'AITA for not staying overnight at the hospital with our 7-year-old son along with my ex-wife?' UPDATED

"AITA for not staying overnight at the hospital with our 7-year-old son along with my ex-wife?"

Our son has a bad case of pneumonia requiring a surgical procedure to drain fluid from his chest and now he has a chest tube. The infection is pretty bad, we’ve been here about 8 days and he is finally starting to turn a corner. The fevers are less frequent and not as high.

I have been here every day and will continue to do so. His mom, my ex wife, is also here but during the day she’s working (remotely) and a little more distracted. A couple days ago, with our son showing some progress, I decided to leave for the night so I can get some rest.

His mom will leave for about 3 hours in the late afternoon/evening to shower, change, do whatever, and when she returns I leave. At that time our son is getting ready to sleep or is sleeping. I return first thing in the morning, between 6 and 6:30am to make sure I am here for the Dr. rounds or any early morning procedure such as labs or X-rays.

Full transparency, my girlfriend lives near by and I go to her house to shower, change, and get some rest in a real bed. I’ve offered my son’s mom the same opportunity, I’ve told her that if she wanted to go home for the night I am more than happy to stay.

However, she refuses and today when I made the same offer she said no, she’s going to stay with our son and doesn’t understand how any parent can leave their child at the hospital so they can go be with their partner. Apparently she can still get in my head because here I am asking if I am TA for leaving my son at the hospital with his mom, my ex wife, instead of staying the night. Should I also be staying if she’s here?

Typo: It is Ex-wife not extra wife, although I’m glad I didn’t catch it because the extra wife comments gave me a much needed laugh, thank you. [editor's note- I fixed that title in the title of this post to limit confusion]

The internet had a lot to say in response.

MrsWeasley9 wrote:

OK your title typo is delightful. I was really looking forward to learning what an extra wife is.But to your question, NTA! Sounds like your ex is playing the martyr. I mean, there's nothing wrong with feeling like you can't leave your very sick child in the hospital.

But there's also nothing wrong with leaving him while someone else is there so you can take care of yourself - especially since you have offered the same to her. It's just two different ways of responding to a crisis, so her laying a guilt trip on you for responding differently is not healthy.

p9nultimat wrote:

When my friend’s child was hospitalized, I saw there was only one recliner chair in the room and only one person was allowed to stay overnight. Parents were taking turns.

CaliforniaJade wrote:

I'm sorry your son has been so sick. Your ex is sounding stressed, don't let her remarks get taken to heart. If you're managing to show up at 6am to make doctor rounds, you are doing a LOT. You know you're not leaving your son for time with your gf, you're using it to crash. I see why she's your ex. NTA.

Artemis1860 wrote:

Tentative NAH. I say this as someone with a unique perspective. I'm a mom to a child who spent the first 2-3 weeks of his life in the hospital and has also had several surgeries since for reasons connected to that initial stay. Moms/Women are pressured to stay.

Not just by society but by hospital staff. I still remember vividly, over 10 years later, being told by a nurse that if I didn't stay overnight (after staying 5 nights in a row and trying to switch out with my son's father so I could go finish out a week's worth of homework in a night since their wifi was crap), she would call Child Services and have my child taken from me.

The pressure on moms is absolutely intense, especially by hospital staff. What she's telling you is what she's been fed the entire time she's been a mom, probably not just by hospital staff, but possibly by family and friends as well as society.

While it isn't fair for her to push this on you, I don't think it necessarily makes her an AH. If there's a way to help her see that taking a little time to herself doesn't make her a bad mother, try to help her see that. She may be an ex, but the mother of your child deserves that kindness. Wishing healing for your little one, and less stress on you and your family.

Two days later, OP shared an update.

Update: first of all, I want to thank you all for your well wishes, it truly means a lot!

We are still at the hospital but my son is doing much better. Chest tube is schedule to come out tomorrow, he is responding well to new antibiotics, appetite is back, and fevers have been gone for over 48 hours, thank god!

I continue to offer my son’s mom to go home for the night but she continues to refuse. However, she is taking longer breaks during the day and it seems like she is getting some rest because she comes back looking more refreshed.

Since she insists on staying, I continue to leave for a few hours at night to get some sleep. However, I am back first thing in the morning before they wake and to make sure I don’t miss any procedure, labs, x-ray, CT scan or any dr. Rounds, which I haven’t, and I stay until my son falls asleep.

His mom is better about me leaving, I think because she sees how present and involved I am in our son’s care, treatment, and treatment plan. So she stopped with the Petty comments, for now, or she found this thread lol. All this has taught me a valuable lesson, we hear about it all the time but this experience really made me believe it.

We cannot take care of other people if we don’t take care of ourselves. I feel more present and clear headed compared to the first few nights where I was staying all night. I am a bigger guy so the tiny bed plus the frequent nurse check-ins make it impossible to get any rest. I was miserable during the day and was running on fumes, or adrenaline since our son was in the thick of it.

Thankfully he’s in a much more stable place.

It really is whatever works for you. This is working for me and I am ok with it. I get be present all day with my son, stay engaged in his treatment, and he seems to know that I am here for him, as well as his mom.

Side note: therapy has been good for me in learning that I needed to stop seeking validation from others and learn and work at looking for validation from within. Still working on that and I have grown so much in that department everywhere else in my life. I learned, though, that my son’s mom still knows what strings to pull to make me compromise that part of my mental wellbeing.

Although this thread provided some validation, thank you, it was also a big reminder that the validation I truly need is within me. I know I’m doing right by my son, and I also know that I need to take care of myself so my son gets the best possible version of me.

The internet continued to share their thoughts.

Flaky_Reflection881 wrote:

My son was in the NICU for a week.they made me leave every so often and could only overnight the day/night I was released myself.its better for me and baby.

AcrobaticKiwi1208 wrote:

Glad the kiddo is doing better! And glad that they have sorted it out--as a nurse, I have been in far too many patient rooms where the divorced parents think they are being subtle about sniping at each other, but are really just making everyone around them super uncomfortable and sorry for their child.

Beachpellini wrote:

I get that she felt like she had to or she would be a bad mom (and thus seeing her ex leave to rest made him a bad dad), but OP is right. If you run yourself ragged trying to take care of someone else, the burnout is going to be huge. It is so, so much harder to recover from that than just taking breaks.

rem_1984 wrote:

That’s difficult, seeing your kid with a chest tube and in hospital :( I’m glad cooler heads prevailed. When I was inpatient at the children’s hospital they had an area for parents, there were showers and beds so parents could go for a few hours rest and refresh. If this hospital had that I bet mum would’ve used them, it’s easier to justify that to yourself than leaving the actual property, at least for my mom.