When we become parents, life changes. Even if we want our lives to stay the same, it’s just not reasonable to think they will. It’s very important to challenge ourselves not to lose who we are. It’s easy to pour all our identity into our kids, but we have to stay true to the person inside, too.
One dad on Reddit appears to want the exact opposite from his wife. He thinks she’s too focused on her hobbies and needs to get her priorities straight. He went to the AITAH forum, which didn’t quite go how he intended.
The original poster immediately complained about his wife’s “time-consuming” hobbies. He said he warned her about them before they had a baby.
“I mentioned that it wouldn’t work with her busy schedule and she would have to make huge changes if we were going to have a child together. She assured me she was on board with that and it wouldn’t be a problem,” he wrote in his post. “That year she went on 3 trips abroad without me, which was fine, but again I mentioned this would not be possible once we had a child.”
His wife apparently keeps a very busy schedule and likes it that way. OP feels like he has to do way more parenting than he bargained for. He also has two older kids, so the baby is adding pressure.
“I am writing this on easter sunday, alone with our daughter because she is on a road trip with her friend all day. She notified me of this – didnt ask me or discuss it, just let me know. This sam[e] friend wanted her to take a drive with her at 3 am a few weeks ago, they apparently had to take someone to the airport,” he added. “I said forget it, you have a baby (her friend does not) and I’m sick of this. She relented but calls me controlling for interfering (she was complaining about being sleepy all day next day, I wonder how tired she would have been!)”
OP’s post got a lot of attention. Some people thought he left out critical details about his wife’s hobbies.
“MORE INFO NEEDED. How often are these trips. Within the last 6 months how often has she gone, for how many days. Out of the last 4 weeks how often has she gone away?” someone asked.
OP responded that his wife is a dog and horse breeder, and those activities keep her quite busy.
“These hobbies do not generate income except barely to cover the costs of doing them and therefore I call them hobbies – and more importantly, she agrees with this assessment,” he explained.
Some thought OP knew what he was getting himself into.
“To summarize: woman that you fell in love with is still that same woman and you can’t deal with the baby and children you brought into this world effectively without her,” one person commented.
“you sound like a guy with 3 kids who actually wanted to have 0 kids. also i read your comments, YTA,” someone else wrote.
OP’s wife found the post and clapped back hard at her husband and the haters.
“I am a very involved mother both to my daughter and to my stepkids as well. When our older kids are with us every other week I [almost] always drive them to school in the mornings, and I would do anything for them,” she wrote in her comment. “I don’t want to give up my life just because I have a kid and a husband, and I’m not going to.”
Some people suggested OP and his wife sit down to talk because this was likely much bigger than they were letting on.
“I think yall need to have a larger conversation, one that doesn’t feel accusatory – ‘you are leaving me again with the kids etc..’ – but instead ‘I’m feeling alone in this relationship right now, can we talk about it,'” one commenter suggested.
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