This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/Agreeable-Tomato-658 on 2023-09-17 19:46:20.
So I (27 F) have been with my husband (31 M) for 13 years now, married for 9. He was my first serious boyfriend and we were high school sweethearts. We got married right after I graduated high school, and moved in together right after he graduated college and got his own place. Everything was wonderful.
I lost my job at the beginning of lockdown in 2020, but my husband was able to keep his as his. I continued to be a stay-at-home wife even after lockdown let up because my husband makes plenty to support us both and we’re child-free. After 2 years as a SAHW, I wanted to go back to work, at least part time. I told my husband I wanted to return to work, which led to a long talk. After some hack and forth, we came to an agreement. If I can’t find a job after 6 months, we’d consider a sign that I should be a SAHW and he should be the breadwinner, and I’d find an out-of-the-house hobby to engage in.
With some help from my husband, I gathered references and fired up my resume, but nothing ever came of it. It’s been two months since we reached the end of our agreement, and I’m back to being a SAHW. A couple weeks ago, I was out with one of my friends, Sarah (34 F). Her husband (35 M) is long-time friends with my husband. We were having brunch and I told her that my big job search failed and that I’m sad about being a SAHW again because I still haven’t found a good hobby. Sarah gets visibly upset and says she’s got something to tell me. She said she didn’t know how to say it and she was sorry for keeping it from me, but that she thinks her husband and my husband were the reason I never got a job. For background, the business I worked for before lockdown no longer exists. Before that, I worked at another small business owned by Sarah’s husband. It’s his and his brother’s pet project next to their full time jobs. So he’s listed as my most recent employer.
Sarah said she walked in on him a couple months prior badmouthing me over the phone. When she asked him what it was about, he wouldn’t say, but eventually she got him to confess that he was tanking my chances at a job because my husband asked him to. Half of my references are professionals that my husband knows, and I suspect that they were also in on it.
I was so angry that I went with my thought: get him fired so he tastes his own medicine. And I succeeded. When he found out what I did, he exploded on me, telling me he did it for us and our future family and that we could’ve been so happy if I would’ve just stayed at home and been a good wife. He called me a lot of names and told me to get out, so I went to my mother’s house and I’m still here. He’s been blowing up my phone daily, sometimes angry, sometimes begging me to come home, but I want to let him sit in what he’s done for a while before I go home. Part of me is sad though, and wondering if I did the wrong thing here. Was I the asshole for getting him fired?
Edit: I’m going to take a break because a lot of you are jumping down my throat and twisting my words. For those of you asking why I’d go home or what I’m going home to, clearly my HUSBAND. Yes this is rough patch and we’re mad at each other, but we can talk and go to therapy and figure things out. For those of you saying I screwed us because we’re no-income now, my husband can find another job. It’ll be fine. He’s also very good with his money and has saved and invested a lot, and our mortgage is paid off (the house was half-paid by his parents and given as a gift). We’re going to be financially fine, even if we have to budget a bit harsher for a couple months. It’s nothing we can’t handle. I’ll come back in a few hours and read through the top comments when the trolls are done.