Husband Asks If He's Wrong For Crying After Baby's Gender Reveal
His wife is calling him selfish, but he argues that there is a valid reason behind his disappointment.
Rorygez Fresh / Krakenimages.com / Shutterstock After a man learned that his first child would be the opposite gender of the one he had hoped for, he reacted emotionally. His wife didn't appreciate his response and thought he was being selfish.
Now, the man is seeking the advice of others on how he should explain to his wife why he was so disappointed.
The father-to-be burst into tears after learning that he and his wife were having a baby boy.
Sharing his story to the AITA subreddit, the 30-year-old man revealed that he and his 31-year-old wife are expecting their first child. To celebrate, they decided to have a small gender reveal gathering with their close family members.
While the man claimed that his wife remained neutral when it came to what gender she was hoping for, he was secretly rooting for a girl. So, when one of their family members made the formal announcement that the couple was having a boy, the man was heartbroken.
Photo: Natalia Bostan
“I didn't want to ruin the day though so I just tried to act normal and celebrate with my wife and the family,” he wrote. “Later on after everyone had left, I was alone in our room whilst my wife was downstairs. I was sitting on the bed and just started crying.”
The man admitted that he was “panicking” over the idea of having a son.
He revealed that he had a difficult relationship with his own father growing up, and believed that having a daughter would be less stressful for him.
“I really wanted a daughter because my dad was really [terrible] to me and he messed me up a lot,” the man wrote. “I'm scared that I will do the same to my son.”
While he did not go into specific details about how his father mistreated him, his challenging upbringing haunted him for years and was the reason that he initially did not want to have children.
Eventually, the man’s wife came upstairs to discover him crying over the fact that they were having a son. He attempted to explain his feelings the best he could without having to bring up his father since he claimed that his wife was unaware of the agonizing relationship between the two. However, since his wife did not know the circumstances of the man’s upbringing, she believed that he was acting unreasonably since their baby was not the gender he hoped it would be.
“She told me that I was selfish and called me a few other things,” the man wrote. “Then she told me to sleep on the couch.”
The man claimed that since the gender reveal and his wife discovering him crying over having a son, their relationship has not been the same. He asked other Redditors if he was in the wrong for his reaction.
While many people sympathized with the man’s traumatizing upbringing, they believed it was unfair to project it onto his unborn son.
“You won't be like your dad. You are literally crying, worried that you will hurt this kid and the kid isn't even here yet,” one Redditor commented. “You are 100% in control of how you parent your kid, and if you do it with love, patience, and understanding with a goal of mutual respect, you will be FINE.”
“Being this invested in the gender of your child is always toxic, regardless of the reason,” another user wrote.
Others encouraged the man to open up to his wife about his childhood so she could empathize more with where exactly he was coming from.
“All your wife can see here is, ‘I'm really upset because I wanted my baby to have [a different gender].’ Because that's all you're letting her see,” one user pointed out. “I'm betting she would be way more understanding if she could hear, ‘I'm upset because my father was terrible to me, I went through terrible things, and I love our son so much that I don't want to do that to him and I'm so afraid.’”
Others believed that he should seek counseling before his son’s arrival to work through his issues.
No parent is obligated to have the same relationship dynamics with their child as they did with their own parents. When you have a child, it is up to you how you will form a parent-child relationship with them. Even if the man’s father treated him just right, he may very well have been upset to learn that his baby’s gender was the opposite of the one he was hoping for.
Gender disappointment is a feeling that many expectant parents can experience for a variety of reasons.
Even if their baby is perfectly healthy, and they are told that is all that should matter, it is completely valid to feel grief over the life you envisioned with your future son or daughter that will not happen.
Allow yourself time to cry, scream, and process your emotions before your baby’s arrival.
But just know, it doesn't mean you won't love your child or the feeling will last forever.
Photo: Anna Kraynova / Shutterstock
Many parents who were initially saddened upon learning their baby’s gender report that their feelings completely transformed once their child was born. Some even admitted they could not imagine life with a baby of the gender they had initially hoped for.
We can pretty much guarantee that once the man meets his son for the first time, all of his doubts will fade away and he will feel nothing but love for him.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.