A new dad on Reddit is about to blow a gasket over his wife supposedly ruining the most important meeting of his life. As he sees it, his wife completely disregarded his multiple warning that he had an important video presentation when she came over to him in the middle of the meeting, handed him his 2-month-old, and then dipped. The rest of the meeting was sort of a mess, and now, the dad is furious. But people online want him to cut his wife some slack.
Let's set the scene: two adults, one newborn, social distancing, and one major meeting that Dad needs to be on point for.
We all know that working from home is less than ideal — but the dad was trying to make it work. As he explained on Am I The Ass—-, he was tasked with coming up with a presentation on how his team is handling the ongoing pandemic — "and then give a proposal about a new product design."
Some of the bigwigs were going to be in the virtual meeting, too -- including the man's boss.
In short, "It’s probably the most important meeting I’ve had in months," the father claimed.
The OP warned his wife that he had this meeting coming up and reminded her on the morning of the big day.
Thinking he had things squared away, the OP started his meeting, but was cut short by an unwelcome surprise.
"Halfway through [my wife] comes in with my son crying, hands him to me, and just leaves," he wrote. "She not only left the room, but she left the house and didn’t take her phone. She didn’t come home for four hours."
So, now, his meeting was kind of ruined.
Basically, instead of giving it his all, the dad had to split his attention between the information being shared at the meeting and keeping an eye out for his son's safety.
"Additionally, it stressed me out in the middle of an already stressful meeting, to my less than understanding boss," he added.
And yeah ... he was ticked.
When his wife got back from her four-hour break, the OP blew up at her.
"I yelled at her that she can’t just disappear for four hours without her phone and that she interrupted something I told her not to beforehand," he recalled.
She shot back that she "needed a break," but the OP wasn't feeling her answer. Then, his wife got angry and told that OP that he needs to be "understanding and that she’s doing more work than me."
But he finds that to be laughable.
"She absolutely isn’t doing more work than me, she doesn’t even have a [expletive] job," he wrote. "She said she was going to stay at her mom's, again leaving me alone with my son during work tomorrow."
So, is he wrong?
Some people agreed that the dad was right to be mad.
"Your wife is pretty much an [expletive] for not listening to you. You told her many times that you have this meeting," one person commented. "And she just dropped the kid off to you."
"Worst part. I have the worst feeling that your boss is going to question you," they continued. "She just embarrassed you right in front of the leader of the workforce. I hope you don't get into serious trouble."
"Just wordlessly handing off the baby and disappearing for hours without your agreement or knowledge is not remotely okay," another Redditor noted.
"Work is work, even when working from home. It wouldn’t have been appropriate to drop the kid in your lap at the office mid-presentation, so it isn’t appropriate here," a third person added. "She may need a mental break from childcare, but that’s a different discussion and one she needs to initiate before [expletive] like this happens."
But many people warned the dad to drop everything right now and get his wife some help.
"Pro-tip: If your partner is reasonable in general and suddenly starts acting 'irrationally' a few weeks after having a baby, your first thought needs to be concern, not blame and anger," one commenter advised. "I completely understand that OP's stressed about work, but his wife is showing clear signs of mental illness."
"My first thought was postpartum depression," someone else suggested. "She needs help. He is not the [expletive] for getting angry, especially since she chose an important meeting to dump their son but OP, she probably needs therapy and meds."
"She is screaming for help," someone else wrote.
In our opinion, the OP needs to take a deep breath and check in with his wife before going nuclear. As much as it hurts to have things go wrong at work, it would be worse if his wife is suffering alone.
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