'AITA for making keepsake books for my daughters that don’t include my husband?'
"AITA for making keepsake books for my daughters that don’t include my husband?"
So, I (31, F) have been making books for my daughters (6 & 2) since my first was born. Every year on their birthdays I write them a letter talking about them and how much I love them and I have been pasting them in a book next to a picture of me and them for each year. I plan on gifting these books to them when they turn 16.
My thinking was that we don’t tell the people we love how much we love them and I never want my daughters to question my love. You also never know how life is going to pan out and this way they will always have a personal memento of my own words in case anything were to happen to me. Now, my husband (33) has always known about this.
I was never keeping it from him. I would write the notes on my phone and then when I got the time would write them out to put in the book. He would even go through my phone and take snippets of what I wrote from my notes and post to his Instagram. The problem arose when my oldest daughter had just turned 4 and he came across me actually putting a letter in the book.
He looked at the book and the pictures of me and her and said “what about me?” He was angry that I hadn’t included him and insisted that I either go back and change all the letters to say “we” instead of “I” and print new pictures that have him in them or stop making the book. I haven’t stopped making these books because I think they will be important for my girls to have.
I’ve just put them at the back of a cupboard hoping he won’t find them. I feel like they are about my relationship with my daughters and I’m a little sad that my husband doesn’t see the value in that. But I feel uncomfortable that they are now a secret from him. I guess I need some outsider opinions. AITA or is my husband being unreasonable here?
The internet had lots to say in response.
fallingfaster345 wrote:
I am in the NTA camp, too. I don’t think that two parents have to always be lumped into everything together. It’s okay for children to bond with one individual parent without the other one sometimes. The same way it’s important for parents to have one-on-one time with each child in multi-children households. I see no issue with a gift being from “just you” or “just your husband.”
I also take issue with any parent of any gender who just “expects” that the other parent will do everything for them. You have been investing in this 16 year project since they were born...something that will be beautiful and sentimental and requires time and commitment. It’s not like you did it in secret, either.
At any rate, to me the fact that your husband wants to “get in on it” despite never having even seen it, never offered to help even choose a photo or thought to write a letter would send me into a rage. That’s some real “sign my name on the card” (of a gift they have no idea what is even in the box) energy and it’s not okay.
There is nothing stopping your husband from creating his own sentimental gift. I didn’t read this as you trying to intentionally exclude him, as much as you just wanted a book of photos and letters of you and your children and honestly I see nothing wrong with that. It’s an amazing gift.
unimaginative_person wrote:
I would tell him you would love to include a letter written by him and a picture of him and the daughter each year. DO NOT take on the emotional work of his relationship with your daughters. Women have been sucked into the maintaining relationships role and it never works. You cannot maintain a relationship for two other people - it is between them.
pumpkinpowerful3262 wrote:
NTA - Tell your husband the next time he asks, 'What about me?' tell him that he can do his own just as easily as you as they are a diary of your feelings towards them. And his, he can do his own and that would just as great as well. I think it is great what you are doing for your children. Keep up the good work, your children will cherish them no doubt later in life.
throwawtphone wrote:
NTA. Yeah, it isn't your job to manage, coordinate, schedule, prompt, or organize his relationship with y'alls children. He is their father and presumably a grown up who is capable of facilitating relationships with people he cares about. Bonding, nurturing and building a connection between a parent and a child is dependent on the parent doing stuff themselves to build that connection.
It is like doing someone's homework for them, you can but you shouldn't. Helping or making a suggestion is totally different than doing the entire assignment for them. Basically he wants you to do his homework. Seriously, a kid doesn't want to hear their mom say "your dad loves you" they want their dad to actually say the "I love you."
WanttobelieveinMagic wrote:
NTA. OMG, what a blatant example of a man believing that he is entitled to have the emotional work of a family be done by his wife but credited to him. Sadly, while appalling, it is not a surprise.
Aware_Welcome_8866 wrote:
You’re doing all the work but he wants everything to be we? Go to any bookstore. You will find Letters to my daughter/son/grandchild books every where. Get him his own books and let him do his own damn journaling. NTA.
HappySummerBreeze wrote:
Can’t he write his own letters? Does he also make you choose, research buy and wrap all gifts and just write the card to include him too? Love is more than a feeling. You can’t outsource expressing your love. I don’t want to be harsh, because historically men in western cultures have outsourced their expressions of love to their wives.
I know that my own dad (in his 90s now) has told me he loves me a total of once in my life. It’s what a lot of men learned to cope with the harshness of life and wars. But with compassion for the origin of this learned behaviour - you have to say “NO - you cannot out source your expressions of love.”
Edit to add: you can approach this with compassion by including photos that show him in a loving or fun moment with his babies, and you can offer to include any letters from him.
NTA.