Husband made me stay up all night to clean. UPDATE!

Married 7 years, together 11.

We have three kids, two of them are on the spectrum and require 7 hours of therapy each per day and they are also in preschool. As a result of this I’m a SAHM because I have to take them to all the various appointments all day long. This was a mutual agreement my husband and I both made.

My husband is not very understanding of this however. Even though I have a million things to do during the day I do a pretty good job of keeping the house clean and having dinner ready at the end of the day but because I’m out of the house so long and sometimes the hours are longer day to day with therapies it may not always happen. My husband gets to sleep in every single weekend until noon both days and see his friends most days of the week after work. He somehow thinks because he makes the money I’m not allowed to sleep in, he doesn’t have to help with the kids at all, and that I shouldn’t be tired because I “don’t work” or “bring in the money to our the bills”.

He has gotten increasingly frustrated with me lately because dinner isn’t always made at 4pm when he comes home from work. Usually my day of therapies with the kids doesn’t end until 430 so it’s just not always possible for me to have it ready by then unless I get up extra early and get a crock pot meal started around 6am before leaving for preschool and all the various therapies and honestly sometimes I’m just so exhausted I can’t bring myself to get out of bed a second earlier than I absolutely have to. I sleep on average 4 hours a night.

I do laundry once a week, we don’t have a washer or dryer in our home right now because we’re saving up for the down payment on our dream house. So I usually go every Saturday morning when my husband is home to watch our kids (due to my sons autism he can’t stand the sound of the washers and it results in him having a meltdown so I can’t take him). Yesterday evening I didn’t get home from therapy sessions until 6 because I had a meeting with my sons ABA therapist to go over his yearly progress report. My husband got home at 4 and dinner wasn’t made so when I got home at 6 he had it made something which I thought was nice of him (he never cooks so I was shocked). When I actually read the room though I noticed he was pissed about it. He ate the whole thing himself and left none for me and the kids so I had to cook myself anyway.

I made a fly away comment that I didn’t want him drinking during the week anymore because lately he’s become mean when he drinks and after growing up with an abusive alcoholic mother it makes me uncomfortable to see him drinking to excess most nights during the week and I don’t want the kids around it. He seemed to agree until I put the kids to bed and when I came out to the living room he was clearly agitated. He told me he drinks to excess and wants to get drunk every night when he gets hoke from work because of me and because I’m not taking care of him the way he deserves he just stopped caring and is going to get drunk every night if he wants to because clearly I have also “stopped caring”. He told me I’ve been letting the house go (which is a lie, he’s severely OCD so he wants to literally eat off the floor which just isn’t possible with three toddlers at the moment). He told me he’s sick of coming home to no dinner made and me using being at therapy ALL DAY as an “excuse” to not take care of things at the house. He said if it keeps going like this he wants me to remove our kids from all their therapy so I can be here to give the house the attention it deserves or I need to stay up at night to do it. He doesn’t care if I sleep or not that that’s on me and my fault for letting things get “this bad”. MY HOUSE ISNT DIRTY!! He mentioned he wants me doing laundry every single day and he doesn’t care if I don’t get to sleep at night anymore because if it. He wants me to stay up tonight and take care of the laundry (there was like 6 things in there and the laundromat is five miles away) and he wants me to make his lunch for work “with love” because apparently he’s sick of eating the same thing I make everyday (even though he requests it). He also wanted me to stay up and shampoo the carpets and pull all of the furniture into the middle of the room and scrub the walls from top of bottom and when that’s done I can come to bed if it’s not morning by then. He says when it doesn’t get done “he wants to punch me”. That was the last straw for me. So I stayed up all night cleaned everything, made his lunch, shampooed the carpet and deep cleaned the walls. Sent him off to work not suspecting anything. (He smirked when he saw I was still awake and said nothing to me before leaving for work but made sure to see if his lunch was up to standard). He also looked in the bathroom and said I needed to redo the toilet because it wasn’t done well enough, then smirked and walked out. When he left for work, I called the lock smith, had the locks changed. Packed up all of his stuff, left it in the front yard and left to my sisters for the rest of the weekend so I don’t have to here him begging and banging on my door. I will NEVER allow him to threaten me with violence or threaten me with my children’s therapy. So peace out fucker. You’ll be getting divorce papers soon.

Was I right to do this? Or am I over reacting?

UPDATE: Thank you so much for all of the love and support on this post. I have read every single one of your comments and all of your kind words have helped me so much over the last week. First off, my kids and I are absolutely fine and we are all THRIVING now that we don’t have the extra negativity in our lives.

The day I left he called and texted me like crazy and said me leaving was so “out of left field”. He claimed to have done nothing wrong and “didn’t understand” why I left for “no reason”. Of course shortly after that came the apologies, the crying, the begging, the professing how he will change, claiming he’s just been so stressed lately and that’s why he was drinking excessively and treating me like a slave but I REFUSE to raise my kids in a toxic household so we will never go back. I told him I didn’t want to speak with him further unless it was about co parenting our children. He hasn’t asked to see the kids at all which further solidifies that I made the right choice in leaving him! I have a great lawyer on retainer and my now ex has officially been served divorce papers.

Some more good news, I got a job doing night shift at the hospital where I used to work so I’ll officially be a nurse again which is great. My family and friends have rallied around me during all of this and are going to help me with child care and getting the kids to and from therapies and school on the days I need help. My friend is also letting me rent one of her rental properties at a reduced rate until I get on my feet a little more so I have officially moved out of the house he and I once shared. Onwards and upwards for my kiddos and I 💕