'AITA for being upset with my husband about my child’s birth certificate errors?'

"AITA for being upset with my husband about my child’s birth certificate errors?"

A bit of backstory: I (35F) had a really traumatic birth where the baby and I almost died. During the labor, my partner (37M) left a few times to tend to our pets and attend a mandatory work training. Each time he left, something awful happened to me in the hospital: I admit that I hold some feelings of resentment toward him for not being there to advocate/protect me.

So here’s the situation: during/ after my birth, I was on a medication which prevented me from moving/even opening my eyes so my spouse took care of all the paperwork for our baby. I don’t know if he made a mistake or the hospital did, but there was an error on the hospital birth record and on the official birth certificate filed with the state.

He and hospital staff had several opportunities to notice and rectify this before this info was sent to the state. When I brought up the problems on the bc, he said "it’s fine and not a big deal." It was a pretty significant error which needed to be addressed (ex: the wrong date/ time was listed).

This paperwork was the only thing I asked him to handle and I was upset it was not correct. When he saw how upset I was about the errors on the initial birth certificate, he told me he didn’t want to handle it anymore. I was still recovering but realized it needed to be fixed so I had to handle getting the request plus physical payment for alteration to be made with the state.

This process was very stressful and time-consuming for me on top of recovering and managing life with a new baby. After I did everything to ensure the corrections, my husband went and picked up the new certificate earlier this week.

When I saw the new cert, I realized that the original errors stay in place: at the bottom the state puts an amendment section which reflects the "rectified" errors. When I saw the imperfect paperwork I started crying again.

My husband asked what was wrong and I told him that this document is always going to remind me of that day and for the next 18 years every time I have to bring it out for our child’s documentation needs it is always going to show the original errors. He became upset with me, told me to "get over it" and that we have bigger things to worry about than "how pretty a birth certificate is."

This began an argument where he refuses to admit he did anything wrong and I have been upset because he refuses to own the mistake/not verifying the information. I have been very upset and we have been bickering ever since. AITA?

Here's what people had to say to OP:

Head-Emotion-4598 said:

I'm sorry but I can't get past that he left his wife, who was in labor, for a work training! What job doesn't let you miss a training to be there for the birth of your child?

_gadget_girl said:

NTA However I think it would be beneficial for you to speak with a therapist over the trauma you experienced. I think it’s important to remember that the situation was also extremely stressful and traumatic for your husband but in a completely different way.

Because both of you experienced the trauma in dramatically different ways it makes sense that you would both view it differently and therefore find different aspects more or less triggering than the other does. It’s fair to feel you have more claim to the trauma as you experienced it first hand, but it’s also unfair to minimize anyone’s trauma or how it personally impacts them.

A therapist could help both of you process your complicated feelings and validate each other rather than the current struggle where each of you is trying to force the other to accept their feelings as the only ones that should matter.

As a result both of you feel misunderstood, angry, and invalidated. Having a therapist meditate will allow both of you to express your feelings in a productive way rather than continuing to tear each other apart.

Bill_Door_Et_Binky said:

Oh my god. The correct information is there. The edit history is there. This is a non-freaking issue. It’s a birth certificate, not a tattoo. I’m not surprised your husband dipped on the fixing it, when you treated it like the end of the world and not a paperwork error.

No-Knowledge6885 said:

Get professional help. He’s right, but not for the reasons he thinks.

Alarming_Cellist_751 said:

NTA about being upset at your husband leaving you while you were vulnerable and also NTA about being upset about him effing up the ONE JOB you gave him while you were birthing a human, pretty much without him.

Also NTA about being upset at the birth certificate amendment, you had a traumatic experience that he was no help with and yes, seeing it will remind you of that time. He should have more grace.

From my own stupid perspective, addendums on birth certificates are super annoying, my parents changed our last name when I was super young and now I have a two page birth certificate without the fun of getting married. Whenever I need to use it for official stuff like a passport or TSA checkpoint, people are super confused and I have to explain. Mildly annoying.

Rainy579 said:

No work training is more important than the birth of your child. And he couldn’t even handle the paperwork. Why on earth would you be the ahole for being upset with him??? I’m a perfect stranger and I have no respect for him.

ChiapetBermuda said:

NAH - Respectfully, it sounds like you are combining some feelings and possibly not articulating them quite clearly. Though he doesn't seem to be trying to discuss it with you to understand your feelings.

It seems like it's not just about the birth certificate and, as a few others have said, more about the overall hurt during the whole birth and hospital experience. If you are struggling with healing emotionally from the birth and events since it may be good for you two to discuss this with a counselor.

Personally I understand being upset as it would remind me that I wanted to rely on my partner for something that was important to me and I felt let down. On his side, it was something that could be corrected and in the grand scheme of things won't cause further issue after the correction.

So it does make some sense he wants to drop it, but the feelings seem to need to be worked through with some care and attention first.