Stepdad tells step kids to stop cuddling with their pregnant mom. AITA? Mom says yes.
When this man is feeling weird about his wife and her kids, he asks Reddit:
'AITA for telling my step kids to stop hanging off their mom?'
I will be the first to admit that I grew up in a very 'hands off' type of family. There was no hugging, snuggling or anything of the sort. So when I met my wife and saw her three kids love on her so much, it did make me incredibly uncomfortable.
BUT that was a me issue and I just checked myself in to therapy and worked through it. Now the kids are like this with me and sometimes it's still hard but it doesn't make me nearly as uncomfortable as it did.
However, my wife is fully aware of this because through therapy I was taught ways to communicate these things to her. So I never asked the kids to stop and never tried forcing my opinions but I did communicate WHY I became so weird about it. So she knows.
Anyways, fast forward to now.. my step kids are currently 13, 11 and 7. All of them are still very much so snuggly kids and easily wrap my wife up on the couch 4 times a day. The ONLY issue I currently have is that my wife is currently pregnant. High risk. They have her on bed rest and she's only 16 weeks. I simply do not like how rough the kids seem to be with her.
Though they might not actually be super rough but it seems like it to me and I'm worried about my wife and my unborn child. Like my 7yo step son will still lay on his mother's chest (granted he also is a small kid and has some ailments: ASD and ODD). I don't want him laying on his mother's chest.
Or the two older ones will lay beside her but like.. half on her. I don't want them doing this either because their legs/half of their torso is on top of their mothers stomach and again, she's high risk. I don't want them unintentionally hurting her. So whenever I see it now, I either tell them to stop or constantly remind them to be careful of their mothers stomach.
My wife flipped yesterday. She never snaps but she absolutely did this time and told me quite bluntly to 'shut my f***** mouth' because if my attitude makes it so her kids stop snuggling her, she will never forgive me. Insists she is fine and if she wasn't she would say something. It's been tense here. AITA?
Let's find out.
rockyspine writes:
YTA. Your wife is pregnant, she isn’t a porcelain doll to be placed on a shelf. It is not ok to tell her she can’t cuddle with her kids.
frankensteinmuenster writes:
Especially since it's blatantly not even about her being pregnant. He's always hated her children cuddling with her, he's using the pregnancy as an excuse to stop it. YTA OP.
monarchofdonuts writes:
YTA: Dude, I get that you're stressed about your wife's pregnancy, but nobody ever had a miscarriage from their kids curling up next to them on the sofa. Nothing you've described here sounds 'rough' in the slightest. Your old discomfort with the family's cuddly ways has seized your anxiety as a mask. Trust your wife's judgment.