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A woman's body is her own and no one else's.
By Isaac Serna-Diez — Written on Apr 19, 2022
A 26-year-old woman who is five months pregnant with a baby boy has gotten into hot water with her 31-year-old husband and his family for problems that he has caused.
The soon-to-be mother has an anxiety disorder that makes it hard for her to stay calm whenever she is being touched — especially when it’s sudden.
After blowing up at him one night when her friends were over, they got into an argument and she was no longer sure if she reacted the right way.
The pregnant mother is no longer sure if she should allow her husband to bond with their unborn baby.
Naturally, she sought out some advice in the form of help from internet strangers.
The subreddit, “r/AmItheA--hole” (AITA), was the perfect place for her to express her woes and also get a third perspective on the issue — completely unbiased with no regard for who is posting the story.
Does the poster deserve a “You’re the A--hole” (YTA) rating? Or will they receive the coveted “Not the A--hole” (NTA) rating? Only time (and reading) will tell.
For the most part, however, it seems like people were on the mother’s side.
“Once my belly started showing my husband started putting his hands on it constantly,” she writes. “The problem is that I have an anxiety disorder and don't like to be touched especially when it's sudden."
"He knows this but he puts his hand on my belly randomly and refuses to remove it when asked.”
This is odd in and of itself, from the very beginning something feels wrong, but with a little benefit of the doubt, you can just say that the husband forgets out of excitement to start a family with his wife.
Maybe he read somewhere online that you need to constantly touch and bond with the baby, but it gets much worse once she confronted him about the issue.
“We were out on the front porch with my friends and he pulled me from behind and wrapped both arms around my belly,” she explains.
“My friends were weirded out I quietly whispered to him to let go but he said ‘don't mind us (meaning him and his baby) we're just here bonding’. I had had it I lashed out and moved away from him while telling him to stop it.”
Once they got inside and her friends left, he blew up on her in turn, telling her that she shouldn’t have yelled at him for what he thought was something small.
“[He] told me to get over myself and stop acting like a sensitive little girl,” she continued. “I got mad and told him he is no longer allowed to do it and he got angry and said that's not my call and I can't act selfish and prevent him from bonding with his son.”
This is where people’s nerves were lost, the last part of this argument.
“The fact your husband is stating that you've given up bodily autonomy by becoming pregnant is very disturbing,” said one Reddit user who gave an NTA rating.
The mother responded, revealing even more troubling information that led Redditors to tell her to run for the hills.
“We had issues with consent when it came to intimacy and it took me a lot to show him that consent comes before anything else,” she replied.
“It took him a lot of time to get used to asking for it first but still has an issue with the word ‘no’.”
A woman’s body is her own. No one has any right to it except her, and that goes for anything and everything.
Everyone is either calling for therapy or divorce, but the mother chalks it up to the fact that everyone has flaws and she’s willing to overlook them.
Hopefully, she can get through to her husband and he can realize where boundaries are, but things don’t look too promising as her throwaway account hasn’t provided any updates.
Isaac Serna-Diez is a writer who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics. Follow him on Twitter here.