A man who posted to social media platform Reddit admitted he was in the wrong for messaging his wife's boss behind her back about her work schedule. His defense? He claimed she was overworked and was on the verge of job burnout.
In a Jan. 15 post titled "AITA? I talked to my wife’s boss about her being overworked. Now my wife is yelling at me about never trusting me again," Reddit user "Sporkwind" asked the community on the "Am I the A******" (AITA) subreddit to weigh in on his actions.
Sporkwind explained that his wife had "been putting in 10-14 hour days chained to her computer for the past 2-3 weeks through weekends as well" — and that she had been unable to take any days off for the holidays.
She also had been unable to take proper vacations, the man said, and regularly worked through weekends and vacation time.
"She’s been screaming obscenities about her job, how she wants to quit [and] how it’s ridiculous she’s working so hard without any break," he continued in his post.
"There have been multiple tear-filled days."
He also said that he has been "walking on eggshells" and is "on edge constantly watching for an explosion."
On Sunday, he said his wife was "screaming about other people she worked with screwing her up" — and he said he "just couldn't take it anymore."
"I texted her boss and said 1) there are limits for human beings, 2) this kind of thing can’t happen again next year. He agreed and said he’d try to help," wrote the Redditor.
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The man and his wife both work at the same company — and he said he is "semi-friendly" with her boss, he explained in a later edit to his original post.
The boss, he alleged, "did a crap job of keeping me out of his conversation with her about limits today" — and his wife did find out that her husband had contacted her boss, he noted.
"Now she’s telling me it was extremely misogynistic to message her boss to say she can’t handle her job (which I didn’t say) and it’s going to set her career back years," wrote the man who calls himself "Sporkwind."
"Says she can’t ever trust me anymore to talk about work or how she’s feeling."
He added, "Generally threw me in the doghouse."
The Redditor eventually added an edit saying that he was in the wrong.
"There’s more detail in the comments, but I realized almost as soon as I posted how much [of] an a** I am," he wrote. "Reddit is good for perspective even if it’s sometimes harsh. Let’s be honest, I needed the harsh this time."
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Sporkwind apologized to his wife and to her boss, he said, and his wife requested that he never speak to her boss again.
"Her boss was cool about the moment of weakness, said he understood, and that he would not let it affect how he treated my wife at work," he wrote.
"All is certainly not forgiven, but we’ll work through it one step at a time."
Reddit users gave the man "good perspective" on what he did, Sporkwind said in a message to Fox News Digital — and he said he "did my best to take the feedback to heart."
"I think most of the air has cleared honestly after my wife saw how sincere I was about my screw-up," he also said in his message.
His wife has been "trying to do a bit better about setting some boundaries" with work, including setting a dedicated time to stop working, he shared.
"We’re working through it, but I’m kinda grateful for my somewhat public slap in the face," he told Fox News Digital.
While Sporkwind "may have had good intentions, his approach was not helpful," Dr. Danielle McGraw, a licensed clinical psychologist based in Scottsdale, Arizona, told Fox News Digital via email.
Instead, "a better approach," said McGraw, "would have been to express his feelings to his spouse about how much she is working and the impact it is having on him, their relationship and the family in general."
"He could have then helped her figure out a way to set boundaries related to work, if that’s what she wanted," said McGraw.
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By going around his wife and speaking to her boss, Sporkwind "is disregarding her boundaries," the psychologist also said.
He was "communicating to her, in a way, that he does not trust her to handle her own issues," McGraw also said.
"Communicating feelings and thoughts to one's spouse is extremely important in a relationship," she added.
"It makes sense why she feels she cannot trust him."
The sensitive situation was "a clear blurring of lines between work and personal lives," even if Sporkwind "was likely coming from a good place," Daivat Dholakia, vice president of operations at the California-based tech company Essenvia, told Fox News Digital by email.
"The wife was likely worried about repercussions coming back on her from her supervisor as a result of her husband's interference," he added.
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"If anything, he should've asked his wife before contacting her supervisor. It would've saved him from being … in hot water for so long," he continued.
Other Redditors on the platform also found the original poster to be at fault in the situation.
On the AITA subreddit, Redditors can reply to posts saying that the poster is "NTA" ("Not the A*****e"), "YTA" ("You're the A*****e"), "NAH" ("No A*****e Here") or "ESH" ("Everyone Sucks Here").
Users can "upvote" responses they think are helpful and "downvote" ones that are not.
The top-upvoted comment raised concerns that Sporkwind damaged his wife's career and possibly their relationship.
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"YTA — I don't know what field your wife works in, but women often have to fight a lot harder for promotions and raises than men do," wrote Reddit user "bookagnostic," in part.
"You get to hear her stress, but I am sure she plays it off as being totally cool and collected to her coworkers," the commenter also wrote.
"What you did is essentially tell her boss that she cannot handle the workload and it's not your place to do that, even a little bit," the commenter added.
Another commenter accused Sporkwind of being old-fashioned in his attitudes toward women.
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"YTA. The 1950s called and they need you back," wrote Reddit user "tatersprout," in part.
