When people plan to have a baby, they'll inevitably hear advice about their lives being changed forever and needing to put the baby first.
But they might not think enough about how they'll need to prioritize each other, so they can be the best partners and parents that they can be, pointed out the members of the "Am I Overreacting?" (AIO) subReddit.
Redditor Redtillimdeadboi was a work-from-home dad while his wife was a stay-at-home mom, and he did his best to prioritize his wife's needs and let her get rest so she didn't feel so "touched out" and overstimulated by their kids.
But when she always had reasons to not give him a break, the Original Poster (OP) started to feel hurt that his wife never reciprocated in fulfilling his needs for rest, as well.
He asked the sub:
"Am I overreacting for feeling hurt that my wife won't reciprocate the breaks I've been giving her?"
The OP was quick to step up when his SAHM wife wanted him to take more initiative.
"Some context: I’m the sole breadwinner, and my wife is a stay-at-home mom. I’m not saying that to invalidate what she does; I know SAHM life is genuinely f**king hard."
"We’re also in couples therapy, and one of her recurring complaints there is that she feels touched out by our kids and wishes I’d take more initiative in giving her breaks and taking the kids off her plate."
"For what it’s worth, I don’t fully agree with that framing. I feel like I work hard to actively communicate and to split kid responsibilities as evenly as possible between us."
"But I told her in therapy I’d make even more of an effort, and this weekend, I really tried."
The OP did his best to make his wife's weekend as easy as possible.
"Here’s what’s happened: Friday, we both got up and got the kids ready for the day."
"I made breakfast and started working (I work from home). During my lunch break, I helped make lunch and put our youngest down for nap time."
"She had the kids until 5:00 PM. The second I finished with work, I asked if she’d like a 30-minute break."
"She said yes, so I ended up giving her 45 minutes to nap. She then took the kids back so I could make dinner."
"Right after dinner, she went to work out with a girlfriend for three hours. I spent that whole evening putting both kids down for bed by myself (our oldest is struggling with anxiety, so it’s been a one-and-a-half-hour bedtime process)."
"Saturday morning, I was planning to go see a friend I hadn’t seen in months. My wife and I had talked about this about a week in advance. Working from home, it’s also hard for me to get out of the house unless it’s with the family, so I was really excited."
"I asked what time I needed to be back and if it would be okay to come home right after lunch."
"She said, 'That’s three hours at least that you’ll be gone.'"
"When I acknowledged that but explained how much I needed it, she said, 'Guess it’ll just be another day as usual with me and the kids.'"
"I told her calmly that comments like that make me feel guilty and like she doesn’t want me to go."
"I left to hang with my friend, and she texted a genuine apology for how she had phrased the words while I was out."
"I thanked her for it, and when I got home, I suggested we just grab dinner to make things easier on both of us."
"Afterwards, she also asked for help with back-to-school shopping for our oldest, so we went, and I helped make sure our oldest had clothes that actually fit well. We came home, and we both put the kids down together that night."
The OP didn't feel like his actions were reciprocated by his wife.
"Today, she had the morning to sleep in and then most of the day to work out and hang out with a friend."
"To contrast, I was up with both kids at 6:00 AM, made her breakfast and coffee, and handled kid duty at home. She left around 10:30 AM and didn’t come back until around 3:30 PM (about five hours of 'just me and the kids,' and she also had to drive a friend without a car)."
"While she was gone, I had a temporary second wind, so I cleaned the whole downstairs and kitchen area, did our budget, ordered and put away groceries, but ended up feeling wiped out by the time she got back."
"When she got home, my oldest asked to go to a jump park for an hour. My wife agreed to take her, so I asked if she’d take both kids since our youngest would just need to sit in a stroller with snacks while our oldest jumped."
"My wife straight up said no; she only wanted to take one."
"I explained that I really needed a break, since I’d had both kids since 7:00 AM and she’d just had hours to herself."
"She kept coming back to, 'I thought I was only taking one kid,' two or three times, even after I said, 'I understand you thought that, but I’ve clarified it. I’m asking if you can take both, please.'"
"She still said no. I actually started crying, which genuinely shocked me since that’s not something I usually do when we fight. I think it caught me off guard how depleted I actually was."
"I told her it felt unfair, like she wouldn’t give me a break."
"She eventually said, 'I guess,' and left in a bad mood."
"Am I overreacting here? It feels like I’ve been doing exactly what she asked for in therapy, but when I ask for the same thing back, I get resistance and judgment."
"I hate feeling like there’s a ledger of what we do as well, and I can’t help but feel like it’s uneven."
"AIO?"
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
- NOR: Not Overreacting
- YOR: You're Overreacting
Some sympathized with the OP over how hard it is to find a balance between childcare and work with a romantic partner.
"NOR. It’s hard to find footing with what feels like a fair' division of breaks when it comes to kids, but this definitely sounds unbalanced." - MediocreVideo1893
"There will always be a ledger. You sound like you have stepped up. I wasn’t even a SAHM, and I was the one who did everything. Due to my husband trying to build our business while I handled my job and all the kiddos."
"I wish I had that kind of support. To me, you are really giving her support, and it sounds a little to me like she is now taking advantage."
"I will probably get downvotes, but you are trying, and she is thinking that since she has the kids all the time during the work week that you should do everything with them starting Friday night to Monday morning and then whenever you get home at night or stop working from home during the week."
"She needs to understand that you are stressed, as well!" - EntertainmentLazy871
"Keeping score means resentment, and you do not want to go down that road. If taking some of this advice isn't working and your counselor cannot help set boundaries, including where either one of you might be contributing to this road you are going down, you might need a different counselor." - Distinct_Try6098
"Definitely NOR."
"How old are the kids? Any chance to hire a part-time nanny or enroll them in some extracurriculars? A few hours of free time for you both would do wonders."
"I’ve been a SAHM and breadwinner. I can honestly say both are exhausting in different ways!"
"What works is being a team. Don’t think of it as 'turns,' because this can backfire so easily. Might be easier to do things together."
"As for weekends, this is the toughest. My husband would always let me sleep in the first day of the weekend, and then I’d take over with the kids when I woke up, and he’d have his time."
"I think you guys need to sit and have a proper talk." - Freckledlips19
"Maybe she doesn’t see it? Maybe in her mind she was only out for an hour or two, not the eight hours she really was."
"I had this issue with my husband around chores. He never believed me when I said how much more time I spent on them compared to him. I eventually made a chart and used Post-its of different colours to visually represent how much time each of us spent on everything. He instantly changed his tune."
"Are you also able to arrange some regular childcare on the weekend? Maybe grandparents can watch the kids for a Saturday afternoon every second weekend or something? Getting in regular no-child time for both of you could massively help." - Away_Instance1008
Others called the wife out and understood why the OP was feeling slighted.
"She can’t have it both ways; if she’s refusing to work, she has to accept her role as a SAHM. If she doesn’t want to be a SAHM, she needs to either work or you will need to hire a nanny." - Much_Ad2633
"It is sounding like she wants to be a stay-at-home wife, not a stay-at-home parent."
"As others have said, bring the timeline into therapy."
"I might also suggest having an office outside of the home. Your work time should be your work time, her SAHM time should be her SAHM time, and if you were to not help her with anything before work, after work, or on weekends, THEN she'd have something to complain about."
"But it sounds like she doesn't want to take care of the kids and doesn't want to work, but she can't have both." - KittyC217
"She really needs to consider what she wants AND what she's capable of. It's really not reasonable to say, 'I won't work, but I also won't be the SAHP for our kids.' It seems she's getting a reasonable amount of downtime but can't extend you the same courtesy." - Late-Hat-9144
"So she wants everything to be her way."
"I'm not trying to be funny, but this won't work. You need to talk to a divorce lawyer, because she isn't going to change her way-or-no-way mindset..." - Best_Crazy7712
"She seems to want to have her cake and eat it too. I don’t blame you for feeling the way you do."
"Good luck, man. Continue couples therapy." - puddl3
After receiving feedback, the OP shared an update and further clarification.
"First of all, wow. Thank you for the outpouring of different perspectives and kind words and advice. I didn’t expect to receive this type of response, and it’s been super overwhelming to keep up and reply to everyone’s questions."
"Here is some additional context that many have been asking:"
"No, this isn’t the first weekend I’ve made an effort. I’m not a loser dad, for what it's worth, but I’m just sharing the specifics of this weekend."
"My wife is a stay-at-home mom and often brings up how overstimulated she is but also doesn’t want to go back to work. She's staunchly against it, and it is a sore topic of conversation."
"Our kids are one and seven years old. She had been wanting another for a long time, but I wanted to wait until finances were a bit more stable before we had another. Finally got to a better place not too long ago. Things are tight, but manageable."
"I work from home but finally got my own dedicated office space. I take my hour lunch break to help with the kiddos, do a nap time for our youngest, and make lunch for the family."
"Before having my own space, it was hard not to help every 30 to 60 minutes, even with convos around boundaries with my partner. The dedicated work space has helped a lot with that."
"I ended up discussing this with her tonight, and she fell back hard on the, 'I thought I was only taking one kid to the park; I wasn’t prepared to take two.'"
"I kept sharing that I didn’t feel like her stated need for a break from the kiddos every now and then was reciprocated, which she disagreed with."
"We ended up not reaching any kind of mutual agreement, with her stating I didn’t give her time to get mentally ready to take BOTH kids for 90 minutes, while I shared that I just needed that time to decompress and recharge so I could then make dinner and share the load with the kids for that evening."
"We’re going to bring it up at therapy to get a third-person objective perspective on the situation."
While the subReddit could totally understand parents being exhausted and feeling "touched out" by their kids and wanting a break, they also believed that a balance needed to be struck between needing rest and providing it.
The OP's wife may have shared concerns about not getting enough support from the OP at an earlier counseling appointment, but it seemed that he was working hard to take what he could off of her plate, while she was not reciprocating.
Instead, she was complaining about things, like having to watch both kids at the same time, or having several hours alone with her children, while she expected her husband to be in that situation on a regular basis.
Expectant Dad Of Two Livid After Brother Questions Why He'd Bring Another Kid Into Bleak World
It's no secret that a lot of people are struggling right now, from the cost of living to job insecurity to food insecurity to poor housing. But that doesn't mean we have to stop living.
For many people, that means still starting and growing their families, while planning how to navigate the world we're currently in, pointed out the members of the "Am I Overreacting?" (AIO) subReddit.
Redditor DesignerOwn1141 and his wife knew that the world around them wasn't at its best right now, but they were eager to grow their family and were excited to bring a third child into the world.
When they announced their pregnancy, his brother's first reaction was to send him articles about how the world was doomed and shame him for bringing a child into it; the Original Poster (OP) wondered if he needed to block his own brother.
He asked the sub:
The OP and his wife were excited to welcome a third child into their family.
"I am 33 and male. My wife is 29."
"We have two sons, a six-year-old boy and a three-year-old boy. Both are happy, healthy, and well taken care of."
"We love being parents to them, and I work very hard to provide a good life for my family."
"My wife is four months pregnant with our third."
The OP's brother's life was very different from his.
"My younger brother has been something of a failure-to-launch case."
"Despite having every advantage, he never got good grades in school, was addicted to 'League of Legends' so severely that he barely scraped by, and spends his days streaming games to nearly no viewers on Twitch."
"I've watched his stream a few times, but he just rages constantly."
"My wife is too classy to ever say so, but I can tell he makes her uncomfortable."
"He's my brother, so I've long wanted to believe he's just bad at communicating with people, but to be frank, he's sort of just an a**hole. He's unapologetic whenever he says something hurtful and more likely to just double down and say, 'No cap.'"
"But if anyone so much as challenges his views, he throws a huge fit."
The OP tried to share his happy news with his brother, but his brother immediately squandered it.
"Recently, we announced she was pregnant with our third child. It's a joyous occasion for us because we wanted three children, and our other two sons are excited about having another brother or sister."
"When I texted my brother the news, he immediately said he couldn't imagine having children with the world the way it was."
"I asked what he meant, and he started sending me these articles about global warming, the plague in Russia, wars around the world, and so on."
"He seems convinced that the world is going to end in ten years tops, and that I'm only bringing up another child to die in the 'water wars.'"
"I was honestly disgusted with him. To tell someone that their unborn child is going to die, that their other children are going to die, is absolutely abhorrent behavior."
"But since he's always been a sensitive s**thead, I just said, 'Whatever, man,' and stopped reading his texts."
"He wouldn't stop. He kept sending me every doomer article. He said that when the clouds evaporate, the earth is going to get 15 degrees hotter. He said that AI is going to hack every government database. He said that China is going to invade Taiwan, and then it'll be war with the US and allies against Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran."
The OP had had enough of his brother's negative feedback.
"Finally, I just told him I was blocking him and thought little of the decision."
"He went and cried to our parents (again, he's the most sensitive s**tbag in the world), and they told me what I did was over the top."
"I know that if I unblock him, he's just going to doomspam me again."
"Am I wrong for just straight-up saying I never want him in my life again?"
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
Some reassured the OP that they understood why he felt the need to distance himself from his brother.
"NOR. He sounds insufferable."
"He sounds like one of those people who doesn't like his life and so wants everyone else to be miserable too, or makes excuses for why he didn't do more with his life by blaming his problems on some external crisis." - savingrain
"NOR. He's allowed to protect his peace, especially if his brother keeps ignoring boundaries and turning every conversation into another end-of-the-world prediction, and having kids is hardly a reason to apologize for trying to build a good life despite everything going on." - Upper-Cloud9097
"NOR. But your brother is on his way to a full mental breakdown. Send him back cute dog and cat videos. Cute horse videos. Ozzy animal voiceovers."
"Eventually his phone will start thinking he's like me and his feed will calm down." - Present_Original_797
"I mean, my beliefs and thoughts about the future are along the same lines as him, and that’s why I’m an anti-natalist, but there’s something called tact. And personal choice/autonomy."
"If someone chooses to have kids, that’s their choice, and I’d keep my opinions to myself and be supportive, especially if they’re a family member. Spreading doomer content is extremely insensitive and rude. NOR." - EngineerGold4242
"NOR: I wonder whether your brother is displaying sibling jealousy towards you and your family; he recognizes his own shortcomings and can see where he is in life compared to you, and that is his major issue."
"Days filled with unfulfilling computer games and doomspamming others, he has a lot of maturing to do. Block him until or unless he decides to join the adult world and be the uncle he is supposed to be." - iron_redditman
"NOR. I have all those fears and as such actively avoid news about them. I skipped whole paragraphs here for that reason too, lol."
"I’d definitely block my sibling or anybody else who did that to me. I already know all these things; I don’t need constant reminders. All I can do is work on improving my little corner of the world and trudge forward."
"Anyway, protect your peace." - hahagato
"You are not obligated to bond with someone just because you share blood. It’s your peace and your family that you need to protect now. If you decide to go zero contact, it’s perfectly okay!"
"Especially because you and your wife are in charge of two, almost three, little guys, and your mental peace affect directly to them."
"PS. Historically, the world has always been on the edge, but nothing stops us to be what we are, humans trying to get over all the s**t! So don’t let those bad things put you down. We can build a better world by raising kind, lovely people, and it seems you and your wife are doing it. Good luck!" - Camigatoespinace92
Others advised the OP to involve his parents in case they could help his brother.
"Unblock him and then send everything he texts you to both mom and dad. No comments, just forward it."
"They'll think you're sending it, and when they complain, you can tell them that you thought they'd be interested in your brother's articles as well."
"NOR." - No_Address687
"NOR. Your parents don't know the half of it. Forward everything and let them read it for themselves." - Available_Agent3305
"NOR. I’d keep him blocked; your parents are wrong. If you want to be petty, start sending your parents article after article of stuff you know they won’t like. They will get the hint soon enough." - OldieButNotMoldy
"I would also go low contact with the OP's parents. OP is clearly NOT the favorite son. Any boundaries he put up with his brother will be considered wrong. NOR." - Interesting_Novel997
"NOR, but also my first reaction is that your brother isn't a 'sensitive s**tbag,' he is struggling with anxiety/depression and maybe undiagnosed neurodivergence and is drowning in his own ruminations. None of that makes this an appropriate response to a pregnancy announcement; it's clearly not. But he sounds like someone who is clearly struggling here."
"If it were me, I'd be sending your parents anything he previously sent you. If they share your concern after reading a few articles, maybe they'll take steps to help him." - 2kidsnomoney---
"NOR. I'm sorry to say this, OP, but your brother has not been socialized normally. He is a chronically online loser who thinks he can do and say whatever he wants and does not understand there are no consequences because there are often no consequences when he does it in a league match or online."
"It frankly sounds like your concern for him and his future is budding into resentment and contempt, and I feel like, as most brothers would, those are not the feelings you want to hold towards him."
"I have a brother like this. He was diagnosed as an adult with Asperger’s and now just a spectrum autism diagnosis, but he’s a real a**."
"You may have to unblock him to communicate fairly. It may be worth doing this in person because it’s easier for the chronically online to 'craft' their retort rather than be a part of a conversation."
"Before you can do that, though, you need to sit down with your parents. You need to explain and be able to articulate that:"
"1. His reaction to the wonderful news of you having another child crossed the line and was inappropriate."
"2. There need to be reasonable consequences or boundaries because you are no longer willing to put up with that."
"3. It is his call at this point whether or not he wants to be in your life and your children’s lives."
"You have to have their buy-in; otherwise they are just going to continue to coddle and enable this behavior."
"Then you need to sit down with him and your parents, intervention style. You need to present the same argument you did to your parents, and in all honestly, I would question him in return: what was he hoping would have been the outcome of that conversation?"
"Did he want you to say he’s so right, so smart? Did he want you to go to your wife and tell her to abort? Does he feel like he is in a place in his life where he can be your family planner and manager? When he crosses a line, what does he feel should happen?"
"Only when he is directly confronted, and you have the right supports in place, can he be presented with how his behavior affected you and what that could possibly mean for his relationship with you and your growing family." - allison_mossie
The subreddit understood feeling burdened by so much negative information during what should be a happy time of planning and anticipating a new addition to the family, but the OP needed time to think about what he wanted his larger family dynamic to look like.
That might mean removing his brother, so that the OP could protect his own, and by extension, his wife's and children's, mental health, but it might mean minimizing contact with other people, too, if they weren't willing to respect the OP's boundaries he had for his family's life.