A Husband Gave His Stay-at-Home Wife a Performance Review. Yes, Really

A husband went to the internet for advice after giving his stay-at-home wife a performance review, and it went pretty much how you’d expect it to

We all have our strengths and weaknesses—those areas where we flourish and those that could use some improvement. That includes at work, at home, and as parents. But, as one husband learned in a painful way, pointing out your spouse’s weaknesses via a formal performance review is, um, not the move.

Oh, the Am I the As*hole subreddit. If you’ve never been to this delightful corner of the internet, it’s a place where anonymous people can explain a scenario and ask for judgment from strangers to determine whether they are an as*hole. This is where we find our performance-reviewing dad, who made the following post.

AITA for giving my SAHM wife a written performance review with suggested areas needing improvement?
byu/Garrbie inAmItheAsshole

In the post, he explains that he lives with his wife, her 13-year-old daughter, their 15-year-old niece, and a shared 6-year-old daughter. This dad feels like his wife plays favorites with the kids, constantly siding with the 6-year-old while punishing the teens too harshly.

“My wife has taught the youngest, she can blame others for her actions to avoid consequences,” he writes. “She just says the word, one of the teens will get punished without question. There’s no doubt, she is my wife’s favorite. I love her, but she’s becoming nothing more than an entitled brat.”

As an example, he shares a story of a time when all three kids broke a house rule (and the 6-year-old even lied about it!), but while the teens were punished, the younger daughter wasn’t.

“We’ve have had countless, tiring arguments. She’d either not see her faults, or we’d agree to do this and that, but it was never actually done,” the dad wrote. “I decided to write her a performance review, as a SAHM. Her areas in need of improvement, well it was a lot. But I touched on how she needs to listen better, stop being biased. Be fair in all her decisions, stop making rash decisions without taking all three kids into consideration. I recommended her to give each child the same amount of one-on-one alone time to speak, or just be with one another.”

So, there’s a lot to unpack here. Obviously, the spousal performance review went over just as well as you’d think it would—the wife was pissed. But from reading just the post headline, I was fully ready to take her side, 100%. After reading the whole post, I concur with the general consensus of the internet strangers who judged the post: everyone here sucks. The mom needs to stop playing favorites with her kids, and the dad needs to learn to communicate with her in a way that doesn’t scream, “I am a very serious businessman, and you are my subordinate employee, not my wife.”

Or, as one commenter put it, “Are you her EMPLOYER, because employers give performance reviews. Partners do not give performance reviews. Your family, INCLUDING YOURSELF, needs therapy. A lot of therapy. A LOT of therapy.”

That about sums it up.