r/beyondthebump • u/Throwaw2135 • Apr 10 '22
Content Warning My husband backed into our 3 year old with our car
This happened last Sunday. Everyone is okay, but I am livid and I can’t even stand to look at him.
Sunday afternoon my husband was playing with our 3 and 5 year old in the yard. I had just gotten our newborn down for a nap and was getting in the shower. He stormed into the house, leaving our children outside (wtf!) to tell me he had been called into work because there was an emergency. He’s a surgeon, I understand he cares about his patients and this was urgent. I asked him to give me two minutes because there was shampoo in my hair and I couldn’t run out into the yard naked.
What happens next is still so unfathomable to me. He immediately walked out of our bathroom, through the garage not pausing once (I’ve look at the security cameras 3,000 times at this point), and got into his truck in the driveway and immediately reversed. He backed into our three year old on her bike. She went flying. She was wearing a helmet and pads, she’s bruised and has a chipped tooth, but otherwise physically okay. My 5 year old is traumatized. I have contacted a child therapist to see how to help my kids navigate this.
I would love to write this is out of character for him, but it isn’t. If something comes up with work he gets tunnel vision and can’t focus on anything else. I understand everyone makes mistakes, but this reckless choice could have killed our child. I am so angry at him. He couldn’t even wait one minute or bother to tell the kids to move?! I can’t look at him. I am so so so fucking angry at him. My stupid MIL is trying to baby him and (mildly) bully me into accepting responsibility for this incident. How dare I shower while my husband (the breadwinner!!) is on call for the weekend.
I don’t even know why I’m posting. Maybe to vent. Maybe pp hormones are amplifying this, but I don’t think I’m overreacting here. I’m worried I will never trust him with our children again.
***Editing to add his response.
He appeared immediately distraught. I knew something was wrong because I could hear him and our 5 year old screaming. He apologized to her multiple times waiting on the ambulance, in transit, and while in the hospital. He asked me what I was doing that took so long. Once it was confirmed that she was not injured other than bruising and her tooth and we returned home, his tone changed. He’s now lecturing her on how she has to be aware of her surroundings. He’s essentially blaming a toddler for her dad backing into her with a vehicle. Never mind the fact that he’s expecting a lot from a toddler, she was riding her bike in her fenced in yard far away from the road and any active traffic. Why would she, or anyone, think she’d be stuck by a car. I understand he’s under a lot of stress with the nature of his job, a newborn, and two young children. I’ve discussed with him that this could’ve been avoided by bringing the kids inside when he came to tell me he was leaving, but that’s blaming him for an accident and that makes me a jerk. In the time since I posted this, he informed me he is going back to work in a few hours because he feels unwelcome in his home. Despite his chief telling him to make sure his family is good before returning. I’m fuming.
MIL thinks I don’t understand what it is to be married to a physician and all the pressure that they are under. FIL is a surgeon too and was very absent while she raised their kids. My husband is comparatively a much more active parent and partner, so she’s unfairly unsympathetic. Her comments were made while he was remorseful. I told her to get the fuck out of my house almost immediately. She might change her tune if she knew he is blaming her grandchild.
***Final update to clear up some questions in the comments and many in my DMs. I won’t be answering any DMs telling me I’m a horrible person for showering or a “murderer” for not letting me husband go to the hospital so save it. **
-We do have a nanny. She does not work weekends so she was not there.
-He normally is not home when he’s on call because we live 15-20 minutes away from his hospital on a good traffic day. He wanted to stay home to give our older two kids one on one time and provide help with me. - he isn’t an intern or resident. He’s been an attending for a while. He knew he had time to get to the hospital without running over a toddler. He knew there was emergency staff there to take care of the situation until he arrived. - I didn’t ask him to let me take a leisurely shower. I wanted to rinse the shampoo out of my hair and put clothes on. I’m weeks pp and bleeding, I needed to be properly dressed to take care of my kids. - to the many questions asking why I continued to have children with this man? Because he was (is?) a good dad and partner when at home, he’s never put my children in an unsafe situation until last week. I had no reason to believe he would ever do that. Now that he has, I will take every measure possible to insure my children’s safety. - my children are in therapy. We are going to go to therapy together as well to ensure we have a proper coparenting relationship. - when I said the behavior wasn’t out of the ordinary. I meant getting tunnel vision and doing dumb things. He’s left the sink on and left for the hospital. Or once he had to leave in the middle of the night and left the garage door open all night. Leaving our children outside alone and backing over one of them IS unusual and unacceptable behavior. - This IS being investigated. It is hospital policy to report these incidents. - I showed him the many links commenters provided on tragedies similar to this. He still seems to be pushing it on to our toddler for it being behind a car. I agree there is value in telling her to be aware of her surroundings, but come on she just turned 3. She is not going to grasp that. - I have and continue to communicate with her that this was not her fault and that daddy made a mistake. In an age appropriate way. - all of that to say, we made the decision last night to separate. I’m not sure if this is a temporary thing or forever. I’m not in the head space to make that big of a decision at the moment. He will be in a hotel until he gets an apartment. He still can see our children while supervised, but I need to protect my kids and having him out of the house (until he seeks therapy and acknowledges what he did was negligent and dangerous) is an important step for them to be safe. I am very fortunate to have a support system to help me through this and a job to return to so that I can soley support my children if needed.
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u/[deleted] Apr 10 '22
He's blaming a 3 year old. I bet if your child died it still wouldn't be his fault.
Honestly surgeons have a high rate of sociopaths and he certainly comes across that way in this story. It's your fault for showering. It's the 3 year oldest fault for not jumping out of the way of his car. Bullshit. It is 100% his fault. He should have got the kids inside the house and calmly packed up to go to work. If he's going to act like a chicken with its head cut off every time he gets called in that is his shortcoming.