Hi,
My wife just got awfully mad because I agreed to babysit my sister's kids on sunday afternoon (4-9pm) while she and her husband are going out to a birthday party. This is the 2nd or 3rd similar request in the last 14 months. Because it's a request from my sister, I tried to help if I was able to help. My wife expressed displeasure on how my sister would go out for fun & ask me to help her out with 2 kids. My wife said if it was emergency situation, then we would certainly help out but not when she's going out for fun. My wife said that she would never put out such a request to burden other people. I can see from my wife's perspective on how my sister's request is not the best. But I felt like it's not my job to argue or teach my sister on how she and her husband should live their lives. If their request for help is too unreasonable or frequent, then I wouldn't be able to help them, especially if I don't have the time to help or my wife needs my help in something else. So when my sister asked me a week ago whether I can help her to babysit, I could have said no (it's not an emergency situation), but my inclination was it should be ok and i should be able to make the time to help her out. So I told my wife about it and asked her if we could do that on Sunday afternoon. My wife got mad at the idea all of the sudden on such a request from my sister. So eventually, I said she didn't have to go. But today, the day before i'm going to help my sister, my wife called me and said she's not happy but then wouldn't tell me anything else on the phone and eventually hang up. When I tried to call back, she wouldn't pick up the phone. When I came home, I asked her what's wrong because I was worrying for the past few hours. but my wife still wouldn't talk to me until more than an hour later. she said that i was supposed to know what's wrong. I said i really don't because you were still fine this morning. Then she said why don't I just go to my sister now. I was still puzzled. then she said why don't you think what's wrong and why I'm so angry. I said if you're talking about babysitting tomorrow, I thought it was settled. I already told my sister that I'll help her out and it would be kind of late to ask her to find someone else to help. My wife said if you step out now, never come back. I said if you really feel that way, then I'll just contact my sister to let her know that I wouldn't be able to help. So I did contact my sister to apologize to her for backing out this late, and she was ok. To me, my family member is important so i'll try to help if i'm capable. but ultimately, my wife is more important to me. so when it comes push & shove, i'll always choose my wife at the end. After this, my wife is still mad because she said that i should have handled this before she had to say something and thus makes her a bad person. I honestly didn't tell my sister that my wife didn't want me to go. i just told her that i got my wife mad so now she wants me to help her at home. My wife is saying that everyone else would have known it's right thing to say no in this situation, but instead, i made a mess in this relationship. Is she right? What should have been the right thing to do?