Do you ever take a PTO day without telling spouse?

[Anonymous]

DH and I both work FT outside the home. I took the day off without mentioning it to him and he “caught” me when he emailed something to my work email address and got my out of office response. Now his feelings are hurt because he says if I’d told him he could have also taken the day off and spent the day together.

I wasn’t up to anything nefarious, just wanted a quiet day with the house to myself and I love him, but his idea of how to spend the day wouldn’t match mine. TBH I thought everyone did this sometimes - am I wrong?

[Anonymous]

That's silly on his part.

[Anonymous]

I think it’s crazy that you sneaked taking off. I take off and tell my husband. He asks if I want him to stay home with him. Sometimes I do (like I want to get things done around the house or we have a day date) and sometimes I do not (I want to just stay and bed or blast music and dance naked). He respects my decision. Figure out why you can not communicate with your spouse.

[Anonymous]

I think you are in the wrong. I’d be suspicious if my husband took the day off without telling me but I’d respect his with to take PTO and have a solo day if he expressed the desire. For myself, I’d probably have just told him I was taking a day off and really wanted some solo time at the house.

[Anonymous]

Why can't you tell him you want a day to yourself? You're a grown up, use your words, and also schedule days where you both take off and have a day together.

[Anonymous]

That's exactly why I don't tell DH when I take a day off sometimes. He always wants to hijack it and impose his hobby on us and bill it as OUR time, but I just want my own down time.

So I've done the not telling thing, and I've done the telling but setting firm boundaries: no I don't want to spend it on your hobby on my day off; I just want to see a movie that you don't care about.

Either way, I feel zero guilt.

[Anonymous]

No, but my husband wouldn't be offended if I did this, especially if I explained that I needed to get certain things done without him.

[Anonymous]

OP, you apparently feel whatever you did on your day off would not be agreeable to your husband. That's issue 1. Not telling him about it is very passive aggressive. That's issue 2. Issue 3 is you do not care about building trust in your marriage. That's why your husband does not trust you, or why you feel he doesn't trust you.

The secretive behavior for something so innocuous as taking the day off from work suggests you are an adult child of an alcoholic parent.

[Anonymous]

I would be suspicious and hurt if I was your DH, presumably you pretended to go to work so you straight up lied to him.

[Anonymous]

I think what makes it weird is that you are sneaking around. I would wonder why my spouse wanted me to think they were at work when they weren't. What did you do this morning? Did you pretend like you were getting ready to go as usual? Just feels very sketchy.

[Anonymous]

I agree that its not the taking of a day off, its the sneaking and lying thats an issue.

[Anonymous]

I do this a lot. But it’s really because I forget to tell him. My DH wouldn’t care.

[Anonymous]

DH and I take off all the time without talking to each other. We have so many chores, so many appointments for the kids and so many errands that we'd never just take off to relax. We take plenty of vacations, but I can't imagine taking a day off to just hang at home and do nothing. I also can't waste my dh's time either. If he's taking off, he also has a mile long list to get done.

[Anonymous]

I never do but you just gave me an idea! I would just sit somewhere and read...

[Anonymous]

OP here. I didn’t tell him because he’d get offended I didn’t want him around and/or he’d expect me to be doing something “productive” (like chores that otherwise have to get done evenings and weekends). I just wanted to spend the day in bed, in my sweats, eating chips and watching awful daytime TV while scrolling DCUM and other mindless internetting! I didn’t pretend to go to work. He has a longer commute so leaves earlier than I do. I worked out this AM and took the kids to school as usual, then returned home.