Anyone who has ever been pregnant can understand that food cravings are a serious symptom of being pregnant.
Not being able to indulge in them from time to time could literally make the person feel sick or severely emotionally deprived, agreed the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITA) subReddit.
But Redditor Practical-Grand-6104 didn’t see what the big deal was when the soup that his pregnant wife wanted was eaten by someone else.
When she said that she always came last in their home, and his mother defended her, the Original Poster (OP) began to wonder if he should have been more considerate of her feelings.
He asked the sub:
“AITA for telling my wife it’s ridiculous to cry over soup?”
The OP’s wife recently had a food craving request.
“My wife is four months pregnant with our fifth child. We have a 7-year-old girl, a 6-year-old girl, a 4-year-old boy, and a 2-year-old boy now.”
“Since childcare is so expensive, she has been staying home. Money is tight right now, and her car broke down, so we have been relying on mine.”
“She texted me and told me she was craving a particular can of soup, so I bought it and brought it home.”
“She placed it on the counter and said she would make it after she gave the kids a bath.”
But then something happened to the can of soup.
“While she was upstairs, my dad came over and mentioned he was hungry, so I told him to help himself to anything in the kitchen as we had made dinner shortly before.”
“Well, he ended up leaving to go home, and my wife came downstairs after that.” Then I heard her frantically searching for something.”
“I asked what she was doing and she was looking for the soup she left out.”
“I told her I haven’t seen it and that my dad came over but he usually doesn’t eat canned foods.”
“I called him, and he admitted he did in fact take it, and that he was sorry because he was unaware she was saving it.”
The OP didn’t see what the big deal was.
“When I told her this, she started sobbing and saying that, ‘She can never have one thing in this house’ and ‘How bad she was craving it and wanting it so bad.'”
“She cried for almost an hour over it.”
“Later I told her that she was being ridiculous. I said that she was an adult, and crying over something as stupid as a can of soup was for children.”
“She told me I didn’t understand and she’s feeling very emotional lately and stressed.”
His mother also sided with his wife.
“I talked to my mom, who told me I needed to give her grace and that my words were very A**holeish.”
“AITA?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
- NTA: Not the A**hole
- YTA: You’re the A**hole
- ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
- NAH: No A**holes Here
Some agreed with the wife that she seriously deserved better than she was getting.
“My Dude. The soup is just the last straw. Your wife is drowning. YTA.” – Sensitive_Coconut339
“My stomach literally turned at, ‘My wife is pregnant with our fifth child,’ and I just got progressively more and more disgusted as I continued reading.”
“What a jerk.” – garthastro
“I have felt this feeling so many times. I know exactly what she was saying and what she was asking for.”
“She was probably upstairs dealing with the kids, anticipating the soup, and telling herself that soon she will be in her quiet kitchen, enjoying her can of soup with a good book or maybe scrolling through Instagram, and then she came downstairs, and it was gone.”
“I’d have burst into tears, too.” – Momof3dragons2012
“That woman is home with 4 kids, one who is only 2 years old. She is always putting her needs last. I only have 2 kids, but I know that feeling very well. YTA.” – Moni_CSM
“That one quote the OP shared from his wife was all I needed to read, and I had this terrible, sinking feeling in my guts.”
“Because like a lot of women, I know what that feels like, to feel like you can’t even have a simple f**king can of soup without someone swooping in to take that tiny pleasure away from you.”
“It’s an awful feeling, and this woman is standing there, crying her eyes out and begging for help and just one thing that’s for her. One moment of respect and consideration.” – LissaBryan
“The feeling when I caught my daughter scribbling on the (paper) sides of my cookbooks with a crayon.”
“The feeling when I caught my son pouring half a gallon of expensive shampoo down the toilet.”
“The feeling when my special candle went missing and I found it ruined, covered in crushed ramen noodles and powdered sugar in my other son’s favorite hiding place to stash things.”
“The feeling when my husband found the blank notebooks and sparkly gel pens I got myself for a cheap birthday present and thought they were for the kids and so helped them do their alphabet letters in them…”
“That’s what your wife felt, OP. YTA.” – soayherder
“Do men, including men who care for their young children, ever feel this way?”
“I can’t even think of a time any of the men in my life ever truly put themselves last.”
“They may not be first, but I’ve never heard a man weep beseechingly at the universe for just one small thing for themselves.” – SuperSugarBean
“I read the first sentence of this post and didn’t really need to read more. YTA. Dude, hormones are a b***h, be more respectful of the woman who is going through this to bring a new life into this world.”
“Also, since I DID read the whole post, she is saying, ‘I can never have one thing,’ because she is CONSTANTLY putting everyone else’s needs in front of her own, and this was just another one of those moments where she was denied something.”
“The FACT that it is such a little thing as soup is probably why she was crying in the first place, because it really shouldn’t be that she is denied everything, especially something so small.”
“She probably is okay with not being a priority because you have so many children, but what she is really saying is she wants to feel like a priority at least once, at least this one time, with this one little thing, with this ridiculous little craving of this soup, and she can’t even have that.”
“THAT is why she is crying, BECAUSE it is ridiculous that she can’t even have that, and you are rubbing it in by saying she is ridiculous.”
“You are a massive, massive jerk. Treat your wife to something big. Now.” – Nonpun
Others agreed and pointed out that this could have been so easily avoided or remedied.
“This is especially upsetting within the context of being pregnant with the FIFTH child! Maybe she loves being a mom and wants a big family, but even if she does, at some point it would wear on even the most saintly, motherly, moms of them all.”
“Get the woman her d**n soup, OP!! And tell your dad, A GROWN-A** MAN, to wait till he gets to his own house to eat!” – HappyLucyD
“He didn’t even think about his wife to say, ‘Dad, do not touch the soup can, that’s for my wife,’ like a normal, decent human being.”
“Nooooo… He let his dad go in there and eat whatever he wants.”
“Really!?”
“No wonder she broke down.” – OverDaRambo
“OP is the a**hole. He should’ve told his dad that he could have anything BUT the soup. He just picked it up special for her… C’mon. Or he should’ve gone for more.” – Haunting-Ad-8619
“He could have bought more than ONE can of the soup that his wife is desperately craving, or get a minimum of 4?”
“Or he could have immediately gone back out to buy more soup, and not listened to his wife cry her eyes out for an HOUR.”
“He didn’t make the soup for her, he didn’t offer to bathe the kids or do the bedtime routine… He just came home and went outside to relax.” – Wild_Statement_3142
“She was craving this soup SO BADLY yet she went and bathed her kids first. She is last. Why didn’t he make the soup for her? Or offer to do bath time?” – bbkatcher
“Why on earth did he tell his father that they were done eating when he knew she hadn’t made the soup yet? He minimized the soup she wanted down to nothing.” – calling_water
“The thing I craved more than anything else when I was pregnant was chocolate-covered almonds. My husband would have defended those almonds from armed burglars if he had to! He made sure they were ALWAYS in the house for whenever my cravings hit.”
“YTA, OP.” – KaristinaLaFae
“OP, YTA. She’s a pregnant mom of five kids. It’s not about the soup and all about the soup. She can’t have ONE THING to herself.”
“How hard would it have been to say, ‘Sure, Dad. You can help yourself. But my wife wanted that canned soup so don’t take that. I know you don’t normally eat canned food, but I especially want to make sure you don’t take that special thing that cost less than five dollars my pregnant wife wants.'”
“Apologize and do better.” – 25minutedrive
After receiving feedback, the OP clarified some details and shared an update.
“When I leave work. I’m going to go buy her all the vegetable soup they have in stock.”
“Also when I say money is tight, I don’t mean that we are struggling to survive. We took out a loan to build three extra bedrooms onto our home. Her car broke down about two months ago. I do leave her the car if she needs to take our daughter and son to their therapy appointments or if she wants to go somewhere.”
“I was also outside the building when my dad popped over. He stopped by to see if I needed help building the rooms. My wife was upstairs for a while doing bedtime routines, so they didn’t see each other.”
“I’ll apologize and do the bedtime routine tonight and pick out the scariest shark movie I can find. She loves ‘Jaws’ movies, so we will spend some time together.”
“I do love my wife, even if it doesn’t appear that way.”
“Also yes, we have five kids, but we wanted a big family. I wanted three, and she wanted four. I was an only child, and she came from a big family. We had four. She had a Mirena (one brand of IUD or hormonal intrauterine device), and it went through her uterus.”
“We found out about this baby at the same time. We both agreed we wanted this child. She told the doctor the same day that after delivery, she wanted her tubes tied.”
“We aren’t struggling to survive. We have food, shelter, and clothes, and occasionally we go out to dinner and take the kids to fun places.”
“The only issue is child care because it is cheaper for her to stay home, and she asked me if it would be okay for her to stay home until our youngest goes to preschool, and I said yes.”
“We may have a lot of kids, but we do take care of them. I work long hours at two jobs, so I am pretty exhausted when I come home. Plus, I’m building rooms for our children.”
“I do help with my children. I love my family.”
But some Redditors were not convinced, especially this one:
“It’s notable that he was fine with:”
“a. Depriving his wife of the one thing she wanted, and”
“b. Dismissing his wife’s feelings”
“Until his mom called him out. Then, butthurt that Mommy didn’t tell him he was right, he came to Reddit for validation.”
“It was not until a crapload of total strangers, many of whom were presumably MEN, told him he was the a**hole that he came up with his bribery-apology scheme.”
“Again, it didn’t matter what his wife or mom said. It mattered what strangers said because their words somehow carry more weight.”
“The OP refused to believe either woman in his real life. He did not accept their feelings or insights as real. It took total strangers to point out he was wrong.”
“YTA, both for the original incident and for the ambient misogyny.” – lschmeiser
While the OP guaranteed that he would do his best to remedy this situation, the subReddit was less than convinced by his offer to buy soup and arrange for a shark movie screening, mostly because this was something that he should have done without being told by a subReddit to do so.