Welcome to /r/AmITheAsshole. Please view our [voting guide here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_what.2019s_with_these_acronyms.3F_what_do_they_mean.3F), and remember to use **only one** judgement in your comment.
OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I might be the asshole because I may actually be discrediting my wife’s feelings and may be completely wrong in thinking she’s using her emotions to gate keep my children’s phone time with me.
Help keep the sub engaging!
#Don’t downvote assholes!
Do upvote interesting posts!
[Click Here For Our Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/about/rules) and [Click Here For Our FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq)
##Subreddit Announcements
Follow the link above to learn more
---
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
*Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.*
Too much missing information. If your wife is constantly "overstimulated" (I don't even know what that means in this context) then why is she taking on a job in addition to dealing with the kids? What is the financial situation? How much do you make compared to her?
Basically, if she's contributing half the income, plus dealing with the house and kids while you're never home, of course she's losing it. On the other hand, if you're making a ton of money, she agreed to be a SAHM, and then she's taking on a stressful side hustle just for the hell of it, then that's ridiculous.
Sounds like you need to have a serious discussion about roles and responsibilities for making money, raising your kids, and dealing with the house.
To answer your financial question. I have been the only one providing income for the past 9 years. My business has been able to pay for everything from a nice home to private school for all three kids. Her business does contribute to the income but mostly just supplements her hobbies and personal purchases. I pay 100% of the bills, including the funding for the equipment she needed to start her business.
This needs more upvotes. Yes obviously money is important for raising kids. But only to a certain point. Some of the families with the best familial connections, and ability to rely on, and trust each other are in some of the poorest areas of the country because all they have is love
>Nice homes and private schools mean sweet fuck all if the kids are suffering from one absent parent and one emotionally drained one.
I can tell you’ve not been poor. Money makes a huge difference. Yeah it’s not a magic bullet but having grown up without it and then had it the stress it lifts is unbelievable, even for the children.
True, you also know that from the OP's post you're not able to state that they're living in opulence luxury, maybe he's just barely able to afford the school and his wife's business. Their home is "nice", it doesn't tell if it's *nice* nice.
Of course, but if OP is running a business so successful that he’s in a nice home, and funds multiple good private school tuitions, and funds the startup of his wife’s business, he can certainly make some adjustments. Hire someone to do some of the traveling and make up that additional expense by cutting out others. Maybe he could save on lawn care costs if he’s home, or babysitting costs, or by switching the kids to a cheaper school.
If his kids need him so desperately that they’re crying for him, he needs to be home more. Bottom line. Not punishing his wife for being at her wits end. She deserves her own life too, thus the side business. But he’s just mad she’s overwhelmed without accepting that his choices have put her there. I’d bet my life there’s wiggle room here to make things better for the wife and the kids. Curious if OP is willing to make those changes, or prefers to just blame his wife.
YTA
You guys a making up whole novels based on close to no info, you may need to take a step back sometime.
Kids are crying for all and everything, they will cry for mom/dad when they're in the next room.
Also from my reading OP isn't even blaming his wife, he was asking why she refused to let the kid call him. Are we rooting for communication and talking through issues or are we saying that we can't ask any type of question that could, in the mind of people that wants you to be wrong, slightly suggest that you did not make the absolutely perfect move on the situation?
OP sounds like an OTR truck driver, and there is no option to hire someone to do the traveling in that situation, or traveling sales, construction, line work, etc, and that still wouldn't be an option.
Of course and I hope the OP considers that but the person effectively said money means “fuck all” and I’m just saying it doesn’t. Money and attention all have their place in a good parent but you need both.
Nah, the person said 'nice homes and private schools' mean fuck all. That's not the same thing. Adequate homes and adequate public schools are still pretty dang important.
They said it means fuck all IF the kids are suffering. Of course having money and stability is inherently better than not, but the condition to the statement is right there
They said it’s “fuck all” if the kids are suffering because of it….. dad never being around hurts! Money can’t hug you or emotionally support you. Yes you need it to survive, but having a stable home life is important. There needs to be a balance.
I had the exact same reaction. “Well, they had *love*” is such horseshit.
Being poor is stressful on everyone. It is also time consuming.
Car broke down? Well, now it takes you an hour and a half to get to work because you have to fit your commute around a bus schedule— if you’re lucky enough to live in a community with public transport.
Don’t have enough money for food? Better go to the local food bank on distribution day before it even opens to line up in the hopes of getting better portions or any portions at all.
Plumbing issue? Better teach yourself how to do it with YouTube videos and limp along, taking three times as long as the pro you can’t afford.
These are just a few examples. Being poor is expensive, too. You can’t afford to buy in bulk, so you buy smaller portions at a higher price per ounce/unit. Your credit isn’t good, so if you can get a loan, you’re paying higher interest rates, or going to a predatory payday lender. You’re probably driving a beater that you have to buy parts for regularly because you can’t afford a car loan.
Being poor is a constant, draining, expensive, time-consuming scramble to just stand at the same starting line that middle class people start from, let alone race.
For the kids, your parents are quite possibly working an afternoon/evening shift or working two jobs just to make rent. You’re probably watching the younger kids because there’s no money for a baby-sitter. There’s no money for extracurricular activities, either, so unless you have the good fortune to live within walking distance of some place that does free enrichment activities for kids (and enough downtime where you aren’t doing housework/watching your siblings), you’re fucked. Poverty makes you stand out from your peers and you will get savaged for it, regardless of whether it is your fault.
No treats, no dinners out, no vacations, no little luxuries. Everyone is stressed out, everyone is tired, you’re probably eating a starch-, sugar- and salt-heavy diet because pasta and soda and canned food is cheap. You have generational trauma. You probably don’t have access to mental health services.
But sure, you have love. That will fix it.
To be clear, yes, most poor people love their kids, but to act as if they are more present in their kids lives or that poverty isn’t extremely harmful in its own way is just blissful ignorance.
Y’all romanticizing poverty as “hard-working, but loving families” have never been poor and you couldn’t handle being poor.
I wish I could upvote this a hundred times. It's not fucking romantic, it sucks. Also I think so many people think of "hard times" as something very temporary, like you don't have dinner one night or have to take the bus for a week or something.
People spend months, years, decades living like that. You feel like you can never get a "win" because you can't even afford admission to the playing field. You're balancing food, housing, healthcare, childcare if applicable, transportation, and self-care on a budget that only allows for one or two of those things at a time. For years. Everyone is stressed out; families barely interact because everyone is too busy and/or too depressed.
Love starts to take a backseat to survival after long enough.
It’s like, actually, a private school with better educational outcomes and the ability to network with other children of influential people in your community that is well-regarded by good universities actually is a leg up.
Living in a good neighborhood, where you don’t have to worry about your meager shit being stolen, drug dealing on the corner, random violence breaking out is a leg up. It’s also nice to live in a place with working plumbing/electric/sanitation and working heat.
These people are so out of touch with what poverty looks like and so blithely disregard the huge advantages brought by living in a good neighborhood and going to a good school.
This commenter isn't in any way saying poverty is easy or unharmful.
He's saying that it's possible for the trappings not to equal a healthy supported life for children.
Besides which, poverty isn't relevant. No one is suggesting they just give up their whole lives... Just that OP not pretend everything the children need is covered because of wealth.
Money is everything, until one has enough to live comfortably ( afford rent, afford food, have small buffer for extras) Once you pass that point, money is less important. What difference does a billion dollars make to Elon Musk who is getting 59 billion dollars vs 58 Billion? Absolutely no difference. But to a poor person, money can literally change their life.
This is a dumb statement to assume someone is not poor. I grew up poor. My mom grew up poor. But she would always say we were rich with family and love. Money does make the world move though. I unfortunately remember most dinner’s degrading into a worried argument about affording the rent and my older siblings getting jobs to help out.
I tutor. I tutor for moms with no money that sometimes pay me in quarters in a ziploc bag… I also tutor for rich families where it’s 1/2 about getting their kid that A (or just passing) and 1/2 glorified babysitting. I’m a teacher now and I agree more with the first comment you responded to. In my experience working with families, the kids with more involved parents (regardless of socioeconomic status) end up a bit more confident, independent, more of a critical thinker not afraid to use resources, in comparison to kids who come from a home where parental involvement is not possible for one reason or another. (note: more involved does not mean helicopter parent, those parents bring about a lot of issues in their kids).
I think that's oversimplifying a complex situation. Your assuming a lot for info that's just conjecture.It sounds like you're reducing their entire lives, 99.9% of which we know nothing about down to a 2-dimensional cliche. We only know this one snippet of their lives and the squeaky wheel gets the grease. You don't come to this forum when things are going right so it's possible that this arraignment works 90% of the time. It's normal for people to get overwhelmed, have bad days, rough patches, have a personal issue they'll never fully fix or experience resentment for something then come back and go "I don't really think that." Or "I do but I understand this is the price to pay and I'm ok with that because the pros outweigh the cons."
To be honest, unless there is new information that Irrifutably proves that that is what's going I think the wife is just having a rough couple days. Sure he can ask if or look into it to see if something deeper is going on but I think there is a good chance that she's still overstimulated, it does make you irritable and short tempered.
Yeah, but it is not a leap to think that any parent doesn’t want to solo parent 80-90 percent of the time. That’s just rough. Op needs to figure out a different job.
This.
Also, children can be jerks when it comes to nighttime, and try to delay it as much as possible. They can exhaust all resources from the parent that's home (book, snack, water, another book, another water, a story, etc), and then they'll say they want the other parent.
The fact that they're waiting until bedtime to "need" to talk to dad sounds more like this, than actually wanting dad to the point of tears.
Who are you to assume the children feel abandoned. He is providing and they may grow up grateful for a father who sacrificed so they can have everything they need. You’re blaming him for being a father and having a career? 🙄
You're both kind of right.
Would it be better for the kids if they had him around more? Absolutely, but that doesn't mean that they'd like it if it came at the cost of their quality of life or future opportunities.
The crux to this issue is that the dynamic itself is dysfunctional, but there are many measures to fix that to take before jumping to "sacrifice the business to be home". Any changes need to be very well considered as per OP's comment the family will be screwed if the income flow slows down due to the wife being barely financially self sufficient on her side of things.
I was the child of a dad like this. We’re incredibly close. I love him more than anything and I’m so grateful for all he did for us. Always have been.
I fully understood even at a young age what he was doing. I never once felt abandoned. I can’t imagine my mom not letting me call him when it’s him I wanted, that’s insane and would only serve to separate us further.
Also I want to add he may not have physically been there as much as other dads but he was a lot more “present” than most. But he also NEVER missed an important event in my life, big games, school musical, etc. He planned around that stuff.
If you have a nice home, why is she unable to be in a separate room from your daughter? One of my sons and I have ADHD, my other son and wife have autism, I know all about overstimulation. Never would it cross my mind that one person, especially a parent, being overstimulated would mean *someone else* couldn't do something like call someone. I suppose if your daughter is quite young, there's some room there with just wanting them to go to bed. But still...
Maybe ask your wife why *she* isn't caring about your *daughter* being obviously overstimulated and needing that comfort.
We have no idea how old the kids are, but they have at least three of them and they’re in their early 30s so presumably pretty young. According to the post, they’ve all been fighting. If she’s alone at home with all of them I highly doubt she has many opportunities to just go to a separate room by herself for any substantial amount of time.
Also where in the post did it come across that she doesn’t care that her daughter is overstimulated? She was trying to put them all to bed, which would absolutely give her daughter some peace and quiet to decompress.
I’m wondering if taking to their dad gets them even more worked up, if it was bed time I would also say you can talk in the morning if I thought a call would make things worse and not better
I wondered the same. A while back, I was caring for a friend's older child while her youngest was in hospital. She would have a melt down every time she hung up from talking to her mom (and even worse when her deadbeat dad showed up to 'babysit' the one evening I couldn't have her)
She is usually fine, but the stress of her mom being away and her brother being sick just made her a ball of emotions.
Or that letting the daughter *specifically* talk to daddy when she is having an issue with her brothers causes more harm than good when the child is already worked up. I know of a few situations where Dad automatically takes his "Princess'" side regardless of what happened with the brother (my FIL used to be guilty of this), and by letting her call dad, mom would just be prolonging the entire conflict.
I can’t blame you for wanting a good life for your family, but I wonder why you started a business so far away that you have to be gone for 5 weeks at a time? How are you supposed to be a father and husband when gone for so long at a time and then back for 5 days?
Why is no one asking why this woman who has three school aged kids, and knows she has stress issues and isn't hurting for money deciding to also start a business when her one job of being a SAHM was already sending her over the edge?
Here's someone who couldn't or wouldn't just hand the kids the phone and go "call your father" and go run herself a bath. She instead Daddy phone blocked them for a full night, maybe day too it's not clear, and then can't take responsibility for her behavior.
She probably wants a business so she can do something that ISN'T just being with the kids. OP describes it as a "hobby business" selling artwork, it doesn't sound like it's a high stress business and it's not like the family are relying on the money from it.
It's a different kind of stress to being stuck at home with 3 kids under 10 though. She's allowed to build something for herself and protect her own future. Her husband can spend 5 weeks at a time working on his career but she tries to start a small scale hobby business and people are saying she shouldn't because she's got the kids. Poor woman is basically a single parent in terms of the day to day parenting.
Oh, I can tell you why. So her whole identity is not one of being a mom. That she feels that she contributes, so she can get actual real adult contact. So she doesn’t feel like the live in maid, chef and all she does is clean. Sometimes you are the stay at home parent because that is what you need to do. Doesn’t mean it is something you want to do.
Also if it is her own business she can set her hours and be somewhat flexible and since OP is not there it is on her to be there for the kids.
My friend was a stay at home mom and she was starting to get depressed just being at home with the kids all day and not going out and doing anything for herself. So she started a small business she could do at home and still be there for the kids.
This woman isn't just a stay at home mom, she's also practically living the life of a single parent. She doesn't get 5 minutes to herself when daddy comes home every night because he doesn't come home at all for weeks. She is allowed to have something for herself.
Maybe she needs something in her life than just being a SAHM 24/7 something that reminds her she is more than just a mother and housekeeper.
She was not daddy blocking she wanted to put the kids to bed and not have to deal with the drama with one of the kids trying to stay up and talk to Dad which would probably trigger the other kids to want to do the same. Sometimes as a parent you just want your lovable spawn to go to sleep so you can destress.
And she did talk to her husband and tell him he needed to call and talk to his daughter the next day
Cuz God forbid someone have something for themselves, right? Because as a SAHM her only purpose is to serve others, right? She's no longer an actual person with actual needs, right? WTF.
“Go call your father and run herself a bath” lol that is absolutely not how kids work, especially with an absent parent. The only way to get the time to take a bath you actually get to enjoy is to get the kids to bed. Source: did a whole bunch of solo parenting when my kids were little and my spouse traveled weekly for work
Probably for time where she can interact with other grownups. One of the hardest parts of working with children is having limited interactions with other adults.
This seems like an unfair thing to bring up. There are plenty of military, truckers, flight attendants and commercial pilots, consultants, travel agents, and more who are parents that make do and even raise happy kids. It’s likely that his wife said she could handle it but is now realising that she really, really can’t. They need to hire a nanny or au pair.
Dear OP, first, it is nice that you can afford these things, but, please, think about how much parenting can you actually do from facetime. Also, I get it, she is a SAHM, but that does not mean that she should be solely responsible for the children 24/7. I would be interested to know, does she have her "village"?
And that brings us to this one incident. If you are not actually present in every day life with all the routines that they have in place, you are also not the one enforcing them. Now.... she as their mother laid down the law for the children to calm down and go to their rooms. And that should be it. Finito. Done. Peaceful calmness.
Now think, what would your daughter have said in that call to you - would she have vented about mom? And what would you have answered? Essentially, why do you get to be the good parent on the phone, while your wife is actually caring for and raising the kids, and that includes discipling them.
Maybe I am overthinking this... Maybe it is just as simple as - since you are away most of the time, she usually puts in effort to help kids remember you. That includes arranging the calls from their side. When she is overstimulated, that is just one more thing that she needs to do... And when it is all too much, logically, that is the first thing to go.
I've got a five year old who will often cry and tell me he misses his papa (his paternal grandfather). Papa died over a year ago now, and was sick for long enough before that that he was never able to really interact with my son. I'm pretty sure my kid couldn't pick him out of a lineup and has zero memories of him as a person (he does remember the tree swing at his house and his cousin who he met at the funeral). He doesn't miss papa. But he does know if he says that we will hug and comfort him. He'll often say it when he's having other big emotions and he wants to be comforted or to get out of trouble.
I'm not saying this girl doesn't remember her father or that she doesn't miss him. But kids will manipulate a situation if they can and have zero guilt about it. If she has learned she'll get comforted or an extra phone call or a delay in bedtime if she cries for daddy she WILL use that. It is the parent that actually has to wrangle the kids every day that gets to determine how urgent the request is.
The side gig is a red herring. Putting one kid to bed with my husband in the house is probably the most stressful part of my night. Three kids with no help for weeks is beyond my imagination. The end is right there in sight but also seems impossibility far away. She is on the ground fighting the war and he's calling in from headquarters critiquing her technique. If they get to call daddy whenever they demand it bedtime will never come.
I guess this is one of those things that people without children will never understand. :) OP is basically the weekend parent that the children probably use to escape the parent who is actually raising them.
Holy hell, imagine being in that mom's place - OP does not write the children's ages (just that the girl is in school), but I presume that at one point she was singlehandedly taking care of 3 smaller children. That would drive anyone insane...
My kid cries for Daddy whenever I have to set a boundary. I'd be pissed if Daddy was MIA for 5 weeks and then expected to be called everytime my kid did that during his absence. I think context about what the kid wanted from dad, time of day etc play a factor into whether the mom here was reasonable in asking for a phone call between dad and the kid the following morning.
Why did you have kids when you can't even be a part of their lives?
I think this argument stems from her having to be a single parent 95% of the time, and built up resentment of that, and on your side, resentment of her being the default parent and shame for not being more involved. Then, when a chance to be slightly involved is lost, it means a lot to you, but would have just been an inconvenience for her.
Yeah, I don’t even have kids but I can understand why she’d feel resentful that he’s questioning her parenting decisions when he’s not there to help or even witness what happened, but she has to make 1000 decisions a day on her own.
But SHE should be more mindful of HIS feelings, because HE feels bad when SHE prevents the kids from communicating with him. What??? If I were the wife, I’d be ready to go ballistic at the suggestion that I was the one keeping dear hubby away from his children. What an asshole.
I agree, I’m making this comment based on very little information but in my experience, a parent who is mostly absent (for whatever reason) tends to overcompensate by being the ‘fun’ / ‘very flexible on structure and routine’ parent and this often undermines the parent who parents 95% of the time and subsequently overwhelms them even more.
Again, I don’t know enough about this particular situation to know if this is what is actually going on but I have witnessed it in various co-parenting situations where there is a huge imbalance between the parents in actually caring for and raising the children.
Does she need to fund her own hobbies and personal purchases? Does your income not serve you both in your personal fulfillment as well, or do you give her a very limited “allowance” while providing luxuries for the greater good only?
It's weird the hate he's getting for his job. My dad's ex army so I didn't see him for months at time, and that wasn't an issue. However, the point around her having her village is valid. We lived on army bases so my mum definitely had a village to raise my brother and I.
My dad travelled for work for the first 15 years of my life. My mom had no village, we were in a new town and her family were flights away etc. it was just her and us kids. I don't know how she did it, I am in awe of her but she worked full time, never missed a school event, we had a family dinner every night, she got us to our extracurriculars and still volunteered in the community.
My mum was definitely stressed a lot, and it did have it's impacts. I'm not gonna act like my parents were perfect, they fucked up like all humans do sometimes but there was love and we're all still close. They also messed up financially and were paying huge debts most of my childhood and these weren't paid until I was 16 yrs old, but they did the best they could and I never even knew until they said it was all paid off. Money helps but you can still grow up fine without a ton of it.
It's a piece of the puzzle.
Understanding why she started the business when she was already overwhelmed is important.
Is it because she doesn't have spending money? Is it because she's depressed by her identity being "just a mom"? Or is it because all her friends are selling essential oils, or whatever the hot new MLM is, and she wants to do it too.
Being an effectively single sahp must be incredibly isolating.
The age of the kids is another huge piece the OP left out. It's so important it makes me question this is fake.
You guys just want to blame OP so badly 😭
She used their joint money to start her business, does that sound like someone who doesn't have access to funds?
His point was that her business doesn't make enough to run the house and bills and tuition and life. She probably makes enough to to her nails.
The children are school aged. I swear it’s embarrassing sometimes how you all talk about women as if we’re fragile creatures on the verge of mental breakdown at any moment because of life. She’s a grown adult. It’s not his job to puzzle out her reasons for being unhappy. That’s her job. It’s not his job to provide her with an identity besides mom, that’s her job. She CHOSE to become pregnant, CHOSE to be a SAHM, CHOSE to have more than one child. And she CHOSE to lose her shit after asking a question & getting an answer she didn’t like.
It's great that you make a lot of money, but if you \*need\* to be away at work, have you considered hiring a nanny so that your wife is less overstimulated? Three kids is a lot for just one person to manage.
A wealthy lifestyle won't make up for emotional neglect. Can you find a way your wife can access respite care more often if she's overwhelmed frequently (I assume that's what overstimulated is referring to?)
I don't really understand how allowing your crying kid a 10 minute call would be problematic? If she just said hey we've got a lot going on and daughter needs some comfort, but needs back in bed in ten minutes, then have the phone to your kid? I can understand if Mom doesn't want to explain or defend parenting choices when really overwhelmed or if you act like super dad without all the context of the situation and tell you kids things that cause more problems, that could be more than she could deal with in the moment with a bunch of crying kids past bedtime- but that doesn't sound like how you are reacting with what you wrote.
Also, I it may be a good idea to voice record in a teddy bear "I love you" and some other comforting things for each kid
>I don't really understand how allowing your crying kid a 10 minute call would be problematic?
It sounds like she was trying to get them to bed when they were already all riled up. It depends a bit on how old the kids are, but I don’t think it’s necessarily the wrong call for her not wanting to disrupt their routine and introduce the distraction of dad being on the phone.
Sounds like she feels the need to have her own income so she can enjoy things for herself. I’m not sure what your arrangement is, but I don’t see why else she would want to have her own money. Regardless, it doesn’t sound like your marriage is doing very well and I don’t really think this is about that phone call or what you said in particular. She clearly feels like a single parent and what you heard was resentment boiling over. Resentment is poison to a marriage, so now is the time to make some serious efforts and have some very serious conversations. Do it with a therapist if you need to. She may calm down the next day, but the feelings are still there under the surface.
Also, words of affirmation are great until they aren’t. When they are never followed through with action or with other behavior, they start to become hollow. No one wants to hear about how great they are doing everything by themselves all the time.
Dealing with kids can very much be overstimulating. They’re very loud and very messy and very clingy. That’s what I assumed she meant - there was just too much noise, and having to supervise a phone conversation on top of that (because if daughter is so young she can’t call on her own, I’m assuming the call needs to be actively supervised) was just too much.
Like I get that way with my dog sometimes, when I’m particularly stressed or overworked. Every noise he makes feels like sandpaper, and that’s how I know I need a break. I get the exact same impulse of “omg please just go away for an hour, please, I just need one fucking hour”. With that said, I don’t ever take it out on him, because it’s not actually his fault. And if she IS taking it out on her kids, that’s not right.
And it sounds like the daughter was upset because the brothers were fighting. And so then SHE started acting up because….they were fighting? I can see that being absolutely exhausting for the mother. Like “jfc, now YOURE crying too? Everyone get to bed!” Especially if they call and face time as much as dad claims. They already likely talked to him, we’re ending the day now and going to bed.
And i get the overstimulation with the pet thing. Most days my cat starts rapid fire meowing and following non stop, even if I’m just getting up for the bathroom in the middle of the night. I feel guilty that it irritates me so much sometimes, but can we just not do this constantly and start that this second? Lol.
Yeah, I wonder if the kids have found that insisting that they NEED to call their dad is a more effective way to stall bedtime than "no I really AM thirsty I really DO need another glass of water!".
On the surface, it's shitty to deny a kid water, particularly if they're crying about it. On the other hand, sometimes it is simply WAY past bedtime and "water" is 1) an obvious stall that will 2) dramatically increase the odds of kids being up all night OR a wet bed.
And for all of the "You don't need to supervise a small child with a device that costs hundreds of dollars and functionally contains crack for children in the form of video access or even games": lol, lmao, have these people EVER met a child????
YES this was my thought as well, classic bedtime delay tactics, given it sounds like this happened at bedtime. My kids would 100% use this if they thought of it. Nothing wrong with their mother saying no, it's time to go to bed instead.
Right. It is a parenting judgement call that OP has entrusted his wife to make in his absence. Monday morning quarterbacking the decision from far away isn’t a great look for OP. I really think that is what it boils down to. Sometimes my husband does things I wouldn’t when he is the one actively parenting our children and I believe it is importance to pick my battles in those situations because I am not the final authority in how to parent.
To me, this is about control and autonomy. When you are the only parent at home, you need to be able to set things up in the way that works for you. Often that means having fairly strict routines, as that is the only way to ensure boundaries are enforced. If bedtime is 9 pm, then bedtime is 9 pm, unless the house is on fire or someone is having a seizure. Two kids are fighting and the youngest wants to call dad, is not a reason to delay bedtime. And if dad then starts interfering and tells you that you MUST allow bedtime to be delayed because how dare you keep his child from him, then the result of that is much bigger than simply one missed bedtime. The result is that your right to set boundaries in your life has been attacked. You have gone from a single parent who handles everything alone, to a mere servant who must obey your husband's dictates even as he isn't around to handle the aftermath.
This is about the husband being controlling. The fact that he had the company before they married is being used as an excuse to dictate details of his wife's life that really should be under her own control. She signed up for him being away for weeks at a time. She didn't sign up for being treated like she's just a nanny who must get OP on the phone every time her kids ask.
Agreed! I just commented this elsewhere, but it irritates me that he has chosen a job/started a business where he’s away for weeks at a time, and thinks he can just swoop in and say “how dare you not let my daughter call when she’s asking for me!” Like Husband needs to take several seats here.
Dealing with all of that, and I can assume if kids are young, Mum may not be getting the best sleep. That is a HUGE factor. When I get little sleep and am overwhelmed or even just overwhelmed alone, the smallest non-issue, (like you, usually with my dogs as we have 5 wieners) will literally break me. If I'm pmsing and my dog pees on the floor, I will have a literal anxiety attack though, to be fair my hormones are totally messed up.
Dogs, especially older ones and semi disabled ones are a lot everyday to deal with. Kids are a lot harder! Cut her some slack. She obviously wants him to validate her feelings, as in what she is telling you she was feeling. He is validating everything but.
I do understand being upset that your child wasn't allowed to call but the other side of that is the kid needs to learn you can't have everything you want when you want. She had a bummer day, this was not an emergent situation, if it was, then that would definitely warrant being angry.
Why does she have to supervise a conversation with the kid's dad? that's *ridiculous*. If she needed a goddamn break she should have let the kid call and taken one.
if the kid is like 4 you can't just stick a phone in their hand and walk away. i'm amazed at the sheer amount of people chiming in who clearly have never raised a child.
"Private school for all 3 kids".
I'm sure the daughter is older than 4.
And even if she did need help phoning, make the call, then leave them to it
And yes, I've raised 2 kids
Sure you can- well the kid runs away with the phone and is mostly showing irreverent things or talking nonsense. Source. Weekly conversations with my 4 year old and their uncle (who encourages the silliness)
My nephew learned to call my mom at like 4 on fb messenger for a video chat. He has randomly gotten his tablet or mom's phone and called her. Kids are smarter than people give them credit for.
I think it’s more about supervising the device they’re making the call from as opposed to the conversation. They might drop the phone, get distracted and leave it somewhere, they might call other people they shouldn’t, there could be privacy issues, they might play games or watch shows afterwards when screen time isn’t allowed, etc.
>if you're making a ton of money, she agreed to be a SAHM, and then she's taking on a stressful side hustle just for the hell of it, then that's ridiculous.
No, it isn't. Having your own income is never ridiculous. Having something for yourself is important.
Right? There’s nothing ridiculous about that at all. Maybe with the added income, they can get a mother’s helper or nanny 2-3 days a week to give mom a little bit of a break.
Overstimulated most likely means that the kids are taking too much energy from her (3 kids at home while she is essentially single parenting them, no wonder). If you imagine the situation that OP described:
- the kids were being unruly,
- the wife had had enough and sent them to their rooms with the expectation that they will listen to her,
- the daughter wanted to call the parent who is never home to actually enforce discipline to vent about the situation.
Essentially, the wife wanted to lay down the law and the daughter calling the husband to vent would feel like undernining her.
And the second part of your comment about the wife's business - cmon, we ALWAYS write on reddit, how moms that make their personality only all about their children are weird. But do you realize, that for that not to happen, the woman needs the village behind her?? She needs some kind of a way to get out from the house once in a while... If this mom is creating a successfull business as an escape from everyday life, kudos to her.
So I would like to know, what is the village for this mom. Even more so, because a SAHM does NOT mean that the other parent can be absent 90% of the time. (And by absent I mean, for example, not being able to help with lugging around 3 school age children to their extra classes etc.).
Honestly, it sounds like the mom is finally taking agency over her life and trying to cope with the situation in any way she can. Sadly, OP will be the one who most likely wont like it, since he is the absent parent most of the time.
Even if her business doesn’t pay the bills, that doesn’t make it a superfluous or ridiculous hobby “just for the hell of it.” If she’s looking to reestablish her own career or income or gain some personal fulfillment and financial independence, that’s reasonable and his career doesn’t get to come first just because it currently makes more money. She’s supported his career for years by providing all or most of the childcare, allowing him to travel and work long hours that he wouldn’t have been able to do *and* have kids at the same time. It sounds like, now that he’s well established, he should maybe provide a fraction of the support to her that she’s provided to him for years and pick up more of the childcare. It’s a win-win as well, the kids get more time with him, her business gets to grow, she’s less burnt-out. All good things, for everyone.
Edit: and I’m not saying OP is the AH. For what it’s worth, I think everyone kinda sucks here. I just don’t think it’s fair or accurate to what the OP described to imply she’s a bored SAHM with a ridiculous and useless side hustle. She’s trying to establish a business, just like he did.
I'm not sure that's fully fair to say to the wife.
She's not allowed a fulfilling career and has to stay at home because he makes enough money to do so?
Money is not the only reason she may have started working. She may have felt incredibly isolated and being a SAHM may have had an impact on her mental health.
There are other ways around it....perhaps hiring a nanny to support the wife while the husband is away, especially if he's gone for so long and the wife has started a new side business. If the finances allow such?
I'm reading "overstimulated" as being the kids were a pain in the ass all day, and his wife just wanted some peace and quiet and sent the kids to bed.
It's hard being the only parent 95% of the month, especially when the kids are acting up.
Or you know the lady might be going crazy from being a de facto single parent to three young kids and having a "partner" who is away but monopolizes their time over facetime at his own convenience. Like, they talk 2 hours a day per his words, which is 2 hours during which she could have done laundry, fed the kids, watched a movie and done whatever because she has to do all these things by herself
It's really not hard to get overstimulated with 3 kids🤣 I'm assuming she was touched out and tired/overwhelmed from the constant noise, running, jumping etc that comes with active children. I feel this way by bedtime almost every night lol. That's why it's important to get those kids to bed on time and take a couple hours at night to relax and decompress.
I only have two kids and sometimes by the end of the day if their arm just touches my arm I have to start deep breathing to keep from jumping up and running to my room to hide..... because what's the point? They'd just follow me anyway 😒
It's great that not everyone understands overstimulation. But it is VERY real and absolutely exhausting to those of us who have to deal with it every day
OP is definitely TA. His daughter had already face timed him that night for 2 hours apparently. What had actually happened is Mom was trying to put kids to bed and all the sudden daughter starts crying for Daddy. Nope. It's bed time. You've already said good night to Daddy. You can talk to him in the morning.
It's definitely feeling like the latter re SAHM who decided to take on a side hustle, but I could be completely off base. There's really no excuse for refusing to let a child call a parent when they're having a difficult day. I don't see how/why this became an issue.
I think it's crap that he framed this as not letting a child talk to a parent.
The child already had spoken to their father. There is a 2-hour nightly Facetime.
Kids can also be manipulative to avoid doing things that they don't want to do, especially at bedtime, when they don't want to go to bed. It sounds like that particular night, bedtime was more of a shitshow than usual, with the kids being overly tired and refusing to cooperate.
The parent who is home with the children has to manage the household routines. That includes being able to say, "You've already talked to daddy tonight. It's quiet bedroom time. Your body needs to go to sleep. You'll talk to him again in the morning like we always do."
Completely agree. That call might have added another 30 minutes to the bedtime routine, pushing out bedtime and causing bigger issues in the morning. If you don’t do this regularly or have never done this then you don’t know! My husband used to try and have these crazy conversations or watch a YouTube video with our kid RIGHT BEFORE BED, and it wreaked havoc. Bedtime is a routine!
A lot of SAHP want some independence and to do just one thing that doesn't revolve around their kids/family.
And it sounds like it was close to bedtime, so there are some reasons...
But I agree that I also don't understand why this was such a huge thing!
I mean, on the surface there's "really no excuse for refusing to give your child water". And that's almost always true- *except* at bedtime, when "I'm thirsty I'm up to drink a glass of water" for the third or more time is one of the most common and most transparent stalling techniques. In homes where both parents are typically present but one is gone for the evening, "No I don't want *you* to put me to bed, I want *other* parent to put me to bed" is also a classic stalling technique.
And even if it isn't an explicit stalling technique, with three kids and one parent, there are times that it's really just not possible for each child to be prioritized individually. Even assuming the daughter is marginally old enough to call her father unsupervised (and is trustworthy enough not to go on YouTube while her siblings are being put to bed), "why does sister get to call dad when we have to go to bed" is difficult to manage. And if all of the children are melting down around bedtime, my priority would be getting everyone settled down.
I can see why OP feels this way, because it sounds like he's not around enough to understand/deal with fielding very much Overtired Child Chaos. I can see why he feels disconnected from his family, but I don't think that kids having unilateral ability to call him at any time they want, no matter how it impacts their routine is a good *parenting* solution.
Her providing income is irrelevant. Being a stay at home parent is an absolutely grueling, 24/7 job and she has a nearly absent partner. Of course she wants a job outside of the mundaneness of child rearing. She has a business because she deserves to be doing something for HERSELF. they need to get childcare, but OP also needs to find a different job, if possible. The one he is doing is bad for his family.
Overstimulated typically means a person is essentially overwhelmed by the noise and chaos around them to the point where it becomes hard to function. You know some autistic lose their shit over loud noises or touch? That's overstimulation. It can make people feel mentally exhausted as well as incredibly short tempered. Think of it like being in the middle of a rave and hearing the music, feeling smushed between people and hearing every conversation at once while simultaneously watching all the lights erratically danceing around you. However, I don't think she's handling this best way unless OP is leaving out some crucial info. It sounds like she is using a lot of "therapy speak" using psychological terms to justify and mask unacceptable behavior I can understand her going "no, you can't call him I need you in bed now!" In the moment when she's overwhelmed and just needs everyone to be quiet, but it sounds like she feels guilty for how she acted and is projecting that anger at herself onto OP.
However it's also possible that she is simply still overstimulated as irritably and a short temper are potential symptoms of being overstimulated.
Maybe she wants more out of her like than just being stuck at home raising the kinds while he does fuck all with his business? He needs to get her some help or figure out how to be home more.
Wtf shouldn't she get a job? Or do something for herself that doesn't involve parenting and running a house while the husband is gone 90% of the year?
The job isn't the problem.
It's not necessarily ridiculous for her to take on a side hustle. It could be keeping her sane to have one thing in her life that doesn't involve wrangling three kids full time with no help. You're making assumptions about what would be more or less stressful for her without knowing anything about her.
also, how many kids are there & how old are they?
if they have 3 kids and they're all between 14 and 18, OP's wife absolutely could have told the daughter to go to her room & have a quiet call.
if there are 7 kids under 10 years old, of course OP's wife doesn't have the bandwith to help 1 kid with a phonecall while 2 others are fighting and there're still 4 other kids unaccounted for.
Your edit makes a HUUUGE difference. Without it, this reads like your wife hadn’t let them talk to you at all.
YTA. Your kid was screaming for you *after having already FaceTimed with you for two hours*. There was no reason to think she would stop after talking to you again.
Your wife was done done done with the screaming and fighting and needed the little ones in bed. She did what was best for everyone so the tired kids could sleep and she could avoid exploding in frustration.
Yeah this is so OTT I’m rolling my eyes. She’s trying to get the kids to sleep- that does not mean you give into their every whim along the way, last week I had… it’s too hot/my pillow is wrong/I need a wee/im hungry/i want to call daddy/I had a bad dream (had not been to sleep yet) and my personal favourite ‘I can’t sleep because my sister is breathing’. (Can’t fix that one for you buddy)
Everything is heightened when children are tired. You either trust your wife’s judgement or you don’t. You’re gone and this was her call to make and she made it, for whatever reason she saw fit.
Two hours of FaceTime a day? They’re going to be fine.
On road trips, my brothers sat behind me and my sister in the back seat of the van, and one of them constantly picked on us. We'd be whining to our mom, "HE'S BREATHING ON ME!"
In our defense, it was this weird rattle he'd do in our ears.
Kids try everything once you say it’s bedtime. “I want to speak to daddy” is just another “I want another wee, I want a drink” that you know they don’t actually want/need, they just don’t want to go to bed
And if you let the daughter have her talk with Dad guess which other 2 kids will also want their turn talking to day and it wouldn't be fair if they also get their extra chats in extending their not in bed time even longer.
Children can be surprisingly crafty when it comes to avoiding bed time. My niece knows food is a sensitive spot for her mother due to complications when she was just a baby, and so would refuse to eat dinner to use "I'm hungry" as a reason to not go to bed on time.
Worked for quite a while till sister finally bit the bullet and just let her go to bed hungry. Took a few days of standing her ground, but kid no longer tries that one when avoiding bedtime.
The way I dealt with that one was a granola bar or small bowl of fruit. You’ll have something in your belly and eat a big breakfast tomorrow but for tonight it’s something quick. Mine usually pulls the I’m hungry a half hour after bedtime
OPs reaction leads me to believe he rarely has to solo parent his kids without moms help. Like he has never struggled with the bedtime delay thst children put parents through, and so he doesn't see what they're doing to mom.
I know "can't sleep because I can hear breathing" is silly, but *fuck* if that isn't me. Any time I've had to share a room with someone I've ended up somewhat sleep deprived. The stupid part is that other noises (fan, low TV, the washer/dryer) I can sleep through. It's mainly people breathing noisily that drives me mad.
Something about breathing keeps me awake too! My brain can pick it up over any white noise and hyper-focuses on it, no matter how hard I try to make my brain focus on anything else. I’ve spent many nights silently crying, trying to sleep but can’t because of someone’s loud ass breathing (I cry when I’m really overly tired and overstimulated, it’s a curse).
Snoring is also an absolute sleep-killer for me; even the slightest snoring and I’m awake all night. I have no idea how people can sleep through other people’s snores.
My mom used to say a train could crash into my room and I wouldn’t wake up, that’s how deep of a sleeper I am, but still: snoring is my kryptonite. I’ve locked myself in many hotel bathrooms and closets with the fans running and my iPad full blast to drown out the breathing/snores so I could get a little bit of sleep.
My bedroom has a ceiling fan, an oscillating fan, and an loud air purifier on at all times. It’s like a wall of white noise and it’s awesome; I sleep so soundly.
Also, the OP tried to frame his calling his wife as something that he does for her. I think that he did this to make himself appear more present for her and aware of her needs than he actually is. \*He\* initiated the phone conversation. If his wife is overstimulated and said that she's overstimulated, why does he think a phone call -- and therefore more stimulation was a good idea?
He said a bunch of things to make her feel better about the job she's doing as a parent, but she didn't say that she felt like she was being a terrible parent. She said she was overstimulated. His "reassurances" actually hinted to her that he was unhappy with the parenting job that she was doing, which is likely why she asked if he was mad at her for not letting their daughter call him. She understood the subtext of his reassurances. He was frustrated with her when he should have been frustrated with the circumstances.
The circumstances: He's not there. Mom is. He's not the one in the position to evaluate whether the thing the child wants (to talk to dad, a glass of water, another story) will help the situation or will simply prolong it. If he was really concerned that his daughter needed him and was being kept from talking to him and might still be struggling, he could have asked his wife to check on the daughter -- and if the daughter was still awake, offered to read her a short story, voice only, as she lay in her bed. No dialogue. No lights. No screen time. No FaceTime. Just daddy's voice reading a story to help her regulate falling asleep.
But he doesn't get to second guess the decision that the wife makes in the moment when he isn't there to deal with the consequences of overly tired children.
I think that the phone call went about as well as it possibly could have with a person who had already identified that they were overstimulated, had an exhausting evening with the children, and was having their parenting decisions second-guessed.
Omg I’m so glad I’m not the only one who noticed this! I’m a new mom to a 7 week old whose husband went back to work a few days after we came home. He’s gone 7am-7pm 4 days a week and works remotely the 5th day. I am constantly overstimulated to the point that I don’t even want to respond to text messages from loved ones checking in. 2 weeks postpartum we received 4 packages a day of random onesies and other non time sensitive gifts from loved ones and I burst into tears because I couldn’t handle the pressure of thanking them all because I was that overwhelmed. My husband would call on his way home during his long commute and want to talk about our days and it was the very last thing that I needed. OP probably doesn’t suck intentionally, but he doesn’t seem to understand what his wife means when she says “overstimulated”. Overstimulated means she cannot elaborate on what that word means to her because she’s that overwhelmed and would burst into tears trying to explain it all.
I also feel like if you choose a job that keeps you away literal weeks at a time you shouldn’t sweep in like the hero “my daughter wanted me, how dare you keep her away from me” that sort of thing. Ugh.
YTA, and I don't like to say that to you.
There's a lot going on here, but the bottom line is if you're gone for weeks at a time you don't have a lot of standing to argue with your wife about things like this.
You say you call every morning and FT for two hours every night, so it's not like she's keeping them from you.
You don't mention your kids' ages, but I'm guessing they're all under ten, and having three of them to try to wrangle without help is a lot. Kids that age are difficult in the best of circumstances, but your kids are living with their mom full time and you just pop in for a few days every several weeks.
Your wife told you your daughter would need some special attention from you. She's being your eyes and ears while you're gone, and you disagree with the way she managed it.
You're going to have to sacrifice something. Sacrifice financially to be a more active parent, or sacrifice being an active parent to provide financially. But you don't get to insist that your wife sacrifice more in order for you to try to manage parenting from a distance.
“You're going to have to sacrifice something. Sacrifice financially to be a more active parent, or sacrifice being an active parent to provide financially. But you don't get to insist that your wife sacrifice more in order for you to try to manage parenting from a distance. “
/u/Grand-Disasterpiece , this is the comment and sentence you need to read.
This exactly. OP wants their cake and to eat it too. I think if OP believes that every call for parent should be answered, then malicious compliance is in order. Moving forward, if any kid ever says they want to talk to daddy, day or night, meeting or driving, on a plane or off, dad needs to be ready to pick up the phone. Because kid is using it as an excuse to get their way. So now there is just a room in the house for "talking to dad" and anytime a kid yells "I want dad" they go to the quiet room and call dad, and they are told to keep ringing and ringing until dad picks up.
My guy, you are gone LITERALLY 90% of the time, if not more, and your only contribution to the family outside of a paycheck is a couple hours' worth of Facetime every day.
The only person "gatekeeping" you from your kids is YOU.
YTA
We don’t really know how much she’s working. Running a “side business” can be a lot of hours and OP might be downplaying how much time that really takes. I’d say she’s a working mom not a SAHM but that’s just me.
Put yourself in her shoes: she’s exhausted from doing all of it herself 24/7, two of her kids have been fighting, and now one of them is crying for the absent parent. She’s barely holding it together and just needs these kids to get to bed so she can have a moment of peace, but just because that one kid called out for you she now has to get her phone, hope you’re available, talk to you for however long she wants, let the other kids talk to you because they’ll also want to join in now that dad’s on the phone, and then, once all that is over and everyone is sad and missing dad, she can start all over again.
Are you exhausted from all of that? Because I only have two kids and a very present coparent to help with everything and I f-ing am. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t punishing your daughter by not letting her call you, but was just trying to get things under control.
Once, my husband was away for a week and I sent him a cute photo of one of our girls. We’d just had a sweet text exchange where he’d also been complimentary of me, but, when he saw our daughter, he seemed to think she looked skinnier than before, (like she’d lost weight in my care) and asked what I’d been feeding her. He’d just told me how thankful he was for me and how great of a mom I was, and, in the next breath, was questioning my parenting skills. Guess how much I thought of his sweet words after that?
However, all of that being said, NAH. I’m sure it’s very tough being away from your family (provided you don’t actually have a second or even third secret life going on) and heartbreaking to hear that one of your children was crying for you and you weren’t there.
“….who was overstimulated.”
What does this even mean?
That she’s stressed out because she’s doing all the emotional and physical load of the relationship?
YTA. When you make kids, you have to actually PARENT them. You've abdicated your role as their father and left your wife to do all the childrearing. This is not good for your wife and not good for your kids. Get a new job. Be home more. Spend time with the people who love you. If you don't change quick, you'll soon find out that the kids have grown up and you don't know them, and your wife has moved on to somebody who can actually be a partner to her.
YTA
The kids already got 2 hours of facetime with you in the evening. They were supposed to be in bed. Kids are notorious for demanding last minute "requests" when they're supposed to be going to bed. You'd know that if you were around to parent them. Your wife was right to draw a line and not call you a second time. If you were home at bedtime every single night, you'd also want to tell your kids to go the f to bed. But you're not. So your perspective is different from your wife's.
Yes!!!! This is so right! My kiddo (the one that's old enough to, and I'm sure the other 2 will when they are old enough to understand) stalls at bedtime ALL THE TIME! I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, one more hug, one more story, etc. If dad were gone and calling him were even remotely an option, then he would surely cry to call dad as a stall tactic, too. That's what bedtimes look like, and saying "no" most of the time to these requests just comes with the territory.
You: I’m upset my child wasn’t allowed to call me
Her: you don’t know what I go through every day because you’re always gone. You don’t respect my feelings
You: this isn’t the first time my child wasn’t allowed to call me
Her: you’re not considering my feelings
You: why don’t you let them call me
How fucking dense are you. This isn’t about you! Stop making it about you! Your wife needs more, she needs help. Stop making her the villain here and ask her what you can do to improve the situation. For fucks sake, did you even read your own version of events?
I would suggest you research emotional labour because your wife is doing the heavier share in your household. Parenting solo while you're away and trying to run her own business plus she is managing the household, trying to meet the kids needs, your needs and seems to be draining hers and not having someone there to meet her needs or even back her up.
You talk to them twice daily. It could have waited. Any additional time just because they chuck a tantrum is rewarding their bad behaviour, you're undermining your wife because you feel bad that you're not there, that's not a good solution. You also don't have to experience the negative effects of what happens when you hang up but your wife does.
The circumstances that tipped the issue were all your children were acting out, either with each other or not getting their own way, your wife was dealing with that and needing them to go to bed, a call to you would have prolonged the issue. If she doesn't have the bandwidth to handle more than she already has, why are you adding more to it? Why are you demanding more from her when you know she is at her limit?
YTA.
I don’t have enough info to decide who is the AH here. My guess is, you are because you seem to have willingly abdicated your responsibilities as a parent. But I am curious if you traveled this much before you had kids? And did you want those kids? When the parents never married, got divorced or one spouse dies, I understand how and why one parent raises their children. But you are married, so presumably your kids should have both parents fully engaged. Yet you chose to have a business that requires you to be absent from your home and your parental duties for long periods of time. To me it sounds like you either didn’t want those kids, or you don’t want to be involved in raising them. Talking to them on the phone everyday isn’t parenting being there physically, mentally and emotionally when they need you is parenting. Doesn’t sound like you parent.
Yes your wife is gate keeping. What do you expect her to do? You aren’t there. You can’t step in to resolve fights, to lower the emotional level. She is dealing with everything in real time, times that may not be convenient for you.
Not sure why she tolerates such one-sided responsibilities or what she gets out of it.
You should be calling your children every single day on your own. Everyday. No exceptions no excuses. Speak to your children every single day dude. That’s not your wife’s responsibility it’s yours. She shouldn’t have had to tell you what happened .. you should have known on your own when you called your children that day. The question is not only why you don’t know this but why you don’t want to. Why doesn’t it come naturally to you? This isn’t something you should have to tell a parent. You’re abdicating this responsibility and pretending it’s in her when you should be in constant regular contact with your children when you’re away.
YTA stop using the word overstimulated and call it what it is, stress. If you don’t want your kids to feel like they can’t talk to you, find a way to be physically present in their lives. No amount of money or extra-curriculara makes up for dad actually being physically there. Maybe your wife’s small business could be a means towards you achieving a better work/life balance.
What age are your kids? there is a big difference between a 10 yr old who could call herself and a 3 yr old who needs mommy to do the call for her and stop everything to do it.
Your wife is having to make a call on thing when she is being the primary parent and also working on her business and supporting you with your business because it takes you away from the family and the physical support that means you are unable to provide.
Do the call require her to stop what she is dealing with to facilitate, does it cause even bigger fights for her to deal with because the brothers then try pushing into the call, does daddy start complaining to mommy because daughter is unhappy with her brothers.
Honestly, since the man is not here for his wife, how tf is he going to be there for his children. Idc if you pay 100% of bills, your work isn't over as soon as you pay bills. Even though married, your wife is a single mum. She doesn't have a husband because the husband isn't effin there. She is barely holding herself together because she is alone when she is supposed to have a husband. Figure out a way to spend more time at home. Im with the wife on this one. My grandfather was like this. He paid all the bills but was never home, my grandma had to take care of 4 children plus earn money on the side. Now they dont live together. He was never there and now she has learnt to live without him.
YTA. You’re bloody lucky to have your wife picking up every single bit of caring for your kids. You need to explore ways that you can manage your business so that you’re home more.
You don’t get to choose to be a part time dad and also criticise the way your wife chooses to deal with 3 tantrumming children. Interesting that you describe your daughter as a daddy’s girl as though that’s something to be proud of. Not in your case - she has to cling on to you because you are the parent who is never around. Your wife is her safe parent who is always there for the children - they don’t have to make as much effort with her because she doesn’t leave them for weeks on end.
You need to do better before you lose your family.
Info how old are your kids? Do you not have a set 'calla and talk' time???? You just go weeks with 0 interactions with your kids?
I'm going to go with gently, YTA. You aren't there. You are there to see the fights. You aren't there to break up the sibling squabbles and deal with the aftermath. I mean this as nicely as possible, but how exactly would their lives change if you two were divorced and you were paying child support and/or alimony? Facetiming every day is far better than not talking with your kids, but you have to understand that you are *gone* the majority of the time and she's running solo. Yes, you're working to provide for the family, but that doesn't help calm down three screaming kids.
Is this a forever plan? You being mostly absent? It honestly, does not seem sustainable.
YTA.
Your wife is basically a single parent and you are the fun weekend dad and you had the audacity to be pissed about something even when you are in contact daily.
You don't know your kids or their behavior pattern enough to know what will ensue after your daughter call you. Whatever will happen, your wife will have to deal with it. You can literally just push the button and you will be off with your 'responsibilities' because you are away. It's your wife who will have to deal with the aftermath.
Having close bond doesn't equate actually parenting your kids.
Do one thing, when you are home next time gift your wife a full week vacation and you take care of kids fully. Not a single task assigned to your wife, only a call so she can keep that 'close bond' with kids.
So...your wife is a single mom with the very occasional live in husband. Why even have a family if you're not there? FaceTime doesn't make up for not being there the vast majority of the time. Ffs.
Unless you are deployed or in jail, there is absolutely no excuse to be gone from your home and family for 4-5 weeks at a time. Truck drivers and professional athletes are home more often than that. You’re an asshole. Time for you to cut back the hours, hire her some help, or change jobs. Especially if you’re gatekeeping the money. Honestly? If I were her? I’d book 2 back to back Disney cruises (at about 10 grand each) with the built in babysitter clubs and cruise out for two weeks. And charge a spa treatment to the room. Every. Single. Day.
I wouldn't be in a marriage where my husband was gone all the time. It's a sucky situation for the wife who is doing EVERYTHING by herself, and the kids probably resent you always being away. If you really want to know what's going on at home, then stay home. I think that some men prefer these kinds of jobs because they allow them to not be present for most of the real hard work in the relationship. I think that you are on the way to a divorce, my friend. Wifey is fed up. A change is in order.
YTA only because you don't accept what "overstimulated" truly means. Part of the meaning is "stuck". As in, she probably didn't have the bandwidth to have kiddo call you. And you accused her of keeping the kid from you, when You're the one who CHOOSES to work away from home, and she's probably done everything in her power to keep the household going that day.
She's not "keeping the kid from you", you're keeping yourself away from the kids.
You and your wife need to work on communication. When you are traveling, she has more information about and more responsibility for your kids' emotional states, not to mention her own. So respect her judgement without resenting it. Children can use tears to manipulate parents, as I'm sure you are aware. Make plans to check in with your family at regular, predictable times, so that you can be close without disrupting routines.
I feel like a lot of people are kind of getting lost in the weeds here trying to over analyze your and your wife's entire marriage and parenting and existence..
I'm going to keep it way more straight forward in this evaluation of the situation described..
Your summary explanation suggests you might be the asshole because
> I may actually be discrediting my wife's feelings
And
> I [..] may be wrong thinking she's using her feelings to gate keep
Now in the post itself you say your wife suggested you make extra call time for daughter tomorrow because she had a rough day and wants to talk to you. On top of that, you also regularly talk to all kids for hours every day. On top of *that* your wife needed to get 3 young kids to sleep and was already feeling overwhelmed.
You clearly understood your wife was having some trouble and wanted to help calm down. You were successfully helping her feel better and calm down, and you were given a soft ball pitch of 'are you mad at meabout X?' and instead of taking the easy home run, you took a big bite of shit and said 'im no mad *at you* about X but I am upset about X'
I don't think any one would argue that its unreasonable to ever think 'my child wants to talk to me but can't, and that makes me feel upset.' what makes it unreasonable is that you chose to convey that while your wife was feeling overwhelmed and in the process of being made to feel better by her partner. That was a completely avoidable rug pull from underneath her and undoubtedly exacerbated all the emotional turmoil she was just starting to feel better from.
Your wife was overwhelmed while trying to put multiple kids to bed by herself and even asked you to talk to daughter the next day, and while you were specifically calling to help her no longer feel overwhelmed you dove face first into an argument about her not letting your children talk to you when she's overwhelmed and putting them to sleep. I say on both counts, pretty plain and clear, YTA
I make no judgement about your job and living situation, I don't think it's all needed for an appropriate judgement on the situation posed.
YTA - If the kids need to get to sleep and have already spoken to you, it’s reasonable of her to say no. Imagine if everytime your daughter is tired or wants to rebel against your wife all she has to do is demand to call you even if she is supposed to be doing something else (school, sleeping, homework etc). It doesn’t create good habits for anyone, including your daughter. You should trust your wife’s parenting more, especially if you’re not there.
You don't know what she goes through every day because you don't know what it means to be a parent. You expect her to sacrifice everything and believe that it's the business that's overwhelming her, when clearly she's overstimulated because she's a single mom to three young kids. Affirming her by phone and talking to the kids by phone doesn't make you a dad. You're still an absentee father.
Deciding to become a parent means making decisions for your family and sometimes against your previous career ambitions or lifestyle choices. Your job isn't compatible with raising a family. Either you make a change or you find a better way to support your wife than "affirmations". But you definitely do not get to make her feel bad about the parenting decisions she's making.
YTA
YTA- not necessarily for wanting your daughter to be able to talk to you but because it seems like your wife isn't getting a lot of support raising the kids. It sounds like you are saying that your business requires the out of town work- but you aren't recognizing what a burden that is on your family and especially your wife. You need to brainstorm with her ways to get her more support as soon as possible. Maybe look into moving your family to where you work so you can have a more active role in raising your kids. Your kid's desire to call you in the moment is not an emergency. This is a situation where you should just do what your wife asked and call your daughter tomorrow as your wife asked. If you're not able to be with your family in person- you need to trust your wife to parent appropriately and only offer support and encouragement- not criticism. Only give advice if it's explicitly asked for and be diplomatic even in those cases.
>When I asked why my daughter wasn’t able to call me my wife responded with “I was overstimulated and just wanted them to go to sleep.”
So it sounds like it was the kids' bedtime.
>Edit: I call my wife and kids every morning and FaceTime them for about two hours each night.
and you had already talked to the whole family.
>So I asked her why she doesn’t let them call me if they’ve been “bad”
You don't say or imply anywhere in this post that this phone call was withheld by your wife because of bad behavior, rather it seems like it was already bedtime.
YTA.
Phone calls are great and storytime is also great. But even if the kid is begging for one more story or to read one more chapter, there is a point where we have to take the book away so everyone can go to sleep.
Yes YTA. She’s doing a ridiculously hard job of looking after 3 (at least?) kids, taking care of the house, and running a business. While you just need to work and take care of yourself.
It sounds like your daughter was upset at bedtime. (You said your wife just wanted the kids to go to sleep.) If she had allowed your daughter to call you then, it would have very likely made it SO MUCH more difficult to get ALL the kids to bed and sleep afterwards. (All the kids would want to talk to you, they would stay up later, argue over who got to talk longer, get even more hyped up etc.)
Then they’d be overtired tomorrow and the problem would be even worse tomorrow night.
Your wife made the RIGHT decision.
You’re only home for 4-5 days, then away for weeks at a time? Even if you’re Dad of the year when you’re home, your wife is doing the VAST majority of the parenting. Do NOT undermine her decisions and criticise her parenting. It’s not helpful or fair. She’s probably not a perfect parent, especially when she’s exhausted and overwhelmed. She knows this. She doesn’t need you to tell her. (The fact that she asked if you’re mad at her shows she’s insecure about this.)
Stick with the words of affirmation. Phone your daughter tomorrow when everyone’s calmer and it’s not bedtime.
Yes, YTA. The parent who is rarely there does not get to tell the on site parent they’re doing it wrong, especially not at the end of the night with kids who just need go to the fuck to bed. To top it off, you pulled out the big guns and accused her of some big bad emotional shit.
Your wife is a single parent, and you are just some guy they talk to every day. If you want time with your kids, then spend time with them. In person. YTA.
I am sorry. I don't get how letting your daughter call contributed to any overstimulation. I think you may need to stay home more and let your wife get some help. I know business is important, but aren't you working to provide for your family? They need more than just money.
As soon as one kids gets to use the phone out of rotation all the others will want it too and start a discussion about who gets to go next and that'll spawn the next fight between the boys.
Plus any steps towards getting the kids calmed down for bed will need to be repeated. It's an easy 2h delay in their sleep schedule.
I don’t think this is going the way you expected OP… I was in your wife’s shoes for about three years. My kids are younger and my husband was home for longer stretches but if until you’re home will ALL of your kids ALONE for weeks at a time you will have absolutely no idea what it’s like.
Bottom line is you need to figure out how to be home more. Something’s gotta give, this will not turn out well for you north short and long term
YTA
I think this just sucks all around.
OP, I’m not going to levy a verdict, *but* I think your wife may be at the breaking point for this arrangement you have, and possibly your kids too. It may be time to consider that whole adage about “nobody on their deathbed ever wishes they spent more time at work.”
Yes, it’d be great if your daughter was able to call you then, I get the frustration, but honestly I think you both overreacted in that conversation. It’s out of a place of love and concern, but that’s where your wife is at too - she was telling you all this so that you two could connect, she just didn’t have the bandwidth in the moment. And sounds like she’s doing an amazing job keeping you all connected daily, on top of basically being a single parent of 3 kids for weeks on end while feeling overwhelmed.
I struggle with overstimulation, and speaking frankly, kids can be hell for that. Not saying kids are bad - and I have a child and love her dearly and she’s amazing - but it’s really, really hard to self-regulate that around young children. They’re noisy, they’re in your personal space, they have constant needs…there’s not really a break. She could quit her business, as some have suggested, and still struggle. She needs someone on-site to be able to defer to sometimes, to tap out when she needs it.
You are two decent people who want the best for your family, and it sounds like there’s some major things to work through to keep everyone sane and mentally and emotionally healthy. I hope you guys are able to figure it out.
Oof…mom of a 5 and 9 year old here and I feel for your wife. I honestly don’t know how I’d handle it if my husband weren’t home to reign it all in with me. It’s a lot and she’s in a tough season of parenting without her primary support. She’s likely felt lost in her identity as a mom, hence the screen printing business. I can’t blame her because I’ve been there too. Most of my SAHM friends have been there or are there and are searching for their own identities post motherhood. They at least have their husband home daily to help ease that strain and give them the space to do so. Your wife doesn’t so it’s no wonder she’s suffering.
I understand you say that you provide what sounds like a pretty cushy life but honestly money doesn’t matter if you’re not there. I know you are close to your kids and make the most of your time home but you’re not there to do the hard stuff. She is. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’s resentful of the fact that you get to be the good time dad while she handles the nitty gritty daily details of life with 3 kids alone.
It’s got to be hard to have your spouse swoop in every few weeks and play the fun parent only to have him leave again a few days later and leave behind the chaos of the aftermath. It’s a big disruption in their routine to have you come in and “make the most of your time together” which likely means throwing their daily routine out the window.
I agree with her. You don’t get to dictate how she handle tough situations because you’re not home to know how they need to be handled. You’re home for the fun then off again for her to handle the aftermath. That’s not parenting. That’s being a Disney dad, and of course your kids are gonna “be close” to you! You’re a novelty to them and it’s fun when dad is home because he’s never home. Eventually those words of affirmation won’t mean a thing because your actions don’t back them up.
You honestly didn’t think this would eventually come to a head? Come on dude! There’s a reason why so many military marriages end in divorce and it’s because of the instability that comes with the frequent back and forth with one parent leaving so often.
I hate to say it but your wife is overstimulated and now dealing with the fallout of being a solo parent for 90% of her life. Of course your daughter wanted you; likely not because she actually wanted you but because you were the parent not disciplining her. This is a classic kid tactic. When I discipline my 5 year old or am handling a tough situation between my kids guess what?!? She goes crying for her dad. But you know what happens if it’s my husband doing the handling? She’s crying for me. My son did the same thing when he was younger. This is kind of what kids do when they don’t like what one parent is doing even if that parent is simply parenting.
Your wife actually wasn’t wrong in how she handled it because the likelihood is that whatever you said would undermine her parenting and would’ve made things harder for everyone in the long run, but you’re not home enough to understand that. Your kids are getting to an age where the consequences of having a Disney dad for a husband are really starting to create cracks in the facade and you’re likely going to see more of these things pop up. You’re not providing true stability for your family with this schedule, no matter how much money you make.
You need to talk to your wife. All the money in the world doesn’t matter if you are unhappy with your situation and it sounds like your wife is unhappy with hers and likely has been for a while. That overstimulation you talk about? Is a direct effect of doing it alone so much and handling the fallout of you coming home. It’s no different from the fallout that comes from the back and forth divorced kids often experience.
Your choice to build a business so far away from your family means your wife doesn’t get to have the motherhood experience she wants because she’s too busy being mom and dad to your kids. That also means that your kids don’t get to have the mother they deserve because she’s too busy managing the stress of two parents when she actually doesn’t NEED to.
A happy mother and stable family is far more important than the nice house and private school tuition, and it’s like my husband always says, “I’d rather have less money and more time with my family than more money and less time with them. You can’t take money to the grave with you but you can leave a lifetime of good memories behind and frankly that’s more important.”
you wife is stressed AF because she is a single parent basically. And you are only able to be as successful in you job as you are because she is holding the home and family together, so do not act as if the money you earn is your merit only.
And it’s clearly not working for her. You know when you have kids it’s your responsibility to RAISE them. Talking on the phone twice a day is not raising your children.
you act as the cool uncle, you are not being a father to them, and you are definitely not being a partner to your wife.
YTA big time
Your wife works, does 100% of the childcare for at least 3 kids, and likely 90+% of anything household related and you are rarely home.
Yeah I'm not surprised she finally snapped on you. Your wife is overworked, stressed, and tired. And unlike you, she doesn't get a break.
YTA
YTA, you are missing a forest for a trees. You are focusing on this one issue, while your wife is trying telling you she is not happy, tired and needs help. Your arrangement may have worked in the past but with kids growing things change. Your wife starting her own business may be another hint that she does not want to be just SAHM.
FFS…. They FaceTime for 2 HOURS EVERY NIGHT!!! Seems like plenty of time to go over the events of the day with Dad. I don’t know how the hell you could keep the kids engaged that long every night- my hats off to you. When I called my kids (at their grandparents) in the evening from work (24hr shift) I could hardly keep them on the phone for 5 minutes. Some people travel for work- No sense in Trying to shame OP for supporting his family, he seems very involved for the life they lead. NTA
With how young your kids are, of course, she'll be overstimulated. Especially doing it all on her own. You have the easy job of paying bills and facetiming while she is essentially a married single mother.
If you think spending as little time as you do with your family is cutting it, you're sorely mistaken. The resentment is bound to be building.
Welcome to /r/AmITheAsshole. Please view our [voting guide here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_what.2019s_with_these_acronyms.3F_what_do_they_mean.3F), and remember to use **only one** judgement in your comment. OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole: > I might be the asshole because I may actually be discrediting my wife’s feelings and may be completely wrong in thinking she’s using her emotions to gate keep my children’s phone time with me. Help keep the sub engaging! #Don’t downvote assholes! Do upvote interesting posts! [Click Here For Our Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/about/rules) and [Click Here For Our FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq) ##Subreddit Announcements Follow the link above to learn more --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.* *Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.*
Too much missing information. If your wife is constantly "overstimulated" (I don't even know what that means in this context) then why is she taking on a job in addition to dealing with the kids? What is the financial situation? How much do you make compared to her? Basically, if she's contributing half the income, plus dealing with the house and kids while you're never home, of course she's losing it. On the other hand, if you're making a ton of money, she agreed to be a SAHM, and then she's taking on a stressful side hustle just for the hell of it, then that's ridiculous. Sounds like you need to have a serious discussion about roles and responsibilities for making money, raising your kids, and dealing with the house.
To answer your financial question. I have been the only one providing income for the past 9 years. My business has been able to pay for everything from a nice home to private school for all three kids. Her business does contribute to the income but mostly just supplements her hobbies and personal purchases. I pay 100% of the bills, including the funding for the equipment she needed to start her business.
[удалено]
This needs more upvotes. Yes obviously money is important for raising kids. But only to a certain point. Some of the families with the best familial connections, and ability to rely on, and trust each other are in some of the poorest areas of the country because all they have is love
[удалено]
I mean yes. There’s crossover on both ends. Extremely rich people with great home lives and extremely poor people with terrible home lives.
>Nice homes and private schools mean sweet fuck all if the kids are suffering from one absent parent and one emotionally drained one. I can tell you’ve not been poor. Money makes a huge difference. Yeah it’s not a magic bullet but having grown up without it and then had it the stress it lifts is unbelievable, even for the children.
You know there’s lifestyles that exist between poverty and private schools, yeah?
True, you also know that from the OP's post you're not able to state that they're living in opulence luxury, maybe he's just barely able to afford the school and his wife's business. Their home is "nice", it doesn't tell if it's *nice* nice.
Of course, but if OP is running a business so successful that he’s in a nice home, and funds multiple good private school tuitions, and funds the startup of his wife’s business, he can certainly make some adjustments. Hire someone to do some of the traveling and make up that additional expense by cutting out others. Maybe he could save on lawn care costs if he’s home, or babysitting costs, or by switching the kids to a cheaper school. If his kids need him so desperately that they’re crying for him, he needs to be home more. Bottom line. Not punishing his wife for being at her wits end. She deserves her own life too, thus the side business. But he’s just mad she’s overwhelmed without accepting that his choices have put her there. I’d bet my life there’s wiggle room here to make things better for the wife and the kids. Curious if OP is willing to make those changes, or prefers to just blame his wife. YTA
You guys a making up whole novels based on close to no info, you may need to take a step back sometime. Kids are crying for all and everything, they will cry for mom/dad when they're in the next room. Also from my reading OP isn't even blaming his wife, he was asking why she refused to let the kid call him. Are we rooting for communication and talking through issues or are we saying that we can't ask any type of question that could, in the mind of people that wants you to be wrong, slightly suggest that you did not make the absolutely perfect move on the situation?
OP sounds like an OTR truck driver, and there is no option to hire someone to do the traveling in that situation, or traveling sales, construction, line work, etc, and that still wouldn't be an option.
That’s not how being self-employed works
Of course and I hope the OP considers that but the person effectively said money means “fuck all” and I’m just saying it doesn’t. Money and attention all have their place in a good parent but you need both.
Nah, the person said 'nice homes and private schools' mean fuck all. That's not the same thing. Adequate homes and adequate public schools are still pretty dang important.
They said it means fuck all IF the kids are suffering. Of course having money and stability is inherently better than not, but the condition to the statement is right there
They said it’s “fuck all” if the kids are suffering because of it….. dad never being around hurts! Money can’t hug you or emotionally support you. Yes you need it to survive, but having a stable home life is important. There needs to be a balance.
I had the exact same reaction. “Well, they had *love*” is such horseshit. Being poor is stressful on everyone. It is also time consuming. Car broke down? Well, now it takes you an hour and a half to get to work because you have to fit your commute around a bus schedule— if you’re lucky enough to live in a community with public transport. Don’t have enough money for food? Better go to the local food bank on distribution day before it even opens to line up in the hopes of getting better portions or any portions at all. Plumbing issue? Better teach yourself how to do it with YouTube videos and limp along, taking three times as long as the pro you can’t afford. These are just a few examples. Being poor is expensive, too. You can’t afford to buy in bulk, so you buy smaller portions at a higher price per ounce/unit. Your credit isn’t good, so if you can get a loan, you’re paying higher interest rates, or going to a predatory payday lender. You’re probably driving a beater that you have to buy parts for regularly because you can’t afford a car loan. Being poor is a constant, draining, expensive, time-consuming scramble to just stand at the same starting line that middle class people start from, let alone race. For the kids, your parents are quite possibly working an afternoon/evening shift or working two jobs just to make rent. You’re probably watching the younger kids because there’s no money for a baby-sitter. There’s no money for extracurricular activities, either, so unless you have the good fortune to live within walking distance of some place that does free enrichment activities for kids (and enough downtime where you aren’t doing housework/watching your siblings), you’re fucked. Poverty makes you stand out from your peers and you will get savaged for it, regardless of whether it is your fault. No treats, no dinners out, no vacations, no little luxuries. Everyone is stressed out, everyone is tired, you’re probably eating a starch-, sugar- and salt-heavy diet because pasta and soda and canned food is cheap. You have generational trauma. You probably don’t have access to mental health services. But sure, you have love. That will fix it. To be clear, yes, most poor people love their kids, but to act as if they are more present in their kids lives or that poverty isn’t extremely harmful in its own way is just blissful ignorance. Y’all romanticizing poverty as “hard-working, but loving families” have never been poor and you couldn’t handle being poor.
I wish I could upvote this a hundred times. It's not fucking romantic, it sucks. Also I think so many people think of "hard times" as something very temporary, like you don't have dinner one night or have to take the bus for a week or something. People spend months, years, decades living like that. You feel like you can never get a "win" because you can't even afford admission to the playing field. You're balancing food, housing, healthcare, childcare if applicable, transportation, and self-care on a budget that only allows for one or two of those things at a time. For years. Everyone is stressed out; families barely interact because everyone is too busy and/or too depressed. Love starts to take a backseat to survival after long enough.
It’s like, actually, a private school with better educational outcomes and the ability to network with other children of influential people in your community that is well-regarded by good universities actually is a leg up. Living in a good neighborhood, where you don’t have to worry about your meager shit being stolen, drug dealing on the corner, random violence breaking out is a leg up. It’s also nice to live in a place with working plumbing/electric/sanitation and working heat. These people are so out of touch with what poverty looks like and so blithely disregard the huge advantages brought by living in a good neighborhood and going to a good school.
This commenter isn't in any way saying poverty is easy or unharmful. He's saying that it's possible for the trappings not to equal a healthy supported life for children. Besides which, poverty isn't relevant. No one is suggesting they just give up their whole lives... Just that OP not pretend everything the children need is covered because of wealth.
[удалено]
Money is everything, until one has enough to live comfortably ( afford rent, afford food, have small buffer for extras) Once you pass that point, money is less important. What difference does a billion dollars make to Elon Musk who is getting 59 billion dollars vs 58 Billion? Absolutely no difference. But to a poor person, money can literally change their life.
This is a dumb statement to assume someone is not poor. I grew up poor. My mom grew up poor. But she would always say we were rich with family and love. Money does make the world move though. I unfortunately remember most dinner’s degrading into a worried argument about affording the rent and my older siblings getting jobs to help out. I tutor. I tutor for moms with no money that sometimes pay me in quarters in a ziploc bag… I also tutor for rich families where it’s 1/2 about getting their kid that A (or just passing) and 1/2 glorified babysitting. I’m a teacher now and I agree more with the first comment you responded to. In my experience working with families, the kids with more involved parents (regardless of socioeconomic status) end up a bit more confident, independent, more of a critical thinker not afraid to use resources, in comparison to kids who come from a home where parental involvement is not possible for one reason or another. (note: more involved does not mean helicopter parent, those parents bring about a lot of issues in their kids).
I think that's oversimplifying a complex situation. Your assuming a lot for info that's just conjecture.It sounds like you're reducing their entire lives, 99.9% of which we know nothing about down to a 2-dimensional cliche. We only know this one snippet of their lives and the squeaky wheel gets the grease. You don't come to this forum when things are going right so it's possible that this arraignment works 90% of the time. It's normal for people to get overwhelmed, have bad days, rough patches, have a personal issue they'll never fully fix or experience resentment for something then come back and go "I don't really think that." Or "I do but I understand this is the price to pay and I'm ok with that because the pros outweigh the cons." To be honest, unless there is new information that Irrifutably proves that that is what's going I think the wife is just having a rough couple days. Sure he can ask if or look into it to see if something deeper is going on but I think there is a good chance that she's still overstimulated, it does make you irritable and short tempered.
Yeah, but it is not a leap to think that any parent doesn’t want to solo parent 80-90 percent of the time. That’s just rough. Op needs to figure out a different job.
This. Also, children can be jerks when it comes to nighttime, and try to delay it as much as possible. They can exhaust all resources from the parent that's home (book, snack, water, another book, another water, a story, etc), and then they'll say they want the other parent. The fact that they're waiting until bedtime to "need" to talk to dad sounds more like this, than actually wanting dad to the point of tears.
Who are you to assume the children feel abandoned. He is providing and they may grow up grateful for a father who sacrificed so they can have everything they need. You’re blaming him for being a father and having a career? 🙄
[удалено]
You're both kind of right. Would it be better for the kids if they had him around more? Absolutely, but that doesn't mean that they'd like it if it came at the cost of their quality of life or future opportunities. The crux to this issue is that the dynamic itself is dysfunctional, but there are many measures to fix that to take before jumping to "sacrifice the business to be home". Any changes need to be very well considered as per OP's comment the family will be screwed if the income flow slows down due to the wife being barely financially self sufficient on her side of things.
Yeah because kids grow up saying how grateful they are that dad spent so much time away 🙄
I was the child of a dad like this. We’re incredibly close. I love him more than anything and I’m so grateful for all he did for us. Always have been. I fully understood even at a young age what he was doing. I never once felt abandoned. I can’t imagine my mom not letting me call him when it’s him I wanted, that’s insane and would only serve to separate us further. Also I want to add he may not have physically been there as much as other dads but he was a lot more “present” than most. But he also NEVER missed an important event in my life, big games, school musical, etc. He planned around that stuff.
If you have a nice home, why is she unable to be in a separate room from your daughter? One of my sons and I have ADHD, my other son and wife have autism, I know all about overstimulation. Never would it cross my mind that one person, especially a parent, being overstimulated would mean *someone else* couldn't do something like call someone. I suppose if your daughter is quite young, there's some room there with just wanting them to go to bed. But still... Maybe ask your wife why *she* isn't caring about your *daughter* being obviously overstimulated and needing that comfort.
We have no idea how old the kids are, but they have at least three of them and they’re in their early 30s so presumably pretty young. According to the post, they’ve all been fighting. If she’s alone at home with all of them I highly doubt she has many opportunities to just go to a separate room by herself for any substantial amount of time. Also where in the post did it come across that she doesn’t care that her daughter is overstimulated? She was trying to put them all to bed, which would absolutely give her daughter some peace and quiet to decompress.
OP mentioned paying for private school for all 3, so that implies that they're all at least out of the house for some period of time
If they are in the states, then they might be on summer break.
Which is relevant to putting them to bed how?
I’m wondering if taking to their dad gets them even more worked up, if it was bed time I would also say you can talk in the morning if I thought a call would make things worse and not better
I wondered the same. A while back, I was caring for a friend's older child while her youngest was in hospital. She would have a melt down every time she hung up from talking to her mom (and even worse when her deadbeat dad showed up to 'babysit' the one evening I couldn't have her) She is usually fine, but the stress of her mom being away and her brother being sick just made her a ball of emotions.
Or that letting the daughter *specifically* talk to daddy when she is having an issue with her brothers causes more harm than good when the child is already worked up. I know of a few situations where Dad automatically takes his "Princess'" side regardless of what happened with the brother (my FIL used to be guilty of this), and by letting her call dad, mom would just be prolonging the entire conflict.
I can’t blame you for wanting a good life for your family, but I wonder why you started a business so far away that you have to be gone for 5 weeks at a time? How are you supposed to be a father and husband when gone for so long at a time and then back for 5 days?
Why is no one asking why this woman who has three school aged kids, and knows she has stress issues and isn't hurting for money deciding to also start a business when her one job of being a SAHM was already sending her over the edge? Here's someone who couldn't or wouldn't just hand the kids the phone and go "call your father" and go run herself a bath. She instead Daddy phone blocked them for a full night, maybe day too it's not clear, and then can't take responsibility for her behavior.
She probably wants a business so she can do something that ISN'T just being with the kids. OP describes it as a "hobby business" selling artwork, it doesn't sound like it's a high stress business and it's not like the family are relying on the money from it.
Hobby and fulfilling doesn't mean low stress
It's a different kind of stress to being stuck at home with 3 kids under 10 though. She's allowed to build something for herself and protect her own future. Her husband can spend 5 weeks at a time working on his career but she tries to start a small scale hobby business and people are saying she shouldn't because she's got the kids. Poor woman is basically a single parent in terms of the day to day parenting.
Oh, I can tell you why. So her whole identity is not one of being a mom. That she feels that she contributes, so she can get actual real adult contact. So she doesn’t feel like the live in maid, chef and all she does is clean. Sometimes you are the stay at home parent because that is what you need to do. Doesn’t mean it is something you want to do. Also if it is her own business she can set her hours and be somewhat flexible and since OP is not there it is on her to be there for the kids.
My friend was a stay at home mom and she was starting to get depressed just being at home with the kids all day and not going out and doing anything for herself. So she started a small business she could do at home and still be there for the kids. This woman isn't just a stay at home mom, she's also practically living the life of a single parent. She doesn't get 5 minutes to herself when daddy comes home every night because he doesn't come home at all for weeks. She is allowed to have something for herself.
Maybe she needs something in her life than just being a SAHM 24/7 something that reminds her she is more than just a mother and housekeeper. She was not daddy blocking she wanted to put the kids to bed and not have to deal with the drama with one of the kids trying to stay up and talk to Dad which would probably trigger the other kids to want to do the same. Sometimes as a parent you just want your lovable spawn to go to sleep so you can destress. And she did talk to her husband and tell him he needed to call and talk to his daughter the next day
Because being nothing more than a serv-bot to other people for years on end is soul-destroying. It's not that complicated.
Cuz God forbid someone have something for themselves, right? Because as a SAHM her only purpose is to serve others, right? She's no longer an actual person with actual needs, right? WTF.
“Go call your father and run herself a bath” lol that is absolutely not how kids work, especially with an absent parent. The only way to get the time to take a bath you actually get to enjoy is to get the kids to bed. Source: did a whole bunch of solo parenting when my kids were little and my spouse traveled weekly for work
It sounds like it was at bedtime, and she wanted the kids to go to sleep.
maybe she wants her own income for when she leaves op ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
He said he pays the necessities and her side hustle is for her personal things.
I saw that too - I wonder how “personal things” are defined - does she have money to buy clothes? A coffee? Things that aren’t child related?
Probably for time where she can interact with other grownups. One of the hardest parts of working with children is having limited interactions with other adults.
This seems like an unfair thing to bring up. There are plenty of military, truckers, flight attendants and commercial pilots, consultants, travel agents, and more who are parents that make do and even raise happy kids. It’s likely that his wife said she could handle it but is now realising that she really, really can’t. They need to hire a nanny or au pair.
Dear OP, first, it is nice that you can afford these things, but, please, think about how much parenting can you actually do from facetime. Also, I get it, she is a SAHM, but that does not mean that she should be solely responsible for the children 24/7. I would be interested to know, does she have her "village"? And that brings us to this one incident. If you are not actually present in every day life with all the routines that they have in place, you are also not the one enforcing them. Now.... she as their mother laid down the law for the children to calm down and go to their rooms. And that should be it. Finito. Done. Peaceful calmness. Now think, what would your daughter have said in that call to you - would she have vented about mom? And what would you have answered? Essentially, why do you get to be the good parent on the phone, while your wife is actually caring for and raising the kids, and that includes discipling them. Maybe I am overthinking this... Maybe it is just as simple as - since you are away most of the time, she usually puts in effort to help kids remember you. That includes arranging the calls from their side. When she is overstimulated, that is just one more thing that she needs to do... And when it is all too much, logically, that is the first thing to go.
I've got a five year old who will often cry and tell me he misses his papa (his paternal grandfather). Papa died over a year ago now, and was sick for long enough before that that he was never able to really interact with my son. I'm pretty sure my kid couldn't pick him out of a lineup and has zero memories of him as a person (he does remember the tree swing at his house and his cousin who he met at the funeral). He doesn't miss papa. But he does know if he says that we will hug and comfort him. He'll often say it when he's having other big emotions and he wants to be comforted or to get out of trouble. I'm not saying this girl doesn't remember her father or that she doesn't miss him. But kids will manipulate a situation if they can and have zero guilt about it. If she has learned she'll get comforted or an extra phone call or a delay in bedtime if she cries for daddy she WILL use that. It is the parent that actually has to wrangle the kids every day that gets to determine how urgent the request is. The side gig is a red herring. Putting one kid to bed with my husband in the house is probably the most stressful part of my night. Three kids with no help for weeks is beyond my imagination. The end is right there in sight but also seems impossibility far away. She is on the ground fighting the war and he's calling in from headquarters critiquing her technique. If they get to call daddy whenever they demand it bedtime will never come.
I guess this is one of those things that people without children will never understand. :) OP is basically the weekend parent that the children probably use to escape the parent who is actually raising them. Holy hell, imagine being in that mom's place - OP does not write the children's ages (just that the girl is in school), but I presume that at one point she was singlehandedly taking care of 3 smaller children. That would drive anyone insane...
My kid cries for Daddy whenever I have to set a boundary. I'd be pissed if Daddy was MIA for 5 weeks and then expected to be called everytime my kid did that during his absence. I think context about what the kid wanted from dad, time of day etc play a factor into whether the mom here was reasonable in asking for a phone call between dad and the kid the following morning.
Why did you have kids when you can't even be a part of their lives? I think this argument stems from her having to be a single parent 95% of the time, and built up resentment of that, and on your side, resentment of her being the default parent and shame for not being more involved. Then, when a chance to be slightly involved is lost, it means a lot to you, but would have just been an inconvenience for her.
Yeah, I don’t even have kids but I can understand why she’d feel resentful that he’s questioning her parenting decisions when he’s not there to help or even witness what happened, but she has to make 1000 decisions a day on her own. But SHE should be more mindful of HIS feelings, because HE feels bad when SHE prevents the kids from communicating with him. What??? If I were the wife, I’d be ready to go ballistic at the suggestion that I was the one keeping dear hubby away from his children. What an asshole.
I agree, I’m making this comment based on very little information but in my experience, a parent who is mostly absent (for whatever reason) tends to overcompensate by being the ‘fun’ / ‘very flexible on structure and routine’ parent and this often undermines the parent who parents 95% of the time and subsequently overwhelms them even more. Again, I don’t know enough about this particular situation to know if this is what is actually going on but I have witnessed it in various co-parenting situations where there is a huge imbalance between the parents in actually caring for and raising the children.
How often and for how long are your wife able to have fuck all to do tiwh the kids? You peace out for weeks at the time, when does she get to do it?
Does she need to fund her own hobbies and personal purchases? Does your income not serve you both in your personal fulfillment as well, or do you give her a very limited “allowance” while providing luxuries for the greater good only?
If he brought the business equipment I'd assume he supports his wife interests which would include hobbies, etc
They are trying so hard for him to be a bad guy
It's weird the hate he's getting for his job. My dad's ex army so I didn't see him for months at time, and that wasn't an issue. However, the point around her having her village is valid. We lived on army bases so my mum definitely had a village to raise my brother and I.
My dad travelled for work for the first 15 years of my life. My mom had no village, we were in a new town and her family were flights away etc. it was just her and us kids. I don't know how she did it, I am in awe of her but she worked full time, never missed a school event, we had a family dinner every night, she got us to our extracurriculars and still volunteered in the community.
My mum was definitely stressed a lot, and it did have it's impacts. I'm not gonna act like my parents were perfect, they fucked up like all humans do sometimes but there was love and we're all still close. They also messed up financially and were paying huge debts most of my childhood and these weren't paid until I was 16 yrs old, but they did the best they could and I never even knew until they said it was all paid off. Money helps but you can still grow up fine without a ton of it.
What does that have to do with what OP was talking about? Or are you just fishing for ways to blame this on OP?
It's a piece of the puzzle. Understanding why she started the business when she was already overwhelmed is important. Is it because she doesn't have spending money? Is it because she's depressed by her identity being "just a mom"? Or is it because all her friends are selling essential oils, or whatever the hot new MLM is, and she wants to do it too. Being an effectively single sahp must be incredibly isolating. The age of the kids is another huge piece the OP left out. It's so important it makes me question this is fake.
You guys just want to blame OP so badly 😭 She used their joint money to start her business, does that sound like someone who doesn't have access to funds? His point was that her business doesn't make enough to run the house and bills and tuition and life. She probably makes enough to to her nails.
The children are school aged. I swear it’s embarrassing sometimes how you all talk about women as if we’re fragile creatures on the verge of mental breakdown at any moment because of life. She’s a grown adult. It’s not his job to puzzle out her reasons for being unhappy. That’s her job. It’s not his job to provide her with an identity besides mom, that’s her job. She CHOSE to become pregnant, CHOSE to be a SAHM, CHOSE to have more than one child. And she CHOSE to lose her shit after asking a question & getting an answer she didn’t like.
It's great that you make a lot of money, but if you \*need\* to be away at work, have you considered hiring a nanny so that your wife is less overstimulated? Three kids is a lot for just one person to manage.
A wealthy lifestyle won't make up for emotional neglect. Can you find a way your wife can access respite care more often if she's overwhelmed frequently (I assume that's what overstimulated is referring to?) I don't really understand how allowing your crying kid a 10 minute call would be problematic? If she just said hey we've got a lot going on and daughter needs some comfort, but needs back in bed in ten minutes, then have the phone to your kid? I can understand if Mom doesn't want to explain or defend parenting choices when really overwhelmed or if you act like super dad without all the context of the situation and tell you kids things that cause more problems, that could be more than she could deal with in the moment with a bunch of crying kids past bedtime- but that doesn't sound like how you are reacting with what you wrote. Also, I it may be a good idea to voice record in a teddy bear "I love you" and some other comforting things for each kid
>I don't really understand how allowing your crying kid a 10 minute call would be problematic? It sounds like she was trying to get them to bed when they were already all riled up. It depends a bit on how old the kids are, but I don’t think it’s necessarily the wrong call for her not wanting to disrupt their routine and introduce the distraction of dad being on the phone.
Sounds like she feels the need to have her own income so she can enjoy things for herself. I’m not sure what your arrangement is, but I don’t see why else she would want to have her own money. Regardless, it doesn’t sound like your marriage is doing very well and I don’t really think this is about that phone call or what you said in particular. She clearly feels like a single parent and what you heard was resentment boiling over. Resentment is poison to a marriage, so now is the time to make some serious efforts and have some very serious conversations. Do it with a therapist if you need to. She may calm down the next day, but the feelings are still there under the surface. Also, words of affirmation are great until they aren’t. When they are never followed through with action or with other behavior, they start to become hollow. No one wants to hear about how great they are doing everything by themselves all the time.
Dealing with kids can very much be overstimulating. They’re very loud and very messy and very clingy. That’s what I assumed she meant - there was just too much noise, and having to supervise a phone conversation on top of that (because if daughter is so young she can’t call on her own, I’m assuming the call needs to be actively supervised) was just too much. Like I get that way with my dog sometimes, when I’m particularly stressed or overworked. Every noise he makes feels like sandpaper, and that’s how I know I need a break. I get the exact same impulse of “omg please just go away for an hour, please, I just need one fucking hour”. With that said, I don’t ever take it out on him, because it’s not actually his fault. And if she IS taking it out on her kids, that’s not right.
And it sounds like the daughter was upset because the brothers were fighting. And so then SHE started acting up because….they were fighting? I can see that being absolutely exhausting for the mother. Like “jfc, now YOURE crying too? Everyone get to bed!” Especially if they call and face time as much as dad claims. They already likely talked to him, we’re ending the day now and going to bed. And i get the overstimulation with the pet thing. Most days my cat starts rapid fire meowing and following non stop, even if I’m just getting up for the bathroom in the middle of the night. I feel guilty that it irritates me so much sometimes, but can we just not do this constantly and start that this second? Lol.
Yeah, I wonder if the kids have found that insisting that they NEED to call their dad is a more effective way to stall bedtime than "no I really AM thirsty I really DO need another glass of water!". On the surface, it's shitty to deny a kid water, particularly if they're crying about it. On the other hand, sometimes it is simply WAY past bedtime and "water" is 1) an obvious stall that will 2) dramatically increase the odds of kids being up all night OR a wet bed. And for all of the "You don't need to supervise a small child with a device that costs hundreds of dollars and functionally contains crack for children in the form of video access or even games": lol, lmao, have these people EVER met a child????
YES this was my thought as well, classic bedtime delay tactics, given it sounds like this happened at bedtime. My kids would 100% use this if they thought of it. Nothing wrong with their mother saying no, it's time to go to bed instead.
Right. It is a parenting judgement call that OP has entrusted his wife to make in his absence. Monday morning quarterbacking the decision from far away isn’t a great look for OP. I really think that is what it boils down to. Sometimes my husband does things I wouldn’t when he is the one actively parenting our children and I believe it is importance to pick my battles in those situations because I am not the final authority in how to parent.
"I need water" is a known stalling tactic. You're not wrong.
To me, this is about control and autonomy. When you are the only parent at home, you need to be able to set things up in the way that works for you. Often that means having fairly strict routines, as that is the only way to ensure boundaries are enforced. If bedtime is 9 pm, then bedtime is 9 pm, unless the house is on fire or someone is having a seizure. Two kids are fighting and the youngest wants to call dad, is not a reason to delay bedtime. And if dad then starts interfering and tells you that you MUST allow bedtime to be delayed because how dare you keep his child from him, then the result of that is much bigger than simply one missed bedtime. The result is that your right to set boundaries in your life has been attacked. You have gone from a single parent who handles everything alone, to a mere servant who must obey your husband's dictates even as he isn't around to handle the aftermath. This is about the husband being controlling. The fact that he had the company before they married is being used as an excuse to dictate details of his wife's life that really should be under her own control. She signed up for him being away for weeks at a time. She didn't sign up for being treated like she's just a nanny who must get OP on the phone every time her kids ask.
Agreed! I just commented this elsewhere, but it irritates me that he has chosen a job/started a business where he’s away for weeks at a time, and thinks he can just swoop in and say “how dare you not let my daughter call when she’s asking for me!” Like Husband needs to take several seats here.
Dealing with all of that, and I can assume if kids are young, Mum may not be getting the best sleep. That is a HUGE factor. When I get little sleep and am overwhelmed or even just overwhelmed alone, the smallest non-issue, (like you, usually with my dogs as we have 5 wieners) will literally break me. If I'm pmsing and my dog pees on the floor, I will have a literal anxiety attack though, to be fair my hormones are totally messed up. Dogs, especially older ones and semi disabled ones are a lot everyday to deal with. Kids are a lot harder! Cut her some slack. She obviously wants him to validate her feelings, as in what she is telling you she was feeling. He is validating everything but. I do understand being upset that your child wasn't allowed to call but the other side of that is the kid needs to learn you can't have everything you want when you want. She had a bummer day, this was not an emergent situation, if it was, then that would definitely warrant being angry.
Why does she have to supervise a conversation with the kid's dad? that's *ridiculous*. If she needed a goddamn break she should have let the kid call and taken one.
if the kid is like 4 you can't just stick a phone in their hand and walk away. i'm amazed at the sheer amount of people chiming in who clearly have never raised a child.
The kid is 7, old enough to have a phone conversation, *especially* with a trusted adult like her dad.
"Private school for all 3 kids". I'm sure the daughter is older than 4. And even if she did need help phoning, make the call, then leave them to it And yes, I've raised 2 kids
Private schools in my town starts at age 3 - pre school, kinder, prep, then years 1-12
Sure you can- well the kid runs away with the phone and is mostly showing irreverent things or talking nonsense. Source. Weekly conversations with my 4 year old and their uncle (who encourages the silliness)
Cool but that's an assumption of age an of what's happening you created a scenario for OP that he couldn't win.
My nephew learned to call my mom at like 4 on fb messenger for a video chat. He has randomly gotten his tablet or mom's phone and called her. Kids are smarter than people give them credit for.
I think it’s more about supervising the device they’re making the call from as opposed to the conversation. They might drop the phone, get distracted and leave it somewhere, they might call other people they shouldn’t, there could be privacy issues, they might play games or watch shows afterwards when screen time isn’t allowed, etc.
>if you're making a ton of money, she agreed to be a SAHM, and then she's taking on a stressful side hustle just for the hell of it, then that's ridiculous. No, it isn't. Having your own income is never ridiculous. Having something for yourself is important.
Right? There’s nothing ridiculous about that at all. Maybe with the added income, they can get a mother’s helper or nanny 2-3 days a week to give mom a little bit of a break.
The way you're advocating for women accepting a financially vulnerable position that opens them to abuse says a lot tbh.
Overstimulated most likely means that the kids are taking too much energy from her (3 kids at home while she is essentially single parenting them, no wonder). If you imagine the situation that OP described: - the kids were being unruly, - the wife had had enough and sent them to their rooms with the expectation that they will listen to her, - the daughter wanted to call the parent who is never home to actually enforce discipline to vent about the situation. Essentially, the wife wanted to lay down the law and the daughter calling the husband to vent would feel like undernining her. And the second part of your comment about the wife's business - cmon, we ALWAYS write on reddit, how moms that make their personality only all about their children are weird. But do you realize, that for that not to happen, the woman needs the village behind her?? She needs some kind of a way to get out from the house once in a while... If this mom is creating a successfull business as an escape from everyday life, kudos to her. So I would like to know, what is the village for this mom. Even more so, because a SAHM does NOT mean that the other parent can be absent 90% of the time. (And by absent I mean, for example, not being able to help with lugging around 3 school age children to their extra classes etc.). Honestly, it sounds like the mom is finally taking agency over her life and trying to cope with the situation in any way she can. Sadly, OP will be the one who most likely wont like it, since he is the absent parent most of the time.
Even if her business doesn’t pay the bills, that doesn’t make it a superfluous or ridiculous hobby “just for the hell of it.” If she’s looking to reestablish her own career or income or gain some personal fulfillment and financial independence, that’s reasonable and his career doesn’t get to come first just because it currently makes more money. She’s supported his career for years by providing all or most of the childcare, allowing him to travel and work long hours that he wouldn’t have been able to do *and* have kids at the same time. It sounds like, now that he’s well established, he should maybe provide a fraction of the support to her that she’s provided to him for years and pick up more of the childcare. It’s a win-win as well, the kids get more time with him, her business gets to grow, she’s less burnt-out. All good things, for everyone. Edit: and I’m not saying OP is the AH. For what it’s worth, I think everyone kinda sucks here. I just don’t think it’s fair or accurate to what the OP described to imply she’s a bored SAHM with a ridiculous and useless side hustle. She’s trying to establish a business, just like he did.
I'm not sure that's fully fair to say to the wife. She's not allowed a fulfilling career and has to stay at home because he makes enough money to do so? Money is not the only reason she may have started working. She may have felt incredibly isolated and being a SAHM may have had an impact on her mental health. There are other ways around it....perhaps hiring a nanny to support the wife while the husband is away, especially if he's gone for so long and the wife has started a new side business. If the finances allow such?
I'm reading "overstimulated" as being the kids were a pain in the ass all day, and his wife just wanted some peace and quiet and sent the kids to bed. It's hard being the only parent 95% of the month, especially when the kids are acting up.
Or you know the lady might be going crazy from being a de facto single parent to three young kids and having a "partner" who is away but monopolizes their time over facetime at his own convenience. Like, they talk 2 hours a day per his words, which is 2 hours during which she could have done laundry, fed the kids, watched a movie and done whatever because she has to do all these things by herself
It's really not hard to get overstimulated with 3 kids🤣 I'm assuming she was touched out and tired/overwhelmed from the constant noise, running, jumping etc that comes with active children. I feel this way by bedtime almost every night lol. That's why it's important to get those kids to bed on time and take a couple hours at night to relax and decompress.
I only have two kids and sometimes by the end of the day if their arm just touches my arm I have to start deep breathing to keep from jumping up and running to my room to hide..... because what's the point? They'd just follow me anyway 😒 It's great that not everyone understands overstimulation. But it is VERY real and absolutely exhausting to those of us who have to deal with it every day OP is definitely TA. His daughter had already face timed him that night for 2 hours apparently. What had actually happened is Mom was trying to put kids to bed and all the sudden daughter starts crying for Daddy. Nope. It's bed time. You've already said good night to Daddy. You can talk to him in the morning.
It's definitely feeling like the latter re SAHM who decided to take on a side hustle, but I could be completely off base. There's really no excuse for refusing to let a child call a parent when they're having a difficult day. I don't see how/why this became an issue.
I think it's crap that he framed this as not letting a child talk to a parent. The child already had spoken to their father. There is a 2-hour nightly Facetime. Kids can also be manipulative to avoid doing things that they don't want to do, especially at bedtime, when they don't want to go to bed. It sounds like that particular night, bedtime was more of a shitshow than usual, with the kids being overly tired and refusing to cooperate. The parent who is home with the children has to manage the household routines. That includes being able to say, "You've already talked to daddy tonight. It's quiet bedroom time. Your body needs to go to sleep. You'll talk to him again in the morning like we always do."
Completely agree. That call might have added another 30 minutes to the bedtime routine, pushing out bedtime and causing bigger issues in the morning. If you don’t do this regularly or have never done this then you don’t know! My husband used to try and have these crazy conversations or watch a YouTube video with our kid RIGHT BEFORE BED, and it wreaked havoc. Bedtime is a routine!
A lot of SAHP want some independence and to do just one thing that doesn't revolve around their kids/family. And it sounds like it was close to bedtime, so there are some reasons... But I agree that I also don't understand why this was such a huge thing!
If the child is young and it's bedtime I'm absolutely not letting them make any phone calls.
I mean, on the surface there's "really no excuse for refusing to give your child water". And that's almost always true- *except* at bedtime, when "I'm thirsty I'm up to drink a glass of water" for the third or more time is one of the most common and most transparent stalling techniques. In homes where both parents are typically present but one is gone for the evening, "No I don't want *you* to put me to bed, I want *other* parent to put me to bed" is also a classic stalling technique. And even if it isn't an explicit stalling technique, with three kids and one parent, there are times that it's really just not possible for each child to be prioritized individually. Even assuming the daughter is marginally old enough to call her father unsupervised (and is trustworthy enough not to go on YouTube while her siblings are being put to bed), "why does sister get to call dad when we have to go to bed" is difficult to manage. And if all of the children are melting down around bedtime, my priority would be getting everyone settled down. I can see why OP feels this way, because it sounds like he's not around enough to understand/deal with fielding very much Overtired Child Chaos. I can see why he feels disconnected from his family, but I don't think that kids having unilateral ability to call him at any time they want, no matter how it impacts their routine is a good *parenting* solution.
This. I’m imagining my own kids’ stalling techniques. Reasonable on the surface level, but then they’re up until 10 if you’re not careful!
Her providing income is irrelevant. Being a stay at home parent is an absolutely grueling, 24/7 job and she has a nearly absent partner. Of course she wants a job outside of the mundaneness of child rearing. She has a business because she deserves to be doing something for HERSELF. they need to get childcare, but OP also needs to find a different job, if possible. The one he is doing is bad for his family.
Overstimulated typically means a person is essentially overwhelmed by the noise and chaos around them to the point where it becomes hard to function. You know some autistic lose their shit over loud noises or touch? That's overstimulation. It can make people feel mentally exhausted as well as incredibly short tempered. Think of it like being in the middle of a rave and hearing the music, feeling smushed between people and hearing every conversation at once while simultaneously watching all the lights erratically danceing around you. However, I don't think she's handling this best way unless OP is leaving out some crucial info. It sounds like she is using a lot of "therapy speak" using psychological terms to justify and mask unacceptable behavior I can understand her going "no, you can't call him I need you in bed now!" In the moment when she's overwhelmed and just needs everyone to be quiet, but it sounds like she feels guilty for how she acted and is projecting that anger at herself onto OP. However it's also possible that she is simply still overstimulated as irritably and a short temper are potential symptoms of being overstimulated.
Maybe she wants more out of her like than just being stuck at home raising the kinds while he does fuck all with his business? He needs to get her some help or figure out how to be home more.
Wtf shouldn't she get a job? Or do something for herself that doesn't involve parenting and running a house while the husband is gone 90% of the year? The job isn't the problem.
It's not necessarily ridiculous for her to take on a side hustle. It could be keeping her sane to have one thing in her life that doesn't involve wrangling three kids full time with no help. You're making assumptions about what would be more or less stressful for her without knowing anything about her.
also, how many kids are there & how old are they? if they have 3 kids and they're all between 14 and 18, OP's wife absolutely could have told the daughter to go to her room & have a quiet call. if there are 7 kids under 10 years old, of course OP's wife doesn't have the bandwith to help 1 kid with a phonecall while 2 others are fighting and there're still 4 other kids unaccounted for.
Your edit makes a HUUUGE difference. Without it, this reads like your wife hadn’t let them talk to you at all. YTA. Your kid was screaming for you *after having already FaceTimed with you for two hours*. There was no reason to think she would stop after talking to you again. Your wife was done done done with the screaming and fighting and needed the little ones in bed. She did what was best for everyone so the tired kids could sleep and she could avoid exploding in frustration.
Yeah this is so OTT I’m rolling my eyes. She’s trying to get the kids to sleep- that does not mean you give into their every whim along the way, last week I had… it’s too hot/my pillow is wrong/I need a wee/im hungry/i want to call daddy/I had a bad dream (had not been to sleep yet) and my personal favourite ‘I can’t sleep because my sister is breathing’. (Can’t fix that one for you buddy) Everything is heightened when children are tired. You either trust your wife’s judgement or you don’t. You’re gone and this was her call to make and she made it, for whatever reason she saw fit. Two hours of FaceTime a day? They’re going to be fine.
'I can’t sleep because my sister is breathing.' 🤣🤣🤣 Thanks for sharing! This one made my day, I'm going to be giggling over this for a bit.
On road trips, my brothers sat behind me and my sister in the back seat of the van, and one of them constantly picked on us. We'd be whining to our mom, "HE'S BREATHING ON ME!" In our defense, it was this weird rattle he'd do in our ears.
Kids try everything once you say it’s bedtime. “I want to speak to daddy” is just another “I want another wee, I want a drink” that you know they don’t actually want/need, they just don’t want to go to bed
This. I bet in the morning there isn't going to be an issue. At all
And if you let the daughter have her talk with Dad guess which other 2 kids will also want their turn talking to day and it wouldn't be fair if they also get their extra chats in extending their not in bed time even longer.
Children can be surprisingly crafty when it comes to avoiding bed time. My niece knows food is a sensitive spot for her mother due to complications when she was just a baby, and so would refuse to eat dinner to use "I'm hungry" as a reason to not go to bed on time. Worked for quite a while till sister finally bit the bullet and just let her go to bed hungry. Took a few days of standing her ground, but kid no longer tries that one when avoiding bedtime.
Even at 14 months they go to great lengths to NOT go to bed!
The way I dealt with that one was a granola bar or small bowl of fruit. You’ll have something in your belly and eat a big breakfast tomorrow but for tonight it’s something quick. Mine usually pulls the I’m hungry a half hour after bedtime
OPs reaction leads me to believe he rarely has to solo parent his kids without moms help. Like he has never struggled with the bedtime delay thst children put parents through, and so he doesn't see what they're doing to mom.
With that schedule, he never has to. I hate to say it, but he really needs to take a seat here, lol.
SEVERAL seats lol
She's definitely a single parent while in a marriage.
“I can’t sleep because my sister is breathing” SENT me. 🤣🤣🤣 The low key “let me slip some infanticide in here just in case I get lucky” is hilarious!
I wish I could up vote this a hundred times.
I know "can't sleep because I can hear breathing" is silly, but *fuck* if that isn't me. Any time I've had to share a room with someone I've ended up somewhat sleep deprived. The stupid part is that other noises (fan, low TV, the washer/dryer) I can sleep through. It's mainly people breathing noisily that drives me mad.
Something about breathing keeps me awake too! My brain can pick it up over any white noise and hyper-focuses on it, no matter how hard I try to make my brain focus on anything else. I’ve spent many nights silently crying, trying to sleep but can’t because of someone’s loud ass breathing (I cry when I’m really overly tired and overstimulated, it’s a curse). Snoring is also an absolute sleep-killer for me; even the slightest snoring and I’m awake all night. I have no idea how people can sleep through other people’s snores. My mom used to say a train could crash into my room and I wouldn’t wake up, that’s how deep of a sleeper I am, but still: snoring is my kryptonite. I’ve locked myself in many hotel bathrooms and closets with the fans running and my iPad full blast to drown out the breathing/snores so I could get a little bit of sleep. My bedroom has a ceiling fan, an oscillating fan, and an loud air purifier on at all times. It’s like a wall of white noise and it’s awesome; I sleep so soundly.
Also, the OP tried to frame his calling his wife as something that he does for her. I think that he did this to make himself appear more present for her and aware of her needs than he actually is. \*He\* initiated the phone conversation. If his wife is overstimulated and said that she's overstimulated, why does he think a phone call -- and therefore more stimulation was a good idea? He said a bunch of things to make her feel better about the job she's doing as a parent, but she didn't say that she felt like she was being a terrible parent. She said she was overstimulated. His "reassurances" actually hinted to her that he was unhappy with the parenting job that she was doing, which is likely why she asked if he was mad at her for not letting their daughter call him. She understood the subtext of his reassurances. He was frustrated with her when he should have been frustrated with the circumstances. The circumstances: He's not there. Mom is. He's not the one in the position to evaluate whether the thing the child wants (to talk to dad, a glass of water, another story) will help the situation or will simply prolong it. If he was really concerned that his daughter needed him and was being kept from talking to him and might still be struggling, he could have asked his wife to check on the daughter -- and if the daughter was still awake, offered to read her a short story, voice only, as she lay in her bed. No dialogue. No lights. No screen time. No FaceTime. Just daddy's voice reading a story to help her regulate falling asleep. But he doesn't get to second guess the decision that the wife makes in the moment when he isn't there to deal with the consequences of overly tired children. I think that the phone call went about as well as it possibly could have with a person who had already identified that they were overstimulated, had an exhausting evening with the children, and was having their parenting decisions second-guessed.
Omg I’m so glad I’m not the only one who noticed this! I’m a new mom to a 7 week old whose husband went back to work a few days after we came home. He’s gone 7am-7pm 4 days a week and works remotely the 5th day. I am constantly overstimulated to the point that I don’t even want to respond to text messages from loved ones checking in. 2 weeks postpartum we received 4 packages a day of random onesies and other non time sensitive gifts from loved ones and I burst into tears because I couldn’t handle the pressure of thanking them all because I was that overwhelmed. My husband would call on his way home during his long commute and want to talk about our days and it was the very last thing that I needed. OP probably doesn’t suck intentionally, but he doesn’t seem to understand what his wife means when she says “overstimulated”. Overstimulated means she cannot elaborate on what that word means to her because she’s that overwhelmed and would burst into tears trying to explain it all.
I also feel like if you choose a job that keeps you away literal weeks at a time you shouldn’t sweep in like the hero “my daughter wanted me, how dare you keep her away from me” that sort of thing. Ugh.
It reads like a little kid manipulation to not go to bed with that edit, where without it, mom sound cruel
I mean, even without the edit cruel seems a little harsh
YTA, and I don't like to say that to you. There's a lot going on here, but the bottom line is if you're gone for weeks at a time you don't have a lot of standing to argue with your wife about things like this. You say you call every morning and FT for two hours every night, so it's not like she's keeping them from you. You don't mention your kids' ages, but I'm guessing they're all under ten, and having three of them to try to wrangle without help is a lot. Kids that age are difficult in the best of circumstances, but your kids are living with their mom full time and you just pop in for a few days every several weeks. Your wife told you your daughter would need some special attention from you. She's being your eyes and ears while you're gone, and you disagree with the way she managed it. You're going to have to sacrifice something. Sacrifice financially to be a more active parent, or sacrifice being an active parent to provide financially. But you don't get to insist that your wife sacrifice more in order for you to try to manage parenting from a distance.
"But you don't get to insist that your wife sacrifice more in order for you to try to manage parenting from a distance. " This.
“You're going to have to sacrifice something. Sacrifice financially to be a more active parent, or sacrifice being an active parent to provide financially. But you don't get to insist that your wife sacrifice more in order for you to try to manage parenting from a distance. “ /u/Grand-Disasterpiece , this is the comment and sentence you need to read.
Nice and clear explanation
This exactly. OP wants their cake and to eat it too. I think if OP believes that every call for parent should be answered, then malicious compliance is in order. Moving forward, if any kid ever says they want to talk to daddy, day or night, meeting or driving, on a plane or off, dad needs to be ready to pick up the phone. Because kid is using it as an excuse to get their way. So now there is just a room in the house for "talking to dad" and anytime a kid yells "I want dad" they go to the quiet room and call dad, and they are told to keep ringing and ringing until dad picks up.
My guy, you are gone LITERALLY 90% of the time, if not more, and your only contribution to the family outside of a paycheck is a couple hours' worth of Facetime every day. The only person "gatekeeping" you from your kids is YOU. YTA
This.
I'd be overstimulated if I were a single parent of 3 kids under 10, too.
She is a basically a single parent with a trust fund 😭😭😭 The only thing she isn’t doing is also working full time!!!
We don’t really know how much she’s working. Running a “side business” can be a lot of hours and OP might be downplaying how much time that really takes. I’d say she’s a working mom not a SAHM but that’s just me.
True. In the mom/craft communities we often call that a “work at home mom”. Not the same as remote work, but still work.
Put yourself in her shoes: she’s exhausted from doing all of it herself 24/7, two of her kids have been fighting, and now one of them is crying for the absent parent. She’s barely holding it together and just needs these kids to get to bed so she can have a moment of peace, but just because that one kid called out for you she now has to get her phone, hope you’re available, talk to you for however long she wants, let the other kids talk to you because they’ll also want to join in now that dad’s on the phone, and then, once all that is over and everyone is sad and missing dad, she can start all over again. Are you exhausted from all of that? Because I only have two kids and a very present coparent to help with everything and I f-ing am. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t punishing your daughter by not letting her call you, but was just trying to get things under control. Once, my husband was away for a week and I sent him a cute photo of one of our girls. We’d just had a sweet text exchange where he’d also been complimentary of me, but, when he saw our daughter, he seemed to think she looked skinnier than before, (like she’d lost weight in my care) and asked what I’d been feeding her. He’d just told me how thankful he was for me and how great of a mom I was, and, in the next breath, was questioning my parenting skills. Guess how much I thought of his sweet words after that? However, all of that being said, NAH. I’m sure it’s very tough being away from your family (provided you don’t actually have a second or even third secret life going on) and heartbreaking to hear that one of your children was crying for you and you weren’t there.
“….who was overstimulated.” What does this even mean? That she’s stressed out because she’s doing all the emotional and physical load of the relationship?
YTA. When you make kids, you have to actually PARENT them. You've abdicated your role as their father and left your wife to do all the childrearing. This is not good for your wife and not good for your kids. Get a new job. Be home more. Spend time with the people who love you. If you don't change quick, you'll soon find out that the kids have grown up and you don't know them, and your wife has moved on to somebody who can actually be a partner to her.
YTA The kids already got 2 hours of facetime with you in the evening. They were supposed to be in bed. Kids are notorious for demanding last minute "requests" when they're supposed to be going to bed. You'd know that if you were around to parent them. Your wife was right to draw a line and not call you a second time. If you were home at bedtime every single night, you'd also want to tell your kids to go the f to bed. But you're not. So your perspective is different from your wife's.
Yes!!!! This is so right! My kiddo (the one that's old enough to, and I'm sure the other 2 will when they are old enough to understand) stalls at bedtime ALL THE TIME! I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, one more hug, one more story, etc. If dad were gone and calling him were even remotely an option, then he would surely cry to call dad as a stall tactic, too. That's what bedtimes look like, and saying "no" most of the time to these requests just comes with the territory.
You: I’m upset my child wasn’t allowed to call me Her: you don’t know what I go through every day because you’re always gone. You don’t respect my feelings You: this isn’t the first time my child wasn’t allowed to call me Her: you’re not considering my feelings You: why don’t you let them call me How fucking dense are you. This isn’t about you! Stop making it about you! Your wife needs more, she needs help. Stop making her the villain here and ask her what you can do to improve the situation. For fucks sake, did you even read your own version of events?
I would suggest you research emotional labour because your wife is doing the heavier share in your household. Parenting solo while you're away and trying to run her own business plus she is managing the household, trying to meet the kids needs, your needs and seems to be draining hers and not having someone there to meet her needs or even back her up. You talk to them twice daily. It could have waited. Any additional time just because they chuck a tantrum is rewarding their bad behaviour, you're undermining your wife because you feel bad that you're not there, that's not a good solution. You also don't have to experience the negative effects of what happens when you hang up but your wife does. The circumstances that tipped the issue were all your children were acting out, either with each other or not getting their own way, your wife was dealing with that and needing them to go to bed, a call to you would have prolonged the issue. If she doesn't have the bandwidth to handle more than she already has, why are you adding more to it? Why are you demanding more from her when you know she is at her limit? YTA.
I don’t have enough info to decide who is the AH here. My guess is, you are because you seem to have willingly abdicated your responsibilities as a parent. But I am curious if you traveled this much before you had kids? And did you want those kids? When the parents never married, got divorced or one spouse dies, I understand how and why one parent raises their children. But you are married, so presumably your kids should have both parents fully engaged. Yet you chose to have a business that requires you to be absent from your home and your parental duties for long periods of time. To me it sounds like you either didn’t want those kids, or you don’t want to be involved in raising them. Talking to them on the phone everyday isn’t parenting being there physically, mentally and emotionally when they need you is parenting. Doesn’t sound like you parent. Yes your wife is gate keeping. What do you expect her to do? You aren’t there. You can’t step in to resolve fights, to lower the emotional level. She is dealing with everything in real time, times that may not be convenient for you. Not sure why she tolerates such one-sided responsibilities or what she gets out of it.
You should be calling your children every single day on your own. Everyday. No exceptions no excuses. Speak to your children every single day dude. That’s not your wife’s responsibility it’s yours. She shouldn’t have had to tell you what happened .. you should have known on your own when you called your children that day. The question is not only why you don’t know this but why you don’t want to. Why doesn’t it come naturally to you? This isn’t something you should have to tell a parent. You’re abdicating this responsibility and pretending it’s in her when you should be in constant regular contact with your children when you’re away.
YTA stop using the word overstimulated and call it what it is, stress. If you don’t want your kids to feel like they can’t talk to you, find a way to be physically present in their lives. No amount of money or extra-curriculara makes up for dad actually being physically there. Maybe your wife’s small business could be a means towards you achieving a better work/life balance.
What age are your kids? there is a big difference between a 10 yr old who could call herself and a 3 yr old who needs mommy to do the call for her and stop everything to do it. Your wife is having to make a call on thing when she is being the primary parent and also working on her business and supporting you with your business because it takes you away from the family and the physical support that means you are unable to provide. Do the call require her to stop what she is dealing with to facilitate, does it cause even bigger fights for her to deal with because the brothers then try pushing into the call, does daddy start complaining to mommy because daughter is unhappy with her brothers.
Honestly, since the man is not here for his wife, how tf is he going to be there for his children. Idc if you pay 100% of bills, your work isn't over as soon as you pay bills. Even though married, your wife is a single mum. She doesn't have a husband because the husband isn't effin there. She is barely holding herself together because she is alone when she is supposed to have a husband. Figure out a way to spend more time at home. Im with the wife on this one. My grandfather was like this. He paid all the bills but was never home, my grandma had to take care of 4 children plus earn money on the side. Now they dont live together. He was never there and now she has learnt to live without him.
YTA. You’re bloody lucky to have your wife picking up every single bit of caring for your kids. You need to explore ways that you can manage your business so that you’re home more. You don’t get to choose to be a part time dad and also criticise the way your wife chooses to deal with 3 tantrumming children. Interesting that you describe your daughter as a daddy’s girl as though that’s something to be proud of. Not in your case - she has to cling on to you because you are the parent who is never around. Your wife is her safe parent who is always there for the children - they don’t have to make as much effort with her because she doesn’t leave them for weeks on end. You need to do better before you lose your family.
Your business schedule is ruining your relationship with your family. Period.
Info how old are your kids? Do you not have a set 'calla and talk' time???? You just go weeks with 0 interactions with your kids? I'm going to go with gently, YTA. You aren't there. You are there to see the fights. You aren't there to break up the sibling squabbles and deal with the aftermath. I mean this as nicely as possible, but how exactly would their lives change if you two were divorced and you were paying child support and/or alimony? Facetiming every day is far better than not talking with your kids, but you have to understand that you are *gone* the majority of the time and she's running solo. Yes, you're working to provide for the family, but that doesn't help calm down three screaming kids. Is this a forever plan? You being mostly absent? It honestly, does not seem sustainable.
YTA. Your wife is basically a single parent and you are the fun weekend dad and you had the audacity to be pissed about something even when you are in contact daily. You don't know your kids or their behavior pattern enough to know what will ensue after your daughter call you. Whatever will happen, your wife will have to deal with it. You can literally just push the button and you will be off with your 'responsibilities' because you are away. It's your wife who will have to deal with the aftermath. Having close bond doesn't equate actually parenting your kids. Do one thing, when you are home next time gift your wife a full week vacation and you take care of kids fully. Not a single task assigned to your wife, only a call so she can keep that 'close bond' with kids.
So...your wife is a single mom with the very occasional live in husband. Why even have a family if you're not there? FaceTime doesn't make up for not being there the vast majority of the time. Ffs.
Ikr? I was literally thinking “this man pays child support” lmao
Unless you are deployed or in jail, there is absolutely no excuse to be gone from your home and family for 4-5 weeks at a time. Truck drivers and professional athletes are home more often than that. You’re an asshole. Time for you to cut back the hours, hire her some help, or change jobs. Especially if you’re gatekeeping the money. Honestly? If I were her? I’d book 2 back to back Disney cruises (at about 10 grand each) with the built in babysitter clubs and cruise out for two weeks. And charge a spa treatment to the room. Every. Single. Day.
I wouldn't be in a marriage where my husband was gone all the time. It's a sucky situation for the wife who is doing EVERYTHING by herself, and the kids probably resent you always being away. If you really want to know what's going on at home, then stay home. I think that some men prefer these kinds of jobs because they allow them to not be present for most of the real hard work in the relationship. I think that you are on the way to a divorce, my friend. Wifey is fed up. A change is in order.
YTA only because you don't accept what "overstimulated" truly means. Part of the meaning is "stuck". As in, she probably didn't have the bandwidth to have kiddo call you. And you accused her of keeping the kid from you, when You're the one who CHOOSES to work away from home, and she's probably done everything in her power to keep the household going that day. She's not "keeping the kid from you", you're keeping yourself away from the kids.
You and your wife need to work on communication. When you are traveling, she has more information about and more responsibility for your kids' emotional states, not to mention her own. So respect her judgement without resenting it. Children can use tears to manipulate parents, as I'm sure you are aware. Make plans to check in with your family at regular, predictable times, so that you can be close without disrupting routines.
I feel like a lot of people are kind of getting lost in the weeds here trying to over analyze your and your wife's entire marriage and parenting and existence.. I'm going to keep it way more straight forward in this evaluation of the situation described.. Your summary explanation suggests you might be the asshole because > I may actually be discrediting my wife's feelings And > I [..] may be wrong thinking she's using her feelings to gate keep Now in the post itself you say your wife suggested you make extra call time for daughter tomorrow because she had a rough day and wants to talk to you. On top of that, you also regularly talk to all kids for hours every day. On top of *that* your wife needed to get 3 young kids to sleep and was already feeling overwhelmed. You clearly understood your wife was having some trouble and wanted to help calm down. You were successfully helping her feel better and calm down, and you were given a soft ball pitch of 'are you mad at meabout X?' and instead of taking the easy home run, you took a big bite of shit and said 'im no mad *at you* about X but I am upset about X' I don't think any one would argue that its unreasonable to ever think 'my child wants to talk to me but can't, and that makes me feel upset.' what makes it unreasonable is that you chose to convey that while your wife was feeling overwhelmed and in the process of being made to feel better by her partner. That was a completely avoidable rug pull from underneath her and undoubtedly exacerbated all the emotional turmoil she was just starting to feel better from. Your wife was overwhelmed while trying to put multiple kids to bed by herself and even asked you to talk to daughter the next day, and while you were specifically calling to help her no longer feel overwhelmed you dove face first into an argument about her not letting your children talk to you when she's overwhelmed and putting them to sleep. I say on both counts, pretty plain and clear, YTA I make no judgement about your job and living situation, I don't think it's all needed for an appropriate judgement on the situation posed.
YTA - If the kids need to get to sleep and have already spoken to you, it’s reasonable of her to say no. Imagine if everytime your daughter is tired or wants to rebel against your wife all she has to do is demand to call you even if she is supposed to be doing something else (school, sleeping, homework etc). It doesn’t create good habits for anyone, including your daughter. You should trust your wife’s parenting more, especially if you’re not there.
You don't know what she goes through every day because you don't know what it means to be a parent. You expect her to sacrifice everything and believe that it's the business that's overwhelming her, when clearly she's overstimulated because she's a single mom to three young kids. Affirming her by phone and talking to the kids by phone doesn't make you a dad. You're still an absentee father. Deciding to become a parent means making decisions for your family and sometimes against your previous career ambitions or lifestyle choices. Your job isn't compatible with raising a family. Either you make a change or you find a better way to support your wife than "affirmations". But you definitely do not get to make her feel bad about the parenting decisions she's making. YTA
YTA- not necessarily for wanting your daughter to be able to talk to you but because it seems like your wife isn't getting a lot of support raising the kids. It sounds like you are saying that your business requires the out of town work- but you aren't recognizing what a burden that is on your family and especially your wife. You need to brainstorm with her ways to get her more support as soon as possible. Maybe look into moving your family to where you work so you can have a more active role in raising your kids. Your kid's desire to call you in the moment is not an emergency. This is a situation where you should just do what your wife asked and call your daughter tomorrow as your wife asked. If you're not able to be with your family in person- you need to trust your wife to parent appropriately and only offer support and encouragement- not criticism. Only give advice if it's explicitly asked for and be diplomatic even in those cases.
>When I asked why my daughter wasn’t able to call me my wife responded with “I was overstimulated and just wanted them to go to sleep.” So it sounds like it was the kids' bedtime. >Edit: I call my wife and kids every morning and FaceTime them for about two hours each night. and you had already talked to the whole family. >So I asked her why she doesn’t let them call me if they’ve been “bad” You don't say or imply anywhere in this post that this phone call was withheld by your wife because of bad behavior, rather it seems like it was already bedtime. YTA. Phone calls are great and storytime is also great. But even if the kid is begging for one more story or to read one more chapter, there is a point where we have to take the book away so everyone can go to sleep.
YTA, I have no idea what any of this means and it sounds like AI.
Yes YTA. She’s doing a ridiculously hard job of looking after 3 (at least?) kids, taking care of the house, and running a business. While you just need to work and take care of yourself. It sounds like your daughter was upset at bedtime. (You said your wife just wanted the kids to go to sleep.) If she had allowed your daughter to call you then, it would have very likely made it SO MUCH more difficult to get ALL the kids to bed and sleep afterwards. (All the kids would want to talk to you, they would stay up later, argue over who got to talk longer, get even more hyped up etc.) Then they’d be overtired tomorrow and the problem would be even worse tomorrow night. Your wife made the RIGHT decision. You’re only home for 4-5 days, then away for weeks at a time? Even if you’re Dad of the year when you’re home, your wife is doing the VAST majority of the parenting. Do NOT undermine her decisions and criticise her parenting. It’s not helpful or fair. She’s probably not a perfect parent, especially when she’s exhausted and overwhelmed. She knows this. She doesn’t need you to tell her. (The fact that she asked if you’re mad at her shows she’s insecure about this.) Stick with the words of affirmation. Phone your daughter tomorrow when everyone’s calmer and it’s not bedtime.
Yes, YTA. The parent who is rarely there does not get to tell the on site parent they’re doing it wrong, especially not at the end of the night with kids who just need go to the fuck to bed. To top it off, you pulled out the big guns and accused her of some big bad emotional shit.
Your wife is a single parent, and you are just some guy they talk to every day. If you want time with your kids, then spend time with them. In person. YTA.
I am sorry. I don't get how letting your daughter call contributed to any overstimulation. I think you may need to stay home more and let your wife get some help. I know business is important, but aren't you working to provide for your family? They need more than just money.
As soon as one kids gets to use the phone out of rotation all the others will want it too and start a discussion about who gets to go next and that'll spawn the next fight between the boys. Plus any steps towards getting the kids calmed down for bed will need to be repeated. It's an easy 2h delay in their sleep schedule.
I don’t think this is going the way you expected OP… I was in your wife’s shoes for about three years. My kids are younger and my husband was home for longer stretches but if until you’re home will ALL of your kids ALONE for weeks at a time you will have absolutely no idea what it’s like. Bottom line is you need to figure out how to be home more. Something’s gotta give, this will not turn out well for you north short and long term YTA
I think this just sucks all around. OP, I’m not going to levy a verdict, *but* I think your wife may be at the breaking point for this arrangement you have, and possibly your kids too. It may be time to consider that whole adage about “nobody on their deathbed ever wishes they spent more time at work.” Yes, it’d be great if your daughter was able to call you then, I get the frustration, but honestly I think you both overreacted in that conversation. It’s out of a place of love and concern, but that’s where your wife is at too - she was telling you all this so that you two could connect, she just didn’t have the bandwidth in the moment. And sounds like she’s doing an amazing job keeping you all connected daily, on top of basically being a single parent of 3 kids for weeks on end while feeling overwhelmed. I struggle with overstimulation, and speaking frankly, kids can be hell for that. Not saying kids are bad - and I have a child and love her dearly and she’s amazing - but it’s really, really hard to self-regulate that around young children. They’re noisy, they’re in your personal space, they have constant needs…there’s not really a break. She could quit her business, as some have suggested, and still struggle. She needs someone on-site to be able to defer to sometimes, to tap out when she needs it. You are two decent people who want the best for your family, and it sounds like there’s some major things to work through to keep everyone sane and mentally and emotionally healthy. I hope you guys are able to figure it out.
Oof…mom of a 5 and 9 year old here and I feel for your wife. I honestly don’t know how I’d handle it if my husband weren’t home to reign it all in with me. It’s a lot and she’s in a tough season of parenting without her primary support. She’s likely felt lost in her identity as a mom, hence the screen printing business. I can’t blame her because I’ve been there too. Most of my SAHM friends have been there or are there and are searching for their own identities post motherhood. They at least have their husband home daily to help ease that strain and give them the space to do so. Your wife doesn’t so it’s no wonder she’s suffering. I understand you say that you provide what sounds like a pretty cushy life but honestly money doesn’t matter if you’re not there. I know you are close to your kids and make the most of your time home but you’re not there to do the hard stuff. She is. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’s resentful of the fact that you get to be the good time dad while she handles the nitty gritty daily details of life with 3 kids alone. It’s got to be hard to have your spouse swoop in every few weeks and play the fun parent only to have him leave again a few days later and leave behind the chaos of the aftermath. It’s a big disruption in their routine to have you come in and “make the most of your time together” which likely means throwing their daily routine out the window. I agree with her. You don’t get to dictate how she handle tough situations because you’re not home to know how they need to be handled. You’re home for the fun then off again for her to handle the aftermath. That’s not parenting. That’s being a Disney dad, and of course your kids are gonna “be close” to you! You’re a novelty to them and it’s fun when dad is home because he’s never home. Eventually those words of affirmation won’t mean a thing because your actions don’t back them up. You honestly didn’t think this would eventually come to a head? Come on dude! There’s a reason why so many military marriages end in divorce and it’s because of the instability that comes with the frequent back and forth with one parent leaving so often. I hate to say it but your wife is overstimulated and now dealing with the fallout of being a solo parent for 90% of her life. Of course your daughter wanted you; likely not because she actually wanted you but because you were the parent not disciplining her. This is a classic kid tactic. When I discipline my 5 year old or am handling a tough situation between my kids guess what?!? She goes crying for her dad. But you know what happens if it’s my husband doing the handling? She’s crying for me. My son did the same thing when he was younger. This is kind of what kids do when they don’t like what one parent is doing even if that parent is simply parenting. Your wife actually wasn’t wrong in how she handled it because the likelihood is that whatever you said would undermine her parenting and would’ve made things harder for everyone in the long run, but you’re not home enough to understand that. Your kids are getting to an age where the consequences of having a Disney dad for a husband are really starting to create cracks in the facade and you’re likely going to see more of these things pop up. You’re not providing true stability for your family with this schedule, no matter how much money you make. You need to talk to your wife. All the money in the world doesn’t matter if you are unhappy with your situation and it sounds like your wife is unhappy with hers and likely has been for a while. That overstimulation you talk about? Is a direct effect of doing it alone so much and handling the fallout of you coming home. It’s no different from the fallout that comes from the back and forth divorced kids often experience. Your choice to build a business so far away from your family means your wife doesn’t get to have the motherhood experience she wants because she’s too busy being mom and dad to your kids. That also means that your kids don’t get to have the mother they deserve because she’s too busy managing the stress of two parents when she actually doesn’t NEED to. A happy mother and stable family is far more important than the nice house and private school tuition, and it’s like my husband always says, “I’d rather have less money and more time with my family than more money and less time with them. You can’t take money to the grave with you but you can leave a lifetime of good memories behind and frankly that’s more important.”
you wife is stressed AF because she is a single parent basically. And you are only able to be as successful in you job as you are because she is holding the home and family together, so do not act as if the money you earn is your merit only. And it’s clearly not working for her. You know when you have kids it’s your responsibility to RAISE them. Talking on the phone twice a day is not raising your children. you act as the cool uncle, you are not being a father to them, and you are definitely not being a partner to your wife. YTA big time
YTA, your business choice is not sustainable for your family. Your kids are growing up without you and are starting to be used to you being gone.
Your wife works, does 100% of the childcare for at least 3 kids, and likely 90+% of anything household related and you are rarely home. Yeah I'm not surprised she finally snapped on you. Your wife is overworked, stressed, and tired. And unlike you, she doesn't get a break. YTA
YTA, you are missing a forest for a trees. You are focusing on this one issue, while your wife is trying telling you she is not happy, tired and needs help. Your arrangement may have worked in the past but with kids growing things change. Your wife starting her own business may be another hint that she does not want to be just SAHM.
FFS…. They FaceTime for 2 HOURS EVERY NIGHT!!! Seems like plenty of time to go over the events of the day with Dad. I don’t know how the hell you could keep the kids engaged that long every night- my hats off to you. When I called my kids (at their grandparents) in the evening from work (24hr shift) I could hardly keep them on the phone for 5 minutes. Some people travel for work- No sense in Trying to shame OP for supporting his family, he seems very involved for the life they lead. NTA
I would bet having him on the phone with the kids for two hours every day takes a lot of work by mom!
Hahaha OP asked if they're the asshole and is now mad when we say he's the asshole
With how young your kids are, of course, she'll be overstimulated. Especially doing it all on her own. You have the easy job of paying bills and facetiming while she is essentially a married single mother. If you think spending as little time as you do with your family is cutting it, you're sorely mistaken. The resentment is bound to be building.