Two Hot Takes - 14: Baby Trapping.. Happens in More Ways Than One

Episode Date: April 29, 2021

Two Hot Takes host, Morgan, is joined by guest co-host and boyfriend, Justin! This episode is all about baby trapping and some of the forms it can occur in. Stories include blind reactions to a girl w...ho confronted her baby daddy's girlfriend for treating her like a surrogate, a woman whose fiancé threw her birth control away and poked holes in their condoms, and a man whose wife stopped her birth control without telling him. Oh but it gets worse... with a woman whose MIL tampered with her birth control, a woman who refused to be the surrogate to her sister and high-school bully, and a woman whose husband was no longer attracted to her after giving birth to their children.  Show your support (much appreciated): https://www.patreon.com/TwoHotTakes  Full length Video episodes available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TwoHotTakes

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Starting point is 00:01:07 And I'm Justin. He's back. I have my boyfriend Justin joining me today for an episode on baby trapping. Love it. Yeah, I mean, you want to have a kid right now, don't you? Yep, I'm in. Especially probably after these stories, I'll be all about it. The thought of this is very scary to me.
Starting point is 00:01:27 As I've mentioned in previous episodes, I'm just, we're not anywhere near ready to have a child, a kiddo, the responsibility of raising another human and helping them grow to a decent one. Let's get into these stories. Let's do it. So these people that we're going to talk about today did not get pregnant by choice.
Starting point is 00:02:11 They were baby trapped. Wow. When you think of baby trapped or baby trapping, what do you typically think of? First thing on my mind is Bridgerton. That I feel like is a baby trap. That was kind of baby trapping. Yeah, that was a little, honestly, a little rapey.
Starting point is 00:02:35 Right. But in the same sense, it is having an unwanted baby or an unexpected baby by one of the parties. Yeah. Do you think that it's only girls that baby trap? No. Good answer. No, but.
Starting point is 00:02:52 I think that's like a common misconception though. It's always the women that are the ones baby trapping. Like, oh, she got pregnant. So he would marry her or like whatever. Right. I think that's like a common misconception. Yeah, but I can also see someone wanting a baby, some guy wanting a baby really bad.
Starting point is 00:03:10 And the girl not. Yeah. And then the guy just seeing, well, I've only ever seen myself raising kids, having a family. Yeah. And then the, his person, the person that, you know, you can't live life without and they're the one, if they're not on the same page with that, then.
Starting point is 00:03:28 I mean, I, it's, it's not good, but I can see then how guys or girls alike would, you know. Get into that situation. Yeah. Just unacceptable. I don't, there's so many people out there that do want children and it's just like find someone that's on the same page as you. But wow.
Starting point is 00:03:50 Okay. Let's dive into these. Or having a kid to solve some problem you think you have too. And then. Yeah. Having a child. Seeing it as a solution. Exactly.
Starting point is 00:04:01 That's like a big thing. Like having a child to save your marriage. Like it's also a very, very common thing. Like Justin Timberlake and his wife, Jessica Beal. I think that's why they had their second one or something like that. There were pictures out of him like cheating with his co-star. And so she, she got pregnant quickly after that.
Starting point is 00:04:19 As a mutual decision. I don't know. We'll never know if it was baby trapping. I don't think there. Is it a baby trap though? If you go into it together to try and solve your relationship. No, that's on both of you. That's just on both of you being silly.
Starting point is 00:04:35 Yeah. Babies make things harder. Right. Babies make, you have to, you have to put work into your relationship as it is. But then when you have a child, like your, your main priority, your main responsibility becomes that child. And you can kind of lose sight of your partner.
Starting point is 00:04:50 I think you're pushed to your limits. Absolutely. It's like, I forget what the, the stat I saw was, but you lose something like 40 days of sleep in the first year of their life. Oh my God. 40 days is a lot of sleep. That's cumulative hours.
Starting point is 00:05:06 It's not just like, Oh, I had bad sleep 40 nights. It's 40 days. That's over a month. That's over a month. Of sleep you should have. I'm absolutely fucked. I take a nap every day. I get more than like, I get more than 10 hours of sleep a day with
Starting point is 00:05:23 my nighttime sleep and my nap. And if I don't, I'm a bitch. I'm miserable. Well, fortunately we're at the age where I think a lot of people we know are starting to have kids. I know. We can learn from them and then take the best of the best. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:05:38 One of my best friends from high school just had her first little one like a couple weeks ago. It's so scary. For all of you out there with kids, I give you so much credit. It's, it is literally the toughest job being a mom, a parent, a dad. It is the toughest, toughest fucking job out there. So props to you guys. So let's dive in.
Starting point is 00:06:01 Let's do it. Okay. I just can't decide. I'm too indecisive. There's so many good stories and I can't decide what one to share with you first. Let's just start off with a wild ride. You see how many, I don't want you to peek too much, but do you see how many? I cannot read from, from the angle I'm at.
Starting point is 00:06:18 I cannot read. Do you see how many awards this one has though? Yeah, it's a big one. 107 of the bear hugs. I forget what the actual name of it is, but this one is stacked with the words. I can't read any words. It's just, this is like the natural place to look. Oh, okay.
Starting point is 00:06:33 Okay. This is not your traditional baby trap. It is going to be a wild ride though. Okay. You ready? Yep. Am I the asshole for calling out my kid's future stepmom for treating me like a surrogate? Future stepmom.
Starting point is 00:06:49 Let's get into it. Okay. I 29 female dated a guy Joe 30 male for three months before he left me to go back to his ex Kim 30 female. Right after we broke up, I found out I was pregnant and now I'm at 24 weeks. I let him know and he was ecstatic. Turns out his girlfriend had fertility issues and would likely never be able to get pregnant naturally.
Starting point is 00:07:14 And he has always wanted to be a father. Getting back together was out of the question for both of us. So he's still with his girlfriend. Wow. I get it now. Uh-huh. Joe was only allowed at the initial appointment because of COVID and we found out I was having twins.
Starting point is 00:07:34 According to Joe, when he told Kim, she had a mental breakdown about infertility and wanted to talk to me. I met them at their house and Kim stated that she wanted to be involved in my pregnancy because she would eventually be the children's stepmother. She started telling me that I needed to do a home birth that I needed to do formula feed so that they could have the babies half of the week, that she wanted one boy and one girl, and that she wanted the kid to call her mama since they would be calling me mommy. I shut her down and said I would make the best choices for my children and my body and left.
Starting point is 00:08:09 Oh my God. Also, they're just dating. They're not engaged. You're not- I want a boy and a girl. Doesn't work like that, sweetheart. God. Okay, cool.
Starting point is 00:08:20 Yeah, I'll make it happen. Yeah, let me just fucking- this is not an easy bake. Do you want to deliver the babies? Home birth with my hands going up weirdo. Oh, okay. And you're already dealing with the fact that you had just this breakup and you're pregnant and now you're dealing with the ex he went back to. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:08:41 This is the least ideal co-parenting situation you could possibly have. This is like- what's that movie with Seth Rogen? Knocked Up. It's like a drunken one night stand. They have to raise a kid together. Yeah, it's just not ideal. Quite the trio. Seriously.
Starting point is 00:08:57 Kim continued to be overbearing and texting me every day about my eating habits, exercise habits, and bitching about how her job wouldn't let her take maternity leave. At the virtual genetics counseling appointment, she attended instead of Joe and took over the whole meeting trying to talk about her family history, which wasn't relevant. She shares no DNA with these children. Why do your genetics matter? I don't know. When it came time for my 20 week level two scan, they allowed me one guest and Joe suggested
Starting point is 00:09:29 I take Kim instead of him, which I refused to do. Joe did end up coming and he found out the gender because I wanted to keep it a surprise for me so we could throw a gender reveal party. I put a pregnancy announcement on my social media and then she put up an announcement saying they were expecting twins, quote, the non-traditional way and how blessed she was. We are expecting. We. I was irritated, but I kept my mouth shut.
Starting point is 00:09:57 Then she threw a gender reveal party and posted it on social media. I wasn't even invited. Oh my God. Wait, but she didn't even want to know yet. No. She wanted to keep it a surprise until her gender reveal party. She wanted to be surprised. This is just mean.
Starting point is 00:10:13 I says cold hearted. This is just weird, but mean. She just looks at her like an oven. She literally looks at her like a surrogate, like a true surrogate. Like I'm just, I'm paying you to have my children for me. She also announced that she's having a baby shower. I commented on her post and told her to stop treating me like a surrogate and the kids weren't hers and that Joe didn't have any claim or custody of the kids until they were born.
Starting point is 00:10:41 I then called Joe and reiterated all of this and stated that I would not be seeing either of them until we went to family court and that my mother would be my birthing partner. He and Kim and some of her friends and family are saying I'm an asshole. And her mother even called and insisted I give her one of my babies. Like this is the parent trap. Oh my gosh. So. The mom's crazy too.
Starting point is 00:11:09 It doesn't fall far from the tree as they say. So am I the asshole? No. Definitely not. No, I would be getting a lawyer immediately running for the hills. Like this is, this is scary. I get I've watched too many episodes of crime junkies and I used to fall asleep to watch, to watching like ID discovery channel, the crime show channel.
Starting point is 00:11:33 So this is where my mind goes in the first place. But I feel like this Kim lady is going to let her have the babies and then like off her somehow. Yeah, it's weird. It's like some super strong manipulation. I don't even know. I don't know how you even react to that. But I guess one positive thing is she dodged a big bullet with Joe. Yeah, he sounds like he was not granted.
Starting point is 00:12:01 They're not dating anymore. He's dating Kim. So he's probably going to have Kim's back. But still the fact that he's dating someone like Kim is like a red flag in itself. Right. It's weird. And then the mom, you're going to come in and say, lady, like, it's so, so unusual as a mother. This is your daughter who's dating a guy who knocks someone else up.
Starting point is 00:12:27 Like they're looking at this like this is their miracle. It's the perfect opportunity for them to get these babies. But how as you as a mother, like in your right mind, do you feel entitled to these kids to basically say, oh, yes, you should give my daughter one of your babies to make the situation right? Yeah. No. What?
Starting point is 00:12:46 Yeah. It's fucking nuts. I don't know how you feel that sense of ownership. It's entitlement. This lady is just acting like an entitled bitch. So when you have a baby shower is before the babies are born. Yeah. So if you were to actually have a surrogate, how do you have a baby shower then?
Starting point is 00:13:05 You still, you still have a baby shower. It's just your friends and family. Basically a baby shower is a party for you when you're pregnant. So your friends and family can give you gifts and everything before the baby comes. So when the baby does arrive, you're super prepared. You have all the diapers, the car seat, whatever, you know, gifts they give you. I think from what I've seen with people that have surrogates is you just have a typical baby shower as you would.
Starting point is 00:13:30 You know, you're not pregnant. Some people invite their surrogate there to make them included. I think it just depends. Wow. To overstep and... Yeah. Yeah. Top comment.
Starting point is 00:13:41 Not the asshole. OP, I'm not even being dramatic in any way when I say get a lawyer now. Keep records of everything and whatever you do, do not allow yourself to be alone with Kim. Almost none of Kim's behavior is okay. In fact, it's disturbing. Block phone numbers, file or police report for harassment if you have to. Keep yourself and your children safe.
Starting point is 00:14:02 Well, and what's sad about it is you want your kids to have a relationship with their father, but you don't feel... I mean, I wouldn't feel safe having them go and stay with Kim. No, not at all. Like that's some creepy... You know what kind of things Kim's going to implant in them in the sense like the ideas and the mentality surrounding their mom then? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:14:21 I mean, I've had step-parents and I think it is a really, really difficult role to be a step-parent, but I've had step-parents that are so toxic and I mean, just talking shit about my mom in front of me or my other parent and it's just... It's baffling. Like at the end of the day, you're a step-parent and that's their mom. You cannot talk shit about someone's mom in front of them, especially a young child. It's fucked up. Other top comment.
Starting point is 00:14:51 Kim's mother suggesting they split the twins between parents. What the fuck? Yeah. Yeah. OP was right when she said she wasn't being treated as a mother, but the surrogate. I would go so far as to say the twins are seen as objects as well. OP needs to lawyer up and play hardball about custody. Kim's not going to get better here.
Starting point is 00:15:10 She has people enabling her behavior. 100%. I'm so curious what Joe's take is. I wish we had some information on Joe. I know more. This other comment, it says under his eye, which I was actually thinking about this. There's a show and a book called Handmaiden's Tale and it's basically about this alternate society in the future where men are basically barren and they round up these fertile women
Starting point is 00:15:38 from the public and force them to breed. I remember that. Yeah. And it's just the most disturbing show. Yeah. It literally kind of feels like that. And this gets really scary here. This actually makes me wonder if it wasn't the intention when the ex and psycho G broke
Starting point is 00:15:59 up three months to try and make a baby with someone else is a lot cheaper than IVF or surrogacy. That's crazy. Oh my God. And that the ex gives no shit about being involved and is happy to send psycho future stepmom. Yeah. I mean, from the post, it seemed like they kind of got together and then fell apart real
Starting point is 00:16:23 quick. It was very convenient. Very, very convenient. Oh, I do not like this story at all. That's like a movie. It is. This is literally the plot of a movie. And I hope this one for her in her real life has happier ending than how Hollywood would
Starting point is 00:16:38 take it. Yeah. God, the edit she gives, I'm definitely getting a lawyer ASAP. Y'all have scared the shit out of me, but I'm happy you did. And another update. I never considered this could have happened on purpose. We used condoms because I do not react well to hormonal birth control. And I had to wait to get a non-hormonal IUD because of other medical issues.
Starting point is 00:16:59 The Thursday I posted this, I went to the police and they stated that there was nothing they could do because a crime hadn't been committed. And my state orders of protection are criminal or family. So I was able to get one against Joe. On Friday, I did get a lawyer and they let me know in my state there was nothing I could do as far as custody before the babies are born. So I'll be leaving my state soon to ensure that this isn't my baby's home state and I can't be charged with anything.
Starting point is 00:17:24 Smart. Yeah. And at the end of the day, Joe could be a great guy. She doesn't sound like she's going to keep the kids from him, you know, if he's going to be a good dad. But at the end of the day, like better to be safe than sorry. 100%. Like you're, this is your life and if this fucking girlfriend is going to get dangerous,
Starting point is 00:17:44 run. Right. And at this point, your loyalty is to the kids. Your loyalty is not to Joe. It's you and your body. These babies aren't even here yet. They, I mean, so many variables could happen. And at the end of the day, you just need to like as a pregnant woman, you do not need
Starting point is 00:18:00 to deal with that stress. It could cause so many issues. Yeah. And you're this deep into pregnancy and you just feel used. An incubator. Yeah. Like an incubator. However, someone sent this post to Kim and she came to my job, damaged my car and broke
Starting point is 00:18:18 a bunch of office windows. I work with kids. So she was arrested for not just the criminal damage and trespassing, but also child endangerment. So hopefully that works in my favor. Also, if Joe did it on purpose, I don't think Kim knew because she was screaming at me about how I stole her life and everything I had was supposed to be hers. Interesting. Kim's a psycho.
Starting point is 00:18:43 Kim has some issues for sure. Oh my God. Definitely, definitely some issues. And I guess like if they didn't do it on purpose. Yeah. Can you imagine like we broke up for three months and you slept with someone else. And we realized we made a big mistake and got back together and you know, a couple weeks on the road, you found out that the girl was pregnant.
Starting point is 00:19:05 Like that would be terrible. That honestly makes more sense though, I think. Yeah. Than them doing it on purpose. Yeah. I think doing it on purpose is great for the movie, great for the drama. Yeah. But not real life.
Starting point is 00:19:18 It doesn't seem that plausible. Right. But I can see what it would feel like to have that perfect someone. And then there, so now they're pregnant with someone else, but you're back together and you feel like, oh, that should be me. That should have been my spot. Yeah. Especially if you're dealing with fertility problems.
Starting point is 00:19:36 Right. You do feel like this was my happy, this was supposed to be my happy ending, my happy life. And now she has it. And she has it. Yeah. And then her now going through these, you know, these safety measures which are so justified, obviously, but you're like, she, in her mind, she's probably like, she's trying to steal this from me.
Starting point is 00:19:58 This was my one shot and she's stealing it from me. I guess there's, there's probably better ways to go about it where you might actually be able to participate and be more of that active role like you're trying to be. Yeah. And I think, you know, you can have a good relationship with your stepchildren at the end of the day, but that only works if you are on good terms with the mom and you're, you're a team and co-parenting together. Co-parenting is hard though, not, not everyone can do it.
Starting point is 00:20:24 I mean, if this kind of interaction continues, it's going to be very, very tough on those kids. It's, it's not going to turn out all. No, it's not the healthiest home life for any of anyone, any of them started off strong with that one. Wow. That's messy. This makes me feel so weird and just so glad that it's not, like it's not me.
Starting point is 00:20:49 It's absolutely terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. Ugh. This is why condoms, it's so scary because I, I really relate to her and the fact that I can't take hormonal birth control as well. Like it just makes me absolutely out of my mind, crazy nuts. I'm, I just cannot handle it. Like I literally, the times I've been on it, I've cried for like 30 days straight.
Starting point is 00:21:12 Like it's just doesn't work with my system. So we use condoms and so to think that like you can be as safe as possible and still use condoms and all this stuff and have it fail, it's just like, it just sucks. It's risky. I know. This is what vasectomies are for. Oh yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:21:28 No, but I think there is a big shift for men to get vasectomies. I'm not saying right now and obviously, obviously you don't like for not, no, but I think it is like something that, you know, if you have a partner that's willing to do that, it's less invasive than, you know, the female options. So it is logical. It is. But it's all timing. Yes, it is, but it's reversible in most cases.
Starting point is 00:21:56 Most. Can just put some sperm on ice. Yeah. Send it to the moon with the rest of it. What? They're sending a bunch to the moon. Sperm? Eggs.
Starting point is 00:22:10 Oh my God. In case humans die out. Well, in case we, you know, wipe everyone out. I could see that. I could see that. Okay. On to the next one. At Weedman, we use only golf course quality, time-release granular fertilizer, which meters
Starting point is 00:22:24 out over 8 to 10 weeks and makes environmental sense. This means no mowing like crazy after the application and then lost the color a few weeks later, like some competitors' results. Go to weedmanusa.com. My fiance took my birth control pills and stabbed holes in the condoms to try to get me pregnant. Oh, I thought you meant take like actually physically ingest. How would that turn out?
Starting point is 00:22:47 I probably wouldn't. You might start growing some breast tissue from all the estrogen. Oh wow. I'm in my late twenties and I got engaged to my fiance 29 who I've been with for nine years. Our relationship has never really been tested and we get along really well. But recently, he brought up that he wants kids. I said, no, I'm not ready and probably won't be for a few years.
Starting point is 00:23:10 He got really mad and argued with me for a solid 10 minutes. I just moved on from it and didn't give it a second thought. A week later, I couldn't find my birth control pills. They're usually in the bathroom cupboard, but I couldn't find them anywhere. Later that night, he wanted to have sex. I said I couldn't find my birth control pills and he said, it's all right. He'll use a condom. I suppose that was all right.
Starting point is 00:23:34 So we went and got one from the bathroom. For the next few weeks, we just used a condom and I didn't take the pill. In hindsight, I should have gotten more when I couldn't find the original pack, but I couldn't be bothered. My fault. On a few occasions, we were having sex. I noticed the condom was split. He clearly noticed all times and didn't say anything.
Starting point is 00:23:54 So I said, stop. The next day, I was putting the recycling bin in the trash. As I was putting it in, I saw my pills at the bottom. No. I instantly knew he had been to them. He knows I deal with the trash. So why was he so stupid to just put them in recycling? It all made sense.
Starting point is 00:24:14 So I confronted him about the pills and condoms and he couldn't answer me. He just kept walking away. I was so mad at him. It's not right. Oh my God. You just can't force someone to be pregnant just because you want a baby. Does he have to carry it for nine months? Yeah, he should.
Starting point is 00:24:29 If only, if only human males were like seahorse males. Truth. I wish. I really wish. Okay, but wow. So toxic. Is that, is there anything illegal about doing that? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:24:47 So yes, it is illegal. It depends on where you live, what state, what country, but there's what's called sexual coercion. And basically it's sexual coercion is unwanted sexual activity that happens when you are pressured, tricked, threatened or forced in a non physical way. So it could be anything where you're just like tricked, manipulated, lied to, deceived. So like say a guy is like, Oh yeah, I'll get a condom. I'll put it on.
Starting point is 00:25:12 And he pretends to roll it on, but really doesn't. And then you have sex. That's sexual coercion. It's a crime. And so this poking holes in condoms, being misleading, deceiving someone sexually like this, like big, big no, no. Right. I guess it's just kind of, it's hard to prove then, but.
Starting point is 00:25:33 I don't know. I don't think it would be. I really, I think you could, I mean, if all the condoms are in the trash, you could probably take them to the police station. I mean, look at the forensics they have and they're, you know, all of their crazy little crime, crime labs. I think they would be able to like put those condoms under a microscope and see that the holes are big enough to not be normal microscopic condom manufacturing holes or something.
Starting point is 00:25:57 But then he would just come back and say, Oh, she did that after. I don't know. Anyway, it's not right. It's not right. No. And I mean, they've been together for nine years for your partner of nine years to turn around and just start poking and fucking holes in your condoms. Well, it, don't you think you'd be on the same page if you're together for nine years
Starting point is 00:26:16 and engaged after nine years? You'd think so. But I think in his mind, he wants a baby now and he's going to be a selfish asshole to get whatever, to, he's going to do whatever it takes to get what he wants. But it's like, all of a sudden he comes home one day. He's like, I want a baby right now. And then she's like, nah, dude. I mean, he's probably.
Starting point is 00:26:36 In a couple of years. Like she's super chill. Yeah, but I mean. Like just not yet. She's 29. She's late 30 or late 20s. So they're, you know, he in his mind is probably like, I'm getting older. I'm ready for a kid.
Starting point is 00:26:49 But what's like the, the flip? Why all of a sudden is it zero to a hundred? I mean, they're getting married. They're kind of getting to that point where they're ready to start a family, settle down. She's not on that page. So either get on that page or reevaluate the relationship because that's a big thing to not see eye to eye on. And then to toxically violate her and manipulate her in that way.
Starting point is 00:27:15 Yeah. Terrifying. Terrifying. And then to almost rub it in by leaving the pills. Like she said where she, he knew she would see it. Yeah. Essentially. Just an idiot.
Starting point is 00:27:29 Yeah. If you're going to, if you're going to sabotage her birth control in this way, at least make it look like she just lost it. Do you think he intentionally wanted to see it or no? I think he's just a dumb asshole. I really do. Like he is just a selfish prick. This is just so wrong.
Starting point is 00:27:49 Top comment. This is toxic and wrong. If I was in your position, I would be calling off the engagement. So OP does reply and she says, I think I will be calling off the engagement. This is too far to come back from even after a healthy nine years. This totally destroys all of that. What else has he done? I've missed because this doesn't seem like the first thing behavioral side of things.
Starting point is 00:28:13 That's so true. I mean, this is just a huge trust thing. It is. And it's a complete lack of trust now. Yeah. Because like we always say our relationships are so heavily based on trust and communication and this is a different sense of cheating. It's a different sense of lying and manipulation and.
Starting point is 00:28:33 You're never going to be able to get that trust back. Right. Ever. And if you don't have that foundation in a relationship, it's just, it's just not, I don't think it's going to work, especially for the long haul. Well, yeah, especially when you're messing with sexual stuff, because then anytime now in the future, let's say, let's say they come into a resolution, whatever, work out. Anytime then you go to have sex or do anything of the sort, you're going to be like, it's
Starting point is 00:29:02 always going to be in the back of your head. Yeah. Always. It just, there's no winning. No, there's not. Yeah. She gives a couple more comments throughout the post. It's a shame as he was a good boyfriend, but really me thinking he has been changing
Starting point is 00:29:18 the last few months. I've lost nine years, I feel, and I don't think I can come back from this. Tomorrow I'll be laying this all out to him that I think we've hit the end of the road and I feel completely disgusted and violated. I honestly couldn't care what he says. I'm done. This is extremely hard to come back from. I'll be moving out.
Starting point is 00:29:36 I'll need to tell my sister and mom tomorrow about this as I need to confide in someone face to face. I appreciate everyone who worried. Well, that's heartbreaking too. To be in your late twenties, you have been dating someone for nine years, so of course you probably think that they're the one. Especially, yeah, you're engaged. Like you said, yes.
Starting point is 00:29:54 And to see them change and do something like this to you, it would be awful, be horrible. The deception, the lying, the manipulation. I think too, as a woman, I can really relate to her saying I feel like I lost so much time. I think, and maybe this is just me, but maybe there's other people that can relate to this, but I feel like there's so much pressure on women to settle down, get married, have kids by certain age. There's those societal expectations and pressures, and it's hard to shift from that, especially because we live in Los Angeles.
Starting point is 00:30:32 People out here don't settle down as early as they do where we're from in the Midwest, Minnesota, and so it's just so hard. I don't know. Do you ever feel like there's a lot of pressure to get your shit together, or do you feel like as a guy, you don't feel that as much? I think I definitely do. I think as you cross over through your mid-20s, you start to feel these pressures, and even though maybe they're not directly in front of you, or you're not being approached, or
Starting point is 00:31:03 even there might not even be conversations about them, but you start to feel it. I think it's because of what you see the people around you doing, especially being from Midwest. You see everyone back home, buying homes, getting married, having kids. Hitting those traditional milestones. My parents had me when they were both 25, and here I am at 26, going on 27, and you start to look at it like, no, right now I don't feel like I'm ready for a kid. I'm just not. There's just so much going on, I think, right now.
Starting point is 00:31:39 Yeah, definitely. It doesn't feel like I'd be 100% ready and can put 100% of myself into it. You see everyone else doing it, and you start to feel it. It's this weird feeling. It's a fucking comparison. It's literally just, it's so hard not to do. I feel like I battle with it a lot because there's certain goals you have career-wise, things you want to accomplish, things you want to do, and you're so hyper-focused on those,
Starting point is 00:32:09 and then sometimes these other ideas pop in your head like, oh, should I be doing this? Should I be doing this differently? I think I am as affected by those pressures as anyone else. I think it's this age, it's, I don't know. Yeah, I think our times we're living in are very nice though. I look at the 40s or 50s and 60s and the pressures as women and men back then. Men to provide, women to stay at home, have a family. There wasn't really a lot of options for women back then.
Starting point is 00:32:46 And I think now we kind of live in this where we're really pushing what norms are. And that's why we shouldn't compare because there's a lot of people now that want to be child-free and just be the fun aunt or not even the fun aunt. They just want to live their own life and have their freedom. And I think everyone's ideas of success and what their life should look like is so different. And I think we're more open and accepting of that, which I love. Well, I think that's what makes it fun though too. It does.
Starting point is 00:33:14 It just, I kind of love the unpredictability of things sometimes and just the randomness associated with not only like what I do in my career right now, but also just in that LA lifestyle where it's not like I'm just looking forward to that raise in three years. And like I can kind of see my whole path ahead of me. It's more like we don't know where we're going to be in two years. We don't know what we're going to be doing. We don't know how successful we'll be. It's all just up in the air, which I think is fun.
Starting point is 00:33:50 And I think if we were in it too long, it would start to not be fun because at some point you kind of need to figure everything out. But it's just, I think we just enjoy it. And I think the time we're in is perfect for it. Yeah. I think at the end of the day, I love, love, love the same to each their own. And I think some like, I think it is used in very negative ways. Sometimes like, haha, like, yeah, to each their own kind of a condescending way.
Starting point is 00:34:20 Yeah, like you can go be weird and yeah, like teach their own. Like, fuck you. But I do, I love, love, love that same. And I think it's just so valid, especially when it comes to, you know, kiddos and, you know, big, big decisions like this. So at the end of the day, it just needs to be your choice and something you're comfortable with and not something you get trapped into. On to the next one.
Starting point is 00:34:44 Gotta walk the dogs, school drop off, meetings from 10 to 3, take kids to soccer practice, then... There goes the extra time for a jog. That's okay. Maybe next week. When everyone else relies on you, it's easy to put your needs last. Therapy is a dedicated time to focus on what you need to be happy. So you can show up for yourself the way you do for others.
Starting point is 00:35:11 BetterHelp offers convenient online therapy on your schedule. It's the same professional service you'd get from an in-person therapist. But with the option to communicate when and how you want by chat, phone, or video call. Go to their site and fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. Find more balance with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month.
Starting point is 00:35:38 That's BetterHELP.com. Mixing up a little bit. It's the wife this time. Okay. My 30 male wife, 29 female, partner of 14 years, lied about taking birth control and got pregnant on purpose. I feel like I should be more upset than I am. Ouch.
Starting point is 00:36:04 I think what I need help the most with is forgiving my wife. I'm trying to understand why she would do something like this, and I feel like maybe there is a good reason. I think that maybe if I could just understand why she did this, then I might be able to get over it. But part of me is afraid that there really isn't a justification. We've been together a long time since high school, and in that time, I've never had any reason not to trust her,
Starting point is 00:36:25 which is why I felt comfortable not wearing condoms. Plus, we've never had any scares before. I was okay with having an oopsie baby if we found ourselves in that 0.01%, but we weren't trying for a baby. She was supposed to be taking her pill, and to my knowledge, she was. Well, we got pregnant. I was surprised when my wife told me, but not upset. We had planned to start trying next summer anyways,
Starting point is 00:36:51 and I figured that it was meant to happen. We're ready, or as ready as you can be, to have a child, so timing and money weren't issues. Everything was going fine. Our relationship was fine. The baby was, slash is fine. And then my wife started acting strange a couple weeks ago. She seemed very unsure if I was happy with things,
Starting point is 00:37:11 slash our relationship, but she couldn't give me a reason why she was afraid. I told her repeatedly that I was excited about the baby and happy that we were finally doing this together. Nothing I said helped, and I kept getting the same questions from her, but none of it made sense until yesterday. When I got home, I found her sobbing on the couch.
Starting point is 00:37:33 I was actually worried because I've only seen her ugly cry like that a handful of times, and none of them were good. I'm just picturing Kim Kardashian crying. Her ugly cry meme is the best. I asked her what was wrong, and I could barely make out what she said, so I asked her again. She tells me she's done something terrible
Starting point is 00:37:55 and is afraid to tell me, but feels like she has to. She tells me that she's been lying to me, that she wasn't taking her birth control, and we didn't get pregnant by accident. Wow. I didn't really respond. I just went back out to the car and drove around for a few hours. I wasn't really angry, just hurt,
Starting point is 00:38:16 and I didn't really know how to process what she told me. I think what bothered me most and what still bothers me is that she didn't just come talk to me. If this was really bothering her, i.e. having a baby, I feel like we could have worked something out and maybe tried sooner. I did go home last night,
Starting point is 00:38:34 but I slept in the guest room and left before she got up. I'm sitting here at work debating whether I should go home or just crash on my friends. I feel like I need to get my mind right before I go back home and talk to her. I want to be angry with her, and I know what she did was unacceptable, but it's hard for me to be angry with her right now.
Starting point is 00:38:51 I think about the life she's carrying in her and how much I already love her child, and I don't know if I would change things if I could. I know she needs me now, but I'm thinking about just staying away for a few days to clear my head. I still love her and want us to be together, but I think I need time. I'm not sure what to do about trusting her again.
Starting point is 00:39:09 I don't know how we get that back. On the other hand, I think part of me also feels like it took a lot for her to be honest with me. She didn't have to do it. She could have easily kept the truth to herself, and I likely never would have found out. I think that gives me hope that I can still trust her.
Starting point is 00:39:27 Not that it matters in terms of my problem, but she's five months, and I don't know how long she stopped taking the pill before she got pregnant. Can I just say out of any story I think I've ever heard from Reddit, this is probably the strongest and most mature couple I've ever experienced. Yeah, definitely.
Starting point is 00:39:45 The way that he's handling it. That was so well written too. Yes, and you can tell that there's a reason they've been together for so long. They clearly know how to communicate. The way he's dealing with it, and the way that, yes, she came forward after doing something wrong, it just is, I gotta say,
Starting point is 00:40:07 it's just refreshing after all the other stories. It's just nice to hear something that actually feels like there's a happy resolution here. There's hope. There's a light at the end of the tunnel. Yes, it's just very nice to hear. At the same time though, it is interesting because it was a situation
Starting point is 00:40:30 where it almost felt like it'd be so easy to say, hey, why don't we try earlier? Oh, like if she would have came forward. Yeah, and just had that conversation like, hey, I've been thinking maybe we do this a little bit sooner. Yeah, it seems like it could have been a really easy conversation. Yeah, and from the way he sounds here, it seems like he would have been like,
Starting point is 00:40:49 for sure, let's do it. There's nothing holding back. Let's go fuck right now. Career is great. The money, whatever. He said they have the time, they have everything. Yeah. Picture perfect.
Starting point is 00:40:58 Well, if we had an oops baby, I wouldn't be mad. That's chill. Yeah. So it's like, I'm just like, why? Why would you? Why lying to see when you really don't have to? Why bring that conflict into this seemingly perfect relationship you have?
Starting point is 00:41:13 Yeah. Because it's so rare. I know. It's absolutely baffling. And I was going to say like, okay, maybe she didn't feel comfortable enough to just approach him, but like you've been together for 14 years. You know, how long have you been married for?
Starting point is 00:41:28 We don't know. But why could you not have just said, hey, you know, I think I'm ready to start having it to start trying. Like, where do you lie on the topic? Like it's just, it seems like such an easy conversation, especially for someone for a couple that's been together that long. It's just so crazy. I can't.
Starting point is 00:41:48 Like it's really, really, really, really great that he does want the baby and he's not super mad about it. But still to get that trust back and to deceive someone. Like she's five months along. She just told him after five months of being pregnant. And like he said, how long was she not taking her birth control? Right. Like a year?
Starting point is 00:42:08 Yeah. Well, that's hard. And that's what makes it very tricky. The trust. And then, but then you see his true colors because he's like, you know, but it probably took a lot for her to come and tell me. I know. He's a keeper.
Starting point is 00:42:20 He's one of the good ones. How would you not feel comfortable, comfortable approaching him? I feel like I could be friends with this guy. Yeah. I know. It seems pretty chill. So top comments. The awesome thing is that you want this baby.
Starting point is 00:42:33 That might be why you don't feel as angry as you think you should. Most amount in your situation would be furious because the woman got pregnant when the guy did not want a kid. What your wife has done is show you that she has no problem making huge decisions that could totally disrupt your life without you. You had a timeline. Instead of talking to you, she lied to you. Are you fine staying married to someone who did that?
Starting point is 00:42:52 Are you okay raising a child with that person? I mean, the later bit there, you have to be because guess what? She made that choice for you. Ooh. Well, and that is what, that is what makes it so interesting is that, like we said, him feeling so approachable. Why? Well, it's not even the why.
Starting point is 00:43:12 It's like, yes, that is the red flag then. If it is, if it should be that simple and seemingly that easy from the way he's put it, then it is weird for her to then just do that. I mean, was she looking for some drama? Like, was it really boring? What's going on? Why? It just seems so weird.
Starting point is 00:43:33 I know. And then your mind kind of goes down this rabbit hole of like, well, is it his? Like, I don't know. Ooh. I don't know. They finish off the comment. This would completely change how I saw my partner.
Starting point is 00:43:46 Not in a good way. I'm not going to tell you to be angry. I'm not going to tell you to divorce her. I do, however, want you to realize that how you react to her fessing up will lay the foundation for how she treats you going forward. This is a big fucking deal. You can feel how you want, but that doesn't make it any less wrong. Yeah, it's, it's absolutely terrible.
Starting point is 00:44:05 Like whether you're married or just dating, like you should not, should not, not, not ever fucking lie to your partner about birth control or manipulate your partner about birth control. Like a kid is a lifelong commitment. Like I'm fucking 27 and my mom and dad are still, you know, supporting me in some ways. Like it is, it doesn't end when they're 18. And so everyone, both parties, both people, you know, going 50, 50.
Starting point is 00:44:34 You got to be all in it. You do. You really got to be all in it. And it's like, then again, from then the questions I want to ask her are, okay, let's say you get pregnant and you're hoping he just thinks it's the UPS baby. Maybe that's the plan, right? You take that to your grave. No, I mean, obviously she couldn't, right?
Starting point is 00:44:54 So she then told him, it just makes you think like, is that the foundation you want to have these kids on? Like. Yeah, I, I really, I'm sure she went into it. Thinking it'll be fine. I won't feel as guilty. I won't have to say anything. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:45:13 Like maybe she was planning on taking to her grave and then it just didn't work out that way for her, but not okay. I don't know. I, I don't know. I'm kind of, you've got me thinking now that something else is going on. Cause you never know. Or we're not getting the full story. I would like to get the her side story.
Starting point is 00:45:33 I know. Where's, where's the, you know what I'm saying? Just cause it just seems to picture perfect in the way he puts it. Yeah. But honestly, I don't know. Like I guess guys, no offense, guys kind of are oblivious to some things. So maybe, you know, maybe he's withholding some information. Like maybe they do have some issues and maybe he, maybe he made comments like, I don't know
Starting point is 00:45:58 if I ever want kids or whatever. Right. Right. Who knows? Either way, like she definitely shouldn't have fucking handled it that way. He does reply and says condoms from here on out. I don't think we can ever get back to that level of trust. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:46:14 And that's the biggest thing, the trust. Yep. It's just once that's gone, the foundation of your whole relationship is so easily broken. It feels like when you get together with someone and you start becoming serious, it almost like trust is such an interesting thing because you build it up. Yeah. But then it has to almost stay there. Cause if it gets cracked, if it falls, if anything happens to it once you've built it
Starting point is 00:46:42 up, you can't ever get there. It'll never be the same. There's always that doubt and that insecurity. Right. I mean, I feel like you hear stories all the time of people where, oh, we, something happened and we fix things, but even now five years later, anytime he goes out, I think about that one time or anytime he's on a trip or she's on a vacation, I think about that one thing, that one time because it's always there.
Starting point is 00:47:16 It's like a scar. It's, you know, no amount of fucking Mederma scar cream is going to completely get rid of it. It's, it's there onto the next one. A third party baby trapped this couple. Oh wow. Got to walk the dogs, school drop off meetings from 10 to three, take kids to soccer practice, then there goes the extra time for a jog.
Starting point is 00:47:39 That's okay. Maybe next week. When everyone else relies on you, it's easy to put your needs last therapy is a dedicated time to focus on what you need to be happy. So you can show up for yourself the way you do for others. BetterHelp offers convenient online therapy on your schedule. It's the same professional service you'd get from an in-person therapist, but with the option to communicate when and how you want by chat, phone or video call.
Starting point is 00:48:10 Go to their site and fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. Find more balance with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHELP.com. My mother-in-law tampered with my birth control, resulting in me getting pregnant three months postpartum. Not really sure what to do from here.
Starting point is 00:48:43 Crazy. Um, if this was my mother-in-law, she would be fucking dead. You fucking got me pregnant three months after I just pushed a watermelon out of my vagina? No. Watermelon. Kids are fucking big. Some babies are like 12 pounds when they come out. It's like the smaller watermelon.
Starting point is 00:49:08 So at the grocery store, like the smaller ones. Do you see the new one, baby? Yeah. But I'm thinking like the baby's head, right? The small watermelon. Baby's head, baby's head's like the size of a cantaloupe. I've seen some big watermelons, you know what I'm saying? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:49:25 Uh, can you guys tell how like traumatizing birth is for me? I don't know what it is. My brother and his wife just had their second one, well not just, he's about to turn two in May, but his birth was like so, so traumatic. Like Matt, my brother will like reenact it and they'll literally, he'll literally be like, they were grabbing him by his shoulders and yanking him. And I could just see Amy and the whole bed rocking forward. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:49:57 And they literally had to like vacuum his little head. So when he came out, he had a big ass cone head from vacuuming in him, which is also so dangerous. There's so many, so many, you know, health complications sometimes it's really dangerous to do what they literally turn to him and they go, we have 60 seconds to get him out or we could lose them both. That's the, yeah, that's crazy. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:50:21 So I'm just like childbirth and just the whole, was that Emmett? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So it's just, it's so scary to me that and the fact that this is something I'm also really, really passionate about and, and grad school, I almost did a capstone on it. But the fact that women of color are almost 245% more likely to die in childbirth than a white woman.
Starting point is 00:50:48 Like that to me is baffling and like, I know, yes, okay, I'm, I'm a fucking white woman. But it just like angers me and I really, a passion project of mine that I really want to get into is trying to do something with OT, my degree, and, you know, maternal health and trying to change that field for women of color because holy fucking shit, childbirth is scary enough for me and I can't even imagine then as a woman of color, when you already have this fucking cloud surrounding childbirth and, you know, those stats like that, like fuck dude, okay. So onto this crazy fucking mother-in-law who tampered with the birth control, wow, I'm
Starting point is 00:51:35 fucking mad, let's get into it. I wonder how you even accomplished that as a mother-in-law. We're going to find out. All right. Let me just start out by saying, if you know who I am, please don't say anything. I created a throwaway event and cry and get support as anonymously as possible. I still am very happy about the pregnancy or at least want to be. I just need support.
Starting point is 00:51:57 Thank you for understanding. Whoa, I'm going to cry. Respectable. Okay. I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry. My husband, 22 male and I, 20 female. Oh my God, they're young little nuggets.
Starting point is 00:52:11 Yeah. Welcome to our daughter into the world 18 weeks ago. She's a darling baby and really pretty easy as far as newborns go, except for one. She wasn't a son. Hmm. Fucking in-laws. My in-laws were obsessed with the idea of us having a son to the point that they denied she was a girl up until the moment she was born.
Starting point is 00:52:36 Why? Because quote, the bloodline follows the father. If you don't have a son, our family name will die out because your daughter will marry a man and carry on his bloodline. So girls really don't count. That's so old fashioned. This is like Game of Thrones up in here. Fuck you in hell.
Starting point is 00:52:57 God, I mean, these people exist though. Like that is a very, and who knows what, you know, what culture they're from. I think, you know, the culture really changes how you view sons and daughters. And it's, it's real. It's out there. I'm just picturing a gender reveal party and they, they have the pink everywhere and then the in-laws run in and say, nope, nope, it's a boy. You're all wrong.
Starting point is 00:53:19 And they like bring their own blue balloons and stuff. I think the worst, worst gender reveals. And I don't even know why these people post their videos on the internet after this happens, but the ones that cause forest fires. Those are fucked up too, especially when they're out here where we live. Cause California is so dry. Like don't, how dense do you have to be to fucking do that out here? No, but the ones where the couple is standing there, they shoot off the
Starting point is 00:53:47 confetti cannon. They pop a balloon. They open a box, whatever it is. And they're both super excited until they open the box. And the girl's excited because she's happy. She just wants a baby at the end of the day, whatever. The girl's excited and you see the guy and the minute he sees it's pink balloons, he's like, fuck this, fuck that.
Starting point is 00:54:05 And like storms off. Oh, so neither of them knew. Neither of them knew. It's a surprise. And he storms off and the girl is standing there like, yeah, that's fucked. Like be excited. You're having a baby. Like not everyone gets that, you know, that amazing special opportunity.
Starting point is 00:54:20 You know what you're signing up for. Yeah. It's flip a fucking coin. Like this isn't, unless you're doing IVF and you know what your embryos are, you don't, you don't really get to choose. So be fucking happy. You're able to grow anything inside you and like, just dumb. The day they came to visit in the hospital, my in-laws asked when we would
Starting point is 00:54:42 be trying for another baby. We kind of just laughed it off, but my mother-in-law got more insistent. Straight up telling us, y'all need to try for a boy. She's in the fucking hospital with stitches all up her from front to back. Cause women tear. I sometimes not everyone tears. Lucky bitches who don't, but she's literally sitting in the hospital and she's bringing this up.
Starting point is 00:55:12 What? Yeah. You need to try again. This one wasn't good enough. They haven't even, have they even met the fucking kid yet? Grass holes over the next month or two, the conversation about us having another baby sort of tapers off into little comments every now and again. I had no problem ignoring them and we already told them it wasn't happening.
Starting point is 00:55:33 So I just let it run off my back. Around this time, mother-in-law started coming over daily for a few hours, watching the baby for me so that he could sleep and occasionally clean up a bit for me should be over unsupervised anywhere from one to four hours. Fast forward to present day. Two days ago now, my husband poured me a mixed drink. And when I brought the cup up to my lips, I got hit with this paranoid and panicked feeling.
Starting point is 00:56:00 I immediately put the cup down and insisted we take a pregnancy test. Sure enough, it comes back positive. Talk about some like psych. Yeah, just having that feeling. Yeah. We wait until the next morning, take a digital test and again, positive. Based on my last menstrual period, I should have been about six weeks along after getting over the initial shock.
Starting point is 00:56:26 We were excited, but confused for several reasons. We hadn't been able to get hormonal birth control. So I'd been using condoms and lube to make sure they didn't tear. So we weren't sure how we'd gotten pregnant, but we're happy with the news. We decided we wouldn't tell anyone because we didn't want another baby stampede from his family, but I'm incredibly close to my sister-in-law. So I decided to tell her after swearing her to secrecy. When I told her her eyes got wide and started to water and she asked
Starting point is 00:56:56 if I was serious and was I sure I told her, I know my husband and I are young, but between us, we make more than enough to support another baby. Sister-in-law bursts into tears and starts apologizing over and over. Oh man. Meanwhile, I sit there with my mouth hanging open and lost. She calms down a bit and through her tears tells me that my mother-in-law has been poking holes in our condoms. How?
Starting point is 00:57:23 Pretty much since we came home from the hospital. How? A tiny little pin. Oh, when she's over for up to four hours. What a psycho. Oh my God. I found your condoms. This is just so, just so fucked up.
Starting point is 00:57:43 Can't you just picture her sitting there just like just going off poking. I'm so sad for them. She claims mother-in-law told her she did it, but she thought she was just spouting shit because she was upset. We didn't have a boy. And suddenly everything clicked into place. Also, I'm so like, I know the sister-in-law like, oh, I thought she was kidding,
Starting point is 00:58:06 whatever, but even if she was kidding, fucking tell them, like, I get it to your mom and you're probably like, Oh, no big deal. Like she's just being her kooky little self, but what if she's not? Obviously she fucking wasn't kidding. Tell them worst case, they spend 20 bucks, 10 bucks on a new box of condoms. And they can hide them. They can leave the poked holes one where they are and hide the new ones. She's just as guilty of it now too.
Starting point is 00:58:37 I just think like, yeah, it's kind of guilty by association because she knew. And yeah, okay, she's being a good person for even telling her now, but still a hard place to be in, I guess. Yeah. Cause you don't, I mean, don't kill the messenger or whatever, but she should have fucking said something the minute her mom was spouting this stuff. Like she said, like, fuck that. Like if you hear fucking crucial information or information that could
Starting point is 00:59:02 hurt someone, you need to fucking tell them, fucking terrible. Ugh. And suddenly everything clicked into place. That's why the condoms didn't work, even though we were careful with them. That's why she'd always shoe me off to sleep while she was around. And that's what she was doing when she was cleaning my house, snooping for our condoms. And she knew I wasn't on birth control because I remember complaining to her
Starting point is 00:59:24 about how my OB went on maternity leave. And I wasn't able to find another one that took my insurance at the time. It's nuts. I'm so angry. I don't know what to do. I want to go right over to her house and tear her a new one. So bad. I can smell my tires burning on the black top.
Starting point is 00:59:40 I'm also logically angry at sister-in-law for not telling me. How could you think this was a joke when she was so specific about everything she was going to do? Yes. It's just so creepy. I mean, like, what do you do now? I mean, the, I don't know. Like there's some people that would like have an abortion just because like one,
Starting point is 01:00:09 they just had a baby. They're dealing with a three month old. They're not ready for another baby. And also like not having that sense of control over your own body. Like some people might do it even to just spite the mother-in-law, but. Right. Cause the mother-in-law is like, I won. Yeah, she did.
Starting point is 01:00:25 She did win. And she's not going to give a shit about what they come at her and how mad they are cause she's like, I got what I wanted. Yeah. Unless it's another girl. So we'll see. Why didn't you warn me? I would have put my condoms in my room.
Starting point is 01:00:39 I'm livid with mother-in-law. I'm pleased with this pregnancy, but it wasn't my choice. It wasn't even an accident. It was her meddling because she didn't get the golden grandson she wanted. Where were they keeping their condoms? Probably in a bathroom drawer. Oh, bathroom. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:00:54 I was thinking like the kitchen or something. It's a little far. If they're not right next to your bed, then. A little far to walk when you're in the middle of something. I don't even know how to handle this. I want to scorch the earth, but I also still don't want his family knowing I'm pregnant and I'm not even 12 weeks yet. So the risk of a miscarriage is still uncomfortably high.
Starting point is 01:01:14 The only bright side of this whole thing is it's snatched my husband out of his mother's fog so violently, he probably got whiplash. Personally, my pregnancy has soured a bit, so I'm really trying to hang on to any happiness I have about the pregnancy left. If you have Irish twins of your own or R1, I'd love some positive feedback on that situation. Where do we go from here? She does give an update.
Starting point is 01:01:41 I want to thank you all for your support and suggestions. Having a plan makes me feel way less panic and overwhelmed. Sadly, what mother-in-law did isn't a crime here, so there won't be any jail time or charges pressed. For now, game plan is no contact with mother-in-law for me, babe, or growing babe, once the truth is out. Before then, I want all the proof in the world she did this. I've ordered a hidden camera and I'm going to buy new latex-free condoms,
Starting point is 01:02:05 claiming that I'm suddenly allergic to latex. Hopefully she'll pull calls again and I'll have video proof this time. Even if I can't use it to press charges, I want all the proof I have that she's not safe to be around so she can't sue for GPR. Grandparent rights. If this baby is a boy, I also have decided to change our family last name to literally anything else because I'm a petty bitch and since I want, and since she wants to act an ass over the stupid name, then nobody gets it.
Starting point is 01:02:35 I love it. Great, great ending. As for my husband, he's willing and ready to do whatever I decide. Currently he's asleep, so we'll be discussing everything at breakfast. Thanks again, everyone. Wow. I think the only thing you have to think about though, with the camera and the new condoms thing is the sister-in-law is not trustworthy.
Starting point is 01:03:00 I don't know. I mean, the sister-in-law kind of, I mean, really fucked her over and let her down by not telling her, but you don't think she'll go tell the mom? I don't know. I don't know. Maybe, but I think the sister-in-law might feel guilty enough to where she won't. What is GPR? Uh, grandparent rights.
Starting point is 01:03:19 Right. But what would that, when would that come into effect? Um, you have a daughter-in-law that's keeping your grandkids from you and you feel that you're a safe grandparent. So it's, it's custody court. You get, you get visitation rights. I love the change of name. I think it's totally justified.
Starting point is 01:03:36 I think it's absolutely fucked. Like, and also if they did have a boy for the second child, what is that little girl going to feel? My grandparents don't love me. I'm chopped fucking liver. That's not a healthy relationship. And for one child to be so favored over the other, that is so terrible, so toxic. Ugh.
Starting point is 01:03:58 Yeah. They don't deserve to be around that child. That is fucked up. Okay. So up next. Walk the dogs, school drop off meetings from 10 to three, take kids to soccer, then no time left for a jog. When everyone else is relying on you, it's easy to put your needs last.
Starting point is 01:04:19 BetterHelp connects you with a licensed therapist online so you can show up for yourself the way you do for others. Find more balance with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's better, H-E-L-P.com. Am I the asshole for refusing to meet my sister's surrogate? So for context in grades seven and eight, I, 27 female now was bullied. There were two boys in particular that instigated everything.
Starting point is 01:04:49 There's only one who matters though, and I'll call him Jacob. In a nutshell, Jacob bullied me about bleeding through my pants because of my period and getting some of the blood on himself when he sat in my chair. Because of this, I was completely outcasted from the class and was always picked on by him and others. For two years, I was called the violator and was treated like shit. To put it shortly, there were many times that I considered ending my life because of how miserable I was.
Starting point is 01:05:16 Sorry for all of that, but unfortunately it's relevant. In 2019, my half-sister, I'll call her Tia, 29 female, got engaged to a guy she'd met on a dating app. Tia and I are kind of close, more friends than sisters. We don't see each other that often. We'll just talk occasionally on the phone. Tia is also infertile. She unfortunately had ovarian cancer when she was 14 and now can't have kids.
Starting point is 01:05:41 She's always been really sad about it and always avoided talking about pregnancies or the like, which rightfully so. Wow. That is so, so young to have ovarian cancer. Then to have that choice removed from you forever. Yeah. Anyways, she asked me to come over last week and talk. When I got there, she immediately sat me down and said her and her partner
Starting point is 01:06:06 want to have a kid and they were thinking surrogacy. I congratulated her and said, that's great. I was genuinely happy for her until she asked me if I wanted to be the surrogate. Wow. I didn't know what to think at first. I wanted to say no, but I didn't want to hurt Tia's feelings. So I said, I would think about it. Then her and her partner invited me to dinner yesterday.
Starting point is 01:06:28 Turns out the guy she's engaged to is Jacob. No. Oh, so no, definitely not the asshole. No, no, I'll admit my reaction wasn't great. I hadn't seen him in over a decade and I panicked. Luckily they hadn't seen me yet. So I immediately hightailed it out of there and went home. Tia called me later, pissed and demanded why I never showed up.
Starting point is 01:06:55 I was honest with her and said her fiance was my middle school bully and that he fucking traumatized me. She was sympathetic at first, but when I told her I couldn't be her surrogate, her attitude immediately changed. Typical. Yeah. Typical. I understand going to a trusted close source, right?
Starting point is 01:07:16 Yeah. Someone that you. Well, and you don't have to pay family typically. Oh, wow. Families do it for free. Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, then it, then it makes a lot of sense for that to be, Oh, maybe let's just
Starting point is 01:07:28 see. Yeah. Let's just check. Yeah. But wow, to assume. Oh yeah. We'll just ask her, she'll do it. 100%.
Starting point is 01:07:36 I mean, yeah, I mean, she asked, but it's the fact that she then got mad when she, she never said yes in the first place. So she's just assuming she will. Yeah. And they're not even that close. They're friends, not sisters, basically. Yeah. She started yelling and said, I was going back on my word and that what happened
Starting point is 01:07:53 was a long time ago and I should get over it. She said, this was her one chance to have a child and that I was ruining it for her when she started crying, I hung up because I just couldn't handle it. So am I the asshole? I don't want to be the reason she can't have a kid, but I honestly don't want to be involved with Jacob at all. I'd be happy to never see him again, but I know that's kind of impossible. That's just so unfortunate.
Starting point is 01:08:16 Yeah. What are the chances? Oh, so, I mean, I guess you're all in the same. They're probably where they grew up. Could be a small, a really small town, but just, I mean, I think it's been, at least in the last few years, maybe the last five years, I think bullying has been really like come to the forefront, been made to be known as like a crazy issue. I don't know if much has been done to curb it, but still, yes.
Starting point is 01:08:46 It is one of those things that, and I think it's again, going with the, you know, when you're so susceptible in your formative years and you're just, when you're growing up and you're trying to figure out who you are, bullying is probably the most traumatic thing that can happen ever. I mean, it sticks with you forever, literally for a lifetime. I can remember comments people made still to this day from middle school. Like I can pinpoint, and I almost can, I can, I know exactly where I was standing. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:09:21 I can tell you what was around me. I could walk you in my school and go to those specific places. I could too. It, it never leaves. No, it haunts you. It really scars you. And I feel like her, the friend is going to say, well, that was back in middle school, like we're so far, as a long time ago, get over it.
Starting point is 01:09:37 Right. That's what I'm expecting. Yeah. Well, that's what she said. Yeah. She literally said, get over it. And I was bullied extremely bad in high school, like later, later on, not even, you know, this young seventh and eighth grade, but I was bullied so bad in high
Starting point is 01:09:54 school, like I went through the same thing. Like I was so unhappy. I thought about ending my life, but, you know, that's really even hard to even talk about it, but it's just, it's fucking terrible. And, you know, some of my bullies were my best friends from kindergarten. And so it was just absolutely, absolutely horrendous. I ended up, you know, going to college in high school and I grew as a person and really it changed my whole life and I got out of a small town instead of
Starting point is 01:10:23 staying there, which I probably would have, but it still is so, so terrible and something you don't want anyone to go through, let alone, you know, just, it's so terrible. It doesn't matter how young you are. No, it doesn't change the relevancy of it. No. And so my, one of my like worst high school bullies is, you know, really good friends with some of my friends from high school.
Starting point is 01:10:46 So there's things I'll run into her at and it's like, I want nothing to do with that person. I want nothing, I don't, nothing like, okay, great. Maybe she's changed. She's got kids of her own these days. Maybe she's learned how to be a nice person, but still like, I never got an apology. No, it's not someone I want to be around.
Starting point is 01:11:06 And it's like, this Jacob guy never apologized. And if someone bullied you so bad at the point where you thought about ending your life, like that person does not deserve your time, your energy, let alone you helping them have a child, something that is such a big sacrifice. Yeah, that, that's just too far. No, what if she died in childbirth? What if she was left with lifelong complications? Right.
Starting point is 01:11:30 And you don't even, you don't even really think about that stuff at first. No. I think in what you first think about it was like, I'm just going to have a baby. Well, but no big deal. Yeah. But if it's him, I'm not going through that purely for the fact of that it's him, let alone all the other risks and circumstances. But yeah, it's, she is definitely not in the wrong.
Starting point is 01:11:52 Not at all. Her half sister should maybe didn't experience bullying or something, but. I think she's just being selfish. She only sees her, her wants and her needs. I want a baby. Like you have other people out there, you know, there's other people that I'm sure would be willing to be your surrogate. And at the end of the day, like this is not your body.
Starting point is 01:12:12 You don't get to dictate what, right. You know, OP does, right. Doesn't work like that. And having a kid is it, even if it's not, you know, your kid at the end of the day, and you don't have to, you know, then raise it, you don't have that responsibility, but like being pregnant, like, like some, like literally it's a joke, like after having kids, like you can't laugh, sneeze, hiccup without peeing yourself.
Starting point is 01:12:36 Like there's lifelong things that after being pregnant, you know, some, some women have to deal with. So it's like, it's not just like nine months and you're done. Exactly. You could fucking lose all your teeth. Even though those nine months are not the, uh, the greatest nine months you're ever going to have, let alone the, let alone what you're left with after. Okay.
Starting point is 01:12:58 So last one. This woman, I don't think is going to have any issue ever getting baby trapped. Okay. I, 32 female told my husband's 34 male family. He wasn't attracted to me after giving birth to our first child due to my weight gain. Asshole. My husband and I have two kids together, four female and eight month old boy.
Starting point is 01:13:26 After our first, I had a hard time losing the baby weight and it was about 40 pounds overweight for a year after having her. During that time, my man, child of a husband struggled with porn and wasn't attracted to me. I took a lot of self-reflection and patience on my end to come to terms with this, I did lose the weight and our sex life went back to normal. Also fuck him. He doesn't deserve sex.
Starting point is 01:13:48 If that's how he's going to act, because you gained, you gained a little weight carrying his child. Right. Going through the whole thing. Yeah, literally. Okay. I would have never had sex with that person again. Take note.
Starting point is 01:14:03 I understand that sex is not an obligation in a marriage. And if I want to be intimate with him, I need to accept that he is a very shallow person and can have sex with me if I'm not 120 pounds. Oh, well, I can't relate to that mindset, but it is what it is. After the second kid, I was more conscious of this and bounced back a lot faster recently at a family party. My sister in laws, both my husband's sister, who are pregnant with their first right now, were asking how I was able to get my body back after the
Starting point is 01:14:33 second kid so fast. And I said, it had more to do with how hard of a time my husband had after the first they looked confused. And I explained my husband and I had a rough patch because we weren't being intimate after the first kid because I had gained too much weight than he was comfortable with. The conversation ended there and I had a nice time the rest of the evening. Well, the next day, my husband was invited over to his parents' house where
Starting point is 01:15:00 he was lectured about what a bad husband he is. His mom was apparently crying and his dad said he was ashamed of him for how he was treating me. Wow. I mean, rightfully so. Asshole. Absolutely asshole. His sisters told their parents what I had said because it upset them a lot too.
Starting point is 01:15:20 I'm a little annoyed they shared this, but that's besides the point. My husband is embarrassed and very mad at me for sharing this. We got into a fight about this where I said, if he was embarrassed about his feelings of my body, maybe he should work on that. His sisters are my two best friends, so it's hard for me to keep things separate sometimes, but I do see how sharing this with his family could be a violation. I mean, it's the truth though. And like she said, if he's uncomfortable with that, that should cause some self
Starting point is 01:15:52 reflection and maybe that's something he should work on. Cause that's not, that's not okay. Yeah, it almost didn't seem like he was so selfish. No, just like it almost seemed like he didn't care who heard or who knew. No, I think I don't know. Or maybe, but. He cared when it came back and bit him in the ass with his family. So it's like he obviously cared, but not enough to get over himself.
Starting point is 01:16:20 Right. Like he knows it's bad because he doesn't want other people to know, but also doesn't care enough to change it. Right. I think, uh, sometimes in relationships, I feel like people get stuck in this mindset that they're in this bubble, in this relationship and anything that they say has to remain like inside. Yeah, it's never going to escape.
Starting point is 01:16:42 And yes, there are things that you should be able to talk to your partner about that they don't share, but with something like this. And especially when it's, it's like criticism or, you know, it's just like being an asshole. Yeah. And she's going to tell somebody about it. She's going to talk to her friends. Maybe it's the parents, whoever, however it comes out.
Starting point is 01:17:05 She has to vent to someone. Right. And you can't always just be the guy thinking, Oh, I can say or do whatever I want. It's never like that's the, that's the toxic piece here. Yeah. But rightfully so, it came out and it should. And the reason he feels weird about it is cause he knows it's wrong too.
Starting point is 01:17:29 Yeah. Exactly. Otherwise why feel weird that she said the truth, you know, it's wrong. You know, you look bad. You know, you're a fucking asshole. And if you don't feel like you're the asshole, then own up to it. Be like, yep, that's what I said. And that's what I believe.
Starting point is 01:17:44 And then yes, you are like. At least you're confident with what you said, right? You're not being a, you're just that person, but it's just like, yeah. Yeah. I think it's, it's almost poetic justice that it comes out this way. Yeah, absolutely. She adds another comment. He is determined to overlook this and just focus on me being a bitch for
Starting point is 01:18:06 sharing something like that. Right. Flip it. Oh, yeah. He's a fucking manipulator. That's predictable though. Like that's not surprising at all. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:18:17 For real. Top, so one of the top comments for real. He's embarrassed because he's been socially sanctioned over his asshole behavior. Oh, fucking well. If you don't want people to think you're an asshole, maybe just don't be one. His sisters were right to be horrified and good on them for coming together as a family and saying, we don't find this acceptable. That's how the social contract is enforced.
Starting point is 01:18:38 Yep. I think OP should think long and hard about the fact that she had normalized his behavior to this degree and she didn't think his sisters would react this strongly to it. That's true too. Uh, like one of these top comments, why are you still with him? He sounds shitty. Probably should have left after the first child was born.
Starting point is 01:18:58 And I think that's something too, like there's not a big age gap between them. Like she's 32, he's 34. And this is something that gets brought up all the time in society. Like men get divorced and then go for someone younger because men have that social capital to where they can date so much younger, but as a woman, it's harder to date younger. Right. And then it's also these like, oh, she's a cougar.
Starting point is 01:19:22 Whereas men, if they have a beige age gap, it's not, there's no word. There's no term. There's no, there's not as frowned upon. Like, oh, you know, we're just kind of recognizing that age gaps are kind of sketchy, but there's no like social ostracization. Like there's no repercussions for that. And so this is a big, big, big red flag to me because we all age, we all get older. We all have wrinkles.
Starting point is 01:19:48 We all gain weight. Being 120 pounds at 32 isn't realistic. Like I just saw this doctor talk on a video today and she said, in your 20s, you do gain more weight. We're in reproduction years. Some women are always going to have a belly. That's just what you need to be healthy. And it's your fucking uteruses and your body trying to have weight for childbearing.
Starting point is 01:20:13 And it's like, if your partner doesn't love you, regardless of if you put on 10, 15 pounds, like, okay, granted, you put on 200 pounds. Your health is at risk. That's a different story. But she just fucking had a baby and you're not attracted to her and you're making her feel like shit. Yeah. Like, I just can't imagine staying with this person.
Starting point is 01:20:40 That's so, so terrible. Cause what happens when she gets old and wrinkly and gray? Right. He's not going to be attracted to her then. Right. Well, and that's why you can't have, I just don't think you can sustain a relationship purely based on attraction. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:20:57 Yes. Most relationships start by attraction. You find someone attracted. There has to be some degree of course. And then it builds from there. Yeah. And I think over time, yes, you, like, I think in most cases you have the attraction because attraction is much deeper than just physical appearance.
Starting point is 01:21:16 I think you can be attracted to every part of someone. Someone's sense of humor, their mind, everything, all the personnel, everything. Everything. Yeah. You're attracted to a person. And when you go down the road of committing to a life with this person, then you sure as hell must be attracted to more than just their appearance. There's got to be more roping you in.
Starting point is 01:21:46 And I think, especially in a long-term relationship, otherwise how do you sustain it? Right. And it's not, it shouldn't be, especially after childbirth. I know. Like, especially after having a damn kid. Yeah. I just, I don't know.
Starting point is 01:22:02 I'm a, I'm a big believer in being attracted to the person over the appearance. I feel like I've always been that way. And it's just so sad because you see people get trapped in these situations. And then they are constantly trying to change themself to help the relationship. They're essentially trying to change, to save their relationship. And that's not, just, that's not what's about. No. And I mean, look at her, like, look at what she probably put herself throughout
Starting point is 01:22:37 the, after their second child, just to ensure that he was happy and that he enjoyed looking at her. And not to get the comments. And, and so they would be intimate. And so it's like, oh, it's just so, it's just so sad. Well, I think it's hard too, because you have everyone standing around watching when celebrities bounce back after a couple of weeks. And everyone's like, and then all of a sudden that's applied to everyday people.
Starting point is 01:23:11 And you then, then you build up kind of this expectation, like, oh, that's going to happen for me too. Yeah. It's so unrealistic. And it's, it's the media and social media and our expectations we have of women. And Blake Lively, I just saw a snippet of an interview she gave after one of her movies, The Shallows, where she was in a swimsuit, in the water, shark movie, whatever it was.
Starting point is 01:23:34 She had just had a child a couple months or like nine months or something before that movie. And she was like, you know, I worked my ass off to get in shape and look good for that movie. And I, you know, I didn't want to work that hard because I wanted to be a fair representation of women and, and mothers. And my body wasn't the same as it was before my child. And I wanted to be true to that and recognize that.
Starting point is 01:23:59 But at the same time, I didn't want to get bullied for being fat, for not looking the way I should have looked. And so I worked my ass off. And it's, she said something along the lines of like, it's this fine line being a woman of trying to, you know, fit society's norms and be yourself and be happy and also not get picked on. And it's just, it's just, oh, I can't even imagine. Yeah, especially when you're in the direct spotlight of it too.
Starting point is 01:24:26 Oh my God. And Blake Lively, like she's, for a lot of people, she's, you know, an icon. And it's just, it's again, so toxic. Yeah. Yeah. OP comments a lot throughout this post, basically just saying like, people are like, why would you still have sex with him? And she's like, I honestly just shrug it off now.
Starting point is 01:24:49 And like, hopefully his dad can talk some sense in him. And at the end of the day, like that's kind of on her for putting up for it. And I think just like trying to make the relationship work. It just kind of seems like she's going through the motions, but how long can that sustain itself? And it's tough too. Cause now you're, now you have a kid, two kids, two. And so you look at them and think, well, and you hear about this way too much too
Starting point is 01:25:17 is what do I do? Do I do something that's good for myself or do I stay in it for them? Tough, tough, tough decisions. But at the end of the day, like, I don't know, time will tell. Like if he wasn't attracted to you and, you know, you had his child, how's that going to be down the road when you get older? For sure. Cause gravity takes its toll.
Starting point is 01:25:40 We all age and it's just have a partner that's going to be supportive of you, no matter what you look like. And cause we all have bad days. We don't stay the same and, uh, but at least you won't have to worry about getting baby trapped. That's true. That's very true. Lucky, lucky in that department, I guess.
Starting point is 01:26:01 Yeah. Fuck. That's all I have for you on the baby trapping episode. Amazing. It happens in more ways than one. It's not just girls like, you know, society would like us to the world west out there. Fucking mother in laws.
Starting point is 01:26:15 You got to watch out for them too, I guess. Holy shit. Oh man. Well, I hope you're not too traumatized and never want kids after this episode. Who me? Yeah. I don't think so. I might be.
Starting point is 01:26:29 Fuck. Oh, well, I hope everyone else out there isn't too traumatized. And if you have children, I hope that you're God, what do you call it? Your conception and pregnancy and everything else was not as traumatic as these people. And if it was, and you'd like to share your story, please reach out. We'd love to offer some takes or support, you know, whatever you need. But thanks guys for tuning in and be sure to connect with us on Instagram.
Starting point is 01:27:00 We're going to be having some really exciting contests coming up and giveaways. So until next time. Until next time. Bye guys. Got to walk the dogs, school drop off, meetings from 10 to 3, take kids to soccer practice, then there goes the extra time for a jog. That's okay. Maybe next week. When everyone else relies on you, it's easy to put your needs last.
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