I 35M live with my wife Judith 33F and my daughter Aria 12F. We’ve always been a close, tight-knit family, we’ve never had any big arguments or disagreements. We have only a few house rules and our daughter is happy with her routine and when she has to do homework, chores etc. So when my wife stopped talking to me and it became clear that Aria was hiding something from me, it came as a shock.
For some background, I work at a funeral home as a funeral director. Sure, the work’s pretty bleak, but it pays well, so my wife can be a stay at home mom full time. For a while I thought she was happy with the arrangement, but according to her in the past couple of weeks, I was wrong.
Apparently my wife has been wanting to go out more, but because our daughter is homeschooled and I don’t have much time at home, she has to stay home and be her teacher. A couple of her friends from high school, who she hasn’t seen in about 13 years, recently reached out to ask about her. I know because she was in the bathroom at the time and had left her phone on the table. I asked Judith later but she said that she hadn’t received any texts and that I was imagining things. She looked a little tense, so I didn’t buy it.
Two weeks later I asked Aria if her mom had been talking to anyone who wasn’t a friend or member of our family. She denied it too, but I’ve always been able to tell when she’s lying because she shifts her feet and looks down at the floor.
At dinner that night, I lost my temper. I demanded to know what was going on and what they were keeping from me. Both Judith and Aria looked panicked. For a while (about two minutes) we all just looked at each other, not speaking. Then Judith exploded.
“I’ve been trapped in this house for 13 years now Daniel! You never let me go anywhere, and then we had Aria and that was a reason to keep me even more locked up because the baby needed to be looked after!”
I couldn’t understand where the aggression was coming from, but I responded with:
“Well what would you do if I let you out the house? You dropped out of school, you have no qualifications at all.”
My wife scoffed and replied:
“Because you made me drop out! I wanted to be a graphic designer, but you made me quit because you didn’t like it.”
It’s true, she wanted to continue her education and have an art degree, but at the time I convinced her it was a waste of time. She agreed with me for a long time, so it was weird that she was bringing it up now, especially in front of Aria, who had been crying throughout the exchange. I hated to see my daughter cry, so I decided to let my wife know what her words were doing to our daughter.
“Look at what you’re doing to Aria. She’s in tears because of you.”
Judith broke down at this point too and said:
“No. You did this. She’s terrified of you, she wants out too but she’s never actually seen anything outside of this house so she doesn’t know how.”
For some context: Aria was born premature, and when we brought her home from the hospital she was really sick, so we (mutually) decided it would be for the best if we isolated her at home, minimal contact with the outside world.
At this point I turned to Aria and asked if she was really scared of me. We’d always had a good relationship, up until she turned 12 (five weeks ago). On her birthday, my wife took Aria aside and had a conversation with her that I wasn’t allowed to hear. At the time I thought she was talking her through puberty, or the birds and the bees or something, but now I think my wife was pitting our daughter against me.
Aria didn’t respond. I asked again, still nothing. I asked a third time and she screamed:
“Just leave us alone you horrible person!”
I was taken aback. I’d never been spoken to in that way, by my daughter no less. I made an excuse and stormed out of the house, locking and bolting the door as I left. But now I feel really bad about how I reacted, and my wife is upset that I didn’t apologise to her or Aria for upsetting them.
I’m desperate to make it up to them. I’m thinking about disabling their ankle monitors and taking them for a walk around the neighbourhood for fifteen minutes. Judith always got so excited when I rewarded her with outside time when she was pregnant with Aria.
So Reddit, AITA?