How would you feel if your spouse adopted a child behind your back, even though your goal in life was to not have kids at all, since you don’t like them? Would you deal with the kid, or want to leave your spouse?
This 28-year-old woman has a 37-year-old husband, whom she’s been with for three years. A couple of months ago, her husband’s best friends passed away in a car accident, along with their three-year-old daughter.
However, their 10-year-old daughter wasn’t in the car at the time. Her husband’s friends don’t have a family, as he met the two of them when they were all in foster care. Her husband organized their funerals and dealt with the aftermath of the accident.
“After the funeral, he was contacted by a social worker who told him that they had listed him in their will as the person they’d want their kids to go to if anything ever happened to them (something they never told my husband),” she explained.
“The social worker asked if he would be willing to take in the surviving daughter (we’ll call her Alice). He agreed, but didn’t consult with me at all. He just said he would.”
“I didn’t find out until I got home from work the next day, and he was rearranging our guest room to be Alice’s new room. I was upset, but I didn’t say anything at that moment. Later, I brought up that we had agreed we didn’t want kids.”
She reminded her husband that she doesn’t like kids, and he argued that Alice has no other options, so she has to quit being difficult. A house visit was performed to ensure everything was safe for Alice, which she found violating.
Alice did come to live with them, and since then, Alice has been glued to her husband’s hip. Her husband and Alice were always close and would go to metal concerts and oddities fairs prior to the accident, and now, they’re closer than ever.
She finds Alice’s presence and attachment to her husband overwhelming. Her husband works from home, and Alice participates in a virtual school, so Alice does school in her husband’s office so she can be right there next to him.
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“She rarely talks and just sits there whenever I’m around, but it just feels awkward. When he’s not working, he’s fussing over her, talking to her therapist, checking with Alice’s case worker, etc.,” she said.
“This girl has always been kinda emo/gothy like her mom and dad and my husband, which was kinda cute, but her dealing with her obvious depression from her parents’ and sibling’s death has taken it to a new level.”
“About 2 weeks ago, she had a nightmare, and my husband went to check on her. He never came back, and I found him in the morning, asleep on her bed with her. And now, at least twice a week, she’s knocked on our bedroom door asking if she can sleep with us. So now I’m dealing with her even in my one bit of private space.”
A handful of days ago, she freaked out on her husband and stated that she can no longer handle Alice being everywhere all of the time.
She reminded her husband of how she didn’t agree to take in Alice, nor did she want kids. Her husband once again said Alice doesn’t have anyone but them, and Alice is the only thing he has left of his best friends.
She informed her husband that a different family could be found for Alice, since she’s not a terrible kid or problematic, so it shouldn’t be hard to place her.
“He gave me this look that I’ve never seen before, this combination of hatred and sadness and disappointment. Then I hear a noise from the bedroom door, and it turns out she was standing there and heard the whole thing, and she ends up running out of the house crying,” she added.
“My husband chases after her, and the cops get called by someone cause they saw a man chasing after a little girl and pick her up while she was crying. Which then meant a police report got filed, and that apparently caused the case worker to get called.”
“I’ve tried talking to my friends about it, and they have mostly said I’m in the right, I didn’t sign up for this. My mom says I’m being [a jerk], and my husband has barely spoken to [me] the last few days. I’ve tried talking to him about what happened, and he says he needs time to cool off before we have that conversation.”
While she admires her husband’s enormous heart and how caring he is, there’s no changing the fact that she still doesn’t want a kid.
I think she should seriously consider a separation or a divorce if she can’t handle Alice. Her husband has been through foster care, and he uniquely understands the challenges kids face there.
It’s probably not going to be that easy for Alice to find a new home, so I don’t fault him for wanting to hang on to her in lieu of placing her in a different situation.
They’re both not wrong for wanting different things, and that means they’re just no longer compatible; it’s as simple as that. She doesn’t have to be a parent, but her husband has made it clear that he wants to be one, so their marriage has run its course.
What advice do you have for her?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
