A row between husband and wife over how to discipline their teenage daughter has gone viral online after the husband took to Reddit’s popular ‘Am I the asshole’ forum to get readers’ opinions.
The man, who calls himself u/Sloth-Monkey on Reddit, recounted the dispute and received more than 11,600 votes and 2,600 comments in less than 24 hours.
In the post, u/Sloth-Monkey explained that a few days ago he caught his 19-year-old daughter having sex with her boyfriend in the house. His daughter “begged” him not to tell her mother, but he felt she “deserved to know”.
u/Sloth-Monkey explained that when he told his wife, she was “livid” and yelled at their daughter for about an hour. She also took their daughter’s phone and forbade her boyfriend from coming to the house.
“I told her she was a little too tough,” the Redditor wrote. “But she thinks these punishments aren’t harsh enough. She said if our daughter does anything else that she doesn’t allow, then she will remove the door to her room.”
He explained in the post that he told his wife she was overreacting, which caused her to start yelling at him. He also said he decided to return their daughter’s phone while his wife was at the grocery store.
It’s important to present as a united unit when disciplining children, according to VeryWell Family. Otherwise, children may learn to manipulate the less strict parent to reduce punishment while resenting the parent who resists disciplinary rules.
“Disagreements about parenting can easily lead to relationship issues,” the post writes. “Sometimes a parent tends to side with the kids, which can turn into ‘us’ versus the other parent. Then, instead of working as a team, the parents start working against each other. “
In the post, he said his wife found out and got angry. She also told her parents about the situation and they started texting her.
He explained that his in-laws “blow up” his phone and said he “encourages underage pregnancies and premarital sex”.
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At the end of the article, u/Sloth-Monkey posed a question to readers: “WIBTA for not letting my wife remove our daughters’ bedroom door?”
After receiving several questions in the comments, the Redditor decided to add a few updates to the post regarding the situation.
“I spoke to my daughter and apologized for telling her mother what happened,” the update read. “I told her that if she wanted to move, I would help her pay for an apartment for a few months until she could pay for it herself.”
He also added that a few recurring comments asked if he and his wife had sex before the wedding, but he said they waited a few days after getting married when they were 23 and 26.
In the latest update, the Redditor said he wanted to clarify that he didn’t enter his daughter’s bedroom as she was with her boyfriend in the living room.
“My wife wasn’t home, and I just got home from the store to find my daughter and her boyfriend…getting into it…in the living room,” the post explained.
Over 2,600 readers flooded the comments and the Redditor was voted “not the asshole” by readers. Many users mentioned that the girl is 19 and deserves privacy at her age.
“Your daughter is 19 and she deserves privacy,” one user wrote. “It’s one thing to ask your daughter to refrain from having sex in your house, it’s quite another to take her door.”
“Removing her door is not an appropriate punishment and honestly she shouldn’t be punished for having sex anyway,” read another comment. “It’s 2022 not the 1950s, your wife and her family need to understand that healthy sexual expression is good, what’s needed is good sex education (without judgement), discussions about birth control and consent.”
Newsweek contacted u/Sloth-Monkey for additional comments.