Husband Doesn’t Want Wife To Get Tattoo For Baby She Miscarried With Her Ex!

Getting a tattoo of your children’s names is a deeply personal decision and one which can only be made by the parents. Only you can decide to ink your body and no-one should have the right to stop you or influence your decision- unless of course you’re planning a full sleeve consisting of Britney Spears’ face in which case we need to talk!

One dad-to-be says he has a problem with his wife getting a tattoo in memory of a miscarried child she lost while with her ex. He wrote to Reddit recently saying it kind of freaked him out that his wife wanted a tattoo of a baby she conceived with someone else. Here’s what he wrote:

My wife (28F) and I (29M) are expecting our first child in October. Were both into tattoos and have a good few, so we both want to honor our child (and hopefully three other future children) with some ink. When talking about it the other day, she said she wants to do names+birthdates, but that she would put the name of the kid she previously miscarried and the date of the miscarriage above our child’s. The miscarriage happened six years ago before I met her with an ex. I know losing a kid was tough on both of them. I also know he’s had a kid since and will still refer to himself as having two kids – the one with my wife and one with his gf now. My wife has kind of followed that, she doesn’t call our child her first and says the one she lost always will be.

I’m not trying to be the guy whose upset because his wife had a life before him, but I feel weird about her putting the name her and her ex gave the miscarried child on the same level as our child, in a tattoo. I told her that and she got kind of mad and upset at me. I know she thinks of the miscarried child as as much her child as ours, but to me it’s different bc that child never lived, and our kid won’t ever meet that kid. I don’t know if this is just bc it’s not my child though, and I need to shut up and just accept it.

I have no problem with her getting other tattoos for her miscarried child, I don’t think those are any of my business and I totally support that. I also know I don’t get to tell her what she should ink on her body. But I feel like it was ok for me ask her to reconsider. It just makes me uncomfortable and feel like she hasn’t moved on, which is all I told her. So AITA? (Am I The Asshole)

The couple are expecting their first baby together in October and have been discussing plans for a tattoo to honour their child and future children. Which is when the wife mentioned she wanted her miscarried baby commemorated as well.

The husband wondered if it was weird to commemorate a miscarriage that happened six years ago with another man. “I’m not trying to be the guy who’s upset because his wife had a life before him, but I feel weird about her putting the name her and her ex gave the miscarried child on the same level as our child, in a tattoo,” he explained. “I told her that and she got kind of mad and upset at me.”

“To me it’s different because that child never lived, and our kid won’t ever meet that kid,” he wrote. “I don’t know if this is just because it’s not my child though, and I need to shut up and just accept it.”

When writing into Reddit he wanted to know if he had a right to make her reconsider her tattoo choices.

Ummm…no…you do not have a right to tell your wife her first baby doesn’t count! It really sounds like it’s a jealousy issue. The fact that the baby was conceived together with another man is really what this is about.

The comments on the REDDIT post came in hard and fast and in full support of the woman and her right to do whatever the hell she wants with her body.

“The miscarried child is a dead baby,” one person wrote. “Her baby. She has every right to get the name inked onto her skin. How dare you say that a miscarried child doesn’t bear the same bond as the one that survived?”

“Original Poster just doesn’t want her to get the tattoo because the baby wasn’t HIS. How insecure and selfish can he be?” another commenter added.

“I lost my baby 26 years ago and I will never forget. To me it wasn’t a miscarriage, my baby died. You don’t forget, you learn to live with the loss. She was a mother before you met her, and to a mother all her babies are equally loved,” a third commenter added.

A few however did side with the husband questioning whether or not that baby should be referred to as her ‘first born’

“Not to be an [expletive], but can you really call the baby firstborn, when it was miscarried??” they ask. “Birth literally means to start life.”

“Putting any type of priority on a dead fetus or newborn when you have a living child is going to [expletive] up the kid that’s alive,” another added. “I honestly think it’s a little bit weird to get a tattoo and birthday of a dead fetus and prioritize that over your first BORN child. Lol. But what the [expletive] do I know?!”

“Miscarriages are extremely common and most miscarriages happen in the first 12 weeks,” another said. “It takes some serious mental gymnastics to label those miscarriages as dead babies.”

“I totally get grieving a loss, but when it starts to effect people in your life that isn’t a good thing,” said another.

By no means is this an easy discussion to have but it definitely needs to happen between the couple. There is no way a man can tell a woman how to grieve for her lost babies- still born, miscarried or whatever. A loss is a loss and people deal with grief differently. If the mum wants to honour her angel baby as well as her living babies then that should be her decision and her decision alone. Do you agree?

Images: Pixabay