How foolish can a husband get?

This man doesn't sense that his marriage may soon be over and done with, which is worth more than being paid a babysitter's fee every time his wife goes out with their male neighbor.

Photo: Pexels/Daniel Torobekov

And this foolish husband has even published about the argument with his wife over babysitting fees on Reddit's r/AmItheA--hole forum! Here's how his story under the handle u/AliveLeg61 goes: "My (39M) wife (34F) and I live in a suburban house with our daughter (10F, Emily). Our neighbour next door (48M, Walter) is a single father with two daughters (14F and 12F). We have been living here for a little more than two years."

OP continued to relate that his wife likes scary movies, including older, indies, and foreign horror films. But he's never enjoyed what she's fond of watching because they are too scary for him. Friends would sometimes accompany her, but there were only a few who shared her interest.

That was until they met their neighbor Walter, and the couple found out that he's into horror movies too. They tried to invite OP to join them as Walter and OP's wife started planning which movies to watch together. However, OP refused the cinephile outings.

Photo: Pexels/Pavel Danilyuk

OP wrote, "I prefer to just stay at home babysitting Emily and Walter's daughter while they are in their cinephile reunions. Sometimes they go to movie theaters, but other times they just stay at Walter's place watching stuff at his home cinema. They usually have to go to another town in order to catch a specific function of some weird movie, so it is normal for them to come back very late. They eventually started doing stuff outside of watching movies, like going out for dinner."

One time, Walter invited everyone, including the kids, to dine at a friend's restaurant. But, once again, OP said no. He didn't like expensive dinners and other events that he considered a waste of money.

OP's decision was to stick to babysitting, which was really fine for him since Walter has been paying for his wife's dinner, and she no longer complained to him about taking her to fancy dining places.

Photo: Pexels/Ketut Subiyanto

But then, the task later became boring for OP, and he started to voice it out to Walter and his wife. He wrote, "As both their movie and dinner nights have became so common, I have grown a little tired of the burden of constantly babysitting the girls. I talk to my wife and Walter about it, and he explained that he usually does not like leaving his daughters with babysitters. He says he is really comfortable knowing that they are being watched by an experienced father like me instead of some teenage girl. He nevertheless agreed that it was too much of a load for me and offered to start paying me a standard babysitter fee each time he goes out with my wife."

Wow! Any husband with a degree of intellect and sensibility would have woken up to the closeness that's been developing between his wife and neighbor.

But OP continued to write about the 'different' dilemma that followed: "I thought that was a fair approach to the issue, but my wife was fully against it. She says I should not be paid for babysitting my own daughter nor the daughters of a close friend of our family like Walter. We have been arguing about this, but she insists on this notion and is not open to change. She even gets mad every time I talk to her about this. Walter promised me that he will convince her, but he does not seem to have been able to do so either. Am I the a-hole?"

Photo: Pexels/Diva Plavalaguna

This husband really had to ask! Yes, you are, yelled the AITA community!

This award-winning remark from RadiantSriracha may wake him up to what's now happening to his marriage:

"To clarify, there is absolutely nothing wrong with having a friend of the opposite sex who shares a hobby. The issues is OP is refusing to participate in ANY aspect of his wife’s interests or fill her romantic needs, letting Walter fill the whole vacuum of his neglect:

# won’t compromise and join them on any of the movies, even infrequently

# won’t take his wife to a nice dinner, because he thinks treating his wife to something nice occasionally is a waste of money

# insists on staying home when invited to join in non-scary movie activities, then whines about “babysitting”

# doesn’t suggest any alternate group activities they all might enjoy

So, judging by the content of this post, he’s just… encouraging his wife to go to Walter for all her emotional and social needs. No way that could ever backfire."