AITA for asking my stbx husband why I’d take him back when the nanny does more for the family than she does.
My husband and I are separated, getting a divorce. We have a 3 year old and a 8 year old. He owns his own business and told me he’d get home at 5:30-6 every night. I get home at 6-6:30 so I never thought anything about him always getting home before me. I had our 3 year old in extended care at daycare and 8 year old in her school’s after school program because I believed he was working. Halfway through the school year last year I hired a nanny instead of the extended care programs after our oldest had problems with her program. I got a call from the nanny about 2 weeks in, saying my stbx husband locked them out and was telling her to take them to the park but the kids were hungry and she didn’t have car seats (his house is walking distance from school and daycare so she didn’t need car seats). I called him and he said he got home early and wanted some space from the kids and didn’t want a random 18 year old in the house. I had to leave work early to let the kids in. While I was talking to the nanny, she told me he was always home when she got home with the kids and that he was always difficult (demanding that she and the kids stay in one of the kids rooms, ignoring the kids if they tried to talk to him, getting mad at her for leaving the room for a snack). That was the straw that broke the camels back for me. I filed for divorce by the end of the next week and the kids and I moved out by the end of the next month. I ended up letting go of that nanny and now we have Amina, 24. Amina is a middle eastern refugee with 3 kids of her own, 2, 4 and 7. Hiring Amina is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I get to come home every day to a clean house, homework done, and some of the best Arabic food I’ve ever had. I have no idea how she manages to do everything but having her around means I get to enjoy my time with my kids, instead of trying to make dinner, clean up, and get my 8 year old to do her homework. She does the grocery shopping, keeps track of school events, and even handles things like clothes shopping for the kids and school supply shopping. My STBX never did any of that. I once left him with the kids for a week while I went on a work trip. They lived on McDonald’s and pizza, which wreaked havoc on my 8 year old’s stomach. The house was in the worst shape I’d ever seen it. Our 2 year old (at the time) ran out of clean clothes and he bought her new clothes instead of washing her dirty clothes. My stbx has been asking about getting back together. He says us being together is better for the kids. I told him he’s never thought about what’s good for the kids. Even when he takes them for the weekend, all they do is go to grandmas house. I asked why I should go back to him when Amina does more for us than he ever did. He argued that he works to provide for us but thought it was different from me also working (apparently close to double the hours he worked and for similar money). Now his family is accusing me of being a bad mom and saying if I cared about the kids I’d want them to have 2 parents. AITA?
