AIBU to think she

[WhatWot]

I manage X at work. X has 2 kids and have no family support, his wife is from abroad and is a SAHM. X's wife was diagnosed with PND and is very dependent on X. He often gets a call from her, and he would have to go home pronto because she is not well and can't cope. My boss has been asking questions about X being MIA when we're incredibly busy and needs every hand on deck. I am a little soft that I don't always require him to take half a day off if his wife calls. But now he's out of annual leave days and she is still calling him whenever to get home right then, I am a little annoyed at her. X himself looks embarassed and said another day another drama. My tolerance has reached its limit especially that I have to cover for him and do his job whenever she calls him home. AIBU to make him take days off everytime she calls for 'emergency'? This means when he runs out like now, he will have to take unpaid leave which is a little mean :(

I will talk to my manager about this if we can accommodate him to work on weekends.

I'm not sure if I'm missing something, but why would this happen during the week but not at weekends? If his wife is from abroad presumably she doesn't have family who could come round on a Saturday any more than on a Friday? And if you as a company don't standardly work weekends then I'd be worried that he'll be effectively unmonitored and end up going home on Saturday without anyone knowing

I think you need to be careful here and cover your back. Remember that if he is threatened with losing his job by more senior management he may well turn round and say that you, as his manager, allowed him to do this.
Talk to senior management or HR, and get everything documented. You need to be seen to be managing effectively

Sometimes I said to him he could take his work home but I found there was not much result the day after. If I arrange weekend work for him, I guess I have to set concrete goals that I can check come Monday. I think his wife just needs him physically around even if she still has to care for their DCs under the circumstances. To be honest without concrete goals, I think he's not going to so anything :(

Whatwot does the company have a HR department? If so you need to speak to them. I had a similar-ish situation with someone I managed and was able to get advice from HR as to what the company would allow, how to approach it with the individual and so on, without HR actually having to become formally involved (well, at the early stage anyway. Unfortunately it all eventually had to go formal).

I’m not saying this in a snippy way but it does sound as though you’ve got a little out of your depth with this.