Man Dragged for Accusing Wife of 'Not Checking' His Email While He Slept

Members of a popular internet forum were outraged after one mother revealed how her husband's inability to wake up on time for work suddenly became her fault.

In a viral Reddit post published on r/AmITheA**hole, Redditor u/Ok-Appearance-866 (otherwise referred to as the original poster, or OP) said she often has to maintain her husband's computer during the morning hours and explained why she was loudly berated after he slept through an important work meeting.

Titled, "[Am I the a**hole] for my husband missing a meeting while I was babysitting his laptop?" the post has received nearly 8,000 votes and 800 comments in the last 12 hours.

Writing that her husband "routinely has issues with his sleep schedule," the original poster said the couple works from home and employs an unconventional arrangement to accommodate her husband's irregular rest.

"On mornings when he needs an extra hour or two, he asks me to grab his laptop, log on, and monitor his email/Skype until he wakes up," OP wrote. "Mind you, I do this while doing my own work (I manage to wake up and get online even if I only get 5 hours of sleep) and caring for our toddler."

One recent morning, the original poster said her husband assured her he would be awake in time for work, but exploded in fury when that didn't happen.

"I grabbed his computer for him but he asked to be woken up by 9am," OP wrote. "I was logging on after a week of vacation and had a couple of high priority items to tend to [and] I forgot to check his email."

"He woke at 9am but never came to get his computer until 10:30." OP continued. "It turns out, he had a 9am meeting that he completely missed."

"He started yelling at me and cussing me out for not checking his email," OP added. "I told him it's not my responsibility to do his job, and he said it's OUR job because our livelihood depends on both our jobs. He said I am not a team player."

Over the last two years, COVID-19 has transformed the modern work landscape and has pushed countless workers from office complexes into home offices, bedrooms, living rooms or anywhere the internet connection is strong enough to hold a meeting on Zoom.

Despite efforts to pull employees back into offices across the country, data collected by Pew Research Center revealed that nearly 60 percent of U.S. workers who say their jobs can be done from the comfort of their home are doing just that.

However, the benefits of working from home are not equally distributed, especially for households in which multiple people have set up shop at the dining room table.

At the end of December 2020, the Harvard Business Review reported that couples working from home had come under the duress, "damaging even strong partnerships, ending others, and overwhelming family attorneys in some areas with divorce inquiries."

The Harvard Business Review also reported that the delicate balance between work life and home life, especially pertaining to housework and childcare, was decimated by so many couples working from home, and that many women reported their dissatisfaction with the "division of time between paid and unpaid work than men."

Throughout the comment section of the viral Reddit post, Redditors echoed this dissatisfaction and called out the original poster's husband for complaining that his wife wasn't watching his computer, doing her own work and raising their child all at the same time.

"[Not the a**hole]," Redditor u/emsfc wrote in the post's top comment, which has received nearly 10,000 votes. "His reaction is completely unfair and irrational."

"He is an adult, you're not his mother and his time management isn't somehow your job. It's his responsibility," they continued. "He missed the meeting because of his own error and then [blamed] you. Doesn't even make sense at all."

Redditor u/MadoogsL, whose comment has received more than 2,400 votes, said it was insane for the original poster's husband to expect anybody to do his job for him, much less his wife who was busy taking care of their kid.

"You are busy with your own job AND childcare. Even if you weren't it's NOT your job to pretend to be him and log in and check his email," they wrote. "This is not a cool situation and it's kind of f**ked up that he's normalized it so much."

"You're minding the child, doing your job and his on very little sleep so he can get a couple more hours...creating the illusion that he's working when he's not?" Redditor u/rapt2tight questioned, receiving more than 1,000 votes. "And he's berating you because your job demanded attention? [Not the a**hole]."

Newsweek reached out to u/Ok-Appearance-866 for comment.