Raising kids is a big responsibility and should be a planned choice. But life doesn’t always go as expected. A woman on Reddit shared her story about divorcing her husband after unexpected kids came into their lives and changed everything.
She explained what happened:
From a young age, I knew that I didn’t want to have or raise kids. When I met my husband in college, we connected because we both wanted a child-free life. We got married a few years ago and agreed on this completely.
But then things changed. My husband’s younger sister has three kids—a 5-year-old and 2-year-old twins—with different fathers who aren’t involved. Two months ago, she dropped them off with us, saying she had to run a quick errand, but she never came back. She disappeared. We filed a report, and the last we heard, she was safe but had no plans to return. Now, we’re stuck with her kids.
My husband’s mom doesn’t have the money to take care of them because she’s struggling with her own life after raising her kids alone.
I don’t want to raise them either. I feel bad for the kids, but raising children is a big responsibility that I’m not ready for.
Since the kids have been with us, our costs have gone up. We’ve had to buy them clothes and other things, and they’re sleeping on air mattresses in our living room because we only have one bedroom. I’ve been working from home while taking care of them because daycare is too expensive for three kids. It’s been really stressful.
CPS (Child Protective Services) got involved and asked if we wanted to raise the kids. I said no. I thought my husband would agree, but he surprised me by saying he wanted to keep them. CPS told us to decide soon and that we’d need to make changes, like getting a bigger house, to make it work.
My husband and I have been arguing a lot about this. I told him I can’t imagine living like this for the next 16 years. Raising kids is hard and expensive. But my husband feels he should take care of his family, which I understand.
Yesterday, I asked for a divorce. I needed to do it before he made decisions that would pull me into something I don’t want. He was hurt that I would leave him over the kids and abandon him when he needed me.
But I reminded him that he knew my limits from the start. This is not a decision he can make on his own without thinking about what we both agreed on before.
Both of them are struggling with this. The husband never thought his sister would disappear and leave him with her kids. He feels like he needs to step up, but his wife, who never wanted kids, is forced into raising them too.
People online had different points of view about the situation.
- “Forcing someone into parenthood is alsobad for those children. If you are ill-equipped or unwilling, those children will be the ones who suffer from it. They deserve parents who want them wholeheartedly, and nothing less.”
- “Like, what’s her husband supposed to do? He could very well still not want kids, but of course, he’s not going to abandon those poor kids in foster care. He’s stuck with this situation and could feel as upset about it as the woman. And now he has to deal with it all alone.
Like, I get it. She shouldn’t be there if she’s going to resent them, but I don’t know. I feel for her husband in this situation.”
- “Imagine as a child that your dad leaves, then your mom leaves you, your grandma can’t take you in, and then your uncle and auntie give you up. The woman got dealt an awful hand, but the kids got dealt an even worse one. Terrible situation all around, but you can’t fault an uncle for not giving up on his nieces and nephews just like that.
- “It’s not surprising that your husband wouldn’t want to put his nephew and nieces in foster care after a situation that there was no way to predict. There are horror stories all over the Internet and news about the broken foster system.
That said, you vehemently don’t want kids, and if this is something you’re unwilling to take on (which is your right), then it would be better to end it before the resentment of the situation takes over your life.
