'AITA for telling my husband that I would’ve never had his kid if I knew he'd go back on our agreement?' UPDATED

"AITAH for telling my husband that I would’ve never agreed to have his child if I knew he would go back on our agreement?"

I (36F) am a neurologist and I absolutely love my patients and my job. I believe there is no greater honor in life than being able to help others. The road to my medical degree was not easy, and it was paved with many rejections.

I was a troubled teen in high school and I didn’t get accepted into any colleges my senior year. I had to work my way up starting with remedial classes at my local community college. When I finally got into medical school at 26 I was absolutely thrilled.

I met my husband (37M) in my third year of medical school, we have been married for four years now. My husband works in marketing, and I make three times his salary. From the beginning of our relationship, I was very upfront that I was unsure about having biological children. My dream was always to adopt from foster care and my husband seemingly understood this.

However, after his be friend had a baby boy last year, he began to really press me on having children. I was initially very against this idea because I was just beginning my career, I wanted to wait a few more years before revisiting the topic of children. In August of last year I found out I was unexpectedly pregnant due to a rubber breaking during s--.

I was initially considering an ab-rtion, but after many heartfelt conversations with my husband, we decided to keep the baby, and he would quit his job and stay home until our daughter was old enough to start preschool. There were several factors that went into our decision to have him stay home with our daughter:

-I make significantly more money than him, so financially it just made more sense.

-I am in the first few years of my career as an attending physician. After 4 years of med school and a 4 year residency, I am just starting to practice on my own, whereas my husband has been in his career for 15 years.

-I was very clear I had absolutely ZERO desire to stay home and be a housewife. I respect stay at home mothers but my work is my life, and I would go crazy at home all day. This just isn’t a lifestyle I want whatsoever.

-Finally, I am not comfortable putting my child in daycare until she is old enough to express herself.

As a v*ctim of a SA when I was young, I just do not trust people enough to leave my daughter in the hands of strangers when she would be unable to report abuse/neglect. Our daughter is 9 weeks old today and I am preparing to return to my practice in a few weeks. This weekend, I left my husband alone with our daughter while I attended a medical conference out of state.

The conference was amazing but when I returned home, my husband began acting weird. Today when our daughter was napping, I pressed him to tell me what was wrong. He absolutely broke down and said he doesn’t think he can do this. He expressed how trapped, alone and overwhelmed he felt all weekend.

He now wants me to extend my maternity leave and is talking about trying to get his job back. This made me freak out, and I asked “Well what will we do with our daughter now?!” He responded by suggesting I leave my practice and work from home. I said absolutely not, and he suggested daycare.

At this point I just lost my s--t and screamed “If i knew you were going to back out of your promise to take care of our daughter, I would have NEVER had your child." I know I completely overreacted and I would never trade our daughter for anything, I love her so much. But I am so upset with my husband and I’m not sure how to move forward at this point.

The internet had a lot to say in response.

[deleted] wrote:

How does a neurologist work from home? NTA! He’s quite happy for you feel trapped, overwhelmed and alone? Time for him to grow up.

OP responded:

If I transitioned to a WFH role I would likely have to give up caring for patients as a neurologist. I’d probably end up doing consulting work for a health insurance company. Sounds soul sucking, I know.

anoncomenter wrote:

Why in the world would you go to work after 9 weeks, don’t you have a year of paid maternity leave?

OP responded:

Not in America. Honestly you’re lucky to get any paid maternity leave in this country.

IMAGINARIAN_photos wrote:

I didn’t even read past the BROKEN C-ND-M story. OP, you can’t truly believe that he didn’t poke holes in his condoms regularly until his PLAN worked. He talked you out of an ab-rtion. Every single piece adds up to him baby trapping you. He’s a dishonest POS!

Beneficial_Ball8375 wrote:

NTA.

He is an unworthy bag of gummy worms. I'd seriously consider divorce. That rubber really...broke? How convenient.

FrontTour1583 wrote:

NTA. Don’t give up your career. But if he can’t cut it you might want to look into a nanny and include nanny cams if you’re worried about safety. This would probably get me thinking about divorce to be honest.

themajorfall wrote:

NTA. You didn't overreact, he needs a wake up call. You only gave him something so enormous and major (his own biological child), because he promised not to destroy your career and trap you as a mother. Now he's discovering that raising a child is non stop hard work, something you were aware of before you ever got pregnant. Quite frankly, he only has two paths forward.

Either he can be a stay at home dad and have all the support of a working spouse who comes home to share parenting, or you can divorce him and he can be a single father who gets child support. But he can't trick you into having his child and then claim it's too hard to be a father and so you have to give up your life and dreams in order to become a supporting character of his dreams.

Secret_Dance_7870 wrote:

It is super hard to be home with babies and little kids. We women have been doing it for a LONG time. He needs to do what stay at home moms do everyday. Find support, meet up groups, etc. Also, I know your experience was terrible, but there are good day care providers out there.

Even if he had someone come into your home for some portion of the day while he was still present. This would give him somewhat of a break, still be supervised, etc. The option for you to just stay at home isn’t in the cards. He needs to man up.

Three months later, OP shared an update.

Hi everyone, it's been a few months since I made my original post (I'm not sure how to link it, check my profile). I did NOT expect my post to get so much attention, and I was frankly overwhelmed by it. Thousands of comments, and hundreds of DMs, and I even found my post screenshotted and uploaded on Twitter.

To everyone who sent me kind and supportive DMs, thank you very much. I appreciate it more than you know. To those who sent me nasty DMs, criticizing me as a mother, you are part of the reason why 40% of female doctors go part-time or leave medicine altogether within 6 years of completing their residencies.

Women can want a career and a family, like men have had for hundreds of years, this does not make us evil monsters. To those who sent me DMs seeking medical advice, I am not comfortable giving medical advice online and I sincerely hope that you find the care you need.

To those questioning why I was not on birth control, I addressed this more in a separate comment, but hormonal birth control DOES NOT WORK FOR EVERY WOMAN! Even board-certified OBGYNs will testify to this.

After trying my best with every birth control under the sun for nearly 10 years, I decided c-nd-ms and pullout would be enough. Was this a stupid decision? Yes. But 40% of doctors are overweight so we aren't always the best at taking care of our own health. Regardless, I have no regrets, I love my daughter and would not change a thing.

Okay now for the actual update: A few days after I made my original post, I realized how awful what I said to my husband was. No matter how upset I was, I never should have used our daughter as leverage in an argument. Even if I had to quit my job tomorrow and become a single mom.

I would still do it for her because I love her more than anything and I would choose her every time. I still feel awful that I said this, it was truly a terrible thing to say. Another thing I dropped the ball on was not being more patient and accepting with my husband. For some context, my mother came from out of town to stay with us for the first 8 weeks after I gave birth.

My husband did contribute greatly, I'd honestly say they both did 50% of the work with the baby for the first week or so while I recovered, after that we split the work between the three of us. So, for him to go from two people supporting him to being on his own for a whole weekend in a matter of about 10 days was obviously a huge shock and I should've realized this.

His complaints about feeling trapped, overwhelmed, and alone are the exact reasons why I have no desire to be a SAHM. Yes, we had a deal, but I should've given him space to express his concerns openly without me flipping s--t. I stayed at my sister's with our daughter for a few days after the fight to give my husband some space.

He would come to visit her every day during this period, but we agreed not to talk yet. When I came home, I apologized to him for mishandling the situation. To my surprise, he actually apologized too. He told me that he never intended to back out of our agreement, he just became so overwhelmed that he was unsure he was capable of caring for our daughter properly.

He apologized for giving up so fast and suggesting that I WFH, he told me that no matter what we decided to do, I should not leave my practice. At the end of his apologies, he said that he wanted to give being a stay-at-home dad another shot.

We then had a very long conversation about how we would handle things from there. He told me that caring for our daughter was not the overwhelming part, it was trying to keep up with the cooking and cleaning that was difficult. So, we decided to hire a maid and buy one of those meal kit delivery services. He joined one of those new-parent support groups to help reduce his isolation.

Three times a week, my sister-in-law has agreed to come over to babysit for a few hours so he can go to the gym or have some me-time. I also told him that if at any point he feels like he can't be a SAHD anymore, to please tell me. I made it very clear that while I would be slightly disappointed, I would be much more disappointed knowing that he was burnt out and upset while caring for our daughter.

Since this, we've also taken steps to strengthen our marriage, going on date nights once a week. I don't yet feel comfortable leaving our daughter with anyone besides family so most of these "date nights" include long walks while pushing her in the stroller or Netflix & takeout on the couch, but hey it's been working.

Addressing the whole poking holes in the rubber thing. No, I do not think this happened. I honestly did not even bother asking my husband this, I felt that an accusation of this magnitude would be detrimental to our marriage, especially when it was already in such a fragile state.

My husband has agreed to get a vasectomy, so we don't have any more "happy accidents". He is scheduled for later this year, and we are abstaining from PIV until then. This whole situation has made me realize I needed to go back to therapy, and I have been seeing my therapist for about six weeks now. My CSA hadn't impacted my life for about 8 years prior to this.

But having my daughter and dealing with postpartum anxiety has stirred up some really dark thoughts. I know that I am being overprotective due to my trauma, and I want to work through this so that I can be a good mother and a good partner. A lot of people told me to leave my husband, and I'm sure a lot of people reading this may think that I'm making a mistake.

I know that I am not. My husband had a weak moment and broke down, but he does not have a pattern of being unreliable, dishonest, or unsupportive. He supported me through my final two years of med school, and throughout my residency. Please try to remember that my post highlighted the worst moment in our relationship, it did not show the 8 wonderful years we have had together.

The internet continued to share their thoughts.

VeryMuch102 wrote:

NTA...

I'm mostly the stay at home dad...IT IS HARD lol. But what really helps is that my daughter goes to daycare sometimes. That gives me opportunity to be myself and do my own stuff and the house hold stuff.

PremDikSh-t wrote:

Good that you did not ask him about poking holes in rubbers. Wise choice. NTA.

Immediate_Finger_889 wrote:

I’m glad it worked out for this couple. But boy it chaps my a-- that a man cant handle one baby and the house and cries and gets full maid service and chef delivery.

But women all over are working full jobs, doing the childcare and the household too, and there’s always some jacka-- in the background saying he needs a break because having a job and mowing the lawn at the same time is too overwhelming.

Like, he’s not even going to learn ? Just…that’s it?

Ugh. I’m so jaded and bitter this outcome actually pisses me off more.

JuliaX1984 wrote:

Can you picture a man getting a SAHM a maid if she was feeling overwhelmed? Oh, brother...this story is either an attempt to get people to empathize with SAHM burnout by flipping the genders.

OR a fundie morality tale about a wife's duty to support her husband and make things easier for him by taking on additional burdens like paying for a maid so he doesn't have the burden of doing housework like a woman does.

Knickers1978 wrote:

People really think contraceptives are infallible. I got pregnant twice on the pill. And then kept having a regular period so didn’t know I was pregnant until 14 weeks with my first and 18 weeks with my second. Finding out about my second was great 🙄

I started having spasms in my belly in the middle of the night, painful ones. My ex called an ambulance. I go to the hospital, and one of the tests that did was a pregnancy test. “Miss ___. You’re pregnant and may be having a miscarriage”. Things calmed down, I went for an ultrasound the next day. “You’re 18 weeks and 1 day, and having a boy.”

I’m glad you were able to work things out with your husband. As a stay at home parent, it does get very overwhelming, and with a new baby too. It’s good that you could communicate with each other. It’s also good your husband is willing to get a vasectomy for you. Many men wouldn’t.