Have you ever heard the expression that all brides and babies are cute? Well, it’s very good advice, and I’m not sure, but I think after you read this you might believe it should be gospel when it comes to your own baby.
OP just had his second child, first daughter. He admits that his wife is and has been struggling a bit with depression, and tell us that his son is adorable (and calls his wife very attractive).
My daughter, our second child, is three weeks old. Pre pregnancy, my wife was diagnosed with general anxiety disorder and depression, and in the days since birthing our baby girl, is most definitely experiencing postpartum depression.
Our first child, our son, looks very much so like her. In fact, if you look at baby photos of my wife, they look almost exactly like our son’s baby photos. And my wife is is a looker, so my son is damn cute thank you very much.
The problem? Apparently the little girl looks more like her father…and her mother definitely doesn’t think that’s a good thing.
Our daughter got a bit more of my side’s gene pool. Her hairline kinda has a widow’s peak (which I’ve had since I was a baby). Her lips are relatively thin (like me). Her nose is a little larger than our sons was (I have a Middle Eastern classic hook nose).
Nearly every day in my daughter’s 21 days on this earth, my wife has made a comment to baby girl about how she’s so sad she got daddy’s features. Some of the things wife has said to baby girl:
Don’t worry, I’ll get you a nose job as soon as you’re old enough.
I wish you had gotten more of my features. My family is beautiful and all the women are timeless. Your dads family, not so much.
[Son] has the beautiful pouty lips and you got stuck with those pencil lips – oooh it’s really tough being a girl.
OP has been trying to nicely redirect her comments, or to let her know what she’s saying isn’t ok, but his wife hasn’t been taking the hint.
Up until yesterday, I was taking a softer approach with comments like – “ok be nice” and “ok chillax” but today I had enough and just snapped and yelled at her for like five minutes straight, and I cursed quite a bit too.
The gist of my statements were:
I don’t care if she can’t yet understand what you’re saying, stop putting that s**t out into the universe.
[son] can understand you, so stop this garbage.
I can understand you, so stop putting this s**t in my head and making me listen to it.
yea life on girls is tough in this world, especially when their mom is s**tting all over their appearance.
she’s f**king three weeks old and is still perfect and noble and hasn’t hurt a goddamn soul. Stop projecting onto her
you regularly tell me how your mom f**ked up your psyche with all her comments about your appearance so why the f**k are you doing the same to baby girl?
She was hurt by his comments, and he’s feeling badly because he knows that she’s dealing with mental health issues along with postpartum hormones.
Anyways she was understandably hurt by my comments and we haven’t really talked about it or debriefed since.
I recognize that part of her comments stem from her anxiety/depression as well as her postpartum depression, and I also recognize there a lot of this stems from her mom’s influence on her psyche. I also recognize that yelling and berating people is rarely the right thing. So AITA here?
Was he wrong to snap? I have a feeling Reddit is going to tread lightly on this one.
The top comment suggests that postpartum or not, his wife definitely needs therapy.
Image Credit: Reddit
This person suggests that his wife look after her own family, and try to heal the wounds caused by the one she came from in order to do it.
Image Credit: Reddit
But this comment says, in no uncertain terms, that her mental health struggles are no excuse to damage others.
Image Credit: Reddit
They say it’s definitely not something that’s ok to say to a baby.
Image Credit: Reddit
This person thinks the kids are definitely not ok.
Image Credit: Reddit
I seriously hope this woman first listens to her husband and cuts out the talk.
Then, I hope she gets therapy to understand why she needed to.
