AITA for losing it when my husband said he won’t help me at all during my pregnancy?
I’m a 26F and my husband is 28M. Let’s call him Jake. We’ve been together for five years and married for three. Recently, we decided to start trying for a baby because we both felt it was the next natural step in our life together. Three weeks ago, I got a positive pregnancy test. We were over the moon and told our families right away. Both my mom and my mother-in-law are already planning a big baby shower, so overall it’s been really happy news.
Two nights ago, things took a turn.
We were getting ready for bed when Jake reminded me to go around the house and make sure all the lights were off. For context, he tends to be a bit lazy about this, and it’s become my nightly routine to turn off the lights he leaves on. That night, I wasn’t feeling well and asked if he could do it instead, especially since he was literally standing right by the door and not doing anything.
He responded by saying, “No, this is what’s expected of you every night.”
I was hurt, but I didn’t want to start a fight, so I just did it.
When I came back to the bedroom, Jake launched into a long, completely unprovoked rant. He said things like, “Just because you’re pregnant doesn’t mean anything will change,” and “You’re still expected to cook, clean, and do all the chores every day. How can you be a mother if you can’t handle a little work?”
He wasn’t yelling. He was talking calmly, almost condescendingly, like I was a child. I was shocked because I had never heard him talk like this before. The rant went on for about 30 minutes.
Eventually, I interrupted and asked, “So what do you plan on doing to help me with all of this?”
He immediately got defensive and said he works his ass off at his job to provide for me and for our future children.
He immediately got defensive and said he works his ass off at his job to provide for me and for our future children.
For context, I don’t currently work because my job wasn’t paying enough to justify it, and I’m a full-time college student.
He finished by saying that it doesn’t matter how I feel physically or mentally, because it’s a mother’s job to push through, and if he helped me or “babied” me, I wouldn’t become a good mother.
At that point, I completely lost it. I started yelling and said, “I wish I had known this is how you felt before I got pregnant with your baby.”
There was a long silence. Then he started crying, grabbed his things, and left to stay at his mom’s house. He still hasn’t come back.
Since then, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law have been calling me nonstop, telling me I broke Jake’s heart and that I need to apologize immediately. They’ve said that until I do, he’s not coming home.
I honestly don’t know how to feel anymore.
So, AITA for yelling at my husband after he told me he won’t help me at all during my pregnancy because, in his words, “it’s a mother’s job to deal with it”?
