Wife stalks husband's Reddit account, reads he wants children, he responds. CONCLUDED
"TIFU by stalking my husband's reddit account"
throwaway8522233
Using a throwaway because he probably knows my main and I don't want him to know I know yet. This also technically started a few days ago but it's been stuck in my head since and I need to get my thoughts out.
When we met and the entire 3 years we dated before we married, I was always firm about not wanting kids. My husband told me that his stance on kids was along the lines of "kind of undecided, but overall not a good idea." He always said he used to want kids but changed his mind later in life.
I wholeheartedly believed him until I decided to snoop. We're both pretty avid Reddit users and he wanted to brag to me about how many upvotes one of his comments had. I watched him as he clicked on his profile to find it, and I caught his username and a glimpse of another comment where it looked like he was talking about me.
We've never tried hiding each other's accounts from one another so it's not like his was secret, but I still feel a little bad for letting curiosity get the best of me. I looked up his username later in the day to check out what he had to say about me.
To his credit, he was gushing about me and it was really sweet. But, quite a few of his other comments also talked about how he wishes he could have children of his own and that the only thing stopping him is me. He talks about how his desire to be with me outmatches his desire to have kids, but he's still heartbroken that he can't have both.
I still don't know what to make of it. On the one hand, I'm hurt that, in the almost 10 years we've been together, he's never talked to me about this and Instead lied to make it seem like we were on the same page. I feel immense guilt that I've taken such a choice away from him, especially after reading about just how badly he wants it.
On the other hand, and I can't believe I'm about to type this out, it's making me rethink my stance. For the first time in my 32 years of existence, I'm uncertain about whether I want kids or not. I've always thought "pregnancy/birth sounds like a nightmare and I simply don't have the mental bandwidth to devote all of my time to raising a child" but suddenly I'm having daydreams about it all.
Hell, just last night I fell asleep while fantasizing about what would happen if my birth control failed and we decided to just roll with it. Every argument I try to come up with against it is easily refuted by how our life is currently going. We own our house, we both have good jobs that pay well, and I work from home on my own schedule so we wouldn't have to worry about daycare or extended maternity leave.
The fact that I'm even reconsidering it is absolutely terrifying. What if I think on it for another year, decide to go for it, and then regret it? What if I'm only thinking about it now because I want to make him happy? What if I decide to ignore these thoughts and later regret not trying before we got too old? What if he thinks he wants me now but later resents me for not letting him live the life he's always wanted?
Anyway, this got much longer than I thought it would be. I'm using this sub instead of something like r/confessions because I do consider this a f*ck up. I regret looking into his reddit account, I wish I could go back to a few days ago where this wasn't on my mind and I thought things were going great between us. I just needed to get all this off my chest.
After the OP realized how many comments were streaming in, they provided some additional information.
"EDIT:"
throwaway8522233
I was not expecting this post to blow up as much as it has. I'm sorry I haven't responded to many people but I promise I've read almost every comment. I was gonna sit on it for a few more days before saying anything to him. But everyone calling me out for essentially being scared is making me realize I should just talk to him tonight before I let my weird anxiety blow it more out of proportion than it already has.
I still haven't decided whether to bring up how my views have changed regarding children as I don't want to get his hopes up if I change my mind back, I'll see how the conversation goes. To address a few things I've seen mentioned by you guys:
1. Don't worry, I'm not throwing out my birth control tonight and jumping straight to baby making. I'm honestly still leaning more into the not having any kids side, and if my mind changes more it's still not happening until we both want one without a shadow of a doubt.
2. "Just talk to him! Communicate!" I appreciate the concern, but keeping it to myself forever was never an option for me. Our communication is(usually) fantastic and I'm planning on sitting down with him, I was just panicking a bit while writing this and wasn't sure the when/how/what all I'd like to share with him.
3. "Why do you think doing the same thing he did will solve your problems" ...you know what, you got me there. I'll probably show him this post eventually anyway so I'm not sure how much water these comments hold, but you may be right that I shouldn't have shared this with strangers on the Internet.
I will say though, I kinda get why people do it now. To quote one of my own comments: "it's like having a sea of little angels and devils on your shoulders" which tbh is a little cool and almost cathartic.
I'll update tomorrow morning if anyone is interested, but otherwise thank you all for your help! For the hate Reddit gets for being toxic and negative, all of you had either very insightful advice or were funny to hear from.
Here were the top rated comments from readers after this initial post:
Gokartking92105
Communication. It’s literally the only way to solve this dilemma.
The OP again responded:
throwaway8522233
Oh I absolutely agree. I just need to take some time to sort my thoughts out before I try to have this conversation with him. I'm also worried about his "I love you more than I want kids" take. He's always been a pretty in the moment kind of guy with very little regard for the future.
So basically, I know he feels certain about this take now, but I'm worried he won't feel that way in another 10 or so years and he just doesn't realize it yet if that makes any sense. I'm overthinking this, I know. I think I feel so lost because it's a tough pill to swallow finding out that your long term partner has been faking his thoughts on such an important and life changing topic.
coconutmama77
I think it’s possible to change your mind on having kids. But I’d be cautious that he’s not the reason. It’s better to regret not having kids then to regret having them.
kaykordeath
The only wrong move here is to do nothing. There is NOTHING wrong with changing your mind. Stop thinking about yourself as being ONLY the person you were for the first 32 years. You are allowed to grow and evolve and change your mind. It's one of the beautiful things about growing up.
It's cliche, but it's true: couples that don't grow together, will, instead, grow apart. But that means that both of you have and will continue to "grow." And that COULD include you growing into wanting children.
Have the conversation with him. Be open minded. But also be prepared to understand yourself - as an individual and as part of a couple - even better, and MAYBE learn that you do not in fact want kids but he more and more does. And be prepared to accept the consequences of that. But don't just keep it inside and let it f*ck with your head without doing something about it.
True to their word, the OP returned with an update the next day.
"TIFU by stalking my husband's reddit account UPDATE"
throwaway8522233
Hi again guys. A few of you asked for an update; I hope it's okay I make a new post rather than edit my original or try to cram it into a comment as my original was getting a bit long/messy and this update is also pretty long. I was not expecting my story to be interesting enough to get such an insane amount of attention.
I'm a tad embarrassed my inner thoughts had so many eyes on it, but the secret little egocentric in me thanks you all for my 15 minutes of fame LOL. The gist of this update is my husband is an incredible partner/human being and I'm an idiot who holds onto my big ball of anxiety for no real reason.
Almost all of your replies were very sweet and supportive (I didn't respond to most of them but I read them all), but it didn't stop me from feeling super nervous about confronting him. It's hard to explain but I get a little overly stressed about things that aren't as big of a deal as I make them (I have been wanting to get checked out for whatever anxiety disorder I probably have but just haven't gotten around to it.)
I was hoping to let him decompress when he got home from work before I brought the topic up, but he knows I overly deep clean when I get nervous so when he walked through the door and saw me taking a toothbrush to our oven he knew something was up and asked about it. Obviously I didn't take notes on exactly what was said but I'll do my best to paraphrase.
I started out by saying "don't freak out, this isn't anything super serious, it's just me being classic Jane" I then went on to explain that I was extremely sorry for invading his privacy but that I looked up his account and read some of his comments and he interrupted me by...laughing
He didn't just laugh, this motherf*cker (said with love, I'm not actually mad) saw what a wreck I was and had the audacity to GUFFAW loud enough to startle me. He then said "so that WAS you!"
You guys were right, he found my original post. I feel silly for thinking he wouldn't, but I figured it wouldn't get as popular as it did and between him spending most of the day at work instead of on Reddit and saying he wasn't a fan of subreddits like these that he would somehow miss it.
In my defense I had changed enough details about our lives that he wasn't totally sure until I told him I found his account, but yeah he had his suspicions. He sat me down at this point and basically said "I know you well enough to know you don't actually want kids, this is just a phase."
I won't go into details because it's pretty personal, but he presented his arguments for why he thinks that and he is 100% right. He then followed up with "I don't think you interpreted what I wrote correctly." He doesn't want to share his account with everyone so I won't, but when he wrote that he loved me more than he wanted kids he didn't mean that he was giving up that life just to make me happy.
He meant that being with me completely changed his outlook. Us being together meant that we could travel anywhere we want together, have romantic dates where we stay out as late as we want, get freaky until 4am without worrying about being too loud or having to wake up a few hours later to our child crying for breakfast.
He realized he didn't want kids when he married me because he didn't want to share our life together with anyone else.
When I asked him why he said he felt heartbroken that he "couldn't have both", he explained that he didn't articulate that comment very well. He wasn't necessarily heartbroken that he could never have children of his own, but rather he was grieving the loss of his imaginary children and a mentality he held onto for his entire life up until he changed his mind.
I imagine it felt a little bit like my freak out in the original post where I was scared and confused by my own 'change of heart' but on a bigger scale over a longer period of time. That one's a little tricky to paraphrase and may not make sense to some people, but the way he explained it made complete sense I swear haha.
Anyway, everything went smoothly and we decided by the end of our conversation to stick with having no kids, but promised we will regularly check in with each other about it in case we ever change our minds.
Here were the top rated comments after the OP's update:
gypsytron
This sounds wonderful, but I would like to point out in your last post, you had entirely written of kids because of fear. Given the actual opportunity to daydream on it, you were 100% into it. I think you should give it a serious consideration. You two are in the time window when it would be best to get going on this.
You are in the best place a person could probably be to do it. It gets a bad rap from people online, but I seriously cannot express enough how much I love being a parent. Maybe it isn’t for you. Fair enough. I am not sure. You really sounded like you were into it until you convinced yourself otherwise.
Having a kid forces you to give up a lot of the things you enjoy, in exchange for something that will truly make you happy… If you are one of the people built for it. Sorta sounds like you are. If it’s just fear holding you back, think of it again. I am sure this will get attacked, but I think you should write about it, and maybe talk to a therapist about it. Just my 2¢. Good luck either way.
The OP responded here:
throwaway8522233
It's definitely something that will be a bigger blip on our radar because of this whole ordeal, meaning we'll check in with each other every now and then to see where we stand.
That being said, I promise you he made total sense of why I started thinking that way despite my overall stance probably not having changed. It's really tough to explain/give validity to his claim without sharing what he said, but it's a bit too personal so I'd rather not share.
And just in case anyone starts worrying: he did not coerce or pressure me into rejecting these thoughts. He just knows me better than I know myself and once we talked it clicked with me and the baby fever completely disappeared.
maotura
Wow, your relationship sounds really beautiful. Reading this actually made me emotional, perhaps because of how much I relate. I wish you both the best. ❤️
Jumpy_RocketCat_2726
Okay, this is a very opposite-Reddit opinion, but hear me out: I also was very very iffy on having kids. But the real things that kept me from wanting them was my fear of childbirth and also, as an only child, my conviction (with good reason!) that I had no idea how to be a parent, especially to a baby. The anxiety I had about all this was sky high.
I ended up waiting almost 10 years to have a child, and -- for me -- it was the best thing I ever did (and I wish I'd done it sooner). I have one bio child and one adopted, and they are both the absolute joys of my life.
I only bring this up because in your first post you mentioned that pregnancy and childbirth worried you, and I so empathize with you there. So keep checking in with each other. What ever you do will be the right path for you, but don't think you need to shut and lock that door. You and your husband sound like absolute cuties!
(Oh, and P.S., get that anxiety diagnosed and medicated -- I still struggle with that today and waited way too long to do something about it because I didn't want to seem whiny or hypochondriacal.)
Zigzagtiger
This has got to be one of the most mature progressions of a story I've seen on the internet, including the self-awareness/acceptance of how sharing something like this online is an affect of a stressful situation like this. I'm glad things worked out!