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Losing a baby causes pain that resonates throughout an entire family - we can't imagine how hard it must be to share this news with loved ones.
So many parents in our online support community have experienced this heartbreak and our hearts go out to each and every person who has lost a child. When you announce your pregnancy, it opens a world of excitement and possibilities for your family members - they plan gifts, trips, holidays, sleep overs, and a whole other list of ways to make precious memories to cherish. This must make it so difficult to break the news of a stillbirth to a loved one who is eagerly anticipating meeting your little one - alongside your own emotional agony, you know that your family will be devastated, but the news needs to be broken somehow.
One bereaved mum has taken to the Reddit AITA (Am I The Asshole) board to ask if she's in the wrong for telling her husband's family that they had a stillbirth at six months, after her husband avoided breaking the news for three weeks.
Read the post below...
"Mid-to-late last month I (27f) delivered a stillborn. After she was delivered the doctor was easily able to find out that there had been an issue with the cord and she simply wasn't getting what she needed to survive, so she died in the womb. It was no ones fault and could not have been helped or prevented, just a terrible accident.
I was 6 months pregnant so everyone knew we were expecting. My husband (29m) has a huge family, and everyone is super close and talk everyday and most of them live together.
I told my family what happened immediately, but my husband asked to tell his family on his own. I said okay, I understand he needs some time with this and I understand he lost as much as I did.
The problem came up this morning. I reminded him every 2-3 days that he really needed to tell his family. I offered to do it for him more times than I can count. He would occasionally make excuses where he'd say he needed to "do the dishes" or "wash the car" and didnt have time to call them, so I would do whatever excuse he was using so he had time, just to come back and he still had not done it. I finally told him yesterday that if he would tell them then I would do it this morning, and I followed through. It had been over 3 weeks since she died at this point. In this time I had missed dozens of calls and texts from his family asking how we were/how the baby was/if we wanted to come over for dinner/that they bought us a pack of diapers because Costco had a sale. I had ignored every single member of his family because he kept telling me he would "get around to it". I've honestly barely seen my husband over these past few weeks. He goes to either our guest room or office and just sits on his phone. I've left him alone and given him space, but I've also been doing all of the funeral arrangements, paperwork, handling what we need for our work LOA's, handling the insurance and taking care of our house and other kids all on my own.
Anyways, he was absolutely shocked that I actually did it, I'm not sure why. He's been locking in our spare room all morning now texting me all kinds of nasty things that I'm ignoring, and telling me that I ruined his relationship with his family now and accusing me of not loving or caring about our dead daughter.
I understand my husband is grieving, and I feel awful that he's having a hard time, but dodging texts and calls from 20 people for weeks and pretending like everything was fine has been exhausting. It feels like he's trying to ignore that it ever happened and while I'll never forget our daughter we have to move on with our lives.
I think I definitely crossed a boundary, but I also think I was in the right to. So, AITA?
Cliché edit to add an update: Thank you to everyone who's commented because even if you think I'm wrong you've had kind words and I didn't even realize I needed them. I haven't replied to anyone individually but I'm reading every single comment that comes through.
Just to clarify, I never lied to anyone, I just literally ignored them. I got texts and calls every day that I just blocked because I don't even know what I would say if I had talked to them, and I certainly wouldn't have lied about THIS. A lot of you are saying talk to my husband and I agree 100%, I know he's in denial and not able to accept this, so I have to be really careful or else he's going to clam up again and shut me out. I realize now that nagging him to call people was probably a bad move since he's still trying to process. This is all very frustrating because I won't have any answers or solutions until he's ready. I am sorry I told his family because I took away a moment he wanted to have with them, but while I can buy him some time I cannot make the world stop for him.
I have 0 worries about our marriage. Next month will be our 10 year wedding anniversary, and we've had a really solid and really excellent and really understanding and resilient marriage up until this point. I have a therapist and have seen her monthly for 5 years. He has refused in the past but I'll bring up therapy for him again when I feel like it's safe to do so.
Lastly, I am okay. My body is strong and I feel like I'm handling things appropriately. Don't get me wrong, I was a fucking MESS for a little while. Our other children were staying with my parents and I was going between cleaning parts of my house I've literally never touched or violently sobbing. There was one night I don't even recall, like I blacked out and sat on the floor and cried for honest to God at least 6 hours. It went from night to morning and I didn't even know someone could sit in the dark and cry that long. Getting the kids back and being close with them helped me so much."
Find the original post here on Reddit.
What was the general consensus?
The bereaved mum was voted NTA by thousands of very sympathetic Reddit readers. Many jumped to the defence of the dad by sharing their opinion that he is perhaps dealing with his pain differently and finding it intensely hard to tell his family as by saying it, he's having to face the reality that his baby girl passed away. The emotional turmoil of bereaved dads is sadly still often overlooked, but is his wife wrong for breaking the news to stop the continued baby talk from her in-laws?
The top rated comment was;
"NTA. It sounds like he really hasn't been there for you at all and you have been carrying the entire burden. Additionally, you should be recovering from childbirth. Has he been taking care of you at all?
You did NOT cross a boundary. One, you have the right to share your loss with whomever you choose and two, again, he has not only left all of the burden on you and has not let you grieve or recover, he also left you to play pretend for weeks so he could lock himself in a room or "do the dishes." Honestly you should have done it weeks ago. Your recovering and grieving process has been stalled or interrupted for weeks now."
Many other comments conceded that, like the top comment pointed out, whilst the dad is clearly in deep emotional pain after losing a baby, he's not being supportive of his wife and by not telling his family, her grieving process can't start properly.
Our verdict...
There are no 'winners' of this argument - we think neither parent is the 'asshole'. We don't think that the poster was inherently wrong for sharing the news after three weeks of her husband's sustained inability to admit their loss, and his reaction has been incredibly hurtful, but it's easy to understand that this comes from the trauma of losing their baby. However, he needs to meet her in the middle to move forward, and some professional therapeutic input could be helpful. His struggle to handle and process the situation has had a knock-on detrimental impact on his wife, who felt that she had no choice other than to share the news to stop the continued messages about baby items, which would be incredibly triggering after a stillbirth.
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