Reddit Stories - SPOUSE and I had always INTENDED to start a family TOGETHER, and she

Episode Date: July 29, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #family #together #marriage #relationships #parentingSummary: SPOUSE and I had always INTENDED to start a family TOGETHER, and she finally revealed she was pregnant. But her unexpected ultimatum left me questioning our future together.Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, familyplanning, pregnancyannouncement, relationshipgoals, parentingadvice, marriageproblems, ultimatum, futureuncertain, unexpectednews, lifechangingdecision, couplegoals, startingafamily, relationshipdilemma, communicationbreakdown, emotionalrollercoaster, decisionmakingBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. Spouse and I had always intended to start a family together, and she expressed her desire for children as well. However, following our wedding and the two-year waiting period we had set, she hesitated. Making excuses to delay having children. We met when she was a college freshman and I was a sophomore, and we started dating about two years after meeting. We really hit it off, she is the most wonderful person I've ever known. We get along great together and have always had a good relationship for the most part, obviously, like every couple, we have our fights, but we've always been good except for the past few weeks. Children have always been very important to me.

I love kids, I'm a huge family person, and I've always wanted to have several, at least three. She knew that since before we even dated, and I always understood that she wanted to have kids, too. When we started dating, it obviously came up, and she laughed at my enthusiasm for a big family but said it was cute and she wants to have kids, too, in the future. When I began to prepare proposing to her, we obviously had to confirm some stuff, and once again she told me she wants to have kids. I let her know that I want to have kids early, since I really don't want to be an old dad. I want to be able to play with them, have the energy to spend time with them, and look like I'm

their dad and not their grandpa. She understood, too. We got engaged, then married, and all this time. When people asked us when the kids were coming, she answered perfectly normally and said maybe sometime soon after the wedding. I'd like to stop just to say that I didn't marry her to have kids, nor do I consider her a baby factory. We dated for a long time and I really genuinely love her. I'm just making sure that you can tell that it was established many times before and during our marriage that we were going to have kids, and that she knew how important this was to me and that she herself told me she considered it important to her, too. After getting married, we promised to wait at least two years before having children because we wanted to make sure we had a happy marriage and enough money to properly care for a child. So, we agreed to wait two years to settle ourselves together, travel to exotic places, work hard, and set every single. everything up. Plus, we were still young. I was 26 when I married her. I thought 28 to 29

was a perfectly normal age to start having children. So we waited, at a mutual understanding. Then, when the two years passed, I asked her about having kids. She said she was currently going through a really rigorous time at her job because she was close to getting a promotion, but the competition was tight and she really wanted to focus on it without a pregnancy getting in the way. I understood. She eventually got the job, and it was great. Then I asked again, and she said not yet. We moved into a bigger apartment, and she said she wanted to settle in first.

I guess, by now, I should have started guessing something was wrong. More time passed, but she insisted I wear a condom and didn't go off birth control. Then, a few months ago, I turned 30. Now I was starting to get worried. I expected to have had at least one child by now. I don't know why I never talked to her about her. We had always been candid about having children together, and I couldn't possibly think of why she would change her mind.

All her excuses seemed perfectly reasonable, but now I was getting the inkling that they were just excuses. So we talked about it. I sat her down and told her that I was 30 and I felt I really wanted to have kids before a certain age had passed. We would both be perfect parents, were happy together, we have a spacious home, both she and I have very high-paying jobs and could be considered wealthy, and her parents live 20 minutes away so they can always help out. That's when she told me she wasn't sure she wanted kids anymore. She said she felt a pregnancy and then giving birth and caring for a baby would take too much away from the career she was building. I was crushed.

I told her she doesn't have to quit her job for a child, but she did bring up a point about how much maternity leave would take away from her overall work performance. If she really wanted to continue working, I told her we can both totally afford a nanny for our child to care for him slash her while we're working. Plus, her parents live so close. But she told me she doesn't want to leave our child with a stranger or her parents. It was an awful night. What hurts the most for me is the fact that she'd felt this way for a while now, and she knew how important children are for me, and she should have told me earlier so we could figure things out with more time.

After a lot of thinking, I finally told her something I thought might change her mind. I'd quit my job. I'd stay home and care for the child. She wouldn't have to take a day off work after giving birth. I'd be here 24 to 7 for it and any other babies we might have. I knew this was what I wanted. A child matters much more to me than my job. Our family income is pretty evenly split between the two of us,

but even with her income alone we can still live comfortably. But she just said I wasn't understanding her point. Now, I'm completely lost. Here's someone I thought I knew, and it turns out I really don't know anything about her. I understand her goals and ambitions and respect her, but it's still something that is important to me. It's still something that I refuse to age and live my life without experiencing. I'm feeling older now, I feel like I should have had a child by now and I want one soon. I don't want to be too old when it finally starts happening.

I asked her if she ever wanted a child, and she just couldn't answer. Since then, we've barely been speaking. I'm going to try to talk to her again and sort this out, because we need to decide what's going to happen. But I don't know what to say. I want to get someone else's perspective, but so far we haven't told anyone and she doesn't want us to. I just don't know what to do right now.

Update, I sat her down and we had a long talk. Basically, she said she was changing her mind about a lot of things and she wasn't sure she wanted to have kids anymore. I let her know that that was getting in the way of the plans we had made together, and she told me she knew that and apologized. So I asked her why she didn't tell me, and she admitted that she was afraid I might be unhappy. If she had told me, I would have understood. We would have talked things through and worked something out. What hurts me most isn't that she changed her mind on something so big, it's that she changed her mind on something so big and didn't tell me about it at all, knowing how important this was to me. After about a month of a lot of talking, we came to a conclusion, there was no getting around the issue.

Our relationship was, essentially, over. I still think she's attractive, amazing, intelligent, funny, and one of the most interesting people in the world, which is why I told her that, for the sake of any future relationships, it's best we avoid contact as much as possible. Because we didn't break up over a fight or infidelity but for a rational reason, it would be too easy for us to fall in love again or something and continue the cycle. I can't blame her for anything more than I can blame myself, and she's handled it all very well. We're truly having a velvet divorce, if you could call it that. Splitting everything we've saved together as evenly as we can, selling the apartment

and each of us moving somewhere else. All of mine will remain mine, and hers will remain hers. She doesn't want it to be any harder than I do. Both of us have our lawyers, of course, but it's being handled with transparency and fairness as much as we can. And yet it still hurts inside. When we finally agreed to file, I sat down and cried, thinking that I had just pushed away the most wonderful person in my life, the person closest to me and most sincere to me over my

life goal. And then the next day I realized she had ceased to be that person to me not on the day we divorced, but on the day she changed her mind on something that affected both of us and didn't even try to tell me. Our relationship was already dying. Since it lacked the trust and communication a step like that required. I think that's what's actually hurting me the most. It won't be easy at all. But at least I've taken the steps necessary, and I think that in a few years' time I'll find someone else, someone to connect with who shares my life goals. And maybe five, six, or ten years from now I'll have children with that person. And in 20 years, those children and the mother of my children will mean so much more to me than anything in the world, and I'll be glad I became a

father, because I know that's what I truly want out of life, even more than a great career or a nice apartment or a wealthy wife. I will miss her more than anyone, and maybe in those 20 years I'll still think of her occasionally. She's been great about it, but probably because she's realized the relationship was doomed just as I did. I hope she gets all she wants in life, and I don't mean that sarcastically or cynically. She deserves it. It really hurts and I hate to have to write it, but I figured you all deserve to know, even if it's late. Also, writing this all down is kind of cathartic, in a way. Next story, wife bought my goth-stepdaughter a peach dress to wear to a wedding but when I got home she was already dressed in a black

gothic dress and we were running late so I let her wear it and my wife says I'm the one in wrong. I, M48, needed some input. My wife, Linda, F40, was the maid of honor for my cousin Susan, F38. We've been together for 10 years, married for seven, and we have two children together M5, F4, along with my stepdaughter, Tiffany F-16. Tiffany is very goth slash emo. She pretty much only ever wears black. Even her pajamas will at least have evil hello kitty on them. Linda is very detail and image-oriented and can be a bit of a micromanager.

She gets very hung up on weddings. She was a bit of a bride assila at hours, and I joke that Susan had made her made of honor because she needed a bridal attack dog. She wasn't amused and I stopped making that joke. In the time leading up to the wedding, my wife was fighting with Tiffany over what Tiffany would wear to the wedding. Linda wanted her to dress normal, and Tiffany refused. Linda ultimately gave her an ultimatum to pick out an acceptable dress or she would just pick one for her. Tiffany still refused to budge, and this ended up with Linda going out on her own and buying a peach dress that was completely outside of Tiffany's style and telling her that this was what she was wearing to the wedding. The day of the wedding, Linda's mate of honor duties had her with the wedding party super early in the morning and gone all day.

I was going to meet her there along with my stepdaughter. I dropped off our younger kids with my eldest daughter. I did a couple of quick errands, and I got back to our house just in time to leave if everything went smoothly. When I got there, Tiffany was not wearing the peach dress, but instead she was wearing a fancy black dress that was much more like what she normally wears. Lace sleeves, kind of a corset thing going on, longer in the back than in the front, basically what I would have expected her to wear to a wedding. I asked her if this is what her mom said she could wear, and she said not to worry about it and that it was too late to change anyway. I tried telling her that she should change into the other dress, but she said that there wasn't enough time, and changing dresses would take forever, and furthermore that her makeup wouldn't match the other dress anyway. Tiffany does spend a lot of time on makeup, and while I'm not an expert I guess even I could tell

that her hair, makeup, and accessories wouldn't match the other dress, even if there was time to change. We were already on the verge of running late so really there was nothing I could do about it. We just went with Tiffany and the dress she was wearing. We arrived at the ceremony, and Linda was kind of preoccupied with helping Susan and all that, but she low-key grilled me about what Tiffany was wearing. And I just shrugged and explained to her the situation as it was, she was already wearing this dress, already had her hair and makeup done, makeup wouldn't match the other dress and there was no time to change at all, etc., and nothing to be done about it at this point. She didn't have a whole lot of time to hang around and talk with me with everything going on. Tiffany got some looks, but she always does.

She does stand out a bit, as you might expect. People seemed mostly fine with her, though. Tiffany rode with me to the reception. She had been studiously dodging her mother as much as possible. Shortly after we were there, I noticed Tiffany's best friend Bethany F. 16 hanging around in a slightly more understated goth dress. Apparently she drove herself and Tiffany helped her crash the party. It was a big venue with a lot of guests and she was pretty easy to ignore. My wife and my cousin both worked for my dad's company, so I was at a table with him and

some of their other co-workers. He noticed that Tiffany had snuck Bethany in and alerted me, when he elbowed me, pointed, and said, they're multiplying. Throughout the reception, Tiffany and Bethany were taking photos of each other, mostly Bethany taking them of Tiffany. Her mom got on her again, but with the wedding planner somehow Mia, she couldn't devote too much attention to them. She told me to handle them and that they were drawing too much attention. They agreed to tone it down, and they were much more subtle slash subdued after that. Bethany had a collapsible camera stand stick thing she had been setting up around different places and she either stopped using it or stayed out of the way more.

Both of them seemed to just stay out from underfoot too much. Linda gave me a few looks during the wedding itself and the reception, but she was very busy and she seems to have put on a face to keep from adding to drama during the day. but she laid into me on the way home. She was upset that I let Tiffany come to the wedding looking like a vampire and drawing attention to herself. She said I knew she was supposed to wear the other dress and not be in so much makeup. To hear her tell about it, Tiffany was a total spectacle, and her appearance was totally inappropriate. Linda said that it's never appropriate for a guest to wear black to a wedding,

that Tiffany's dress was too eye-catching, that she was embarrassed and mortified, and that I let Tiffany do whatever she wants. She said that I shouldn't have let Tiffany and her friend turn the wedding into a cosplay event and the reception into their private photo shoot. In my defense, yes I knew they had been fighting about Tiffany's dress and makeup, but I had been doing errands that Linda gave me before I got home, and when I got home, Tiffany was already dressed. We didn't have a whole lot of time, and I know from experience that she can take quite a while

changing clothes or doing makeup. As I mentioned, she said that her makeup wouldn't match the other dress anyway. She didn't draw that much attention at the wedding. Sure, she got some looks. She always does, but it was nothing major. Her and her friend hardly turned the reception into a private photo shoot. Mostly it was just Bethany taking some photos. Tiffany did kind of awkwardly hang around a photographer until he took some pictures of her,

but it wasn't enough to derail anything. By that point it seemed like he was just looking for interesting things to shoot, and I guess she fit the bill. The girls cooled it with their own photo setups after I talked to them. Linda complained about Tiffany having a bouquet she was posing with, but she didn't even have that when we left the house. Bethany brought a bouquet of, fake, black roses with her when Tiffany let her in, I guess. I'm pretty sure I've seen that same bouquet before.

Susan didn't even care that much if she noticed at all. I've tried to tell Linda lots of times that lots of things don't need to be a problem unless you decide to make them a problem. I've also told her that you have to pick your battles with teenage girls, and that the more you try to fight with them, the more you end up getting drama and pushback. I'm a bit more experienced in this area. I have two adult daughters, 28 and 22, who are both total daddy's girls even to this day. Tiffany is Linda's oldest kid and was her only one until our kids together. I've always had a great relationship with Tiffany even since she was a little kid, and part of that is probably because I don't pick fights with her like her mom does.

Linda says that I let her do whatever she wants, but that's not true. I'm very strict with her about her grades and her chores. She used to leave huge messes in the bathroom of makeup and hair stuff. Linda fought with her about it, while I just sort of calmly explained that everyone needs to clean up after themselves and if she's going to make a mess in there she has to be the one to clean it, and it was fine. She'll babysit for me, when I ask, but again her mom always turns it into some kind of power struggle that turns into an argument. She'll try to micromanage and add additional tasks, while I'll just ask her if she can watch her little sister slash brother for a bit, and if she says okay then that's good enough. Sometimes, if I need to bribe her a little, I bribe her a little. As far as her being embarrassed in front of her co-workers, they all thought Tiffany was cute.

And even after Bethany crashed, it was more just something to occasionally talk about than anything anyone was scandalized over we made a few jokes about the goth invasion and that was it. I was around them and my dad way more than she was that night anyway, and no one minded. She even spent some time talking about makeup with my mother. So, long story long, my wife is still getting after my stepdaughter about what she wore to the wedding, being moody about it and causing unnecessary tension, while I've just told her that this doesn't matter and it doesn't have to be a thing. She's had some of her friends, notably not the bride herself, my cousin, nor any of her co-workers who were actually at the wedding, chime in about how I'm an

asshole for this, but I just feel like she's making something out of nothing. Am I the asshole for letting my stepdaughter wear a black dress to a wedding. Update, May 14th, 2025. Just a brief update in case anyone was wondering. I had a talk with Linda, and we covered a lot of the same points that people brought up here in the thread. I had already mentioned to her that getting into fights over things that don't really matter only causes tension and resentment between her and Tiffany, but I also emphasized the fact that Tiffany is almost an adult and that pushing her away might eventually make her stay away. Linda seemed to take it in when I emphasize that she has to let Tiffany be who she wants

and that she can't really force the matter as if she were a little kid. We got together with both of our parents over Mother's Day, and my own mom told Linda that she thought Tiffany's outfit had been very pretty, that she admired the effort Tiffany puts into her look, and that Tiffany was a charming young lady as usual. She and I noted that it would have been much more unpleasant to have a miserable, sulky tea, teenager being uncomfortable and resentful throughout the night. Linda's own mom was a little bit more judgmental, but she mostly held her tongue beyond the few looks and offhand remarks.

Of course, everyone already knew that her views on fashion were a lot more conventional, and that she thinks I'm too lax and permissive. We don't actually see my wife's parents that often, just a few times a year. If not for the wedding, this might have been the first time seeing them since at least around Thanksgiving. But I did note, to Linda, that given the choice, Tiffany clearly spends more time with my mom than with her own biological grandmother. I did have Tiffany go ahead and apologize to Susan, just in case, and I chatted with her briefly as well. Susan hadn't initially noticed slash known that Bethany wasn't invited. It was a big wedding at a big venue,

and she wasn't too fussed over it. Apparently she was still within the margins of the planning. I don't mind coddling Tiffany a little bit, and I just try to be a good dad. I am the only father that she has. My wife's late husband passed away a couple of years before we met. I could tell that she needed a dad, and I was glad to treat her the same as I had my older girls. I guess it's not always easy being a step-parent, but Tiffany and I have always gotten along, and I love her. Linda can be a bit type A, and she was definitely super stressed about the wedding day. She ended up with a lot on her plate, practically needing to step into the wedding planner's shoes.

The planner's son was in the hospital. He's totally fine now, probably an allergic reaction, it was a wonder that the day went as smoothly as it did. She was hugely responsible for that. She ultimately admitted that I probably did the right thing, but I told her that every girl wants to look pretty and feel confident, and you should almost always let them not do a thing that's how it's going to make them look and feel. It was also worth pointing out that Tiffany would have looked wild in the pictures in a peach dress with her goth makeup, more so if she was clearly in a rotten mood. The two of them seemed to have patched things up quite a bit,

and we all had a really nice brunch together. So all's well that ends well, I guess.