The holiday season can be the most wonderful time of the year for many different reasons: getting together with loved ones, decorating the house, feeling cheerful. But realistically speaking, things tend to go south way more often than we’re used to.

And this Reddit user u/Blatant-Honesty6055 knows it from personal experience. The woman created a post in r/AITA saying that during Thanksgiving dinner, her husband asked why she can’t dance for him every night after work in front of his whole family. Being a mother of three and working as a nurse is already hard enough, so no wonder she took it as a joke.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t. The woman is up on her feet all day cooking, cleaning, taking care of her children and the house. “God, what a terrible wife I must be to not find time to dance,” she wrote. As you can guess, this response did not go well with the husband. Read the whole story below and be sure to share your thoughts in the comments.

Mom-of-three is blown away after her husband asked why she doesn’t dance for him every night after work

Image credits: RODNAE Productions (not the actual photo)

Here is the full post that the author of the story shared on the r/AITA subreddit

Image credits: Blatant-Honesty6055

Image credits: Vladimir Pustovit (not the actual photo)

The redditor’s post gained quite a lot of attention. In only a few days, it received over 19.5K upvotes and more than 2K comments. And no wonder why it made so many members of the AITA community mad. The woman is clearly the one carrying the everyday burdens on her shoulders while still having to deal with her husband’s inconsiderate remarks.

The fact that she’s still managing to work and take care of three children at the same time is astounding. The author of the post wrote that she feels exhausted from working all day on her feet and then “coming back to a messy home and demanding kids and a husband.”

So when you think about it, the husband’s comment and the reaction to her response was really inconsiderate. Storming out and blaming his wife for making things awkward and embarrassing him in front of the whole family raises some serious questions. Not to mention the fact that a few family members do not enjoy his company at all.

However, the woman felt guilty after the argument and left an update in the post later on: “I might be TA for not waiting to get home to answer his question instead of embarrassing [him] in front of the family and making dinner awkward.” But the AITA community was very supportive of the wife, saying that she is definitely not in the wrong in this situation. As one user put it, “Joke or not, it was completely inappropriate”.

When it comes to bad jokes, people usually react to them with a few eye rolls and grunts. However, sometimes they are so inappropriate that they can cause quite bitter reactions. Research shows, that failed attempts at humor can provoke surprisingly rude responses, with the harshest coming from friends and family. Nancy Bell, an applied linguist at Washington State University, watched 186 people as strangers, friends or family told them a bad joke.

“People responded with insults, sarcasm, fake laughter and a host of other comebacks. These harsh responses might stem from the fact that jokes are usually an interruption to normal conversation,” Bell said. “When a joke is actually funny, listeners don’t mind the disruption because there is a payoff: humor. Without the humor, listeners may become annoyed at the lame crack.”

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It’s not surprising that u/Blatant-Honesty6055 was blown away by her husband’s question. According to a study called Parents at the Best Workplaces, just by being working mothers, women are 28% more likely to experience burnout than fathers.

They conducted a survey of 440,000 working parents, including 226,000 mothers, and found that the pandemic caused even more pressure on their everyday life. Since schools closed and remote learning became a new reality, childcare worries disproportionately fell to women. “As a result, employers are losing great talent and facing huge setbacks in gender equality”, the researchers stated.

Being a working parent is hard, especially for moms. Feeling the pressure to do everything perfectly is truly exhausting. Let’s not forget having to deal with nonsense questions during the time of the year when you expect your loved ones to be supportive and understanding. Well, that can make anyone feel annoyed.

The AITA community were very supportive of her, deciding that she is not the bad guy in this situation

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