Getting married and having children are two commitments that take a lot of patience, care, understanding, and compromise.
Given this, it’s often rather helpful to get some insights from others who are experiencing similar situations.
So, when this man’s post-partum wife started mulling over the idea of taking a month-long vacation to Europe, he decided to take to Reddit to ask for advice on what to do. Keep reading to find out what happened!
The 32-year-old man’s long-winded post on Reddit’s ‘TwoHotTakes‘ thread started off by explaining the couple’s current situation. The new parents have been together for four years and have a 16-month-old daughter, choosing to split parenting and household chores 50/50.
At the same time, the man wrote that he acknowledges this split isn’t always equal, as “it is more physically challenging” for his 30-year-old wife, given that their daughter cluster feeds and prefers the breast over the bottle.
“I am also very pro-therapy, so regardless of any evaluations, I encouraged her to attend a few sessions and she and her therapist both agree that she does not have [Post-Partum Depression]. I am letting everyone know this because I really want to be able to find a way to talk sense into her without putting all of it on depression,” the man adds.
Now, back to the topic at hand. The man reveals that he and his wife have had a “huge fight” over her desire to take a four-week vacation to visit her friend, who lives in Europe. She had told her husband that she’s “tired from feeling like a mom” and feels that she’s earned a longer vacation after childbirth and being a mom for almost 1.5 years.
Moreover, she told her husband that she “wants her identity” back and that she will be using her own savings for the trip, which was apparently something she’d always dreamt of.
Despite her reasoning, the man writes that he didn’t exactly see it her way. “I disagreed with her and told her that priorities are bound to change and she cannot expect to have a single life back. I would happily step up and take on her share of childcare if she wanted to do a weekend trip or a spa day and would fully support that,” he explained.
This, however, did not go down too well with his wife, who said she would prefer a lengthier trip. Offering a compromise, the man said: “I told her if she wants to really do something about her savings, it would be great if WE could do something maybe as a couple or a family TOGETHER because I also deserve a break as much as she does.”
He even recounted how he told his wife she was “selfish” for choosing to spend her savings “entirely on herself” after he’d exhausted all of his personal savings on a “large family expense” – though he does not explain what this expense was.
“I cannot fathom the idea of a mom wanting to be away from her toddler for nearly a month and almost shamed her for it (may make me an a*****e but emotions were high and I was angry), and it was making things difficult for me because I realistically would have to exhaust my [paid time off] AND be both Mom and Dad to our baby,” the man wrote, saying that he also told his wife he could not be with someone who would not compromise with him on this matter.
After this, the man’s wife began crying, telling her husband how all she wanted was to “feel like herself again”, with the man replying that he would be open to her doing something over a weekend but that her suggestions up until then had been “highly unrealistic”.
The man revealed that he had suggested therapy but that this was apparently a condescending suggestion. He concluded his post by asking fellow Redditors what he should say to his wife.
People were pretty much supportive of the husband in the comments, with many people suggesting that there was perhaps a larger issue – the wife’s perception of herself. “The wife has a lot to sort out and one is, I think, she is having second thoughts or regret with her life decisions. Before leaving for a long vacation, she needs to speak to a professional provider. A one month vacation will not fix what is going on,” one person wrote.
Someone else added: “She needs an outside person to help her get to core of her unhappiness so she be free and happy when makes her move.”
One woman, who said she was a stay-at-home mother, chimed in with: “4 weeks is too much and I say this as a [stay at home mother] who knows exactly how it feels to feel like you’re losing your identity to solely being a mother. A 1 week get away is another story.”
She continued: “She needs to find a compromise that doesn’t involve pinning all the duties on you for a whole month. I’d be absolutely livid and absolutely questioning my marriage if my husband told me he was going on a month long vacation and leaving me to deal with everything.”
What do you think of this situation? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
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