"AITA For Allowing My Wife To Extend Her Maternity Leave At My Company But Not One Of My Other Employees?"

Hypocrisy is very hard to argue for—usually when someone ends up pulling a two-face, it’s considered selfish and egotistic, and on rare occasions considered genuinely foolish, cause they couldn’t help it. That’s it.

But, let’s be fair, it’s still possible to be the devil’s advocate and be redeemed in cases of hypocrisy because the situation, intentions, and other factors might allow for it. So there’s always hope.

And one Reddit user was hoping it would be the case for him too, so he turned to the internet to find out if he was wrong to allow his wife to extend her maternity leave at his private company, whilst not giving the same treatment to another employee.

More Info: Reddit

So, now-suspended Reddit user u/Throwawaypresoptc recently turned to the r/AmITheA-Hole community to find out if he’s really that bad for effectively giving preferential treatment to his wife, all the while not doing so with another one of his employees in the same situation.

The story goes that OP owns a company where he works together with his wife and other people. His wife has an executive position there, and some time ago gave birth to their son.

The two agreed that three months ought to be enough maternity leave. But when the time came to return to work, the wife explained she needed more time and OP didn’t have the heart to say no, more so since she also joined a mom-oriented life-coaching program, started volunteering for underprivileged kids and whatnot.

So, a year managed to pass, and people started asking questions about when his wife was coming back. Little did they know, she was planning surgery and would only then come back to work. So, extra time was piling on extra time piling on extra time.

At the same moment, another employee, whom OP introduced as Mary, had gone on maternity leave. But, unlike the case with the wife, she had been on board for less than a year, and was only eligible for 6 weeks of maternity leave, and nothing more.

The problem arose when she requested more time—begged for another week—and it was denied. Needless to say, she was furious. On top of all of the stress and fatigue of having to raise a child, she also had to deal with the hypocrisy that had just happened.

The reason here was that his wife had someone to take her place, while Mary did not, and since she was key to the customer services team, she was asked to continue her work with a prospect of discussing time off down the line.

It wasn’t until OP told his sister about the whole incident that he had realized what he had done, prompting the now-viral post on r/AITA.

It didn’t take long for people to point out everything that was wrong with this situation, labeling OP the a-hole in the process. Besides the blatant professional discrimination and preferential treatment, people also pointed out that Mary was pregnant for many months and he could have easily found a temporary substitute in her stead.

Others noted that Mary had asked for extra weeks, while his wife had a full year and then some, only adding to how colossal the issue is. And it’s the employer’s headache to deal with under-staffing and whatnot. And also, OP claimed he had 4 kids, yet he’s completely unsympathetic to the situation.

The reasons went on and on, leading to the verdict that he is in fact wrong here. The post in turn got over 13,000 upvotes (with over 80% being positive), and a handful of Reddit awards that show just how unhappy people are with the situation.

You can check out the whole post in context, as well as all of the comments, here. And you can check out other similar posts we've covered here. But before you go reading another one of our articles, why not share your thoughts and ideas on OP’s predicament in the comment section below!