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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/Choice_Evidence1983 on 2024-06-29 12:35:39+00:00.
I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/Electrical_Tour3016
Originally posted to r/AITAH
AITAH for getting mad at my wife for having a secret abortion after I told her I didn’t want kids?
Editor’s Note: added paragraph breaks for readability
Trigger Warnings: invasion of privacy, abortion, manipulation
Original Post: June 18, 2024
I have been happily married to my wife, Clara for around 3 years now. I love this woman to pieces. I don’t want to get sentimental but she truly is my other half and I cannot see myself with another woman, even now.
Before we got married, I made my stance on children clear. I didn’t want any. She agreed in the moment and I thought that was that. About a year and a half into our marriage, she brings up the question of children again. She asks me if want kids, I say no, I don’t. She hums and we go back to doing what we before. It wasn’t a conversation so much as it was an odd question this time around but I didn’t think anything of it. We had a very robust sex life but always took the necessary precautions. She has the implant and I use a condom around 90% of the time, so I wasn’t worried.
Her bookshelf recently broke, so I ordered a new one. I had wanted to build it as a surprise and put her books up on it for when she came home. While going through them, I noticed an old journal of hers. I immediately smiled and flipped through it. When we were in college, she’d carry it around. It was a future planning notebook or sorts. If she wanted something in life, she’d draw out exactly what she envisioned, add clip ins, the whole nine yards. Manifestation, if you will. She had shown me it in college after declaring that she wanted to pursue her doctorate, and I remember being stunned at the attention to detail. I mean, we were only sophomores and she knew exactly what she wanted to do, what she wanted to study, and where she would take herself. It made me feel out of depth. I liked it.
Anyway, I flipped through the journal, reminiscing about the past. I hadn’t expected there to be any new entries, at least, not anything recent that I hadn’t experienced with her. But as I opened it up, I saw something I never thought I’d see. It was a section dedicated to pregnancy and baby prep. She had researched prenatal vitamins, obgyns in our area, had images of cradles, etc. It was only two pages, but I remember being feeling so sick. In my head, there was only one reason she’d put that in a journal like this. She wanted kids.
Naturally, I was torn up. I kept telling myself I had been up front about what I wanted, and if she hadn’t, that was her fault. But the thought that she’d secretly been suffering because of me, that she was holding herself back from the life she wanted to please me- I couldn’t stand it. I confronted her about it as soon as we came home and I found out the situation was a lot worse than I thought.
Clara did indeed want kids, but claimed she wanted our relationship more and was okay with compromise. I asked her a million times if she was sure. I really wanted her to be honest and not feel like she had to hold anything back. She insisted that not having children wasn’t a deal breaker for her, but I kept pushing. I couldn’t understand why she’d put something that wasn’t that important to her in that journal. In the midst of our conversation, she dropped the bomb.
She told me she had an abortion a year and a half ago. Offered up the information like I should have been relieved. Like it was the proof she needed to convince me that she meant what she has said about children not being a deal breaker.
I can’t describe what I felt in that moment. What I’m still feeling. What I can say is that I have never blown up at my wife the way I did that night. I didn’t put my hands on her, I would never put my hands on her, but it was not a pretty exchange. I just remember feeling hurt that she hadn’t consulted me on such an important decision. That she went and had such a life altering procedure without discussing it with me. That I didn’t even fucking notice that it happened. I mean, those things have side effects, right? She would have been bedridden for days afterwards, in physical and emotional pain. How could I not have seen the signs? I’m still beating myself up about it. I remember her asking me if I want kids, but nothing about her emotional state for the rest of that week when she would have had the procedure done. How much can I really claim to care about her?
I don’t want children, I still don’t. But I’d rather chew my left arm off than make her have an abortion, even moreso now after she’s told me she isn’t really against having kids the way I am. I’d happily raise a kid if it meant she didn’t need to go through something so drastic.
I’ve been staying with my sister for the last week and a half. I needed space to think, so I left. I want to see her, to ask if she’s okay, but I don’t know what to do or say. I’m still unbelievably angry at her and at myself. I don’t want to yell at her again. I think the first time around scared her pretty badly and I don’t want to repeat that. My sister thinks I’m being petty, punishing my wife for something I would have agreed with regardless. But I wouldn’t have fucking agreed. I don’t know. AITAH?
Relevant Comments
OOP on not considering of prioritizing his wife’s preferences when she is prioritizing his decisions
OOP: To clarify, I never once said this. If that’s how my post came across, let me clear it up. If she came to me as asked to start trying for a kid, in other words, to go off birth control and stop using condoms, my answer would be no. I’ve always been firm in that. She’s never pushed the issue but no amount of begging would entice me to plan to have a child. Having an unplanned child, on the other hand, wasn’t something we discussed. Obviously, hindsight is 20/20 but that doesn’t help much here.
Update: June 19, 2024
I woke up to lots amount of comments and outright hate so I thought I’d clear a few things up:
A lot of you were concerned about me “snooping” in Clara’s journal. I met this woman when I was 6 years old, we had experienced over half of what she had written down in that notebook together. She’s been letting me read her entries routinely since college, though I would read them more often back then. Like I said, I found her decisiveness incredibly attractive. But college was 6-7 years ago and times change. I’m not sure if she has other journals, but her use of this specific one died down as we got older, and so did my readership.
I felt no qualms about picking it up and reading it that day because I quite frankly never have. This was not the first time I read that journal without her present as I’ve been given express permission to do so. It was meant to be a quick trip down memory lane, I had no idea she had added more things, let alone pregnancy planning. She keeps all her old journals, sketchbooks, etc, in the same area and this book was in that pile.
“You should have gotten a vasectomy” I’m not discussing my reasons for not wanting kids here, but I did discuss them thoroughly with Clara before we got married. Our reasons for not wanting children were very similar based on that initial conversation but I guess hers wavered as time went on. How that turned me into an evil dictator that refused to hear her opinions out, I’ll never understand, but I guess that’s reddit for you. I didn’t get a vasectomy because I am not sure that I won’t want kids 10-15 years down the line. I am positive I don’t want them at the current moment, but I’m 27. Opinions and circumstances change.
Regardless of its reversibility, it’s marketed as a permanent surgery. Vasectomies are covered by my health insurance, but reversals are not. It simply made no sense to invest in something I wasn’t sure could be undone if I didn’t want it anymore, not when Clara and I were taking the necessary precautions to avoid pregnancy otherwise. She got on birth control way before we started having sex, I had absolutely nothing to do with that decision. As far as I know, she’s quite happy with it.
The chances of pregnancy with the implant are less than 1%, even less when using condoms as well. We talked about the decision together and ultimately decided a vasectomy wasn’t the right choice. Someone actually went as far as to say that because I didn’t get my vas deferens cinched, an unexpected pregnancy was inevitable. A 0.5% chance and inevitable are two vastly different things. You guys do realize that vasectomies aren’t 100% effective either, right? Unless you’re pushing for abstinence, I really don’t want to hear it. We also don’t go raw unless we both agree to it, which I would never pressure her to do.
“You verbally abused her!” Clara and I both grew up in shitty homes. Our parents yelled and were extremely combative. After growing up in that environment, we agreed to avoid that kind of behavior in our relationship and we do our best to keep to that. I have never raised my voice at her before this argument…
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