A Man Refuses To Cook Dinner Unless His Wife Makes Him Breakfast
Should he be more understanding of her busy morning schedule? Or is it a fair trade?
Division of labor is one of the toughest aspects of modern marriage, especially after you begin juggling a couple of jobs and a couple of kids. It can be so hard to find a fair balance that takes all sorts of factors into account — and many Millennial men grew up watching their dads relax before and after work.
This is certainly the case for one couple, who is struggling with meal prep and two kids under the age of 5. So much so that the husband posted their argument on Reddit’s Am I The A**hole? to find out who’s right and who’s wrong. He’s upset that his wife does the morning routine in the house but doesn’t cook breakfast; he does the evening routine and does cook dinner. Is it fair, or is he getting the short end of the stick?
“My wife and I have two kids that are both in daycare. My wife will take the morning shift, which includes getting the kids up, getting breakfast and to the daycare,” he explains in his post. “I handle the night shift which is getting the kids from daycare, doing dinner and starting to get them ready for bed. Usually she gets home around 6:30-7 and the whole family has like 30 minutes together before the kids bedtime. She has to travel an hour+ (depends on traffic) to work each way.”
“The issue is around breakfast,” he continues. “We agreed that I would make dinner each night and she does breakfast. She already makes food for the kids so it's literally just making an extra one of what she is already making. For the past month she will either not make it at all for me, not tell me that it is done. One day the are eating a 7 in the morning and then getting dressed other days she is giving them toast before getting into the car.”
This reached a breaking point for him, and he took action.
“I have talked to her multiple time and explained that it is not considerate. We got into an argument and she told me I am home so just make my own food. I explained I may be home but I am doing my job,” he said. “Yesterday she didn't make anything and I had enough. She came home and I didn't make her anything for dinner. When asked I told her she is home and can make her own food. This started a huge argument and she called me a jerk.”
Down in the comments, the Reddit community was pretty quick to call him an asshole.
“Mornings are by nature more chaotic and less regimented,” one person wrote. “Expecting your breakfast to be served to you on a schedule is bizarre, grab a banana when you wake up before you work. Punishing her by not making dinner is also bizarre behavior.”
“So she is in the road for 2 hours a day, and you work from home, and you are being petty because nobody poured your cereal for you,” another person asked.
“Holy crap this tit for tat stuff is not a relationship,” another person said. “Also yes, she’s on a totally different time crunch in the morning, and traveling a long way to and from work. Long commutes are draining. You literally work from home. Yes, you are working and that’s valid work. But don’t pretend you can’t take a moment to grab yourself breakfast, or food any time in the morning really. I dont know a single wfh person who has zero time to even eat something. That’s absurd. Her days are extra long, don’t become an extra child she has to care for.”
The last comment hits the nail on the head: “tit for tat” is really difficult in situations like this — you can’t really compare making breakfast to making dinner. You also can’t compare what it’s like to work at home with what it’s like to have a two-hour commute each day.
This is why you need to have ongoing conversations about the division of labor in the house — instead of, you know, acting passive aggressively.
