I’m 25F and my husband is 28M. We have kids together.
For the last two days, I (28F) have been feeling horribly sick with what I thought were flu-like symptoms. Yesterday afternoon I ended up in the ER and was there for 14 hours. Turns out I have tick-borne encephalitis. Safe to say, not exactly a minor illness.
On top of that, I hadn’t slept and hadn’t eaten since 2 PM the previous day. By the time I finally got home, I was completely wiped.
While I was still in the ER, my husband (21M) texted asking if I could make a bottle for our son when I got home so he could feed him during the night. The bottles were dirty, so this wasn’t just grabbing one, I would’ve had to wash, prep, and make it, potentially in the middle of the night after getting discharged.
Then when I got home at 6 AM, instead of telling me to go rest, he asked me to help get the kids ready for school first.
I got upset and told him that if the roles were reversed, I would never expect him to jump into parenting duties immediately after getting home from the emergency room.
For context: he works nights from home and is trying to build his mechanic business, so I understand he’s busy. But I also feel like me being in the ER should’ve meant he adjusted and handled things himself.
What’s making me feel worse is that he’ll also be gone the next two weekends for concerts, so this is basically my only chance to recover before being solo parenting again.
This also isn’t a one-off thing. He regularly asks me to do things for him or the kids that he could easily do himself, or asks questions he could find the answer to on his own.
The other day I completely broke down crying because I realized nobody really takes care of me, including me. I spend so much time caring for everyone else, but when I’m sick or struggling, I still feel expected to keep everything running.
Now he thinks I’m overreacting and doesn’t understand why I’m upset.
AITA for refusing to help?