I gave birth a few weeks ago, to our daughter.

As I held her for the first time and looked into her eyes I said “I didn’t realize I could love a person this much” and cried. She is perfect and beautiful.

My mom looked at me and said that feeling never goes away (which made us both ugly cry lol). It was a really special moment.

My fiancé was quite but smiled, but later privately said he was hurt. He said he loved us both the same, and me saying that made it seem like I loved our daughter more than him.

I just gave him a “are you fucking serious” look and he dropped it, but yesterday he brought it up again.

I told him that honestly, yes, I love and cherish our daughter and have never experienced this kind of love for another human being. He said most “normal people” would agree with him that it’s a hurtful comment and would take offense to it due to the implication.

AITAH?

UPDATE

It’s a quick update, so I didn’t feel like it was worth it to make a whole new post. So I had a heart to heart with my fiancé, and we came to a few conclusions together! It went very well. We read through the post and comments together.

1) He wasn’t jealous of our daughter’s role in my life, but rather our bond together. He didn’t have that “instant love connection” that we read about all new parents having (like what I experienced). I didn’t realize this was actually very normal for new dads, and new moms too. Thanks for educating me!

We are the first in our social circle to have children so we didn’t have a lot of IRL people to inquire about it. His perspective is “I love this human being we made, but I don’t know her” while I was thunderstruck. He hasn’t had that connection so doesn’t “get it” yet, and that it will take time (months or even a year). I’ll be more patient and aware of this, and read up more on new dad experiences to learn more.

2) He also agrees he not only could’ve expressed that better, but also choose better timing. Voicing it to me after a 14 hour labor and then again when I’m exhausted and grumpy with achy boobs is maybe not the best time, lol. He also agrees marriage counseling would be good, just because. We are both opinionated, logical-thinking Engineers who, at the same time, love each other deeply. We could use better mediation other than Reddit (no offense guys).

3) He was not “furious” about me writing this Reddit post, lol. We laughed over the comments together calling for me to get ready to break up. But we also really enjoyed reading the experiences of new parents! It helped us BOTH feel validated and sane and see each other’s perspectives better.

4) . We will now be eating a disgusting amount of hotdogs while watching Deadpool with our baby girl. We also agreed that there’s different types of love like parental, platonic, romantic and Ryan Reynolds.

Thanks peeps!

My MIL is currently going through a health scare and is being tested for cancer. She won't have her results for a week or so. But since the mention of cancer, my MIL has been clinging to my husband fiercely. She has been asking him to go over there every day for the past 3 weeks just to hang out with her because she "might not have much time left". She's been having him drive her to every doctor's appointment. She's even jumped the gun and quit her job to sit at home and work on her health, which is fine, but what's not fine is her already asking my husband if she can "borrow" money. Thankfully he hasn't given her anything (I would know, as I work our finances).

Anyways, there have been multiple times in the past 3 weeks that my husband has run late for special events, work, etc because he's over helping his mother. And as much as I hate to admit it, it has been the cause of 3 pretty significant fights recently. His argument is that he wants to spend time with his mother because life is short and where she may have cancer, he's not doing so well mentally. And I get that. But he's severely impacting me by doing so. Like I missed an important ultrasound because mommy dearest needed him because she was having a panic attack. He did try rushing home and he got me to my appointment, but I was 15 minutes late and therefore they needed to reschedule.

Well, yesterday around 10am I told my husband I felt like I was going to go in to labor soon. My body felt different and there was a lot more pressure. But roughly 2 hours later his mother calls and says that she is (tmi) shitting blood and needs to be rushed to the emergency room. Instead of calling an ambulance she called my husband (she has Medicaid so ambulance rides aren't something she has to pay for). He immediately rushed to her side. My water breaks at 1:36pm. I remain calm. I was already having a home birth. My midwife was on her way. I knew everything would be okay. But I did call my husband. No answer. I then text my husband and I asked him where he was. No response. I text again and ask him how long he will be, no response. I text a 3rd and final time, saying "I kind of need you fucking home", no response. I have the baby without him. I did not tell him anything about me being in labor. I have our daughter at 3:13pm. I text my husband a picture of our daughter, with no context. He is home within a half hour is pissed at me for not sending him a text specifically stating that my water had broken and I find out that he had been sitting in his truck in the parking lot, waiting for his mother outside (so he had his phone and got my texts but he was "stressing" and "figured it was yet another false alarm" - I had 3 false alarms). He says I'm in the wrong. I'm choosing to ignore his anger, as I have bigger things to worry about (my perfect daughter) but now that I've had her, I do feel a bit of guilt. AITA?

(His mom is fine. It was a bleeding hemorrhoid, which she has a history of apparently from what my husband just told me so she was likely fully aware that it was her hemorrhoid again)

Context: I 35(F) have two kids, one being 13(F) and the other 10(M). My husband just took my son on a boys trip to Michigan and I just got promotion.

My son had been wanting to go on the boys trip for months and my Husband and I finally made the plans for it. Once they left, I told my daughter “let’s go to the mall.” She got all excited which made me excited and we hopped in the car.

We went to Bath and Body Works and I got her a candle. And we went to American Eagle and she wanted a pair of jeans and earrings, so I got them for her. Then lastly, we got Starbucks after I took her to Ulta to get her a new mascara.

I wanted to treat her since we couldn’t go on a vacation. She was super happy and grateful. I wanted to use my promotion for good.

Once the boys got home my daughter was so excited to show her brother what she got. And he got so upset that she got all these cool things and he got nothing. My husband also said that I shouldn’t get her all of these things and that it’s not fair to my son. They had went on a week long vacation. I don’t want my family to pick sides. AITA?

6 years ago I fell ill with a rare autoimmune disease called Guillian Barre Syndrome. In summary, for reasons unknown to science, the immune system attacks the nervous system when the body contracts a virus. This results in the destruction of nerve cells, and paralysis. While virtually all people recover, the severity of paralysis and the length of recovery varies.

I, a male, was 25 years old at the time. I spent nearly 4 months hospitalized. In my particular case, the paralysis took over my entire body when it peaked, and every muscle was effected, including muscles that allow me you breathe, the diaphragm, and the muscles at allow you to go to the bathroom.

Even though the full body paralysis lasted only a month, it still took my body about 3 more months to regain total movement and function back, and another 2 to 4 months to return to normal strength and live my normal life. I'm lucky to have recovered.

AMA

Edit 1: Signing off here guys. Thanks for all the questions, very thought provoking and I was happy to answer what I could!

Reach out if you have any questions about GBS!

Edit 2: Well I lied to myself in saying that I was signing off. The peak of my paralysis was from mid June and into mid July, so I tend to think about it more this time of year. I'm flattered by all the compassion and responses I've gotten here. You all are great, and I really want to do my best to respond to all the questions I haven't answered yet. Please know I have read them all, and I will plan to revisit this tomorrow. Gotta get some sleep now though.

To the few folks who have suggested I'm making this story up, I get it, I'm skeptical of stories on Reddit too. But man, this happened and it was traumatic. Be nicer.

My sister Martina (34f) started dating her husband Kyle (36m) 5 years ago. Kyle lost his first wife a year before they met and within another year she had met his two kids with his first wife, her stepson was 7 at the time and her stepdaughter was 4. They found out they were expecting a baby together 6 months later and her stepson had a very rough time with the news. But her stepdaughter also reacted, though she and Kyle believed her stepdaughter copied her brother more than anything. Her stepson said he didn't want them to have a baby, he said some hurtful things to Martina, he cried a lot and didn't want to celebrate with them. The kids were placed in therapy but it wasn't an overnight "fix".

And then when she was pregnant for a second time her stepson reacted with more sadness and her stepdaughter reacted with some anger. It wasn't as bad. And the hurtful comments weren't made the second time. But neither kid was happy about it.

Martina and Kyle got married after the birth of their first child and before she was pregnant with their second.

Things are in no way perfect with them all today. And Martina expressed to me recently a lot of bitterness toward the kids for ruining her experience of having kids with their reactions. She said she felt it was so unfair that they never showed excitement or happiness about their two younger siblings. She said her stepson acting sad both times pissed her off because he got help and he still acted like his mom had just died and like they were doing something wrong by having children and getting married. She said he has never been the big brother to them that he is to his full sister. Where I might be the asshole is I told her that no matter how she felt, those kids lost their mom, and her stepson especially remembered their mom and had a lot of change in two years. I told her she can feel upset. But those kids had no say in this stuff. I told her she's the adult and she shouldn't have let that resentment build so much.

She told me the tough love act is cruel and I should be supportive.

AITA?

I (41f) married my husband (45m) last November. We only finally moved in together a few months before the wedding. Had been dating for 3 years.

On paper, I earn more than he does but I end up bringing home about the same as he does because I have health, vision, dental, long and short term disability, life insurance and retirement taken out of my check. He doesn't.

We have REALLY been butting heads over money lately. I still have to give him half the rent but he literally pays for nothing else. I pay all the utilities, phone bill, groceries, cleaning supplies, and just about everything else. Electric is through the roof right now because of the heatwave.

The issue is that I'm often out of money by the time Inpay everything. And I'm left with absolutely nothing some weeks. He goes suborbital and tells me that I need to "save my money." And is reluctant to even peel off a $5 for soap.

Yet, he is constantly finding a new hobby to hyperfocus on. Lately it's been his electric bicycle. Every week there packages with nre parts for it. It's all he talks about.

Back when I got my Christmas bonus, it was his RC car (which he doesn't even look at now) and I had to pay a huge amount of money for parts and sensors etc.

When tax time came around and he found out how much my tax refund was going to be, he pestered me FOR WEEKS over a wildly expensive handgun. As it talked about it every waking moment. Literally wouldn't leave me alone.

So I bought it because he insisted it was the "one thing he wanted." He then went and spent his little bit of pocket money buying ammo and a holster.....it sits in a drawer. It's been fired exactly once. I like guns as much as the next person but we have other guns. I do t understand why he had to have an $1,100 gun if he wouldn't even go to the range with it.

Which leads up back to the Ebike and the present.

I work for a small but very rapidly growing company. I'm not earning a ton right now but I got on with this company at exactly the right time. Generous PTO, pretty much unlimited voluntary overtime, constant recognition for hard work, an amazing office, loads of performance incentives. A lot of focus on employee wellness and work-life balance. At least once per month we get to go home early on Friday with pay and hybrid workspace options. They give away free PTO like it's candy, always handing out bonuses even if they are just a $100.

We've been going through this huge restructuring because we are growing so quickly. I'm pretty good at what I do so I I'm often done with my work early and volunteered to pick up work from other departments because...frankly...we are all collectively drowning in work. I had my annual review yesterday. And I was informed that I'm getting a bonus. Nothing crazy but definitely substantial.

I decided not to tell my husband. We have separate bank accounts. Bills are piling up but I decided I'm going to put that money into my savingings accountto use as my personal pocket money. I just know that the second I mention it, he's going to corner me and pester me with photos of bike parts and God's knows what else nonstop.

I told my aunts and a couple of trusted close friends about it. They all say it's a amazing but I should use the money to get caught up on bills. And "what if there is an emergency?"

He knows I use this app thing that pays you for playing mindless drivel games. I play them while I sit on hold or in the evenings while I'm decompressing. Obviously it doesn't pay retirement money but I do get a little pocket money from it. So I plan to just tell him that "it's y game money" if he happens to notice I have a little "extra" money.

I feel guilty but I know that my life would be a living nightmare until I conceded.

Moving out isn't an option right now. I live in a LCOL area but rent had become so inflated the past 2 years that there is absolutely no way I can afford to get a apartment by myself.

AITAH?

My daughter passed away in a tragic accident when she was 2 years old. At the time my step daughter was still coming around regularly and we had a decent relationship, we weren't close or anything but I tried my best to get along for my husband's sake. She was 13 at the time my daughter passed away and SDs mother came to my husband and I asking if she could have some of my daughters ashes to put in a keepsake for SD. I refused off the bat. Not only is SD not responsible enough for something that important, I didn't like the idea of separating my babies ashes at all. SD has since stopped visiting as much and it's been 3 years since my daughter passed away and SDs mom came to me again asking for "more ashes" because SD lost the keepsake sometime ago and was torn up about it. I was shaking because I was clear about not wanting to separate her ashes and asked her what she meant. She told me that after the initial conversation we had 3 years ago, my husband gave her the ashes anyways to put in the keepsake. I confronted my husband on this and he shrugged it off saying that it wasn't that big of a deal. I packed my bags and took my daughters urn and went to stay at my sister's house. It's been 2 weeks since I left and he's been blowing up my phone with phone calls and texts, some begging and crying and some telling me I'm an ah for blowing this out of proportion. Then today a mutual friend sent me a screenshot of a post made on Facebook from SDs mother saying that I am punishing my husband for doing something nice for his only living child and that I am just bitter. I am so torn up over this... AITAH?

Eta: I should clarify during the initial conversation I never said I wasn't open to having this conversation again at a later time once she was older and more mature. When discussing arrangements for our daughter we agreed mutually that she would be cremated ONLY because neither of us knew where our final resting places would be and we wanted her with us wherever we ended up, not buried just to be buried. We are both from different states than we are currently residing in so neither were sure we wanted to be buried here.

My husband and I have 4 children. We are both 36. We have been together for 12 years.

Last year we moved next door to a family of 8 (6 kids) and our kids get along fantastic. Now that it's summer, the kids have been hanging out from roughly 8am to probably about 8pm. But 2 nights ago my husband got in to the smallest argument with the husband next door. I would not even say it was an argument, actually. It was just bickering over something that shouldn't have even been bickered about (something to do with CDL, as they both have it). It was just a pissing contest, honestly and it stopped nearly as quickly as it began.

My husband has had a hair across his ass ever since. He says he doesn't want us hanging out with them anymore and is saying that he can't wait for us to buy a home next year so we can move out of here and "get the fuck away" from these people. He gets irritated whenever one of the kids knocks on the door. And though I can't be 100% sure, I'm really leaning toward him keeping us away from the house all day yesterday just so we wouldn't hang out with them. Like we spent nearly 6 hours in the vehicle for him to go pick up a quad for the kids, even though the original plan was to surprise them. And when we got home and everyone was outside (shared yard) he kept making a point to tell me he wasn't in a social mood and wanted us all to go inside. I told him he's more than welcome to go inside and no one was stopping him. He decided to stay outside and make small talk but mostly just sat on his phone. We go indoors around 8:30pm.

Well, this morning around 9:30am our youngest (9) asked to go outside because he saw the neighbors boy already outdoors. My husband immediately says "no". When our son asked why, he said "because you don't need to and I don't want to deal with anything today". When our son walked off I asked my husband what he meant by that and he says that he is tired of "our shit constantly being broken" (someone popped our basketball and broke our frisbee) and that he wants the kids to stay inside and away from the kids next door for a few days. I told him I wasn't forcing the kids to stay inside for a few days just because he has a hair across his ass and I'm not going to force the kids to live up to his comfort levels. He says I'm wrong in not backing him. But this man has zero issues with it until the other husband and him got in to it 2 days ago and I'm not punishing the kids for their dad's acting like children. AITA?

I (26F) have an older brother, Jake (30M), who recently got married. Growing up, we were close, but as we got older, we drifted apart. Jake has always been a bit more conservative, while I've always been more into fashion and expressing myself. I'm engaged to my fiance Jason (32M) who loves to buy me new dresses and loves to make me feel beautiful.

So, a few months ago, Jake and his fiancée, Emily (26F), sent out wedding invitations. I was super excited and went all out to find the perfect dress and the dress code was formal eveningwear. Jason said he had been saving a dress for our engagement party, but decided that this was a nice occasion to wear it because he found something else for our party. It wasn't white or anything; it was a deep emerald green with a slit that came up to my mid-thigh and off-the-shoulder sleeves.

The day of the wedding, I arrived early to help out and mingle with family. Everything was going fine until Jake pulled me aside and told me that my dress was too flashy and that I was drawing too much attention. I was shocked. He said it was Emily's special day and I was stealing the spotlight.

I offered to tone down my makeup or wear a shawl over the dress, but he was adamant. He said that unless I could find something else to wear, I couldn't stay. I didn't have anything else with me, so I left in tears. My fiance wasn't invited and I wasn't extended a plus one.

Fast forward a few weeks, Jake and Emily went on their honeymoon, and when they got back, they asked me where my gift was. I told them that because I wasn't at their wedding I wasn't giving them a gift. Jake called me selfish and said I was punishing him for something that was already over and done with. My parents are also on his side, saying I should just let it go and give my brother something off the registry. AITA?

Link to the dress:

I've been with my husband for 8 years and his adoptive mother (adopted him when he was 16) has always been really weird with him. Emotional (adoptive) incest comes to mind. He does not reciprocate and typically ignores her to a point where she shuts down. But it got significantly worse when I got pregnant and we found I was having a girl. He went essentially no contact with his mother. Only answered her 80+ calls maybe once a week and limited his contact to only seeing her roughly once a month. He claimed it was because he had more important things to concern himself with (I was high risk pregnant) but I truly feel it had to do with her weirdness. (Ie: trying to basically force him in to allowing her to give him massages, tried kissing him on the mouth when she was leaving, pulled his head in to her cleavage one time when hugging him, smacked his ass and said "I'm just razzing you", etc).

Anyways, our daughter is 11 months old now. My MIL has zero interest in the baby when she comes here but quite literally follows my husband around the house the entire time she's here (even follows him to the bathroom and stands awkwardly outside the door waiting for him). Starting buying him matching mom and son jewelry or has a canvas painted of her, him and the baby (paid money to have it customized, as she's held the baby one single time when the baby was a week old so there's no pictures of them together). But the thing that's really pissing me off is she keeps telling everyone that my daughter looks just like her. More weird is the fact that she says "she's a spitting image of me and my baby boy" (talking about my husband, who quite literally looks absolutely nothing like her).

Now, it's important to note all of our appearances here. My husband is 6'4", very tan, jet black hair and green eyes. My MIL is 5'5", bleach blonde hair, pale as all hell and brown eyes. I'm 5'7", tan, natural red hair and blue eyes. Our daughter? Tan, blue eyes and red hair. She looks identical to my baby pictures. The only resemblance she has to her dad is her hands, feet and mouth. And as I said, my husband looks nothing like his adoptive mother. So we are sitting at an event yesterday and my MIL was talking to my husband about how "weird" it is that my baby looks just like her and says "it's almost like me and you had a baby together" and starts laughing. I just kind of looked at her and said "do I really need to remind you that my husband is adopted and looks absolutely nothing like you? It's incredibly weird to me that you keep trying to claim my daughter looks just like you when technically speaking, you guys aren't even related. She looks just like me. She looks nothing like you." MILs face went beet red and she starts berating me in public for trying to humiliate her and diminish her relationship with her son by being ignorant. I told her I'm not trying to diminish anything but claiming my daughter looks anything like her is a far stretch from the truth, because again, they aren't even related by blood and I doubled down and said she's weird as fuck for saying that it looks like her and her adoptive son had a child together and that it feels a lot like she's being suggestive. She just stood up and left. My husband didn't even act phased. Literally asked me if I wanted a drink and went to get one and then acted like nothing happened. But his adoptive siblings are blowing him up, calling me a "disgusting psycho".

They're always yelling and they seem mad at you if you do something wrong.

Is it just being jaded from working with the public?

My beautiful wife and I recently had a baby boy and during her pregnancy she suffered from acne. She has always had great skin, so it was totally new to her and it was devastating to her self esteem. She was given some prescription cream from her dermatologist and it worked for a little while and then stopped working. I know to some people this might not be a big deal, but she is very insecure about her looks (I don't know why) and she felt terrible.

Well I recently found out that my sisters were switching the prescription cream with regular moisturizer. I've never been so angry with them in my life. I exploded. My mom had them apologize and told them they needed to pay for all of the cream they threw away. They are so spoiled that their response was ok and then sticking their hand out to our mom. She said she wasn't paying and they needed to figure it out.

My mom was serious they needed to pay but she also didn't seem ok with them getting jobs (she has this attitude that she has worked too hard for her daughters to have some shitty job at the mall) I guess she was expecting them to sell something or maybe babysit. Well they recently came up with the money. I took it of course, but I'm still not ready to move on with them.

However as they were leaving I heard this exchange. My mom asked where they got it and they both looked at her fiance and burst out laughing. My mom looked at him and he was like well you just said you wouldn't give it to them. you never said I couldn't. I saw red. I confronted him immediately and he told me what he does with his money isn't my business.

I said while technically that is true I will never look at him the same again. I don't want him in my house and I'm not going to their wedding. Now my mom is calling me ridiculous and saying they are a packaged deal, so don't expect her to come around either. I feel slightly bad because I know what a big deal a wedding is

I'm female and in my 30s. He beat her to death.