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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/LucyAriaRose on 2024-05-24 04:03:34+00:00.

I am NOT the Original Poster. That is u/Careless-Hornet-4343. She posted in r/AmItheAsshole

Mood Spoiler: positive ending for OOP

Original Post: April 13, 2024

So I had a baby some weeks ago with my partner to whom I’m not married.

We’ve been together a while, and I’ve given many compromises in this relationship. While discussing baby’s name, we had a few disagreements on names but ultimately decided on a name we both liked well enough. The surname was a sticking point: he wanted the baby to have his name alone. I offered to hyphenate b/c logistically it’s easier for the baby to have both of our names. He’s been drinking the red pill cool aid lately - a large bone of contention in this relationship - and went off about how it’s ‘tradition’ and ‘the right thing to to’ and ‘his right as a man’ to have the baby have his surname. He told me I’d be emasculating him and may as well be a single parent if I won’t grant him this one little ask. ‘My word is final - baby’s having one surname’. This was late in my pregnancy and I didn’t have it in to fight, so I told him that I understood what he was saying.

FF to 3 weeks ago when baby’s birth certificate came. He blew a gasket when he saw that I’d given the baby my surname. He rehashed the conversation above, saying I agreed to giving baby his surname. This is where I might be TA. I did nothing of the sort. I told him I understood him, which I did - but I never said I agreed with him. I told him there was no way I was doing all the work of making a baby for him to stick his name on it. When we bought up tradition, I told him it’s also traditional for him to marry me before having a baby but he was happy to ignore that, I told him it was traditional for him to be the provider but I do that too - and I pointed out other holes in his logic. I told him trying to bully me into submission with his red pill bs when I was exhausted from pregnancy didn’t work. He should have known better than to expect me to not share a surname with my child. He said the baby should only have one surname - they do. So why’s he mad?

He went crying to his brothers and mother - all ‘traditionalists’ and misogynists - and now they’re all up in arms.

AITA?

ETA

There seems to be some confusion - we are not married or engaged. I don’t believe in it, and he’s never seen the point of ‘bring the state into your relationship’, so we agreed to never marry.

He’s on the birth certificate as the father - baby just has my last name but father is listed.

Thanks for your feedback. I’ll be asking him to come for a talk so I can plainly address the issues you guys have helped me see. Thank you for that.

Relevant Comments:

Commenter: NTA. You told the truth and nothing more. If I read your post correctly, you agreed the baby would have one surname. You didn’t agree to which one.

So, why are you still with this guy? He doesn’t respect you. He doesn’t provide for you and the baby? Please don’t say because you need him or love him. (editor’s note- this was a longer comment but I included the parts OOP responded to)

OOP: I am reconsidering the relationship.

The truth is he wasn’t always like this. He fell on hard times and unfortunately chose to cope with that in an unhealthy way. At his core, I believe he is of good but I need to have a frank conversation about the ideologies he’s leaning into and the harm it’s causing in our relationship.

(to another commenter asking why she is with him): I hate that I sound like every enabler - and perhaps I need to do some introspection to see if that’s what I’ve become - but he wasn’t always like this. Life’s been hard for him lately and his coping strategies have led us here. I need to have a frank chat with him about how it’s affecting us.

Commenter: Was he not there when you were filling out the forms? Cause that’s pretty telling too 👀

NTA. What to name the baby is definitely a valid conversation to have, but he wasn’t having a conversation with you. He was trying to bulldoze you without compromise.

OOP: I registered the baby on my own. He was there for the birth and everything but his paternity leave was pretty short so the admin of registering fell on me.

Commenter: NTA and PLEASE do not relent and change the baby’s name!! I just had a baby in August and shit’s tiring. Congrats on your new addition and my condolences you have to spend 18 years dealing with this family though.

OOP: I am beyond in love with my tiny human. I hope you’re doing well too with yours!

Should this spell the end, I’m lucky to have my village and the means to minimise the suckiness of breaks ups.

There’s no world in which any child I birth will not share a surname with me. My compromise of a double barrelled surname stands - no other offer is on the table.

Commenter: INFO: why are you still in contact with all those people that do nothing for you? Seem you would lose a lot of strees, anxiety and financial hardships just cutting this person loose.

OOP: which people, sorry? baby’s dad and his family?

he stormed out on thursday night - friday morning his mother sent me a voice note berating me ha. i’ve since received messages from his family criticising me for my decision, but no word from my partner. i have not responded to any of them, so it’s one way comms atm.

OOP’s life:

I’m very fortunate to be in a position where I don’t need anything from him. I’m financially secure, I have a good job and a good support system. I don’t need his financial backing to raise this child.

I’ve texted him asking him to come home so we can talk. I’m thinking of having a mediator/neutral party there to avoid things getting out of hand.

OOP is voted NTA

Update Post: May 17, 2024 (1 month later)

so it turns out he’s got deep-seated resentment for me lol. 

he resents me for:

• earning more money than him
• being further in my career than he is
• not losing my job during covid like he did
• having parents who love and support me
• not being a submissive woman (lol)
• having a present and loving father
• not combining our finances (under his control) thus making him feel small

on the brighter side, i’m 12 weeks post partum and already 75kg lighter! 

so when i last came here, i said i’d asked him to come home and discuss our future with baby, preferably in the presence of a neutral party. he left me on read for a few days though i could see he was spying on us through the ring door bell and baby’s monitor. i disconnected them both and he finally responded 🫠

he came home, still irate. his stance still hadn’t changed, he seemed to have been bolstered by the days he spent with him family. he rejected my request for us to do this in the presence of a couple’s therapist - the best neutral compromise i could offer. i asked him how he proposed we move forward, then and he went on a rant where the above came out. it was a full mask off moment - if there was any part of me that wanted you guys to be wrong about him, it died that day. 

he again rejected the offer to hyphenate baby’s surname. apparently i’m ‘disrespectful’ and ‘insolent’ - funny enough his mother’s fave words to scold people she disagrees with - for refusing to ‘do what’s right’ and give baby their ‘rightful’ surname. i told him i won’t go through the administrative nightmare of having a different surname to my child, and lots of data shows a double barrelled surname is social currency that has positive connotations. nope - he wouldn’t budge. i told him neither would i - baby either has both our surnames or mine alone.  

he asked if this was a hill i wanted this relationship to die on, if i was prepared to throw half a decade down the drain over my ‘silly little feminism’. i told him i wasn’t sure there was anything left to fight for. we broke up. thankfully, our - in his name - lease expires end of may. i called my dad and he came to help me back up baby. ex went back to his mum’s while we packed.

i messaged him to suggest we still need couple’s counselling: we need to learn to be co-parents and they can help us establish a healthy way of doing that. he again said no to that so

my mum wanted to take me and baby on a baby moon holiday after this stressful period but he would grant permission for me to take baby abroad :)))))))))))) it was at that moment i wished i didn’t have him on the birth certificate like some of yall accused me of. 

it’s going to be a long road ahead. i’ve instructed a lawyer to help us set up a formal agreement to avoid this in the future. he’s not responding to correspondance from the lawyer so that’s fun. he’s sulking - used to do this a lot when things didn’t go his way. i hope he’ll soon realise i no longer have time for his bs and i won’t be toyed with because i called his bluff and ended the relationship

to end on a bright note, he house i wanted us to buy a couple of years ago  - which he talked me out of until he was back on his feet again despite us being able to afford it on my salary alone…

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