This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/twoxchromosomes by /u/lilycamilly on 2023-09-24 17:14:36.
I want to get a little perspective on this situation. All fake names, sorry for any vagueness but IDK if either of these people use Reddit.
I have an old friend, let’s call her Anya. Everyone involved in this situation is currently in their mid-20’s. I’ve known Anya since we were in middle school, we were good friends all through high school and even were roommates in college for a couple years. She is a wonderful person; very bright and bubbly, extremely smart, confident, caring, and passionate about life. Anya met Rob in a summer class after our Freshman year at college, and they were friends for about a year or so before they started dating. He came over to our place a couple times during their friendship, and I liked him well! He seemed like a smart, cool dude. We were no longer living together when Anya and Rob began officially dating. They dated for a while, I think about a year, but parted ways because his career path (US Military) was going to take him to many places she couldn’t follow at that time.
After college, we both moved to different states. Anya is the kind of friend where we don’t talk super often because of the distance, but when we do get together, it’s like no time has passed at all, especially because we have lots of mutual friends as well. Anya dated a few other guys in the meantime, but none were permanent. In our early 20’s, Anya and Rob got back together, and were engaged in under a year. I was very happy for her, I knew she really loved him. They were engaged for just under a year I believe, and I was a bridesmaid in their wedding less than 2 years ago. It was an amazing night!
Here’s where stuff gets kinda weird. Only a couple months after their wedding, they both convert to Catholicism (Rob’s idea, but Anya was cool with it). To my knowledge, neither of them were particularly religious before this, especially not Anya. A handful of months after that, Roe V. Wade gets overturned, and Rob makes some posts online of the “Babies saved, Liberals owned” celebratory laps type. I am (obviously) thoroughly pro-choice, and so is Anya. I reached out to Anya and asked how she felt about it, and she told me it was a point of contention between them. They were living in a very red state with trigger laws at the time, so I told her she could call me for absolutely anything. She laughed it off and told me she appreciated me looking out with her. This is where I start to side-eye Rob. I privately began worrying about if he will fuck with her BC or trap her into a pregnancy she isn’t ready for, but I held my tongue. Over the next several months, Rob makes some more just kinda weirdly religious, holier-than-thou kind of social media posts, but nothing too egregious.
Fast forward to around that next spring, Anya and Rob have been married just over a year and have been stationed in another state (luckily not a red one) and announce they are pregnant! I reach out to Anya to tell her congratulations, and we chat a little about how she’s feeling, and she mentions that their baby was an “oopsie” but that they’re both very happy. The fact that the baby wasn’t planned makes my fears about BC tampering and choice-having reawaken, but I know Anya has always wanted kids. I reach out to Rob and tell him congratulations as well. I sent a gift and letters of support to them each individually (as we are still on the other side of the country from each other).
Their daughter arrived around a month ago, and based on social media posts, everyone’s doing well. Now, what prompts today’s post is that a couple days ago, Rob posts the headline and photo from this Babylon Bee article. This is the first time (to my knowledge) that Rob has posted something so explicitly anti-LGBT. I will admit, I popped off on him a little. I messaged him privately and told him that was not cool and that I’ve lost a lot of respect for him. He takes about a day to reply and basically says “We must rebuke all of this behavior for the dignity that God has given to mankind”. I rebutted, I popped off even harder, and told him to not preach to me about God, and that if he wants to be high and mighty he shouldn’t have joined the Catholic church because of their long history of sexual abuse of both adults and children. I have yet to hear a response.
I then texted Anya, essentially saying that I don’t want to stress her out or meddle in her affairs, especially because she’s probably crazy tired and stressed because of the new baby, but I wanted to tell her that I popped off on her husband and I don’t want to cause trouble, but I’m worried about her. Anya has always been very loving and supportive of the LGBT community, hell, even one of our good mutual friends, who is NB (AFAB) was a brides maid (a “brides they’d”, if you will) alongside me in her wedding! I have not heard from either of them back yet, as they are several timezones behind me and it’s still very early morning where they are.
My biggest fear is that this recent “enlightenment” of Rob’s is going to beat my lovely, career-driven, and independent old friend down into being a submissive trad-wife, and that he’ll raise his new baby girl along these strict and traditionally gendered religious lines. I also know it’s not up to me how other people raise their children, but at the same time, the Anya I grew up with and know doesn’t have an ounce of this bigotry in her heart. I believe she’s strong and can stick up for herself, but she’s not nearly as politically involved as I am and so I don’t know if she knows how many ENORMOUS red flags her husband has been putting up with these right-wing dog whistles. I also am chronically online, and am active on a lot of feminist spaces like this one, so I read a TON of relationship horror stories, and they might have made me overly paranoid.
What do you all make of this situation? I just have so many fears for Anya and her daughter. Rob is still in the military (in the branch that starts with M and rhymes with “tangerines”), and they’re obviously not known for their fantastic treatment of women and the LGBT community, or for keeping their own people in check. I worry he’ll be the kind of father to force his daughter into toxic purity culture and gender roles. She’s only a month old, and I’m worried about her father forcing her to keep an unwanted pregnancy in the coming years… I am just so worried. But at the same time, I don’t want to stick my nose into someone else’s relationship. I haven’t seen Anya or Rob in person since their wedding. I don’t know the ins and outs of their relationship. I don’t want to cause problems if there are none, and I don’t want to be presumptuous and tell other people how to parent their kids. I don’t know. I could just use some outside opinions on all this.
A preemptive thank-you for everyone who wants to share their thoughts <3
A mini update: because he had yet to even open my messages, I unsent my secondary pop-off. I don’t want to be a shit-stirrer and I need to be supportive of my friend and her family