Giving birth to a new child is a difficult experience. Handling a newborn’s sleep pattern is exhausting enough for any adult, but when you add more kids into the mix, as well as the everyday duties of work and survival. This is to suggest that disagreement is pretty typical at such a high-stress period. One father wondered if he was wrong to not take his elder girls in during his newborn’s first week. Read the story and share your views.
Source: Reddit
My ex-wife (Emma) and my wife (Lara) were pregnant around the same time. Lara was about 10 weeks ahead of Emma. In November, Lara gave birth to our son a few days after his due date.
Three days after he and Lara came home, I received a panicked call from my SIL asking if I could take my daughters (9F twins) as Emma had been taken to hospital the night before and was being taken for a c-section.
SIL and my brother had taken the girls in overnight but weren’t able to take them for long due to lack of space as they have 4 children themselves.
SIL said that Emma was looking at a minimum of 5 days in the hospital and then the baby would need to stay in hospital for a while. The baby came home just before Christmas.
I told my SIL that we couldn’t take the girls because we had just had our son and we were wanting to spend the time just bonding as a family of three. SIL angrily told me that having my new son didn’t cancel out the fact I already had two daughters.
I apologized and told her that I couldn’t take them in right now but I would send her some money to help out while they have the girls.
If we hadn’t just brought him home, I would have taken the girls in but Lara and I had already decided that we didn’t want any guests for the first few weeks and I had told Emma this.
While Emma was in the hospital, the girls stayed with SIL and my brother another night before they went to stay with Emma’s husband’s parents.
While the baby was in the hospital, because Emma and her husband were spending most of their time at the hospital, they were cared for a lot by Emma’s in-laws or my SIL and brother.
After a week or so, Lara and I offered to take the girls but they told us they didn’t want to stay because we were more focused on our son. It did feel like they were just parroting what they had heard from the adults around them.
Though admittedly with the sleepless nights I did forget some things such as the video call with the girls.
After the baby came home and everything settled down with Emma, she sent me a long email in the middle of the night explaining that she was disappointed in my actions.
She thought that I would see this is a medical emergency and I wouldn’t need to be asked to take them in.
I told her that we had just had a son and I had to think about his needs as well, especially when there were plenty of people around them to care for them.
Emma’s told me that any communication is to now go through the lawyer because she’s fed up with dealing with me and is going to take me to court to get full custody instead of 50/50.
I didn’t think it was unreasonable to not take them in given we had just had a baby. Lara wants me to fix it as we can’t afford my child maintenance more than doubling if Emma gets full custody. Am I A Jerk for not taking my daughters in?
Edit: My SIL and brother live in a small three-bedroom house, having my daughters there as well meant that they were struggling more than usual for space. I don’t blame them for trying for not being able to take them full time
They are saving up for a bigger house. Don’t get me wrong, I love my daughters. I cherish the time I get with them, if I lost custody I know Emma wouldn’t allow me to get to see them.
She had wanted full custody when we divorced, but I fought for 50/50. She was angry about the divorce.
Here are a few comments on the story where it was originally posted:
