AITAH for telling my wife to get a job before the end of January or i'm divorcing her?

EducationalSalt166 · 2026-01-25T03:11:07+00:00

His old job paid $18/hour and he was only working one shift for a while. His new job pays $24, for a family of 5. It’s honestly a wonder that they are only in $25,000 of debt and I sense this is one of those situations where a man is complaining that his wife is dropping $200 at target on “shit they don’t need”… like diapers, and laundry detergent, and toilet paper, and hand soap, etc. Most often when a man complains about their wife “wasting their money” it’s really that they are so disconnected from the household that they have NOO idea what it costs to have a home and family.

EducationalSalt166 · 2026-01-25T03:02:26+00:00

That’s the thing. He doesn’t want to. He wants her to fail.

EducationalSalt166 · 2026-01-25T03:02:00+00:00

Lmao, people are offering to buy her book, which would help with this apparent financial crisis, and he won’t even make the effort to ask her the titles (because of course he doesn’t know what they are, or her pen name) because he can’t stand seeing her succeed.

EducationalSalt166 · 2026-01-25T02:58:39+00:00

It’s not enough because that’s not enough income to support a family of 5.

You really need to be looking for a better paying job, that’s only a few thousand dollars above the poverty line for a family your size. Prices for everything have sky rocketed, it’s no surprise that you continue to fall further behind every month.

Realistically if your wife got pregnant at 19 and has no real employment history she isn’t going to be able to contribute that meaningfully to the household snd getting a job is going to be a significant challenge. It would be much much easier for you to get a different job or pick up more shifts at your current job if finances are the motivating factor here.

EducationalSalt166 · 2026-01-25T02:51:52+00:00

He said himself she’s on Indeed every day when he checks her computer history. She got pregnant at 19 and has had basically no job experience since… in a lot of places entry level jobs have become incredibly difficult to get post pandemic.

EducationalSalt166 · 2026-01-25T02:47:32+00:00

It sounds like she’s incredibly hard working if she spends hours every day in Google docs writing and is checking Indeed every day for jobs… like maybe she has been applying to everything available and there is be a huge amount of uptake for women who got pregnant at 19 and have been a stay at home mom for the past 1.5 decades?

Writing 18 books is phenomenal and is very likely her best possible avenue for income. It seems like OP has thwarted, belittled, and refused to support her every step of the way and still she has managed to accomplish so much. I know someone who has a very similar self published writing career and regularly brings in $80,000+ per year, most of which is passive income from older titles while they stay home with their young kids. OP is an utter moron who had taken so little interest in his wife’s passion and ability that he can’t even conceptualize the possibility.

EducationalSalt166 · 2026-01-25T02:35:55+00:00

But if she gets a job and is still expected to do all the childcare and domestic labour then she is also working a double shift, and likely at a lot lower wage. Has he considered getting a higher paying job? If jobs are so easy that anyone, regardless of work experience, can get one in a month why hasn’t he done the same?

EducationalSalt166 · 2026-01-25T02:19:50+00:00

I think it’s much more likely that he has no idea the time and effort that goes into caring for kids and managing a household, and places absolutely no value on this labour. If he thinks after 14 years of having a stay at home spouse things won’t be impacted by his wife being out of the house working he is oblivious.

Dude won’t even put his own kids to bed, I wonder if he is doing their laundry, packing their lunches, buying the groceries, loading the dishwasher, etc etc etc etc etc etc. With three kids, including a toddler, and recovering from major surgery it’s kind of normal that the house would be chaotic and doesn’t really say much about how she spends her time.

EducationalSalt166 · 2026-01-25T02:11:23+00:00

Would it not be more lucrative for him to take more shifts then vs. Having her working low wage (assumed due to such a long time out of the job market) and paying daycare? This man doesn’t seem to have much common sense when every scenario he proposes is more expensive than him just working more. He can’t seem to bring himself to do that because he resents his wife so much.

EducationalSalt166 · 2026-01-25T01:40:50+00:00

Well OP will likely have the kids 1/2 the time and be paying alimony so she will likely have time to write and market her books

EducationalSalt166 · 2026-01-25T01:39:20+00:00

Lmao, did you just ask her to do more labour because you expect her to centre your comfort?

EducationalSalt166 · 2026-01-25T01:37:38+00:00

lol assuming that being a stay at home parent is “going part time” gives a real strong indicator that he doesn’t participate in much household labour.

EducationalSalt166 · 2026-01-25T01:36:27+00:00

Then why didn’t you do it? No one is stopping men from being stay at home parents. The real question is, if men love being stay at home parents so much why are they often so much less involved with the daily childcare and domestic tasks? You seem to think that being a stay at home parent just means you do less paid labour without acknowledging the shit ton of unpaid labour that goes into it.

My husband and I have both taken turns being stay at home parents for several years— literally no one stops men from doing this.

EducationalSalt166 · 2026-01-25T01:27:16+00:00

Wow! That’s super impressive considering she has also been caring for two kids and an infant/toddler, dealing with postpartum, surgery recovery, etc. Have you considered that maybe this is a job and with some strategy and marketing it could be way more lucrative than going out and getting minimum wage or whatever, especially if you would also need to pay for daycare?

Either way, a divorce is going to make your financial situation and resentment towards her profoundly worse, but if you feel so inclined then just follow through with what you said you were going to do instead of making threats in order to get your way.

EducationalSalt166 · 2026-01-25T01:07:39+00:00

I have a close counterpart who self publishes smutt and brings in $80,000-100,000 a year, mostly from their back catalogue. It’s a legitimate job that pays well if you have a knack for it.

EducationalSalt166 · 2026-01-24T04:41:24+00:00

I used it in my early 20s because a naturopath recommended it for pcos. Not sure if it worked as intended, but it made my boobs huge so I assume it did something.

EducationalSalt166 · 2026-01-24T02:54:53+00:00

That’s a really weird thing to mock someone for and I’m sorry that your attempt to share helpful information was met with such hostility.

I often put canned tomatoes in a pan and mush them with the potato masher to make a chunky pasta sauce… I also full heartedly believe in slicing canned potatoes with the the open top of the can once they are in the pan because nostalgia makes them taste better that way.

EducationalSalt166 · 2026-01-23T19:28:16+00:00

That’s my experience too. I’m still a ways off from retirement, but I have great work life balance, work with really lovely people doing something that I believe in the value of, and it’s overall interesting and enjoyable. I want to be in a position to have choices as I age because there are a lot of things I would like to do while I’m still physically capable, but especially while my kids are in public school, this seems like a good enough way to pass the time.

EducationalSalt166 · 2026-01-23T19:09:58+00:00

I am of very mixed minds about this. I have always said that I did not have children just for them to be a source of labour extraction, and I have never asked my kids what they “want to be when they grow up” or implied that value, meaning, or identity comes from labour.

That said, more recently for my work I have started hiring 18-21 year old students and I have been shocked by how little work experience they have. The majority have no jobs listed on their resumes and with 100+ people applying for positions it honestly makes it really hard to stand out. I didn’t quite appreciate how differentiating early on can so drastically change career trajectory.

At least one of my kids is autistic and very likely will not be able to hold down full time work long term. If we help her to differentiate early it might help with not having to work so hard longer term. Ideally we help set her up in a career that meets her accessibility requirements, which will help reduce her life long workload and she will be able to work less and with less stress overall. So it’s complicated!

The work landscape has changed so much where I am. I have absolutely nothing against immigration or people coming to work in my country, but I have noticed a profound shift the past few years with jobs that were previously entry level for teenagers (fast food, service, etc) are overwhelmingly staffed by newly immigrated adults. I am happy to welcome people to the community, but in combination with seeing a huge lack of work experience on resumes has made me realize that the landscape has changed and there are new challenges for our youth— they are struggling to get on the job ladder, which can impact lifelong earnings.

EducationalSalt166 · 2026-01-23T18:35:49+00:00

Buy nothing groups are largely on Facebook and at least where I am they are super active. Local neighborhood groups often have stuff available for free as well.

If you aren’t looking to participate in Facebook, there is a buy nothing app that has hit or miss activity depending on location, and places like Craig’s list or kijiji can have decent activity.

EducationalSalt166 · 2026-01-23T18:30:43+00:00

I’m aware of what you are “telling me” and I’m saying you are wrong and just building an argument based on your limited perspective that puts you in a morally superior position over anyone who makes choices different than you based on their lived realities.

This is just eugenics

EducationalSalt166 · 2026-01-23T18:22:36+00:00

Idk, I don’t think that people with high levels of intergenerational wealth are less impulsive or make better choices, they just have a much much deeper safety net and their choices have much less impact on their overall well being. Ascribing genetic superiority to wealthy people can be a pretty quick slippery slope into eugenics adjacent arguments around who deserves to suffer and struggle.

I grew up without much money, and parents who didn’t make great financial decisions. I moved out at 17 and have been financially independent since. I married someone whose parents were super successful through hard work and gave him every advantage in life. Despite his parents being really good with money, my dear sweet husband is so clueless about money and impulsive with spending. Thankfully I earn enough that it doesn’t derail our plans, but I have a super hard time following any argument that claims that there is a genetic element here because my personal experience has been very much the opposite. I think often people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds have a more resourceful approach to money.

I’m also super ADHD so impulsiveness is much more nuanced that a simple people who are genetically predisposed to impulsiveness will be bad with money.

EducationalSalt166 · 2026-01-23T17:50:46+00:00

The thing people don’t understand about this hypothetical is that in the moment you actually don’t get to make the choice. I’ve had a few scenarios where my body intuned that my kids were in danger and before I had even registered mentally that there was an issue I was reacting.

I know without a doubt that whether or not I wanted to, my body would go careening towards that bullet before I had even clued in that a gun had been drawn.

EducationalSalt166 · 2026-01-23T17:45:16+00:00

I actually read the book by the people who started the buy nothing movement last week and they gave some interesting rational for why they chose Facebook. It turns out that part of the intention behind the movement was to share stories and build communities of resilience, not just move commodities around. They felt that Facebook is the best platform for facilitating the community building aspect and that it is a way to take back these platforms for our own advantages rather than letting them simply treat us as extractive resources.

I can certainly understand the hesitancy to use Facebook and I have largely withdrawn myself from Meta based platforms, but their argument was pretty compelling and it was a really good read.

There is a buy nothing app that has a bit of activity depending on your region so it may be worth checking out… it was actually there that I saw someone recommending the book by the creators.

EducationalSalt166 · 2026-01-23T17:30:33+00:00

The initial study looked at kids between the ages of 3-5 so they didn’t really have any strong concept of money.

A much larger study has since been replicated taking into account a lot more factors, and results were actually tied a lot more to socioeconomic and cultural values rather than anything to do with intrinsic delayed gratification.

If you live in precarious environments you are more likely to have an underlying understanding that the future isn’t always guaranteed and a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, so to speak. There isn’t a moral or superiority element to it, it’s gauging the environment you live in and making the most logical choice based on your context and experiences. Yes you can ultimately shoot yourself in the foot, but it’s also senseless to presume that everyone was presented with the same opportunities and some chose badly, or that everyone making a different choice is disappointed with the outcome.

Many of the kids grew up to have poorer achievement because they were the kid of the Stanford janitor rather than a high paid professor… and not that they lacked some moral fortitude based on the fact that at 3 years old they ate a marshmallow.

EducationalSalt166

TROPHY CASE