Reddit Stories - CHILDLESS Doctor, PARENTING Pledge_ A Spousal Promise SHATTERED_

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #doctor #parenting #pledge #spousalpromise #shattered  Summary: A childless doctor faces a parenting pledge shattered by their spouse. Seeking advice on Reddit, they question if they are in the wrong for not wanting children as per their initial agreement. The community weighs in on the emotional dilemma.  Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, doctor, parenting, pledge, spousalpromise, shattered, relationshipadvice, family, emotionalconflict, marriageproblems, communication, decisionmaking, childfree, dilemma, support, communityfeedbackBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. I am a physician who never desired children but my spouse pledged to become a full-time parent, only to retract that commitment following the arrival of our infant, leading to a significant dilemma. Fight I, 36F, am a neurologist and I absolutely love my patients and my job. I believe there is no greater honor in life than being able to help others. The road to my medical degree was not easy, and it was paved with many rejections. I was a troubled teen in high school and I didn't get accepted into any colleges my senior year.

I had to work my way up starting with remedial classes at my local community college. When I finally got into medical school at 26F, I was absolutely thrilled. I met my husband, 37M, in my third year of medical school, we have been married for four years now. My husband works in marketing, and I make three times his salary. From the beginning of our relationship, I was very upfront that I was unsure about having biological children. My dream was always to adopt from foster care and my husband seemingly understood this. However, after his befriend had a baby boy last year, he began to really press me on having children. I was initially very against this idea because I was just beginning my career,

I wanted to wait a few more years before revisiting the topic of children. In August of last year I found out I was unexpectedly pregnant due to a condom breaking during sex. I was initially considering an abortion, but after many heartfelt conversations with my husband, we decided to keep the baby, and he would quit his job and stay home until our daughter was old enough to start preschool. There were several factors that went into our decision to have him stay home with our daughter. I make significantly more money than him, so financially it just made more sense. I am in the first few years of my career as an attending physician.

After four years of med school and a four-year residency, I am just starting to practice on my own, whereas my husband has been in his career for 15 years. I was very clear I had absolutely zero desire to stay home and be a housewife. I respect stay-at-home mothers but my work is my life, and I would go crazy at home all day. This just isn't a lifestyle I want whatsoever. Finally, I am not comfortable putting my child in daycare until she is old enough to express herself, verbally. As a victim of immolestation when I was young, I just do not trust people enough to leave my daughter in the hands of strangers when she would be unable to report abuse slash neglect.

Our daughter is nine weeks old today and I am preparing to return to my practice in a few weeks. This weekend, I left my husband alone with our daughter while I attended a medical conference out of state. The conference was amazing but when I returned home, my husband began acting weird. Today when our daughter was napping, I pressed him to tell me what was wrong. He absolutely broke down and said he doesn't think he can do this. He expressed how trapped, alone and overwhelmed he felt all weekend. He now wants me to extend my maternity leave and is talking about trying to get his job back.

This made me freak out, and I asked, well, what will we do with our daughter now? He responded by suggesting I leave my practice and work from home. I said absolutely not, and he suggested daycare. At this point I just lost my shit and screamed if I knew you were going to back out of your promise to take care of our daughter, I would have never had your child. I know I completely overreacted and I would never trade our daughter for anything, I love her so much. But I am so upset with my husband and I'm not sure how to move forward at this point. Additional information from OOP to address some health slash medical issues. OOP, a few people have brought this point up and I'm just going to address it here.

I started hormonal BC at 17 when I lost my virginity. Unfortunately for me, I'm the kind of woman who gets practically every single side effect in the three-page pamphlet. I tried a bunch of different kinds, but I eventually decided it was not for me. I got a copper IUD installed for a few years, but I ended up getting it removed early because it gave me severe cramping. I've been using strictly condoms for the past several years now and I have never had a problem. Also, this may be TMI, but I never allow my husband to ejaculate into the condom while his penis is inside me. This is for extra safety slash peace of mind.

Maybe 2x a year he will come too fast or unexpectedly and cannot pull out in time. The night we conceived my daughter, he came unexpectedly into the condom. I didn't think much of it because it happens occasionally but now I'm really rethinking some things. Comments where O.P. has replied, commenter How does a neurologist work from home? NTA, he's quite happy for you feel trapped, overwhelmed and alone? Time for him to grow up.

OOP, if I transitioned to a WFH role I would likely have to give up caring for patients as a neurologist. I'd probably end up doing consulting work for a health insurance company. Sounds soul-sucking, I know. Commenter two, why in the world would you go to work after nine weeks? don't you have a year of paid maternity leave? Oh, O. O.P. Not in America. Honestly, you're lucky to get any paid maternity leave in this country. Commenter three, NTA, but, O.P., I would consider the red flags here.

He wanted a child and you unexpectedly got pregnant. Now he wants to go back to work and the deal unexpectedly changed. Plus, why he felt alone and overwhelmed when he stayed home but seems no concern for you to stay home and surely feel the same. Update, September 29th, 2024. Hi everyone, it's been a few months since I made my original post. I did not expect my post to get so much attention, and I was frankly overwhelmed by it. Thousands of comments and hundreds of DMs, and I even found my post screenshot and uploaded on Twitter. To everyone who sent me kind and supportive DMs, thank you very much. I appreciate it more than you know.

To those who sent me nasty DMs, criticizing me as a mother, you are part of the reason why 40% of female doctors go part-time or leave medicine altogether within six years of completing their residences. Women can want a career and a family, like men have had for hundreds of years. This does not make us evil monsters. To those who sent me DMs seeking medical advice, I am not comfortable giving medical advice over Reddit and I sincerely hope that you find the care you need. To those questioning why I was not on birth control, I addressed this more in a separate comment.

But hormonal birth control does not work for every woman. Even board certified abjans will testify to this. After trying my best with every birth control under the sun for nearly 10 years, I decided condoms and pullout would be enough. Was this a stupid decision? Yes. But 40% of doctors are overweight so we aren't always the best at taking care of our own health. Regardless, I have no regrets, I love my daughter and would not change a thing. Okay now for the actual update. A few days after I made my original post, I realized how awful what I said to my

husband was. No matter how upset I was, I never should have used our daughter as leverage in an argument. Even if I had to quit my job tomorrow and become a single mom, I would still do it for her because I love her more than anything and I would choose her every time. I still feel awful that I said this, it was truly a terrible thing to say. Another thing I dropped the ball on was not being more patient and accepting with my husband. For some context, my mother came from out of town to stay with us for the first eight weeks after I gave birth. My husband did contribute greatly. I'd honestly say they both did 50% of the work with the baby for the first week or so while I recovered, after that we split the work

between the three of us. So, for him to go from two people supporting him to being on his own for a whole weekend in a matter of about ten days was obviously a huge shock and I should have realized this. His complaints about feeling trapped, overwhelmed, and alone are the exact reasons why I have no desire to be a song. Yes, we had a deal, but I should have given him space to express his concerns openly without me flipping shit. I stayed at my sisters with our daughter for a few days after the fight to give my husband some space. He would come to visit her every day during this period, but we agreed not to talk yet. When I came home, I apologized to him for mishandling the situation. To my surprise, he actually apologized too. He told me that he never

intended to back out of our agreement. He just became so overwhelmed that he was unsure he was capable of caring for our daughter properly. He apologized for giving up so fast and suggesting that IWFH. He told me that no matter what we decided to do, I should not leave my practice. At the end of his apologies, he said that he wanted to give being a stay-at-home dad another shot. We then had a very long conversation about how we would handle things from there. He told me that caring for our daughter was not the overwhelming part, it was trying to keep up with the cooking and cleaning that was difficult. So, we decided to hire a maid and buy one of those meal kit delivery services. He joined one of those new parent support groups to help reduce his isolation.

Three times a week, my sister-in-law has agreed to come over to babysit for a few hours so he can go to the gym or have some me time. I also told him that if at any point he feels like he can't be a sod anymore, to please tell me. I made it very clear that while I would be slightly disappointed, I would be much more disappointed knowing that he was burnt out and upset while caring for our daughter. Since this, we've also taken steps to strengthen our marriage, going on date nights once a week. I don't yet feel comfortable leaving our daughter with anyone besides family, so most of these date nights include long walks while pushing her in the stroller or Netflix and take out on the couch, but hey, it's been working. Addressing the whole poking holes in the condom thing.

No, I do not think this happened. I honestly did not even bother asking my husband this. I felt that an accusation of this magnitude would be detrimental to our marriage, especially when it was already in such a fragile state. My husband has agreed to get a vasectomy, so we don't have any more happy accidents. He is scheduled for later this year, and we are abstaining from PIV until then. This whole situation has made me realize I needed to go back to therapy, and I've been seeing my therapist for about six weeks now. My CSA hadn't impacted my life for about eight years prior to this, but having my daughter and dealing with postpartum anxiety has stirred up some really dark thoughts. I know that I am being overprotective due to my trauma, and I want to

work through this so that I can be a good mother and a good partner. A lot of people told me to leave my husband, and I'm sure a lot of people reading this may think that I'm making a mistake. I know that I am not. My husband had a weak moment and broke down, but he does not have a pattern of being unreliable, dishonest, or unsupportive. He supported me through my final two years of med school, and throughout my residency. Please try to remember that my post highlighted the worst moment in our relationship. It did not show the eight wonderful years we have had together. Comments where OPP has replied, comment or one, oh dear. This is all very step 40. Goop. About a year into my husband and I dating, I was studying for the USM's step two exam.

This is an absolute monster of an exam. Nine hours in one day testing you on all your clinical knowledge. Your residency match heavily relies on your step two performance. Obviously, I was beyond stressed. About six weeks before my exam, my husband, and I had dinner reservations for 8 p.m. I was exhausted and accidentally fell asleep at 6 p.m., standing him up for dinner. At 9 p.m. he knocked on my apartment door to see if I was over. okay, and I broke down as soon as I opened the door. All the stress and anxiety came flooding

out, I was sobbing in his chest telling him that I could not finish medical school. He spent all night comforting me and he continued to be there for me the entire time. He brought me meals twice a day, so that I did not have to cook, did my laundry every week, ran my errands, took care of my cat, and gave me many back massages because I spent so much time hunched over my textbooks. He emotionally supported me the entire time. He never let me lose sight of my dream and did everything he could to help me through my difficult time. This is who my husband is and now I am returning the favor. I am supporting him however I can as he makes this difficult transition into being a sod. Call me a step-forward wife all you want, but it's just not worth it to me to throw away my family

over one horrible fight. Upp on if she will have any more kids and if not, any procedures to be done Nope, nope. My husband is getting a vasectomy. Tried copper IUD for a bit, but it gave my horrible periods. I am so sick of family planning being 100% on women. I do not want to deal with the side effects of hormonal birth control for another 10 years when hubby has agreed to a quick outpatient procedure. Next story, proposed to my girlfriend and started planning our wedding. But then she suggested a threesome with her crush. So I canceled our wedding. Now her family blaming me for. So, this is quite a long and sad story that I need to vent as is really hard for me to deal with so far.

I, 24M, recently proposed to my now ex-fiance, 23F, after two years of dating. We met by mutual friends at work. We started talking as friends, we went on dates and on New Year's Eve we officially started dating. During the beginning of our relationship she mentions this guy, Marvin. According to her, Marvin has always have a crush on her and during the first months of our relationship he texted her several times asking her to leave me and give him a chance. We used to say how pathetic this guy was and how she despises him for suggesting she would leave me for him.

I must clarify I'm nothing special. I'm a five feet four inches Asian nerdy guy. Time goes by and after two years on dating I decided to propose to her. So on New Year's Eve I gave her the ring and she say yes in front of her. whole family. I have some money saved, she doesn't work, so I started looking for venues, catering, invitations, decor and everything. I spent it a high amount of money as her parents are not in the position to help with the expenses and I have enough savings to go through this comfortably. One day, while we're running errands we started talking about having a threesome. We are in our

20s so there's a lot of things we want to try. We discussed for a while on how we could find someone and she quickly says I have someone on mind I asked to and say replies with Marvin. I know that was the first red flag, but I let it pass. I asked why him and she just answered she was sexually attracted to him. I asked about why she would say she hate him first and then choose him as her first option for a threesome, and she replies is only a one-time thing. So I told her it was okay, but we needed to talk later to set rules, limits, and I would like to talk to him personally before giving the green light.

During the next couple of days she's acting really excited and she comes to me show me hotels, and when are we going to meet with him and how exciting everything is. I told her we need to talk things first as is not as easy as it sounds and we need to have some limits. After that she calmed down for a day or two and starts to bring the subject up again. We reached a point where she insisted so much and bring the subject up so many times I ended up saying to her that she either calmed down or no threesome is going to happen. She apologized and mentions I was right, but, something didn't feel right. That afternoon we were having a nap and while she was sleeping I went through her phone and I found

how she was cheating on me with him for a couple months now. They had been meeting while I was working and she even sent them one of those BDSM tests you can find online to see if his kinks matched with hers. To say I was furious is an understatement. She woke up while I was checking the phone and I confronted her. She started crying saying she was sorry and how she didn't know what she was doing. I packed my things and stormed out to stay at a hotel. That night I got a call from her parents saying how I was ruining the engagement and acting as a baby

while I was the one who bring the topic of the threesome and how her daughter wasn't at fault. I hung up without saying anything and started cancelled everything I had for the wedding. She called me the next day apologizing and asking me to come back. Her whole family is sending texts asking me to man up, as I was the one at fault, and not breaking the engagement. Ada for canceling everything? Update 1, September 5th, 2024. Hey guys, thanks for everyone's advice, I appreciate the support and the mean comments. Both perspectives were helpful.

Now, let me address just a few things before continue one. My ex stopped working to go to college. We met at work, but she quit once we move and together. Two, yes, my now ex-fiancee told her parents we were breaking up because I suggested the threesome and got mad when she mentioned Marvin. And her parents believed her. Three. Yes, I needed reassurance to make sure I was not the one in fault.

I've been conditioned all my life to be a doormat, so it's hard to stand for myself. Here's the update, after seeing all your messages I reached to my fill so we agreed to meet at a nearby mall to talk about the reasons why I broke the engagement. I did have a good relationship with him as we both share the same interests and hobbies, so I figure we could have a conversation. We met and even though he looked mad, he agreed to listen. I did took screenshots of the conversations my ex-fiancee had with Marvin and I showed them to him. After looking at everything he told me my ex gave them a totally different story. According to what he told me, my ex went to them crying saying I was breaking the engagement because I wanted to have a threesome and once she picked

Marvin as the third I snapped at her. He also mentioned Marvin has been going to check on my ex since my ex has been staying with them after we broke up. We went to my apartment and packed all of her belongings to move her out. The ring was at the apartment as well so I kept it. We're on our way to drop everything to her right now. I will keep you guys updated. Update 2, September 15th, 24. Hey guys, I'm back. I know y'all have been waiting for this update. I had to create a new account because I got shadow banned on the other one. I apologize for the delay. So after picking my ex's belongings, me and my Phil drove to his house. The ride there was awkward to say the least. When we get there we walked in and we saw Mill, my ex, and guess who else? Exactly, fucking Marvin.

They were all at the living room. My ex looked like she had been crying for a while. Marvin was hugging her and Mill was seated next to her with a box of tissues. My Mill saw me enter and started asked Phil what I was doing there. He responded, We all need to talk about the situation, and he came to clarify some things. We all sat down and Marvin was about to leave the room when Phil said no, please stay. You're part of this too. Marvin sat down but you could see he was not holding well.

His right leg was bouncing and he tried his best not to make eye contact with me or my ex-Phil started saying that I accepted to continue with the engagement, which made Mill and my ex smile, however I had one condition. Marvin must show him his WhatsApp conversation with my ex to him. At that moment, I was shocked. I was about to argue however I understood something. Most likely my ex had deleted the convo with Marvin, but there was a chance Marvin didn't.

Marvin tried to protest but my Phil insisted and asked him to do this for her daughter. My ex and Marvin glanced at each other and my Mill was quiet looking at Phil. Finally after that Marvin stood up and left without saying anything else. My ex started crying again and my Phil told her to shut up. He said I had show him screenshots of their conversations and he was disappointed to raise a cheating slut. Mill was in disbelief so I showed her the screenshots too. They both screamed at her how could she do something like that on top of lying to their faces.

At the end, my Phil went to unload her belongings in the driveway and told her to look for some other place to stay as she wasn't welcome there anymore. Phil apologized to me and told me he would like to keep in touch to make sure I was okay. I came back home after all of that happened feeling empty, NGL. I think it was the adrenaline wearing off. I got one call of my ex, but I didn't answer. I blocked the number and spoke with security at my building to trespass her if she comes by. I posted on FB and Instagram about what happened and made sure to post the screenshots of the conversation

to make sure she cannot twist the situation with friends and family. I will get most of my money after canceling the venue, catering and other stuff so I'm planning to move to another state. I got some STD tests done and I'm clean. And I'll be selling the ring to get my money back. So far that's the update. I don't think I will update any more on this, but I want to thank everyone, good and bad comments. Hopefully everything goes better now.