Sometimes having a baby with someone can teach you a whole lot about them. Unfortunately, some of that stuff might be real, real bad. A Redditor using the handle, u/throwra6001397 asked r/AmItheA**hole to help her figure out exactly what to do about her husband who has gone off the deep end since their baby was born. Three weeks ago.
She says she’s 23, and he’s 26 and their baby has only been alive for 21 days. The OP is thrilled by her baby daughter, but there has been an unprecedented level of stress in the household:
My husband has been acting weird lately, He’s been stressing out and worrying too much about doing something wrong when caring for our baby, he did a number of things that really got me concerned, he would walk out whenever our daughter starts to cry but that was in the first week and thank God he doesn’t do it anymore, he wouldn’t hold her fearing he’d drop her, he doesn’t help with changing diapers saying he doesn’t know, he always calls his mom for “advice” which she sees as an opportunity to step in and take my baby from me.
He’d get worried and starts panicking whenever she coughs and mention the hospital, This all has been affecting me as well, it’s so exhausting and I started to be negatively affected by his behavior.
She says that the day before writing this post, her husband agreed to a five-day trip with his buddies on the phone as she listened in astonishment.
He then told her he “decided” to go as an opportunity to “get away from all this stress.” You mean having a child?
I looked at him and told him he was being selfish to go on a trip and leave me to take care of our daughter alone, he said no problem, he’ll just call his mom to come stay with me or I go stay at her place for just five days, he begged me saying this trip was necessary because he was on the verge of breaking down and complained about “how he didn’t expect it to be like this” meaning having a baby, I was speechless, once his mom takes my daughter she refuses to give her back, would start taking pictures, inviting people to visit, trys to feed her with formula and criticizes my breastfeeding “it’s not enough”, it’s a nightmare.
But he argued saying I was just jealous because he’d get to get fresh air while I’ll be stuck at home, he said he won’t waste this opportunity and is going with or without my consent.
I yelled at him because he was unreasonable, but he’s sticking to his decision and is talking about how my post partum is making me say/do all of this.
Everyone absolutely thought the OP’s husband was in the wrong and they sympathized with the stress of having a MIL you don’t get along with. But a few were concerned that her husband was exhibiting signs of postpartum of his own, which is something that happens to men, too. They thought that instead of a camping trip, he should be heading to the therapist’s office:
One woman actually shared a similar story, in which her partner ditched her when her baby was four-months-old, and it absolutely was a terrible sign in their relationship:
The phrase red flag might get thrown around too much on Reddit, but this is a red banner. The refusing to change diapers thing was just when it first unfurled.
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