Wife Is Rethinking Her Marriage After Her Husband Asks Her To Get A Job 6 Weeks After Giving Birth
She's barely recovered and he's reneging on their agreement, but their financial situation is unexpectedly dire and dangerous.
Drazen Zigic / Shutterstock It's a simple fact of any long-term relationship that at some point, you're going to have to navigate a crisis — if not multiple crises — together.
For one couple, however, their crisis is so dire and so poorly timed that it's brought them to a seemingly untenable crossroads.
A new mom feels betrayed after her husband asked her to get a job just weeks after giving birth because of a financial crisis.
The husband wrote on Reddit seeking advice, but it was one of those situations that was so complicated, that it was hard to know what was right or fair.
Just a month-and-a-half into their new baby's life, they were hit with a giant financial upheaval that left the husband feeling like they had no option besides his wife going back to work just six weeks postpartum.
Even in the US, where maternity leave is usually drastically shorter than in the rest of the world, federal law entitles women to 12 weeks of leave. The request she goes back to work violates the one condition on which she agreed to have a baby.
The couple was strapped after the husband's twin brother stole $25,000 from their bank account.
The man wrote that he and his wife have been together for seven years, and she had two sons from a previous relationship. They decided to have a baby together, and their daughter was born six weeks ago.
When they agreed to have a baby together, they "were in a good financial position," the dad wrote, and "had money stashed away in multiple different accounts." But then something extraordinary happened, basically a soap opera "evil twin" storyline came to life.
"My brother and I are twins. Despite not technically being identical, we look a lot alike," he wrote. "He took my info, he went to the bank and … stole $25k off of us." He pressed charges but was told by his lawyers it could be months before the case went before a judge.
Meanwhile, they depleted almost all their remaining money. "I cannot make this work on just my income anymore because we are only left with $3k in the bank account and our rent is $2800," he said. "So I asked my wife to look for a job and explained why."
His wife only agreed to have a child with him if she was a stay-at-home mom for the first year.
Asking her to get a job was of course completely understandable. But the request violated the one condition on which she agreed to have a baby.
"She told me at that point that if she were to have a baby, she would want to stay home for at least the first year" so she could nurse, he said. "She … straight up told me before even getting pregnant that she would never forgive me if I backed out and changed my mind about her staying home for a year."
Even worse, 90% of the money that my brother stole was money she worked overtime for, just to ensure that she did not have to work." Because of this, he said "I don't even blame her" for being furious.
But she was not only furious. She was also "rethinking our marriage now" because "she begged me and warned me not to back out on it, given that it was her only request and that's exactly what I did," he wrote. "She says I'm just as untrustworthy as my brother and a part of me feels like that's true."
People had very mixed feelings about who was right and wrong, but many agreed that the wife getting a job was not the answer.
There's no arguing that part of marriage is that you're a team, and when crises hit, you have to work together. But this was an extraordinarily difficult circumstance not just because of the nature of the conflict but the logistics involved too.
As several Redditors pointed out, the costs they'd incur for childcare alone would likely erase his wife's income entirely. In fact, a survey by children's charity TheirWorld, of more than 7,000 parents globally, found that one in five parents was forced to quit their job or education because of childcare costs.
Given that the U.S. is the only wealthy country on Earth without some form of federally funded childcare, you can extrapolate that that percentage is even higher here especially since it costs our economy an estimated $122 billion annually.
Others wondered if his wife's extreme reaction was in part attributable to postpartum depression.
In follow-up comments, the man revealed that his wife was in fact struggling with that condition. This made her going back to work even more complicated and maybe even untenable.
Instead, people suggested a loan to help them bridge the gap until they got their money back or government assistance.
Basically, they urged him to leave no stone unturned to make absolutely sure that her returning to work was their only option. Otherwise, the signal he was sending wasn't a good one. As one commenter put it, "She now knows that her husband is capable of going back on his promise."
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.