This couple has been dating for six years and married for three, and he considers his wife his best friend. He also is well aware that she is a workaholic and a perfectionist. His wife is now pregnant with twins and preparing herself to take time off. The husband admits his wife’s job is much more stressful and demanding. She often works, on average, 60 hours a week at home and in the office.
This was never an issue in their relationship, however, two weeks ago, her doctor told her to take a step back from work and suggested she take an early leave. The stress she was experiencing was starting to cause a couple of health issues, but the babies were healthy. He says his wife continues to work on her laptop for 6 to 8 hours daily. He understands that she needs to complete some assignments, but he claims she becomes so focused that she forgets to eat meals and falls asleep at her desk.
When he got home, he saw she was asleep at her desk again. He woke her up and told her that she needed to go to bed and rest. She insisted she was fine and had an emergency with a client, so she had to finalize some things for a coworker. He asked her to take a break, eat, and nap, but she said she only needed an hour to finish up and then would. He was annoyed but told her she just had one hour.
She was still working at the two-hour mark. He became frustrated and unplugged the WiFi and hid the cable. He was forcing her to take a break because she wouldn’t stop working. Once she realized what he had done, she became furious, called him names, said he was treating her like a child, and accused him of being controlling, condescending, and ‘borderline abusive.’
He told her she was being stupid and to let her coworker handle it. He said she could use her mobile hotspot or figure out the router herself. Otherwise, he would plug it back in when he woke up, which he did.
His wife was so angry that she slept in the guest room, and when he went to apologize, she was still so angry she couldn’t look at him. She now refuses to speak to him. He now wonders if he was wrong to make her take a forced break.
With over 12,000 votes, this response says he caused her more stress by turning off the WiFi.
“To a certain extent, I get your concern especially if her doctor said to limit stress. Does she need better work/life balance? Probably. But the way you deal with that concern is NOT by taking away your wife’s autonomy. That’s just unacceptable in a relationship. And frankly, given that your wife IS a perfectionist and worried about work deadlines, you probably caused her a lot more stress by cutting her off from the WiFi, hiding the cable and demanding that she go take a nap like she’s a naughty five-year-old.”
However, a reader did defend his actions and understood his intentions.
“The wife is pregnant. I understand tying up loose ends, but to the point where you are losing sleep and not eating? That’s not healthy. Cutting the WiFi was a bad way of going about it, but he had the right idea. He asked her to stop for a while (not all together) and eat and take a nap, and she still pushes herself. This is MORE than a work/life balance. Its detrimental to her and the babies health. She should not be overworking herself that much.”
What do you think? Was he right to force his wife to take a break? Or should he have let her decide when she needs to stop working?
This article was produced by This Mom is On Fire.
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This post originally appeared on Reddit.