Communication is essential in any marriage, and that is doubly true when it comes to talking about the kids.

What would you do if your wife kept dropping the young kids off at home without telling you, even though she knows that you were working from home?

That is what kept happening to the man in this story, and when he tried to talk to her about it, she just got upset and refused to change what she was doing. He is now at the end of his rope and is concerned about the safety of his children, so he is considering divorce.

Of course, divorce is a huge decision that will change almost everything in his life, so he is asking if maybe he is overreacting. Read through all the details of the story below and see what you think he should do.

WIBTAH if I end my marriage because of my wife’s refusal to communicate her plans clearly and losing her temper whenever I bring it up to her?

For two years my wife and I have had this problem and instead of getting better it’s only getting worse.

A work-life balance while working at home can be difficult.

I work from home 4 days a week and the 5th day I will often do half days depending on whether there’s a lot to be done at the office.

Because of this my wife doesn’t take my need to focus on work seriously and she will leave our kids with me without saying anything most of the time or telling me hours before when I have meetings scheduled that I can’t walk in and out of.

This seems like a schedule that should work for everyone.

My wife works nights and during the day our two young kids are in daycare.

The schedule is I wake up and take the kids to daycare while my wife sleeps and then she’s supposed to pick them up at 2pm and do stuff with them until 6pm.

She really needs to be respectful of the hours he needs to work.

This isn’t how that goes anymore. She’ll decide she wants to meet with friends for a late lunch or early dinner and she leaves the kids with me to go off and do her own thing.

Sometimes she has these plans days or weeks in advance and never says anything.

Other times she has promised our attendance at something during the week when I have to work and she expects me to know about it when she never says anything and will often leave it to the last minute to say something if she does at all.

I hope these kids are safe when he doesn’t even know they are there.

I could even ask her if there’s anything coming up or whether she’s made any plans and she won’t tell me then.

She’ll get mad at me if our kids make a mess when I’m working and have no idea she left them in the house with me.

This is very unprofessional. He could get in trouble for this.

She’ll say I was supposed to watch them and make sure they didn’t make messes. I have brought up how difficult it is for me to focus on work after 2pm when I know she could have left the kids with me.

In any quiet moment I get up to check and see but it’s not great for my job and a few times I was caught out in meetings where the kids were crying and I needed to go to them because my wife wasn’t home.

How could he know about it if she never told him?

She always complains that I ruin plans by not preparing for them.

She’ll say we were invited to a wedding 6 months ago or we accepted the a birthday party invite a month ago and when I tell her she did all that without even mentioning anything to me, she says if I paid more attention I would know.

Is she doing this intentionally?

Then she told me she shouldn’t need to tell me everything. But I also notice any physical invites we get she puts them in her keepsake drawer and she has the only key to that.

I told her it’s not fair to drop stuff on me at the last minute which leaves me scrambling to pull something together and I have told her countless times it’s dangerous to walk out without telling me the kids are in my sole care for hours.

She is really putting him in a terrible position. And making it unsafe for the kids.

She told me I should be more alert and I have told her when I’m working I need to be locked in.

Three times I told her we need to speak to a marriage counselor and work on this. I even booked an appointment four months ago and she refused to go.

She is entirely unwilling to work on this problem in their marriage.

On top of everything she gets angry at me for bringing this up as an issue. Even asking her to communicate with me sooner is met with anger. She told me she’s not my mother and I told her not to answer for me like she is then.

The problem is getting more frequent and her refusal to do anything is driving me to a point where this no longer feels sustainable.

He has some very valid concerns.

What happens if she decides I’m picking up the kids but never tells me? Or when the kids start school and she decides it’s my turn to pick them up and they’re left there?

Or if they go to a friends house and again she’s supposed to do it but doesn’t tell me she can’t. It could even be a day I’m needed at the office and she leaves the kids home alone. I have told her I’m worried about this stuff and she gets angry.

Divorce is not something to be taken lightly.

So, I’m now reaching the point where divorce is a serious consideration and I have already met with an attorney to discuss what they might look like.

I don’t know if I’m being too extreme though and I know this will break up my children’s family and that can be traumatic. But I don’t see this getting any better and that anger could worsen.

WIBTAH?

Divorce should only ever be seen as a last resort, but this is a very serious issue. His wife is putting both his job and their kids at serious risk, and she won’t even talk about it. Perhaps just the threat of a divorce will make her take this more seriously.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman’s family who is trying to stop her from moving away for her husband’s job.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about this difficult situation.

This commenter thinks an ultimatum is appropriate in this case.

There may be other underlying issues.

I agree with this commenter. This is so unsafe.

It is really weird that she is hiding these invites.

This is a serious symptom of a serious problem.

Whether they get a divorce or not, something definitely needs to change. His wife’s refusal to even communicate about this is a huge red flag and an indication of deeper relationship issues. Why wouldn’t she want to talk about it?

It would be one thing if the issue were just missing social events. The fact that she is putting the kids (and his job) in real danger, however, makes this something he simply cannot ignore.

If he truly has tried everything he can to address this, then divorce has to be an option on the table. Maybe it will make her take the issue more seriously.