All parents need a night off sometimes.

Whether it’s Dad’s poker night with his buddies, or Mom’s book club with the ladies, after the stress of raising a tiny human, you need some time to yourself.

But its not uncommon for parents to spend their whole night out worrying about their kids, especially if they know their child is being watched by someone other than their partner!

That’s the issue OP ran into when on one of his wife’s rare nights to herself, he dropped their daughter off at a family member’s house instead of watching her!

Was he in the wrong? Check it out for yourself!

AITA for not staying home for the night with my daughter while my wife goes out with friends?

Background: My wife rarely goes out with friends (around six times a year) and has never been very social and prefers spending time with me.

I am more social, but that has declined as we have focused on our family (we have a 2 year old daughter).

I spend time with the same 3 friends once/week for games night, sometimes in person and sometimes online.

I have another 3 friends that I see only once every 2 months, also for games night.If I go out my wife will tend to our daughter.

But OP clarified it’s not like he just dumps his daughter on his wife…

I often still help with dinner/bed time, but sometimes leave earlier than this.

Our daughter’s bedtime is 7:30pm, and she often sleeps through the night without fuss.

I always offer for my wife sleep in the next day, or something similar in exchange for me going out so that It’s not a one-sided thing.

Which brings us to OP’s current predicament…

My wife made plans to spend an evening this weekend out with friends, she would be out from 6pm until late.

After she made those plans, I was invited to my friends birthday thing with my “second” friend group, if I went I would be gone from 5pm until late.

Last time I saw them was exactly one month ago. I brought this plan up with my wife as I wanted to make arrangements for a family member to take our daughter for the evening.

She was irritated by this, and argued that I should stay home.

I have since spoken with a family member who is happy to take our daughter at 5pm and have her stay the night and I have communicated this to my wife.

OP thought this would be fine, because he was not asking his wife to change her plans to watch their daughter.

I made it clear that this will not affect her plans at all, I will be responsible for dropoff and pickup of our daughter.

I’m not asking anything of my wife because I understand that it is rare for her to have a night out like this and so I don’t want her to change her plans at all.

She still thinks that I should stay home. She says that since she always covers for me that I should also cover for her.

Also, she said she doesn’t want to ask this family member to have our daughter for the night because she thinks we ask too much of them.

And OP summarized his response to her argument as follows…

I am covering for her as she does not have to change her plans and doesn’t have to do anything for our daughter.

This family member loves watching our daughter, and my wife is often quick to agree to leave our daughter there for sleepovers plenty of other evenings out of convenience.

For example, we will be there for dinner and put our daughter to sleep there so we can visit longer, then leave her there for the night.

So I don’t see why this time its too much to ask.

OP felt like he was being punished by his wife for going out too much.

I feel like she wants me to stay home as a form of punishment for going out more frequently than she would prefer.

“Punishment” feels too strong of a word, I don’t think there is any major resentment behind this or anything, I just don’t know how else to describe the feeling.

So, AITA here for making plans to go out the same night my wife also already had plans to go out, even though I am covering all arrangements for our daughter for the evening?

In theory, there’s nothing wrong with what OP did.

But he goes out with friends every single week while his wife is home with their daughter, and one of the few times his wife needs him he dumps the responsibility on a family member?

It is kind of scummy of him, isn’t it?

Reddit agreed, with this user saying the wife now has a larger emotional load because she knows someone else is watching her child.

This user said OP needs to figure out the disparity in free time between him and his wife.

Another user said she knows many parents who feel very conflicted asking other people to watch their children.

However, OP did have some defenders, with this user saying he wasn’t calling his daughter a punishment, rather missing the birthday party was the punishment.

Finally, this user empathized with OP’s wife, as she often wondered why her husband couldn’t stay home with their child for a single night.

I bet there will come a time when OP’s kid is all grown up where he wished he spent more time bonding just the two of them, instead of trying his best to get away from her!

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.