'AITA for changing my mind about my wife being a SAHM since she changed the terms?' UPDATED
"AITA for changing my mind about my wife being a SAHM since she changed the terms?"
I (35m) have been with my wife Allie (37f) for two years, married for one and we are expecting our first child together in a few months. I also have two children (8m and 6f) from a previous relationship with Alex (32f), and we have 50/50 custody, however, Alex travels a lot for work so we have the kids more than that most of the time, so we get child support from her.
Before we got married, Allie and I spoke extensively about what we wanted, and she was adamant about being a stay at home mom. I was upfront with her that I was fine with that, we’d be able to afford it, but she would need to be a SAHM for all of the kids to be able to make it work. She agreed happily.
So as you can probably predict, she sat me down the other day and told me that she wants, at minimum, her first year as a mom to only be a SAHM to our shared baby. She said after that she can help out more with the other kids, but wants to protect her first time motherhood and said it’s her number one boundary.
I told her that would no longer work, then, I couldn’t support a family of five on just my salary without help with all of the kids. She said I needed to figure it out and respect her boundaries, but this simply won’t be possible.
We have family to help for sure but she’s saying she doesn’t want to be responsible for the older kids at all the first year. Also, we want at least one more child and I’m now worried she’ll try to extend the year with another baby.
She’s incredibly hurt and angry, but I don’t think it would even be possible to respect her boundaries. So would I be the AH for reneging on my promise to let her be a stay at home mom?
Quick edit - my ex wife will be keeping the kids for two weeks after birth and has been able to be assured she wouldn’t travel for that first month of emergencies come up, I am also paying the person I currently am who picks up, watches, drops off etc the kids before and after school an additional 4 weeks after Alex already has them for 6 full weeks off from any older kid duties for Allie.
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
No. You're not wrong. In fact, I would bet money that she planned this the whole time. She knew she didn't want to watch them but it was the only way to get you to agree. So she said she would and she probably intended to wait till after the baby was born and tell you it was too much work and she just couldn't take care of the other two.
But somewhere along the line she got cocky and decided she can get away with telling you now. Or maybe she's impatient? I don't actually know, but either way I'm pretty sure this was always her intention.
I’m sort of all for having a year off after having a baby. I wish more countries supported this, it helps with bonding, mental health, physical health etc…. But she married you, and created a family with you knowing you have kids.
So to say she wants to “protect her first time motherhood” from that makes her a massive AH. Like gigantic. She’s literally trying to exclude your children from your family, staking a claim on the baby as this family, and not their family. If you have a second child would she send the first away? Because that’s what she’s doing to your kids.
Hope you give us an update soon.
Two days later, the OP returned with an update.
My wife Allie and I had multiple discussions about her being a SAHM to our future kids IN ADDITION to my two kids from my previous marriage to Alex; however she recently told me that she wanted the first year of our upcoming baby’s life to be JUST a SAHM to the baby, and I told her that wouldn’t work for me or our budget.
I talked to Allie, and laid everything out. I told her that her demands were out of line and incredibly entitled, and that if she insisted on keeping them, I was no longer comfortable with her quitting her job and would not support it.
Further, two weeks without my kids was ridiculous so I told her that if she went into labor during our custody time, my parents would have the older kids when we were in the hospital but I am not longer comfortable sending my kids away to their moms for two weeks.
Other families don’t normally do that and I would not either. But, for the first two months of us having the baby, I would keep paying the nanny and take care of the older kids things, which is longer than I had originally agreed. Honestly, it was also more than she’d even originally agreed to, so I thought it was a fair compromise.
She lost her mind and flipped out at me, told me that I wasn’t “respecting her first time motherhood,” (wtf) and that she shouldn’t have to care for “kids I didn’t give birth to” for the first year of ‘her’ baby’s life.
I was honestly over it at this point and done arguing, I told her she needed to check herself and that NONE of this was new or a surprise. If she didn’t want to do it she shouldn’t have agreed to it, and her being a stay at home mom was off the table.
To be clear, I know I could make it work with just my salary. BUT it would mean taking the funds I would allocate towards her “fun money” for things like shooing, self care etc. and I’m not comfortable telling an adult dependent on me financially that she couldn’t have a choice for fun money.
I showed her the budget, which backfired because she said that I didn’t need to defund her fun money and gave me a few “solutions” which were:
Take the older kids out of private school and ask my ex to give us that money in child support instead. Stop putting money into my older kids college fund. Selling my boat.
Those were her solutions. None of which have her sacrificing anything, only me and or my kids, and the first one was so unreasonable I could only imagine how that conversation with my ex would go. She’d laugh me out of the country lol. I told Allie all of that was unreasonable and a non-starter, and honestly just made me see where her priorities are.
So yeah, I told her that if she couldn’t agree to common sense compromises I could no longer trust her to be a SAHM to our older kids, that there was zero daylight in how much I cared about my older kids vs our shared baby and had to protect them both equally.
The fact that she thought it was reasonable to stop saving for my older kids college while still giving her money for Botox and highlights showed me where her priorities would lie if she no longer brought in income.
I said I was no longer comfortable with her quitting her job, and that since my work has (not free but heavily reduced) daycare onsite, that would be the best option for our family after her fmla leave (she doesn’t get paid maternity leave, just unpaid up to three months which will be fine).
She’s devastated and being cold towards me, but surprisingly not my kids which is good. I don’t want to kill her dreams of being a SAHM, but I can’t work with someone who refuses to be reasonable.
We discussed it with our therapist last week, who wasn’t exactly on my side obviously but was trying to point out the unfairness, and she just keeps saying she needs me to prioritize her needs and boundaries. The therapist even tried explaining that these are not boundaries but she’s not listening.
So in summary: I tried reasoning with my wife, she tried convincing me to stop saving for college for the older kids to pay for their nanny so she could only be a SAHM to our shared baby, and I told her I no longer thought it would work for her to be a SAHM. She’s devastated but we’re working it out with our therapist and I’m hoping this is all just hormones.
Edit to add one quick thing: I’ve known Allie since freshman year biology. We never dated until a few years ago but we’ve always remained friends. I have known her and this behavior is all so new.
She loved being a bonus mom, would be excited for the kids to come over for extra time, and would even ask me to ask my ex if she could have them randomly if she wanted to take a day off and go swimming or to the zoo or something. I’ve asked her for all to her doctor about this and she’s yelled at me about it. I have no clue to what to do.
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
Please go see a lawyer and figure out how to protect you and maybe making other college funds into a trust so can’t be touched etc . She is going to stay home with the baby no matter what and will Start rejecting your bio kids when she doesn’t get her way.
Live_Point_Hillo (OP)
My kids college and savings are in trusts, we had a prenuptial agreement as well so I’m not too worried about.
Jeezo man. There’s absolutely no reasoning with her. I’d be drawing up plans to leave. You need to think about the future - is this what you want your life to be like for years. She just sounds so incredibly selfish. I suspect life would be easier for you without her. It’s not even her outrageous selfishness - you can’t trust her.
Hormones don’t excuse this kind of behaviour. Have her checked for early onset of PPA or PPD but don’t excuse her selfish words as ‘fleeting’ due to her pregnancy. She basically boiled it down to wanting you to choose, her or your kids, then freaked out when you chose your kids.
That is something that shouldn’t be forgiven lightly. Her first choice at ‘compromise’ is to sabotage your kids educations. At this point, it sounds like you’ve got yourself a gold digger having a tantrum because she feels entitled to more, no matter who suffers for her greed.
Looks like divorce #2 is fast approaching.
Live_Point_Hillo (OP)
I’m hoping to avoid that, she’s never been like this and it’s so far out the norm I even asked her to talk to her doctor about it, but she thinks she’s just being reasonable and setting boundaries.