Husband says he's unsure about fatherhood and pregnant wife walks out on him without hesitation

Pregnancy is a transformative time, and having a supportive partner can make all the difference for an expectant mother. But when that support isn’t there, it can be devastating. For one 31-year-old woman, u/sweetiebeenie on Reddit, the lack of support from her husband led to a difficult decision: ending their marriage. Six months into her pregnancy, she found herself confronting her husband’s wavering commitment to fatherhood. Realizing she wasn’t a priority for him, she made the painful choice to walk away.

The soon-to-be mother has already left the home she shared with her husband and is staying at a friend’s place. She has also taken steps toward ending the marriage, arranging with a lawyer to file for divorce. “We’ve been together for about eight years. For the first couple of years, I honestly thought I’d hit the jackpot—he was attentive, thoughtful and supportive, or so I thought. But as time went on, he slowly became more and more absent,” her post read.

A few years into their marriage, her husband began prioritizing his friends and family over her in “every possible way.” She explained that he had always stayed close with his high school friends. “They hang out constantly, and he’s made it clear that they come first, even when it interferes with our life together. We’d have plans, and he’d cancel last minute because they ‘needed’ him,” the woman wrote. She added that he often dismissed her to attend to an “urgent” video game session or to “help out” with vague tasks.

At first, she tried to overlook her husband’s behavior, but over time, it became clear she was always playing second fiddle in their relationship. To make matters worse, her mother-in-law is best described as a “difficult” person. Their relationship never took off after the mother-in-law deemed her “not good enough” for her son at their engagement party. To the wife’s surprise, her partner did nothing to address the issue, merely laughing off the tension. “At our wedding, my mother-in-law ‘accidentally’ got into a fight with me over a small detail about our ceremony and has constantly undermined me since then,” the daughter-in-law added. The final straw came when her husband recently sat her down to tell her he was “not sure about the responsibility of a baby.” In response, she reminded him that it was a little late for second thoughts, which made him defensive, eventually leading him to insist that he was now convinced “this was the right time.”

Her partner admitted that he had discussed his doubts with his friends, and they all agreed he was “just being honest.” “That’s when I realized that in his mind, their opinion mattered more than his family, more than us,” the woman added. A week later, when she experienced a medical emergency, he was once again absent, leaving her to manage on her own. “That night, I realized I couldn’t rely on him, and I didn’t want my child growing up in an environment where their father wasn’t present and prioritized everyone else over them. I’m ready to build a life on my own for me and my baby, even if it hurts like hell,” the post concluded, sparking a wave of reactions.

u/bombsquad_g20 commented, “If he thinks you’re overreacting, just remind him that child support isn’t a suggestion—it’s more like a mandatory subscription service he signed up for.” “A society where playing video games and getting ‘urgent’ assistance from pals come before your own family? Yes, as millennials, we can certainly identify with it. I'm sorry you had to go through this, but you deserve praise for defending your child,” u/soleyypoon_cely added.