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indy100
Entertainment
Elaine McCallig

Husband gives wife a ‘ridiculous’ list of expectations for his ‘birthday month’

A woman has taken to Reddit to vent about her husband’s “ridiculous” list of “expectations” as part of his “birthday month”.

To celebrate turning 30, he has a list of things he wants during his “birthday month” and the contents are as ridiculous as you would guess.

He wants to do no cooking, no cleaning, pay no rent, and play his Xbox “for hours on end”.

Unsurprisingly, the woman pushed back on her husband’s demands. But now the couple are embroiled in a row that’s led to him avoiding her.

Explaining the situation on Reddit’s Am I The A**hole subreddit, she said turning 30 is clearly a big deal for her partner, and she understands that he wants to feel special and pampered.

However, she got a shock when he began reading from a list he referred to as his “birthday month expectations”.

She then gave Redditors an insight into what he expects by sharing five of his demands.

  1. He is not to be asked to do any chores, clean, or cook for a month.
  2. He gets to play Xbox “for hours on end without me interrupting him or nagging him about it”. 
  3. He does not have to pay his share of the rent this month.
  4. He can go out with his friends whenever he wants.
  5. He gets to skip any day at work and sleep in, without being bothered to wake up to drive their son to school 

She boiled it down to “a month-long vacation and time off from his responsibilities as a partner and as a father.”

Explaining their situation, she said they are both employed but she does most of the chores, shoulders most of their son’s care, and looks after the majority of the bills. Aside from not wanting to, she said she actually can’t afford to do what he expects of her, and needs him to continue earning his keep given they are already struggling.

She asked if he was serious, and he tried reassuring her that it would only last a month. She called him ridiculous, and said his expectations were out of line. That obviously didn’t go down well, and he “pitched a fit” about how “selfish” she is, and tried telling her that when it’s her birthday month he will do the same for her.

She continued: “I argued that birthday month is unheard of and just flat out ridiculous but he said that I don’t understand because his parents did this for him for years and so did his friends (he never told me) so as his wife I should be happy to do it as well.

“But I declined and refused to take it and keep arguing about it but he hasn’t stopped talking about how disappointed he was that I treat his birthday like that and has been avoiding being near me making me feel like maybe I went too far here.”

She concluded the post by asking for outsider opinions on the situation.

The top comment with 32,000 upvotes reads: “Lol if I pulled that s*** on my wife I’d expect divorce papers for my birthday present.”

Another Redditor branded his requests “unrealistic” and “out of touch with reality”. Responding to this comment, the original poster said that’s what really bothers her, and it’s his intention to “basically stop doing anything for an entire month”, including his responsibilities as an employee and as a father.

Another asked: “He isn’t serious, is he??? Or are you married to a 3 year old?”

“I just vomited in my mouth a little,” one Redditor remarked. Responding, another user said: “This sums everything up so wonderfully. Perfecto.”

This isn’t the first time we’ve written about partners that seem to have an air of entitlement. We previously wrote about a man who told his wife to “just do [her] job” when she wasn’t cooking dinner fast enough.

What would you do in this situation?

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