If you’re choosing to become a parent whilst in a relationship in modern times, you’re choosing to be a 50-50 equal part of the parenting relationship.

That is, of course, unless you have pre-agreed a different arrangement, but equality is the assumed default.

So when one parent is taking care of the majority of parenting duties, it’s understandable that they might start feeling a little frustrated by it.

Especially if, like the woman in this story, they’re watching their partner have a relaxing and fun time, while they’re running around after a toddler.

Read on to find out what happened here.

AITA for refusing to watch my daughter when we meet my husband’s friend?

My husband (male, 27) and I (female, 26) have a toddler together (she’s two years old).

I don’t know how everyone else has it, but our toddler creates so much chaos wherever she is.

She is so curious, she explores everything all the time, loves to rearrange stuff, and she runs wherever she needs to go. Basically, she is like what I’ve seen most two year olds be like.

At home, it’s fine. Of course I try to keep her in check. But we have of course childproofed our entire home.

But this isn’t much help when they go out in public.

The problem here is that one of my husband’s friends and his girlfriend live just five minutes away from us, and my husband and I get invited there almost every weekend, whether it’s for food or just coffee.

They are lovely people, but their house is filled with stuff – it’s messy and overall the opposite of our home. No problem, they don’t have children and they like to have stuff around.

The problem is that every weekend, I spend three hours running after her, comforting her when she trips, making sure she doesn’t break stuff or put things in her mouth.

It’s honestly tiring, and the fact that my husband just sits at the table and chat while I run around like crazy for so long irritates me.

Let’s see how she dealt with the issue.

When we got invited over two weekends ago, I told him I wouldn’t tag along. I explained my reasons and he told me that I was overreacting and that it’s a normal part of parenting.

I told him that either way, I wasn’t coming. If he wanted our daughter to tag along, he could bring her.

So he did, and he came back after just an hour and was in a bad mood the rest of the day. I asked him how it went and he asked me if I felt happy with myself.

This last weekend, we got invited over once again. I asked him if he wanted to look after her himself or do 50/50 with me. He didn’t respond and went there himself.

And her reasonable request has really affected their relationship.

He’s been off with me the whole week, making passive aggressive remarks about my ”insane need to always be right”, and yeah, other stuff.

I’m starting to feel like maybe I went overboard, because I know he has a much harder time keeping her in check than I have, and even I have it hard.

Them coming to us isn’t an option – I don’t know why because before his girlfriend moved in he was here just as much as we were at his place, but after she moved in he has declined every invite to come here.

Am I wrong for refusing to go there if that means I have to watch her the whole time?

AITA?

Parenting needs to be done as a team, with two adults acting as equals.

So when she’s watching the kid while he’s having fun, it’s understandable that she’s beginning to feel a little resentful.

And him watching the child alone has clearly shown him how much work it is – he should be apologising, not giving her the cold shoulder!

Let’s see what folks on Reddit made of this.

This person thought that at best the husband was emotionally immature and a poor communicator.

While others thought his behavior was a huge red flag.

Meanwhile, this Redditor explained that he needs to try in order to be a good parent.

It’s very clear that, in this situation at least, the husband thinks he can leave all the parenting to his wife.

That’s completely unfair, and something that needs addressing if their marriage is to work.

Because behavior like this leads to resentment – and that doesn’t lead anywhere good.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.