Pregnant Woman's Husband and Father-in-Law Are Convinced She Will Die in Childbirth

A ton of arguments arise between husbands and wives during pregnancy, and most of them have to do with the husband not understanding that his wife is basically performing an extreme sport all day every day. But this story is different, weirder, more disturbing. This "Am I the A-hole?" post feels like the beginning of a horror movie. Let's get into it. 

A woman whose handle is morbidmommy11 explains that she and her husband are expecting their first child. She knew this would be a sensitive experience for her husband since his own mother died while giving birth to him. But they consulted a marriage counselor at the beginning, and he claims he's been seeing his own therapist twice a month since then. 

But she has reason to believe he's either lying about going to therapy or hasn't been talking through "the big issue" while he's there. She writes that her husband and father-in-law, who's a huge part of their lives, "are COMPLETELY convinced" that she's going to die in childbirth. They haven't said it outright, but they're acting in such a way that's making her extremely stressed out and uncomfortable, and I don't blame her. 

The behavior started with her husband telling her to make sure her life insurance is up to date and asking her to meet with a lawyer to draft a will. She complied, thinking he was being a bit unreasonable but that it might make him feel better. Evidently, it didn't. 

She writes, "When [my] husband asked me to go through all of my possessions and 'inventory' what I wanted to be saved for the baby vs. what I would want to be returned to my family in the event of my death, I put my foot down and said absolutely not. Too morbid. No way." In a subsequent comment, she writes that he requested she record videos of herself for the baby telling the baby about herself and explaining how happy she is to be having the baby. This just gave me chills! It seems like he wants her to die, like he's pruning his life to resemble a tragic movie. 

Her FIL isn't helping. He told her she was making things "difficult" for her husband in the event that he's soon widowed with a newborn baby. "I'm just gonna add here that I've had a completely complication-free pregnancy and have NO REASON to think I will die screaming in the coming weeks," she writes. 

She says her FIL's identity has always been that of the "amazing single dad," and  "it seems like he's looking forward to being able to guide my husband through what he went through." She is convinced that he wants her to die. He. Wants. Her. To. Die. And he's doing everything he can to convince his son of the same. It's beyond frightening. 

She wants her FIL gone from her life forever at this point, and she definitely doesn't want him in the delivery room, especially since he seems to think he has a say in whether or not she gets an epidural. She believes he's so demanding that if he were in the delivery room, he'd get what he wants. And what he wants, if you'll remember, seems to be her death. 

Meanwhile, her husband seems to be 100 percent convinced she'll be dead soon. "Every minute with him is morbid, stressful, and a reminder that our marriage seems to be crumbling," she writes. She's decided she doesn't want him in the room while she's giving birth, and her therapist agrees, but there's still some nagging part of her that feels like she owes it to her husband to let him witness their child being born.

Girl, if I were you, I wouldn't let him touch me with a 10-foot pole...maybe ever again. The fact that her husband and FIL are so convinced she will die and are acting so strangely makes me suspicious that they will do whatever it takes to get the outcome they desire. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if one or both of them killed her! Even if she lives through the birth of their baby! If I were her, I would be fearing for my life, not because I was pregnant, but because I was afraid of my own husband. 

"Morbid mommy" got some good advice about how to deal with this in the comments. Not only do people think she's absolutely justified in banning them from the delivery room, they think she should take it further. Many insisted she and her husband return to therapy together and talk through this. Sure, that's a good idea. But the birth is weeks away, her husband thinks she will be dead, and her FIL is practically doing all he can to make it happen. Therapy isn't going to do enough in that timeframe.

Someone brought up the very solid point that, if something were to happen in the delivery room and she were in danger, her husband is in no frame of mind to make a decision based on, oh, I don't know, saving her life. They suggest that she get some sort of power of attorney to give someone other than her husband the right to make medical decisions while she's in delivery. "I wouldn't trust him to make decisions in OP's best interest if OP is unconscious," they wrote. 

It's absolutely insane that she has to think about this. It's unclear whether this issue has plagued her husband their whole relationship or whether the trouble started when she got pregnant. Either way, it's clear her husband doesn't value her life the way he should. "If I was in that situation," one commenter wrote, "that would be an immediate reason for divorce. Like, when you two planned to have kids, he was okay with thinking you're going to essentially 'commit suicide' and be a baby carrier for him? He was okay with being willingly responsible for your death, in his mind? It's just very disturbing."

"I'm the LAST person to ever tell someone to panic and assume they're unsafe, but holy f--k I do not think OP is safe," someone else wrote. But OP's either exaggerating the level of danger she's in or not getting it at all because after a series of comments wondering why a FIL would ever be in the delivery room (a valid question), she explains that she would prefer her own mother to be there but her "husband said that that's not fair, as we both need a support person." First of all, noooooo! Is he the one pushing a baby out of him? No! She gets to decide who sees her in that state and who doesn't. Period. No FIL should ever be in the delivery room unless the person giving birth expressly wants him there. 

Second of all, she then writes, "I do get that. But FIL is like...actively planning for my death. I don't want that vibe in the delivery room." Yeah, I would say you definitely don't want that vibe. But it's way worse than that at this point. In another response to a comment, OP writes that in their argument about the epidural, FIL said to her, "'The only important part of delivery is a healthy baby,' that medical intervention for the mother is inherently bad for the baby," which is not true!! When she defended herself, saying her comfort was important, he said, "Your comfort in this process is irrelevant."

Psychotic. I don't know about you, but I'm at the point where I'm questioning what happened to FIL's wife in the delivery room. Maybe it was his fault the whole time. Even if I'm getting away from myself, this story is horrifying. I can't imagine how difficult her FIL is going to make her life after she lives through the birth and has a perfectly normal recovery. He's going to resent her for the rest of her life (if he lets her live it!!!) for not giving her husband the same experience he had. These people are so broken, and I fear for her — one of the top causes of death for pregnant women in the U.S. is homicide. She needs to get out and save herself and her child from these dangerous men.