Father-to-Be Wants To Know If He’s Wrong For Not Faking Joy At Gender Reveal Party

Sep 28, 2021 by apost team

Parenthood is full of exciting life-changing experiences, but it also comes with plenty of hardships and challenges. Everyone’s journey to parenthood is different, with some people dreaming of becoming a mother or father for years and years while others may struggle to finally start their family later in life. On the other hand, there are also people who don’t want to have children at all and instead opt for a child-free life.

Accidents are unpredictable and are bound to happen every now and then. A father-to-be was completely shocked when he found out that his wife was pregnant. They had originally planned to not have any children at all, so they were very surprised to find out that they were in fact going to become parents.

The couple had even taken precautions to prevent this from happening, but the wife still somehow ended up getting pregnant. The duo decided to go through with having the baby, but the husband was not thrilled in the slightest about his upcoming journey into fatherhood.

When it finally came time to have the gender reveal party, the couple’s family was over the moon to celebrate the baby. However, the dad-to-be was still not excited about becoming a father and having a child, and let his true emotions show. This upset his wife and resulted in the two of them getting into an argument. On Sept. 21, 2021, the dad-to-be went to Reddit to ask for some advice on how to fix the situation and what he should do moving forward.

At the beginning of his Reddit post, the original poster (OP) explained that his wife was currently seven months pregnant. “It came as a complete surprise, as my wife had been taking birth control regularly,” OP said. “We had originally planned to not have any kids, but my wife changed her mind after her first ultrasound.” Since they had planned on not having kids, the couple regularly used multiple forms of birth control, and the husband even tried to get a vasectomy but was denied by his doctor. However, not everything always goes exactly as planned.

OP wasn’t that happy about becoming a parent, but he still respected his wife’s decision to follow through with the pregnancy and wasn’t going to force her to do anything she didn’t want to do. “We had a gender reveal party late because of issues with the pandemic but we finally got around to it,” OP explained. It was clear that OP had still not changed his mind about wanting to have kids and still wasn’t excited about his journey to fatherhood; however, he went along with throwing the gender reveal party and participated in the festivities.

“Once the gender reveal happened everyone including my wife was ecstatic,” OP said. “She went to go hug me and I hugged her back, just not with the same energy.” His wife was concerned, but continued to make her rounds to the rest of their friends and family members to continue celebrating. Her happiness faded once the party ended, and the couple ended up getting into a heated argument.

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“(She) said I embarrassed her in front of her family and the least I could’ve done was pretended I cared,” OP said. “I told her I didn’t really see a point in throwing a party just because of the gender but she wanted to do it so I agreed. She said that she understood that I didn’t really want to have a baby but that since they were almost here that I should probably lose the attitude already.”

OP didn’t let up. “I responded saying that since she knew I didn’t want the baby, she shouldn’t be surprised I wasn’t enjoying the baby shower,” he said. However, his wife had hoped that he would’ve gotten more excited about having a baby by participating in the gender reveal party. Sadly, she was wrong. OP continued, “I told her that I wasn’t going to apologize for simply not showing any emotion, and that she needed to give me time to adjust, especially with a kid on the way.”

The majority of Reddit users agreed that OP was not wrong for refusing to fake excitement at the party, but they also made sure to give him some sound advice. The top rated comment stated: “I think your world is changing dramatically in a way which you weren’t prepared for, and that therapy is almost definitely required. It’s not wrong to be freaked out, but you’ve decided to go ahead with this, and now you need to find a way to come to terms with it — ideally before the kid arrives, so you can parent your child in the fullest and best way possible.”

Do you think this dad-to-be should start changing his attitude about having a child? Or is he right to still not be excited? Let us know, and be sure to pass this along to your family members and friends to find out what they think, too.