Husband Considers Divorce One Year After Baby Because Their Intimacy Isn’t the Same

The first year after having a child is rarely gentle. Sleep disappears. Priorities shift. Bodies change. For many couples, intimacy changes too, sometimes temporarily, sometimes in ways that feel frighteningly permanent.

For one 30-year-old man, those changes sparked a question he admitted felt wrong even as he typed it. He loved his wife. He adored his baby son. But the dramatic drop in their sex life after childbirth left him feeling frustrated, unwanted, and quietly panicked about the future of his marriage.

Instead of talking to his wife, he turned to Reddit with a hypothetical that wasn’t as hypothetical as he wanted it to be.

Would he be the bad guy if he divorced her now? The internet responded with overwhelming clarity.

The Story

The poster explained that he and his wife, Jane, had been together since childhood. They married five years ago and welcomed their first child a year ago. Before the baby, their sex life was frequent and adventurous. After the birth, it slowed to about once a month.

He stressed that he hadn’t pressured her early on. For the first six months, he tried to be patient and supportive. He helped with nighttime care and feeding, planned dates, and checked in on her emotionally.

Still, she always seemed exhausted. When they did have sex, it felt obligatory, like something she crossed off a list rather than wanted.

What made it harder, in his mind, was that his attraction hadn’t faded. If anything, pregnancy had made her more desirable to him.

Seeing other attractive women only amplified his frustration. He felt trapped in a marriage with a woman he deeply wanted but couldn’t access.

Because Jane was his first everything, he began spiraling into “what if” thinking. What if they married too young? What if he’d dated other people? What if having a child had permanently changed her?

He insisted he loved his son, but admitted feeling like the baby had “hijacked” his wife. He also said he hadn’t voiced any of these thoughts to her because he didn’t want to hurt her.

So instead, he asked strangers if divorcing her now would make him the a__hole.

Psychology and Blind Spots

At its core, the post revealed less about sex and more about fear. Fear of change. Fear of permanence. Fear that the version of his marriage he loved might never come back.

What he didn’t seem to grasp initially was how profoundly childbirth affects a woman, physically and mentally. Hormones fluctuate. Sleep deprivation is relentless. Identity shifts overnight. Libido often takes a back seat to survival.

His language also raised eyebrows. Talking about his wife as if she’d been “taken” by the baby struck many readers as immature and self-centered. Parenthood isn’t a rivalry. It’s a shared responsibility.

The biggest issue, though, was his jump straight to divorce without a single honest conversation.

Reflection and Turnaround

To his credit, the poster updated the thread with a rare moment of self-awareness.

After reading the responses, he admitted he’d been thinking with the wrong head. He acknowledged that the question itself was selfish and that post-nut clarity made his mindset embarrassingly clear.

He accepted the judgment. He said he would try to be a better husband and father.

That shift mattered to readers. Not because it erased the original thoughts, but because it showed he was capable of stepping back from them.

Here’s the comments of Reddit users:

Many commenters were blunt, some harsh, others sarcastic, but nearly all made the same point.

People urged him to talk to his wife, consider counseling, educate himself on postpartum recovery, and reevaluate his priorities. 

Several accused him of reducing his wife to a sexual outlet rather than seeing her as a partner who had just carried and birthed his child.

This story resonated because it touched a nerve many couples quietly feel but rarely articulate. Intimacy changes after kids. Desire doesn’t always sync up. Panic can creep in if you assume the present is permanent.

But marriage isn’t about constant satisfaction. It’s about patience through seasons that don’t revolve around you.

Divorce isn’t a solution to temporary imbalance. Communication is. Growth is. And sometimes, maturity is recognizing that love means waiting when things aren’t centered on your needs.

So was he wrong to feel frustrated? No. Was he wrong to consider divorce before even talking to his wife? Absolutely.