, I don’t know how to make this dish” (it’s a pretty difficult dish but google is free). I told him no, I’m sitting at Applebee’s and will be enjoying my steak and shrimp with the baby in peace and that him and the older kids can fend for themselves because apology or not, I’m not letting him off the hook here.

He had me on speaker phone, so him and all the kids laid right in to me, asking me to please grab them something from Applebee’s (it’s all of our favorite restaurant). I said absolutely not and hung up the phone.

When I returned home the groceries had been put away and apparently they had grilled cheese and cereal for dinner. My husband and kids are still pissed at me. I told them this is how it will be every single time they don’t do chores from now on. AITA?

Here’s the comments of Reddit users:

mrsedge2009 −  NTA. I didn’t see any mention of this in the comments, so here’s my take. Most of the bases have been covered as far as his utter incompetence in being an equal partner and parent.

HOWEVER, he put the call on speaker and allowed the older children to lay into you??? Excuse me? He’s showing your children that it is totally fine to disrespect you and that they should have no consequences for their actions or lack thereof. In what world is that okay???. ETA: Fixed spelling errors.

tonyrains80 −  NTA! In fact, BRAVO! Your husband is the AH here. He’s the damn parent and for him to sit on his ass and wait for you to do everything is TFBS. Stand your ground! If they’re supposed to do laundry and don’t, then take your clothes and the baby’s to a laundromat and let them figure it out how to clean their own clothes. Great post btw!

VioletBewm −  NTA. He’s an adult and the older kids are old enough to make a sandwich. I did the dishes almost every night growing up, it was my contribution to the house. What they all gonna do when they grow up and move out?

Old-Paleontologist-1 −  This is how you enforce a boundary in a healthy way to make sure you don’t get trampled on. NTA and good for you.

BestConfidence1560 −  Good for you. What you did was reasonable and I would suggest that what you do is show them this post. You’re not your husband‘s babysitter, and your children are old enough that you shouldn’t have to constantly nag the crap out of them to do basic things like clean the dishes. It’s completely inconsiderate of them.

ZalutPats −  Weaponized incompetence alert.

mallionaire7 −  Your kids think it’s fine for them to sit around and do nothing to help out around the house because they see their father doing it. He’s modelling this behaviour it starts with him. They need a real attitude change.

Next time it happens (and it will happen again seeing as they’re angry so believe they’re in the right) you take the baby and get a hotel room or stay with family and friends. Stop doing things for them. Cook for one. Wash only your clothes. They are taking you for granted and are all perfectly capable of doing all of these things themselves.

___coolcoolcool −  NTA. What a great solution!!! Glad you prioritized yourself and got some much needed recharge time!

Carolinamama2015 −  NTA, if you can afford it, keep doing things like this. Eventually, your husband and kids will grow really tired of grilled cheese and cereal for dinner and start to realize how good they have it.

ObjectiveLength7230 −  100% N👏T👏A!! You’re a rockstar. Let them be pissed. They will get over it. Did they care how pissed, hurt, disappointed you were/are EVERY time they chose to disrespect you & disregard your needs and those if the family? Nope, not until it directly affected them, only then they were suddenly ‘sorry’.

Which, IMO is too little too late. At this point, I would definitely ride the momentum and double down on why you took the action you did and why their behavior is an issue.

And do a separate discussion for the kids and hubs, bc honestly he’s the biggest AH here for allowing this to even get close to where it ended up. Serious red flag there and I would be diligent in making sure you stick to your boundaries on that front. Best of luck with this sis and don’t back down! 🫶