u/maddy2261

I apologize in advance, as I know this will be a long post, but I am truly worried for the potential safety of a child in this situation, and I would really appreciate being given any advice/insight into what the actual fuck is going on here.

So I (23F) work with “Lena” (30F) at the same restaurant, and the 2 of us are really good friends. “Carrie” (27/28-ish F) also works at said restaurant with us. Carrie is also a dental assistant/hygienist. Lena has been friends for many years with Carrie (they worked together previously at another restaurant), but I do not personally have a friendship with her outside of work. So to reiterate, I am very close with Lena, but I would only consider Carrie a work acquaintance and a friend of a friend.

Now, I will say that I did not personally witness anything that I am about to explain, but Lena (who again, is close with Carrie) was a first-hand witness, or at the very least, was told by Carrie directly. Lena has talked to and has told me about all of this, but not in the sense of her gossiping or shit-talking behind Carrie’s back. Lena’s discussions with me about this situation have come from a genuine place of needing advice and active concern (concern which, if you continue on reading, you will come to realize is very much warranted). I just felt the need to establish all of that before I start.

So…Carrie has a husband, “Joe” (28-ish M), with whom she has been together for 6 or 7 years (met in college), and to whom she has been married for a little over 1 year. It sounds like Carrie gave Joe a bit of an ultimatum, as they had been dating for so long. So she essentially says, “Put a ring on it, or I’m gone.” They do end up getting married.

Now, if you’re thinking to yourself at this point, “Okay, this guy clearly didn’t want to get married and wants nothing to do with this woman,” just hold your horses, because this is where it gets odd…

So Joe has had a lifelong desire to be a father, and has been telling Carrie how much he desperately wants a baby for as long as they’ve been together (but most especially now that they’re married). Carrie expresses that she has a lot of things to do this year (friends’ weddings, career stuff, etc.) and that she’d really like to give it another year or two before they try for a kid. But Joe BEGS her, tells her it’s all he’s ever wanted, the only thing in the world he wants, and that it would make him so happy. So Carrie eventually relents, and she gets pregnant.

So now we arrive at the present…Carrie gave birth to their daughter, “Rosie,” less than 2 weeks ago as of the day I’m writing this. This is a FRESH baby (important to note, just because it makes all of this even more insane than it already is). Carrie has a hard, long labor, but her and the baby are okay in the end. She tells my friend Lena that Joe was very supportive throughout the entire experience. So the two of them go home with Rosie, all seems well, but then not even a day later, we enter the Twilight Zone…

Joe sucks. Like really, really sucks. He is IMMEDIATELY irritated, overwhelmed, and just all around being incredibly negative about the entire situation. Just a real wet blanket during the very first days of his daughter’s life (the daughter he BEGGED to have, mind you). I am now going to provide the examples of his behavior that Lena has relayed to me over the last few days, all of which gradually increase in severity and cause for alarm (in my view at least).

1. They have a wood stove. Joe is upset because Carrie will not make any effort to bring the wood in from the basement or from outside. He yells at her on a daily basis about this. Again, she is FRESHLY postpartum (as in she is still wearing maternity diapers because there is an actively bleeding, gaping wound in her body from giving birth).

2. Carrie does not breastfeed in the sense that Rosie actively drinks from her, but she exclusively pumps, and Rosie only drinks the milk Carrie produces (so in my book, that is breastfeeding, and it’s a TON of exhausting work). She is on a strict schedule that has her awake and pumping every 2 hours. Joe is PISSED that he has to change some of Rosie’s diapers, because according to him, all Carrie does is sit around all day and do nothing. And I will reiterate again here: this woman is DAYS postpartum. Oh and another kicker…Joe is quite literally unemployed at the moment, and has been for the past 2 months. So if there’s anyone who’s doing nothing all day, it’s certainly not his wife (the one who has just birthed their child and continues to actively feed said child from her body on an hourly basis). But no, Joe is being unjustly wronged by diaper changes??

3. Carrie has had a persistent migraine behind her left eye since giving birth. She calls her OBGYN, and they tell her that definitely doesn’t sound typical of postpartum. So they ask her to see a doctor just to make sure everything is good. She heads out for the appointment, but realizes Joe’s very large pickup truck is blocking her in the driveway. She asks him if he could move it for her, as she is already a generally small person, and considering she’s only days postpartum, she really doesn’t want to have to climb up into the truck (I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s a big truck - she would have to make a physical effort to get in). Joe is furious. Tells her she’s a useless, incompetent human being who can only drive her stupid little car because everyone in her life does everything for her. After minutes of begging, he relents and moves the car, and Carrie goes to the doctor (all is fine with the eye, she’s just overproducing milk, and I guess that can show up elsewhere in the body? The more you know, I guess). But Joe will not speak to her for the rest of the evening when she returns, and he will not touch, feed, or change the baby.

4. Joe has complained to Carrie on multiple occasions that it upsets/pisses him off that “Everyone only cares about/pays attention to you and the baby, but not me.”

So this is where it starts to get really bad…

For context with these next few examples, about 8-9 days post-birth (a few days ago) my friend Lena goes over to the house to meet the baby, bring Carrie some food, talk, etc.

5. Lena finds Carrie alone with the sleeping baby in their living room. Lena asks where Joe is, to which Carrie replies that he has gone to the auto parts store for the second time that day to fix his bike. She tells Lena that Joe, just that day alone, has gone on a run, gone to the store multiple times, taken a shower, and has now returned to the store once more. Carrie has not moved from next to Rosie on the couch. Eventually, Joe finds it within himself to return home, and he ends up sitting on the couch with Lena and Carrie to talk or catch up or whatever.

6. Maybe 20 minutes into talking, Rosie has a pretty major blowout, and Carrie rushes upstairs to change her in the nursery. Lena is now sitting on the couch downstairs with Joe. Carrie starts making some pretty loud noises of disgust and overwhelm as she changes Rosie, and she calls downstairs to ask Joe to come up to lend her a hand. He YELLS back up at her that she “Should be able to change one fucking diaper on her own.” Again, he has literally been out of the house the entire day. Lena is the one who ends up going upstairs to help Carrie with the baby.

7. Everyone comes back down to the living room, with Rosie now changed and happy. She is handed to Joe as he sits on the couch, and he lays her on his legs (they’re propped up, so he’s like looking down at her as she sleeps on her back). Lena watches Joe as he looks at Rosie, and he has this look of just utter contempt and irritation on his face. Like he is looking down at his sleeping, infant daughter in complete disdain. Lena told me she didn’t know how to fully describe it, but she said that you could almost feel the waves of animosity rolling off of him as they sat there. She said it was palpable and immensely uncomfortable.

This is the one that immediately shifted this whole thing from “shitty man/husband” to “I am deeply concerned” in my eyes:

8. As Rosie is sleeping on Joe’s legs, he picks her up and kind of haphazardly, irritatingly maneuvers her around “like a doll” (is how Lena put it). He then proceeds (in front of Carrie and Lena) to call Rosie a “bitch,” “little fucking bitch,” says “I can’t wait for you to grow up and stop being so fucking annoying.” This baby girl is 8 FUCKING DAYS OLD. And he’s calling her a “fucking bitch” in front of his wife and Lena (imagine what he says/does when company ISN’T there…).

Now the final anecdote Lena told me about, and in my view, the most alarming one by far:

9. It is about 1:00 AM. Carrie has just pumped and is upstairs asleep in bed. Joe is downstairs with Rosie. I guess Rosie is sleeping, but I’m not entirely sure why downstairs? It doesn’t really matter, the point is that Carrie is upstairs sleeping while Joe is alone downstairs with the baby. Rosie wakes up and fusses (as 9-day-olds do) so Joe goes to get a bottle from the fridge (maybe this is why they’re downstairs?). He attempts to give Rosie the bottle, but she continues to fuss and won’t latch on to take it. He then SCREAMS, to the point of jolting Carrie awake upstairs, at which point she hears a very loud smash/thud against the wall. She told Lena after the fact that she immediately felt sick because she thought Joe had “thrown the baby at the wall” or “done something to her.” So Carrie runs downstairs, only to find that Joe had thrown the bottle (of her hard-earned, pumped breast milk) against the kitchen wall. It has exploded and is everywhere (walls, ceiling). Carrie goes to get Rosie who is now understandably wailing, only to watch as Joe walks back into the kitchen to retrieve the bottle and proceeds to hurl it AGAIN at another wall. Lena was not given any further information by Carrie about how this night concluded/resolved, so that is all I know. But Jesus CHRIST…

So yeah.

I have been at a loss for words about all of this. I have talked to my own mom about it, as has Lena (as well as her sister who has children of her own). Everyone’s reaction has been some iteration of “What the actual fuck, that child is in danger, Carrie needs to do something.”

I have tried to ask Lena about her read on Carrie’s mental state (whether she seems depressed, checked out, or if she seems to share everyone else’s urgent concern). According to Lena, she seems mostly sad/disappointed in Joe, and has been told by her OBGYN that they’d like to continue watching her for signs of PPD. With that said, she does unfortunately seem too disassociated (if that’s a good term for it) to really register the extent of what’s going on. If I was in her shoes (mere days postpartum, flooded with hormones and changes, and blindsided by my husband’s apparent 180 into being the Hitler of husbands/fathers), I would also not know what to make of or do with my reality either. Again, I do not have any first-hand experience with or any direct read on the situation, but Lena has known Carrie and been close with her for years, so I very much trust her assessment (especially considering it’s coming from a place of urgent concern).

Now, a final thing I’ll add, because I’m assuming many people will ask/be curious about this: Joe’s parents/family seem totally out of the picture, and as for Carrie, her father passed away some years ago, and her mother (although they do talk and have an active relationship) doesn’t seem entirely emotionally available. Their relationship seems strained, to put it simply, so it isn’t like Carrie has a direct line of communication to reach out for help from a loved one/fellow mother. I myself do not have children, and neither does Lena, so I think we feel quite clueless about what to do here (Lena more than anyone, as I am in no way close with Carrie, so if anyone is going to intervene or help in some capacity, it’s going to be Lena).

But she doesn’t know what the fuck to do or say. You can’t exactly call CPS because you heard a father call his newborn daughter a “little fucking bitch,” nor can you have a serious talk or intervention with a distraught, fragile mother who is more than likely suffering from some degree of PPD. Carrie has expressed that she’s had difficulties connecting with Rosie (classic sign of PPD) so I’m sure her mental space is already at max capacity. Lena can’t exactly beg her to leave her husband right now.

I’d really just like to know if anyone has ANY sense of what the actual fuck is going on here, or what you think you might do. Lena has known Joe for as long as she’s known Carrie, and while she does say they haven’t always had the most inspiring relationship, she is still genuinely dumbfounded by what she sees as a complete and unexpected flip in behavior. She says Joe has never been violent or verbally abusive like this, and that if anything, it’s been Carrie in the past who has been a bit of a bulldog in the relationship. But even still, she says it hasn’t been awesome on either side for some months/years now, but having marital problems is a WILDLY different thing than whatever the hell is going on here.

If Carrie had “forced” Joe into marriage, and then “forced” him into having a baby, I could MAYBE at least logically make sense of his behavior/mindset (not in the sense that it would be justified, but I could at least wrap my brain around it). But he quite literally (and I cannot stress this enough) BEGGED Carrie to give him a child. But now, after not even 2 weeks of having his baby on this earth, she is nothing but a “little fucking bitch,” and Carrie is at the point where her automatic assumption upon hearing a loud bang is that he’s thrown the baby at the wall.

What do I make of this? What the hell does anyone make of something like this? Is it really possible that I can chalk it all up to “Joe is an evil prick, and sometimes guys are just evil pricks”? I don’t think I can accept that it’s that simple. It’s just too odd — too disgusting.

Any thoughts — literally anything at all — would be greatly appreciated. I feel like I’m losing my mind