WIBTA if I leave my pregnant wife because she hates my diet and workout routine?
"WIBTA if I leave my pregnant wife because she hates my diet and workout routine?"
My wife (Jen) and I went to the same college. We met at the beginning of her freshman year (my sophomore year) in Fall 2017. I was an offensive tackle on the football team, as such, I was always a large guy.
Jen was a small girl with an hourglass figure who guys on campus would pretty brazenly check out whenever she went anywhere. We started dating pretty quickly and dated on and off over the next 2 1/2 years.
Jen got pregnant after that. At that time, I was weighing about 350 lbs. I had some pretty significant back and knee problems. I decided I needed to make a change because I wanted to be an active and involved father.
At first, Jen was supportive. I changed my diet (no fried food, sweets, or soft drinks). I increased my workout routine. The weight pretty quickly started coming off. By the time my son was born in early 2021, I was down to 310 (about the weight I was when Jen and I started dating). We got married in the Summer of 2021.
I decided I wanted to keep losing weight. I was motivated, feeling great, and wanted to get to about 200-210. Jen became less supportive, but she was not hostile towards my goal.
I did my best to structure my workout routine to decrease the amount of time I was away from home. I started going to the gym during my lunch breaks from work and made a little area in the garage for me to do my cardio in the morning. I made all of my own meals.
Outside of her concerns about my weight loss, our marriage seemed good. I was in individual counseling and had suggested couples counseling, but Jen was not open to the idea. We were both enjoying our little family life with our son. We decided to try for a second child. Jen is currently six months pregnant.
Since getting pregnant, Jen has become very hostile towards my diet and workout routine. It has mostly consisted of digs and passive-aggressive remarks about my working out and about my body.
About two months ago was her 25th birthday. We got dressed up and went out to a nice dinner. The evening seemed to be going well until she went to the bathroom. When she came back, her demeanor had changed completely (I recently learned she had overheard some women in the bathroom commenting on how "cute" I was).
Her overt hostility towards me working out has increased dramatically. The thing that is making me leave is that there is a fridge in the garage where I store my pre-made meals.
I will make meals for two weeks, store/freeze them there, defrost, and then warm them up for meal time. I had just done two weeks' worth of meals, and she threw out the meals. I told her I was disgusted and done. This happened about six weeks ago.
She has since come to me and tried to offer an explanation. Except that her explanation has made it worse. She is jealous because she used to get all this attention from other men, while I got no attention from other women and now, I get attention from other women and she gets no attention from other men.
I asked her why she would even want attention from other men, and she could not explain it beyond, "it makes her feel good." I asked her how she would feel if I told her that I workout because I wanted attention from other women?
She said she would assume I was cheating. She said she is willing to do counseling now. She had repeatedly tried to initiate intimacy and I have blocked those advances. AITA because I want to leave?
A few hours later, the OP returned to add pertinent information.
Here are answers to common questions I am seeing:
Does my workout/diet interfere with time with my family?
No, it does not.
I wake up early before anyone else is awake and workout in the garage. The only time I go to the gym is on my lunch break at work. I would not be able to leave the office early if I did not workout at lunch.
My meal prep happens on Sunday when the family is at church (I would not be going to church with them even if I was not meal prepping). I shop for the whole house for groceries for the week and then make a big batch of chicken thighs, big batch of chicken legs, and a big batch of chickpea salad, and then vacuum seal and put into the freezer in the garage.
Do you cook for your family?
Yes, I cook 100% of at home dinners for my wife and son. I make them whatever my wife wants. I will warm up my food in the microwave and eat with them.
Does your wife get time to herself?
Yes, my son is in daycare. That started in June. Prior to that, he was at home with my wife and did a mother's day out.
Additionally, both our moms are retired and love to be with our son whenever they can, so she would regularly drop him off. Additionally, in the evenings during the week, after dinner, I am solely responsible for the kid until I go to bed at 10:30.
I am also solely responsible for him on Saturday mornings. And if I am not working, I will be with our son whenever she needs/wants. Spending time with the little guy is incredibly fun for me.
Do you spend time with just you and your wife?
Yes, we have weekly date night on Saturday and usually do something just us on Sunday. We also spend an hour or two Monday-Friday together.
Do you do chores?
Yes, they include mopping, vacuuming, cleaning the bathrooms every other week, all yard-related tasks, doing any poopy/pee laundry for my son, doing all my own laundry, working with my son to straighten up his room before bed, and maintaining my areas of the house (namely my section of the bedroom).
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
"I recently learned she had overheard some women in the bathroom commenting on how 'cute' I was."
Like, she told you that's why she was annoyed?
Piggybacking on the up comment because this needs to be said: You sound like you're doing great, she sounds like she's not good mentally speaking and also from a self-esteem perspective.
Having babies for women is very difficult on our mental health because Postpartum we are expected to go back to the way we were, even in our own brains, we expect that of ourselves.
We set unrealistic expectations about how things will be and how things are after. She obviously is having problems with her self-esteem and most likely could have antenatal depression or anxiety. She needs, and you need to see a counselor, together and separately for her.
From a outsider point of view from what you have said and some of the comments I am reading, she is having a hard time expressing herself honestly and looking into herself at where her resentment and unhappiness is stemming from.
It's not fair to you to be the bearer of her resentment. But if you care about her and your relationship and your children, you are going to have to be the voice of reason in this because she is not in the mental state to recognize these things. Don't give up so easily please, hormones are a beast of a thing to deal with and she obviously needs help.
That being said, good job taking on the household tasks and being healthy yourself. That's a wonderful example and will help, I just think the two of you need to work on your communication together, especially her because she's having trouble communicating her feelings correctly.
Absolutely! If anyone had intervened and helped me get the mental health help and REST that I needed during those years, it could have changed the course of our family. These years are so sweet and beautiful and brutal at the same time. Growing, birthing, and caring for little humans takes a toll on a mom's body and mind.
I think this is really sad and tbh would encourage you not to give up on your marriage so easily. Take the heat out of all of this and take a calm approach. I can fully see this from her point of view, she's pregnant with hormones going wild which can provoke some pretty wild behaviour in some women.
She's also dealing with her body having changed massively during pregnancy and likely not feeling very positive about her own self imagine right now, whilst yours is improving all the time in front of her.
She may also want to have the opportunity to focus as much time and energy on herself as you do and perhaps doesn't feel like her obligations allow her too or that she can ask you to help her achieve this in a way that she wants (which might be different to how you've gone about it).
I don't think it can hurt to give her the space and time to explain. To gently probe her and maybe understand what's truly driving all this behaviour. And to give her the opportunity to take steps to address the issue (therapy, doctors, her own self help journey).
I feel like only then, if she truly doesn't see her issues and actually takes steps to address them, can you truly say you tried and failed and that leaving was the right move?
Considering you have kids maybe think about couples counseling since she’s now willing. It sounds like there is also some individual work that she could do so that would mean individual therapy.
It sounds like neither of you express any feelings with each other until you're about to explode. It's concerning that your reaction is to up and leave, especially as she's currently pregnant and you have an older child as well. Were they even a consideration when you jumped to wanting to leave? It feels like there is more going on than what you've said.