AITA on Mother’s Day?
AITA for being upset about Mother’s Day even though my husband technically did what I asked?
For Mother’s Day, all I asked for was a clean house and to basically be left alone to relax. I’ve been trying to work on communicating my needs more clearly in therapy, so I told my husband this directly the day before.
The morning of Mother’s Day, my husband slept in until around 9AM. Not a huge deal, but it already annoyed me a little because I was awake with the kids since 6AM. When he finally got up, he spent the next couple of hours folding laundry in our bedroom while I was trying to relax in there. Eventually I asked if he was almost done because I wanted to actually lay in the room peacefully.
He did take the kids out of the room after that, but then spent over 30 minutes in the bathroom, so the kids kept wandering back in and out while I was trying to decompress.
Around 1 PM, while they were at sports, I went downstairs and realized basically nothing had been cleaned except the laundry. My mom was coming over around 3, and the house was still messy. When my husband got back, he again disappeared into the bathroom for a while, so I ended up cleaning downstairs myself because I was stressed about my mom coming over.
His defense was basically that the kids kept making messes, but I was frustrated because to me, if making the day relaxing for me was really important, some of the cleaning could have been done the night before so I could wake up to a clean house instead of watching it slowly happen all day.
Then my family came over so I could give my mom her Mother’s Day gift. The kids were overtired and cranky, everyone was kind of all over the place, and tensions were already high. At one point while I was talking to my mom, my daughter wanted to show me something. I acknowledged her, but I was mid conversation. My husband got annoyed and accused me of ignoring my daughter in front of everyone. I snapped back that I was literally in the middle of talking.
Then while my mom and I were exchanging gifts, my husband handed me my Mother’s Day gift (I specifically asked not to be bought gifts). I set it down because I was actively opening gifts and honestly forgot to open it afterward because the evening got chaotic.
Apparently this upset him because after everyone left and the kids were in bed, instead of coming upstairs to spend time together, he played video games until 1 AM because he felt ignored and unappreciated.
Now I feel guilty and ungrateful because he DID do some things: he folded laundry, took the kids for a bit. But I also feel like I still spent the entire day mentally managing the house, the kids, the timing, and everyone’s emotions, which is exactly what I didn’t want to do for one day!
AITA for still being upset about how the day went?