'AITA for becoming a 'stay-at-home parent' when I did not support my ex being SAH?'
"AITA for becoming a 'stay-at-home parent' when I did not support my ex being SAH?"
I (33M) share a 3 year old son with my ex (29F). We broke up before our son was born. One of the reasons we broke up was her insistence on being SAH until our child reached school age at least.
Obviously, she needs to stay home for the months after the birth to recover, but once she was recovered, I did not support her continuing to not work. I did not want a relationship where she was financially dependent on me.
We also disagreed on concepts like gender roles within the family. We both had been rather progressive, after getting pregnant, she started expounding a lot more "traditional" views.
In any case, our son is born and we co-parent. We have 50/50 custody, but I make more than my ex so I pay health insurance, child care, and child support. Tragically, a year after my son is born, my mother is killed in an accident by a semi truck.
My twin brother, who himself is a family law/divorce attorney, has one of his law school classmates look into the accident. Turns out, the semi driver was over the federally allowed hours to drive. As you can imagine, this really effects by perspective on things. We end up getting a substantial settlement.
I decide to take a step back from my career. I am an accountant. I sign a freelance contract with my firm that gives me the flexibility to be with my son as much as I want. I still pay for insurance, child care, and child support.
Note: the settlement has no impact on my child support, trust me, I have had the best family law firm in the state look into it. But, on my time, I usually keep him with me and we spend the day together going to the park, museums, library, etc.
My ex has expressed her frustration at my "hypocrisy." She says, I am now a "stay-at-home parent," but would not let her be one. I told her the situations are different because my situation does not involve me being financially dependent on anyone. That was my chief concern with her doing it. This is causing issues in our co-parent relationship. AITA?
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's initial post:
You are not a Stay at Home parent. You are employed on a flexible contract that allows you to be fully present with your son during your custody time. What's the issue here?
This right here 👆
You are employed. You work around your childcare needs. Ex didn't want to work and expected you to cover her. Not the same thing.
NTA. "Oh no, some lady I'm not dating doesn't approve of how I support myself, whatever shall I do. Anyways...." I'd shut that down. I'd tell her that as your ex, how she feels about how you support yourself is irrelevant to you. Tell her that unless you bounce a check, this is the last you want to hear about it.
I can definitely understand her frustration and jealousy. You’re living the life she wanted (by being able to on stay Home, however you’re still working) . But that doesn’t make you an asshole. You’re doing what’s best for you and your child.
She shouldn’t be taking her frustration out on you. While I get it, it’s not fair to you and it’s a completely different situation. You didn’t want another dependent, which is understandable. She’s definitely the AH here. NTA.
NTA: She's upset because if she waited a little bit longer she would have benefited from your tragedy and now mad she didn't stick it out a little longer.
There's no way you don't see why your ex is upset. You're living the parenting dream she wanted.
NTA. Your Ex is an EX for a reason. You don't have to listen to her. Why are you continuing to fight with someone who is an ex about their opinions? You're lifestyle is not their business.. end of argument.
I was a SAHM. It was hard but fulfilling. But here’s the thing, it left me trapped in a bad situation. OP, you were right to insist your ex stick to the original agreement, and it was unfair of her to use emotional blackmail to try to force her wishes on you like that.
That must have been very difficult. Having your partner dependent on you is not good for either one. If your ex has been willing to honor your original agreement, you two could have stayed together.
I am not going to say you are an AH but you had a baby with someone and after getting her pregnant, bailed because she wanted time to raise her child and not have work take precedent over being able to mother her child. Now you get that privilege after looking down on her for wanting that, of course it hurts her. Her feelings are valid.
Again can't really say you are an AH with the little info given but she's def not for feeling hurt. Just because women can do it all doesn't mean we all want to do it all. Some of us do genuinely just want to be mother's and wife's...just not without the abuse and control those roles used to come with.
Where are you getting a looked down on her for wanting to stay home? As I stated, my disagreement with it is because she would be financially dependent on me. I have no problem whatsoever with the desire to stay at home with kids.
And before we got pregnant, she very much indicated that she wanted to work after she physically recovered. Then, after getting pregnant, she told me, "I am staying home until kindergarten."
When you have an agreement, and your partner changes the agreement while completely dismissing your feelings, that will cause a breakup. If I had known all this, I would have said we should not have a baby and breakup so she could find someone who wanted that.
A month later, the OP returned with a full update.
Tensions between my ex and I have been high over the last month or so. This morning when we did the custody exchange, she invited me in and wanted to talk to me. As I stated in the comments of the original post, she has a boyfriend and they have been trying for a kid.
At the time of our conversation detailed in the original post, she had just found out about the pregnancy and they had crunched the numbers and realized they could not afford for her to take off more than five weeks she has of PTO.
So, she was quite upset about that and lashed out at me. She apologized. I told her I forgive her and understand why she was upset. She expressed appreciation for the extra time I am getting to spend with our son. So, the conflict is resolved.