c'mon dude

A Man With A Newborn Baby Vents Frustrations That His Wife Won’t Let His Friends Come Over

He wants to know if he's the a**hole.

by Katie Garrity
Updated: 
Originally Published: 
A new dad wants to know if he's the a**hole for being mad at his wife who won't let him have a bunch...
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Life definitely changes for a bit after having a baby. The days blur together, sleep is non-existent, and you probably won’t have much of a social life for awhile. As kids get older, the pieces of life do start to fall back into place, but that takes time.

One dad wants life to get back to normal a little bit sooner than his wife would like, and now, he’s wondering if he’s in the wrong for being mad at her when she won’t let him have friends over.

“Last Saturday, I went over to a friend's house to hang out with the guys. My wife (who gave birth to our son 6 weeks ago) also had her friend over to our house. So I finish up at the gym, head over there and sit down to play some games,” he explains in the popular “Am I The A**hole?” Reddit thread.

His wife called to ask if he could home since she’s having some pains and needs help with the baby.

“Obviously I’m disappointed that I have to leave but it is what it is. So, I get up and tell my friend who gave me a ride over that I need him to give me a ride home. Everyone is confused and upset that I’m leaving, especially since now they’re going to be short a person for their game,” he wrote.

He decides to come up with a “compromise.”

He calls his wife back as he’s driving home and suggests that his friends come over to their house instead. “...that way I can help with the baby whenever she needs me to and I’ll still get to hang out with my friends whenever I’m not needed by her. She says that she doesn’t want people over, and we hang up. At this point I’m mad,” he continued.

Once the dad gets home, he acts upset and his wife asks, “Are you seriously mad right now?!”

The OP continues, “I’m not mad that she wanted me home, but I’m mad that she won’t let me have my friends over when, in my mind, it makes no difference to her.”

“They’ll be out in the living room the whole time, it’s not like she’s going to be leaving the bedroom anyways, since it hurts for her to walk. She has no reason to in the first place when I’ll be in the house and will be available at her beck and call. She says my priorities are all wrong. I tell her that she comes before my friends, but that I don’t see why I can’t be there for her when she needs help, and then also be able to go out into the living room to see my friends when she doesn’t.”

If he really believed that his wife came before himself and his friends, this entire Reddit post would not have been written. Who wants other people in their house when they are 6 weeks out postpartum and feeling like complete s**t? What isn’t he getting here? His wife wonders the same.

“She says I don't get it, that she needs moral support and I won't be able to provide that if my friends are over. I don’t understand this, because I know for a fact that if I came home and just hung out playing games in the living room (when not actively helping her) that she would be fine with that. She even admitted this was true,” he wrote.

The cherry on top of this absolutely ludicrous post is when he wants people to be nice to his wife and not make her out to be a villain. Yes, this guy actually thinks people are going to side with him.

“Please don’t leave negative comments about my wife being a baby or anything. I'm not here to make her look bad or to bash her, I love and care about her a lot. I'm just need to know if I was being a jerk or not,” he concluded.

Unsurprisingly, Reddit wasted no time cluing this oblivious dad in on just how much of an a**hole he really is, especially since his wife laid out exactly how she was feeling.

“YTA and so are your friends. Why on earth would they be confused that you were going home to your wife and newborn?” one user wrote. “You have a NEWBORN and a wife who hasn’t physically healed from the birth yet. You should be at home taking care of the two of them. Your job right now is to make life EASIER for your wife. Not harder.”

Another comment added, “It’s hilarious that you think anyone is going to perceive your wife coming off as ‘being a baby’ or that your post will make her ‘look bad’. Thank you, it’s been a rough day and that was the comic relief I needed.”

One Reddit user pointed out the obvious sexism in this entire situation and wrote, “Can we imagine a mom or wife ever saying to husband, ‘I’ll help you with the baby whenever I can’ or ‘I’ll help with the baby when you need me.’ It’s not helping, it’s your kid. Help means you’re doing something that’s not your main responsibility so you assist. THIS IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. You are not helping, you’re doing your job.”

With several thousand other Reddit users chiming in to say that, yes, this dude is 100% the a**hole, one can only hope that he got the memo that his wife, especially his in pain, newly postpartum wife, and his newborn come first.

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