A couple happily expecting their first child is torn apart when the husband’s mother insists he leave his wife because they are having a girl, breaking a longstanding family tradition of firstborn sons. The mother-in-law accuses the wife of manipulating her husband into conceiving a girl, and the husband ultimately cuts off all contact with his wife, leaving her devastated and contemplating a fresh start far away from her former life.
Source: Reddit
Okay to start me (27F) and my husband (28M) have been married for 4 years. His parents (his mother specifically) and I have never had any problems, but we’ve never quite meshed or seen eye to eye. We’ve always got along and been civil.
Our future family has been the talk for years. My husband will be the last of his siblings to have children, all of his siblings have at least one. It’s been a running joke in the family that if our first happens to be a girl she won’t be accepted because everyone else had a boy for a firstborn. The joke has never sat quite right with me, but I’ve laughed it off because I don’t want to start anything, and maybe I’m just being sensitive.
Fast forward to a few months ago when we started trying. It took about 3 months for me to get pregnant, we tracked my cycle and had scheduled sex for the best chance. Infertility runs in my family, and my husband and I agreed on a big family, so I’ve been worried about starting a family so late in the game. When I did get pregnant, we were overjoyed. We had all the typical couple conversations that come with having a baby, the excitement, names, nursery themes, gender predictions, etc. He talked about wanting a son first so he could be the big, strong leader for all his younger siblings and carry on the family name (a very big deal to him, instilled by his parents). I expressed my desire to have a little girl I could dress up and match with. It became a playful banter. He’d refer to the baby as our son, and I would call the baby our daughter.
About a week before our gender scan, I searched up all the old wives’ tales and made us a chart we could fill out together to see who would hypothetically win our little bet. It included the ring test, Chinese horoscope, heartbeat, cravings, etc. The results ended up being about 50/50 in the end which made us even more excited to find out for certain at our scan.
The following week, we went to our appointment and discovered that our baby was a girl!! We were both extremely excited. Hubby was disappointed to lose but told me he was overjoyed to be raising a daughter by my side. That night, we called our families to share the news. After calling his family, his mother asked to speak to him privately. I went to bed alone as their conversation carried on for well over an hour.
The following morning, I woke up alone. There was a note on my husband’s nightstand explaining that someone would be by the house to pick up his belongings later this evening. I immediately tried to call him, only to realize he had blocked my number. I then tried his mom.
His mother picked up on the first ring. Before I had the chance to get a word in she started chewing me out calling me a manipulative bi***h. I asked her what I had done and she told me I’d ruined her sons reputation with my inexcusable behaviors and tendencies. I let her finish her rant before kindly asking her what the f**k she was taking about. She told me the divorce papers were already written up and I wouldn’t have the chance to tear apart the family like I had been intending to do all this time. I again, slightly less kindly this time, asked her what the f**k she was talking about. To which she told me my husband would be leaving me because our child is a girl.
I. Was. Gobsmacked. I explained to her that it takes two to tango and there’s no way to truly decide the gender of the baby and if her or her son had a problem with the gender it was his fault as it’s his chromosome that determines the gender, but she had proof that I’d “handpicked” to have a girl. Like I said before we used a calendar to determine which days would be best for sex. Well, MIL accused me of forcing him to ‘do it’ with me on the specific day which the Chinese horoscope would point to girl. She also interrogated me on the sex position we used to conceive the baby which I gave her a piece of my mind told her that was none of her business but she smugly informed me my husband had already told her and the position we used makes it 60% more likely to have a girl that way. (If anyones currently trying for a girl specifically doing cowgirl sometime in the middle of February should do the trick every time apparently).
She finished off by telling me that my clear preference for my family name was disgusting and she was glad to finally be rid of me and my manipulative ways before hanging up.
I’ve had no contact with my husband since and it’s been over a month. He’s blocked me on everything. I can’t help but feel that this hasn’t all been his choice, but then again he’s a grown a** adult so I can’t imagine his mother controlling him like that. I’ve been staying with my sister since it all went down, she says I can stay as long as I need but I’m thinking I want to get my own place, maybe even a few states away. What do I do? Should I pack up and move on? Should I continue trying to contact my husband? Any advice would be appreciated.
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