My wife and I have two kids, a 16yo son from a previous relationship of mine and a 14yo daughter. My son has been living with us full time since he was four.
To the current issue: My son has been suffering from cluster headaches for about one year now (they run in my family). He gets them every other month. Yesterday he got hit by one again while I was at work and my wife was home. When I got home in the afternoon I found my son was cleaning the storeroom (my wife loves to tidy and always buys too much garbage), or rather attempting to.
He was visibly in pain, pale, moving slowly, the typical watery eye etc. When I asked him what he was doing he told me my wife had told him to help her move those but I didn’t think he was in any condition to do so and sent him inside and to bed. I got inside and confronted my wife with it and she immediately got mad at me, saying it wasn’t a big deal for him and that she had him take one of his pills (they help but can only do so much).
So I reminded her that she lets our daughter stay home from school for two days every month and frees her of any chores when she’s on her period and is essentially being a biased hypocrite. We argued for a while and she said I’m „undermining her authority“ but I insisted on leaving our son alone for the day and tidy her garbage myself (Which I’d done anyway had she just waited for me).
Just to clarify: I don’t interfere with my wife keeping our daughter home when she’s not well, if she says that’s necessary then it’s fine with me. I’m also not asking what is worse but I don’t think it was okay of her to make our son do this when he was in a lot of pain and basically grimacing with every movement. She also knows that he’s not that great at standing up for himself.
She is taking advantage right?