Obvious-Mistake-7801 I (36F) am a neurologist and I absolutely love my patients and my job. I believe there is no greater honor in life than being able to help others. The road to my medical degree was not easy, and it was paved with many rejections. I was a troubled teen in high school and I didn’t get accepted into any colleges my senior year. I had to work my way up starting with remedial classes at my local community college. When I finally got into medical school at 26 I was absolutely thrilled.

I met my husband (37M) in my third year of medical school, we have been married for four years now. My husband works in marketing, and I make three times his salary. From the beginning of our relationship, I was very upfront that I was unsure about having biological children. My dream was always to adopt from foster care and my husband seemingly understood this.

However, after his be friend had a baby boy last year, he began to really press me on having children. I was initially very against this idea because I was just beginning my career, I wanted to wait a few more years before revisiting the topic of children. In August of last year I found out I was unexpectedly pregnant due to a condom breaking during sex.

I was initially considering an abortion, but after many heartfelt conversations with my husband, we decided to keep the baby, and he would quit his job and stay home until our daughter was old enough to start preschool.

There were several factors that went into our decision to have him stay home with our daughter:

-I make significantly more money than him, so financially it just made more sense.

-I am in the first few years of my career as an attending physician. After 4 years of med school and a 4 year residency, I am just starting to practice on my own, whereas my husband has been in his career for 15 years.

-I was very clear i had absolutely ZERO desire to stay home and be a housewife. I respect stay at home mothers but my work is my life, and I would go crazy at home all day. This just isn’t a lifestyle I want whatsoever.

-Finally, I am not comfortable putting my child in daycare until she is old enough to express herself verbally. As a victim of a molestation when I was young, I just do not trust people enough to leave my daughter in the hands of strangers when she would be unable to report abuse/neglect.

Our daughter is 9 weeks old today and I am preparing to return to my practice in a few weeks. This weekend, I left my husband alone with our daughter while I attended a medical conference out of state. The conference was amazing but when I returned home, my husband began acting weird.

Today when our daughter was napping, I pressed him to tell me what was wrong. He absolutely broke down and said he doesn’t think he can do this. He expressed how trapped, alone and overwhelmed he felt all weekend. He now wants me to extend my maternity leave and is talking about trying to get his job back. This made me freak out, and I asked “Well what will we do with our daughter now?!” He responded by suggesting I leave my practice and work from home. I said absolutely not, and he suggested daycare.

At this point I just lost my shit and screamed “If i knew you were going to back out of your promise to take care of our daughter, I would have NEVER had your child”.

I know I completely overreacted and I would never trade our daughter for anything, I love her so much. But I am so upset with my husband and I’m not sure how to move forward at this point.

(Aug 12 2024, 7:07 PM)vascular_apathy Who wants to bet the condom breaking wasn't an accident on the husband's part :/ baby-trapping should be illegal with a strict, strict punishment

Quote:However, after his be friend had a baby boy last year, he began to really press me on having children.