The newborn phase is an absolute survival game. You are running on zero sleep, constantly covered in spit up, and praying for just five consecutive minutes of rest. It takes a solid team to get through those first few months. Both parents need to step up to the plate and share the crushing load. Unfortunately, some partners completely miss the memo and decide to treat fatherhood like a casual spectator sport.
One deeply exhausted new mom recently took to Reddit to share her absolute nightmare of a postpartum experience. The Original Poster is a twenty seven year old woman who just welcomed her first baby into the world. Her daughter Emma is currently three months old. The mom is navigating the grueling trenches of maternity leave, meaning she is home with the baby all day long. Naturally, she expects her thirty year old husband Jake to help out, especially during those brutal middle of the night wake up calls.
Jake works from home, but his actual full time passion is apparently playing video games. He spends the vast majority of his free time glued to his computer screen, playing online games with his friends. The mom has tried her best to be understanding and give him space to decompress. But that understanding quickly evaporated when he flat out refused to help with his own infant at night. Whenever she asks him to take a turn getting up with Emma, he claims he is too tired or insists he has an important game to play.
To make matters infinitely worse, the mom is going through absolute physical hell. Emma frequently struggles to latch properly. This has led to incredibly painful, cracked nipples. The mom has already battled mastitis twice. For those who do not know, mastitis is an infection that leaves you feverish and in agonizing, burning pain. Instead of comforting his wife, Jake actually laughs at her misery. He finds her visible suffering amusing and never once offers to help while she is crying in pain.
Every exhausted mother eventually reaches a breaking point. For this mom, that breaking point arrived during a particularly rough night. She had already been up with Emma for the third time, and Jake was predictably still glued to his gaming chair. Desperate for just a tiny fraction of sleep, she walked into his office and begged him to take over baby duty.
Jake waved her off like she was a pesky fly. He coldly stated he was in the middle of a game and told her to just handle it herself. Then he delivered the most infuriating line in the history of modern marriages. He looked at his sleep deprived wife and told her she does nothing all day. He claimed she is just sitting around the house on maternity leave while he has to work, so he deserves his relaxation time.
The mom was totally exhausted and on the verge of tears. Her partner was completely dismissive of her basic human needs. In a glorious moment of pure desperation and frustration, she walked right over to the router and turned off the Wi-Fi.
Jake absolutely lost his mind. He stormed out of his office and started screaming at the mother of his child. It turns out he and his buddies were in the middle of an online gaming tournament, and they were supposedly just about to win when the internet dropped. He ruthlessly called his wife selfish and irresponsible. He actually accused her of sabotaging his one form of relaxation.
The audacity did not stop there. He berated her for interfering with his precious alone time and declared she should have just waited for him to finish playing. When she calmly explained that their crying newborn is slightly more important than a video game, he deflected by bringing up their intimacy. He complained that they have only had s*x four times since Emma was born, throwing a massive tantrum about his own needs while his wife was literally recovering from back to back bouts of mastitis.
Just to clarify, Jake is completely useless during the day too. Even after he finishes his remote job at five in the evening, he refuses to step up as a parent. He logs off his work computer and goes straight to his games, leaving his wife to handle every single chore and baby duty entirely alone. Now he is sulking around the house and giving her the silent treatment.
As if the husband was not bad enough, his gamer friends are now actively harassing the mom. Grown men are sending her nasty messages, calling her a crazy wife and saying she is being unreasonable. One of his buddies even suggested Jake should leave her because she is too demanding. The entire internet is begging this woman to let the trash take itself out. Expecting a father to parent his own child is the bare minimum, not a crazy demand. Unplugging the router was a total hero move.