You can probably already answer this one from the headline, but let’s dive in anyway. On Reddit’s “Am I the A——” forum, where drama regularly abounds, a newborn mom came to the internet for advice about her husband that involves him leaving her and their baby alone for an extended period of time.
“I gave birth to our first child, Olivia, two months ago. Being a first-time mom has been both beautiful and overwhelming. My husband, Jake, was incredibly supportive during the pregnancy and promised that after Olivia was born, he would be there for me every step of the way, especially during those challenging first few months,” she wrote. “Before Olivia was born, Jake and his friends had been planning a ‘bro’s only’ trip for this summer—a week-long vacation to a cabin in the mountains for hiking, fishing, and bonding. When the trip was being discussed, I reminded Jake that Olivia would only be a few months old, and we would be deep in the newborn phase. He reassured me that if things got too tough, he would cancel the trip to help me out, and I trusted him.”
You can already see where this is going, I’m sure.
“Now that Olivia is here, things have been harder than I anticipated. Between the sleepless nights, breastfeeding struggles, and just trying to adjust to motherhood, I’ve been feeling overwhelmed. Jake has been helpful, but I can tell he’s excited about this trip, which is coming up next month,” she continued. “Last week, I asked Jake if he could consider canceling the trip, reminding him of his promise. I told him that I’m struggling and that having him gone for a whole week would be really tough on me. He seemed surprised and a bit hurt that I was asking him to cancel. He said he’s been looking forward to this trip for months, and that he needs a break, too. He also pointed out that his parents live nearby and could help if I needed support while he was away.”
This saint of a mom added that she “understands that Jake needs a break and wants to spend time with his friends,” but also feels like she (understandably) needs her partner by her side.
“Jake said that I’m being unfair by asking him to cancel the trip after all the planning that went into it and that I need to trust him to make sure I’m supported even if he’s not physically there,” she wrote. “Now, we’re at a bit of a standoff.”
She wants the internet to tell her who’s the a–h— in this situation. We’re going to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume it’s the sleep deprivation that’s making her even consider that she might be in the wrong. And thankfully, the internet rallied behind her to tell her just that.
“You were uncomfortable for 9 months, you went through labor, you are now breastfeeding, what the f does he need a break from??” the first commenter, a hero, wrote. “He was a giant AH when he even planned this trip. He was a bigger AH when he lied about canceling, and he’s the giant gaping insanely awful AH now that he thinks it’s unreasonable for you not to want him to be gone for an entire week when you’re already overwhelmed. It doesn’t seem like you’d want his parents to stay for that week while he’s gone. This made me furious. I hope this is his only misstep, though I doubt it.”
Another commenter weighed in, “He agreed he would cancel it (until he was actually held to his word), planning a trip with his friends a few months after your due date was truly spectacularly poor judgment in the first place, he is a dad now. He’s not your helper, he should be pulling his own weight, and he should know by now that this is a bad idea. No, his parents living nearby does not make up for it, and no, it is not reasonable for him to expect you to trust him to ‘make sure you’re supported even though he’s not physically there’. This is his baby. He should be physically there, not just supporting you, but taking care of his own child who I must assume you are still recovering from carrying and giving birth to.”
In an update, the mom came back and said that she and her husband had had a heart-to-heart.
“After putting Olivia to bed, I went straight to bed myself, feeling utterly exhausted. Jake was already asleep, but for some reason, the weight of everything just hit me all at once, and I started crying uncontrollably. My sobbing woke Jake up, and he immediately asked me what was wrong. I told him that I was just tired, but then I opened up about how anxious I’d been feeling about his trip and being left alone with Olivia. I admitted something I’ve been reluctant to say out loud—that Jake hasn’t been as involved as I thought he would be. This was one of my biggest fears when we found out we were having a baby,” she wrote. “For context, Jake has a rocky relationship with his own dad. I won’t go into detail about why his dad isn’t the best but his mom (my mother-in-law) remarried when Jake was in middle school, and his dad wasn’t very present in his life. Jake has expressed to me before that becoming a father was scary for him because he’s afraid of being a bad one, just like his dad. When he first told me that, I thought it would make him into a great father, because it showed how much he cared about being a good dad long before we were even pregnant.”
She continued, “When I vented to him about all of this, at first, he tried to defend himself. He admitted that he’s been freaking out about having a baby for so long and just didn’t want to tell me. He said he didn’t want to stress me out while I was pregnant because he knows how much I’ve always wanted to be a mother. Hearing him say that made me feel guilty, like I hadn’t seen how much he’s been struggling internally. I had tried to convince him that he was going to be a great dad when we had this conversation long ago, and now it all felt more complicated.”
Then, they seemed to have a come-to-Jesus moment.
“I thought to myself, This can’t go on much longer. I realized that if he was going to keep pulling away like this, I didn’t know if I could handle it. So I asked him, ‘Is this what our life is going to look like from now on? Me with Olivia and you away? Because if it is, Jake, then I don’t think I can continue on like this,’” she wrote. “Jake told me to calm down and assured me that he wasn’t going anywhere. Then he got really emotional—he even started to tear up. He said he didn’t want to turn into his dad, and that he hadn’t realized that going on this trip could be a preliminary step toward becoming the absentee father he feared he might be. He apologized for not considering me and Olivia as much as he should have.”
She concluded her post, “Long story short, Jake called his friends and told them he wouldn’t be able to make the trip. He’s even started planning a little family getaway for the three of us next year when Olivia is a bit older. It was a tough conversation, but I feel like we’re on the same page now, and I’m hopeful that things will get better from here.”
Here’s hoping things stay positive for this little family.
