A man has sparked outrage online after revealing he made his wife babysit her own children at their wedding because he refused to hire a babysitter. The groom shared the incident on the popular Reddit forum “Am I The A**hole,” and now social media is calling him selfish and controlling.
In a viral post shared to Reddit on Sunday, the man – who goes by the username u/Wide-Suggestion-6647 – asked the Reddit forum whether he was in the wrong for telling his wife “it’s her fault she didn’t have fun in our wedding”.
The original poster (OP) explained that he met his wife two years ago while she was pregnant with her ex-boyfriend’s child. After the two began dating, she became pregnant again with his child, who is now six months old. He proposed to her during the pregnancy and started planning their wedding straight away.
“While planning the wedding I made it clear how I’d like a kid free wedding but my wife was against it because she loves the vibes kids bring to weddings,” he wrote in the post, adding that it was also important to her Balkan culture to include her family in the celebration. The couple came to a compromise that only children over the age of ten were allowed to attend the wedding, although she still wanted their two-year-old toddler and six-month-old infant to come too.
“She wanted to bring our kids as well but I told her I’m against that because who’s going to take care of them? She said our parents will help us out and I told her I am not going to ask my parents to babysit instead of having fun at my wedding,” he said.
The bride told the groom that he was being “really unfair not trying to find a solution with her,” but he told her that since she wants the children at the wedding, it was up to her to find a solution.
While her parents offered to help watch the children during the wedding, they ended up enjoying themselves instead, leaving her to take care of the two babies. “My wife barely danced and got up at all because she was caring for the kids and running after them the entire time,” the groom wrote in the Reddit post. “She complained how everyone else enjoyed her wedding but her, as a bride, didn’t even get to dance more than twice. I told her it’s her fault and she shouldn’t bring the kids in the first place especially the two-year-old because she was the one causing the most trouble during the wedding running around the whole time.”
He went on to add that his parents “also scolded her and told her she’s very entitled for expecting them to babysit the kids while they were having fun at their only son’s wedding.”
The groom clarified that he only agreed to hire a babysitter if they could stay at home with the children because he didn’t want a “stranger” at the wedding. “She could communicate better with her friends and family to help her out if having the kids there was that important to her and she also wanted to enjoy herself,” he said.
The Reddit post received more than 1,400 comments from people blasting the husband for not helping his wife take care of their children during the wedding. Many users also called out the groom’s hypocrisy for not wanting a “stranger” at his wedding to babysit the children, although many staff members at the wedding were also strangers.
“What’s the difference? A sitter could have looked after the kids, but then they could still have been involved in bits and pieces,” commented u/CupofCursedTea.
“I didn’t want a stranger at my wedding,” the groom replied, addding that even if he did have a friend who was a babysitter, he wouldn’t want to make them work at “my wedding instead of enjoying themselves because of my wife’s choices.”
“You didn’t want a stranger at your wedding?” commented someone else. “You personally knew all the waiters, the venue manager, the officiant, the chefs, everyone? I think you implemented this rule to make sure she didn’t enjoy herself.”
Others called the groom “controlling” for not compromising with his wife, and encouraged the bride to leave her new husband.
“That is manipulative and cruel,” said u/cinnamngrl, to which the groom responded: “I was honest and clear from the start. Hows that manipulation?”
Another person wrote: “Apparently OP’s controlling and just wanted to punish his wife by only hiring a babysitter if the kids didn’t come.”
“Sounds like she left one toxic man just to marry another,” said u/TiredofBSRoommate, while u/psyched2k20 wrote: “This is going to be a rough marriage.”
