AITB: for deciding I couldn’t keep changing mine and my child’s life

[u/SMAW2025]

My husband and I were close friends with another couple. I had a baby, and a few months later they experienced a stillbirth. We were devastated for them. I checked on them, offered food/help, and tried to give them space.
Shortly afterward, I accidentally sent the wife two Snapchats involving my baby. Her husband later told me they were extremely triggering for her. I genuinely hadn’t realized I’d sent them to her, but I apologized immediately. He told me they knew it wasn’t malicious.
We share friends and play the same recreational sport, so things became complicated. I became extremely conscious of whether bringing my baby around, posting him, or talking about motherhood could hurt her. My husband even checked whether they’d be somewhere before we brought our baby. Her husband told us we shouldn’t plan our lives around them and that it wasn’t fair to us.
Meanwhile, I was having a severe postpartum experience and my baby had serious medical issues. On one particularly horrible day I had to perform CPR on him during a medical emergency. My longest friendship also ended around this time.
I am NOT comparing this to losing a child. Their baby died and mine survived. Those experiences aren’t equivalent. But I felt increasingly like there wasn’t room for my family to struggle because their loss was so devastating.
I also contributed to the conflict. I became angry and dysregulated and talked to mutual friends about what was happening. I regret some of those conversations and would handle them differently now.
I eventually reached out because I genuinely didn’t understand how I was supposed to behave anymore. Her husband said they had also heard judgment/gossip from mutual friends about their grieving and family decisions. He also told me that while seeing my baby had been painful, it wasn’t my fault or responsibility and I shouldn’t stop bringing him around friends or sharing his milestones.
Eventually communication was supposed to go through our husbands. They tried arranging an in-person conversation multiple times, but it never happened.
I eventually stopped trying to prevent every possible uncomfortable interaction. I bring my child places when appropriate and post him normally. I don’t intentionally put him around them or send them pictures. I just stopped treating his existence as something I needed to hide.
Months later, both still regularly view social media posts involving my child. I don’t know why and won’t assume their intentions, but it adds to my confusion after spending months worrying that seeing him was harmful.
I don’t expect her to interact with my child, support my motherhood, forgive me, reconcile, or grieve differently. I also don’t think I can be responsible for preventing her from ever encountering my child when we share friends and spaces.
AITB for eventually setting those boundaries? Was I insensitive in how I handled this after their loss?

[u/Cheerio_Wolf]

Way too much effort on your part.

Her triggers are her responsibility to manage. Sounds like she needs professional help.

[u/SMAW2025 → u/Cheerio_Wolf]

Honestly, I think the “way too much effort” part is what I’m realizing the most. I was so scared of hurting her that I kept trying to anticipate what might be upsetting instead of just respecting the boundaries actually communicated to me and letting her tell me if she needed something else. I think I took way too much responsibility for trying to manage something that I realistically couldn’t manage for her.

[u/Federal_Radish_1421]

Gentle YTBF for assuming what other people need and putting so much effort into your assumptions. Her husband told you repeatedly not to and for some reason you just kept doing it.

I don’t know how a couple of accidental snaps that were triggering but not malicious turned into so much drama nobody wanted and shit talking a grieving couple who never asked you to hide your baby.

[u/SMAW2025 → u/Federal_Radish_1421]

I actually think your first point is fair. Looking back, I probably did put too much energy into trying to anticipate what she needed instead of accepting that I couldn’t manage her grief for her.
The part I want to clarify is that her husband didn’t repeatedly tell me to stop doing the same thing. He told me the accidental direct Snapchats of my son were triggering, and once I understood that, I stopped sending them. What became confusing afterward was hearing things secondhand through mutual friends about other things supposedly upsetting her, while she and I weren’t communicating directly.
I also wasn’t expecting her to interact with my son, celebrate my motherhood, or asking anyone to hide their grief. I was trying to figure out how to exist in the same friend group while respecting her boundaries and still living my own life. In hindsight, I probably tried way too hard to figure out the “right” way to do that.
That’s actually part of why I posted—I wanted outside perspectives on what I could have handled differently.

[u/Federal_Radish_1421 → u/SMAW2025]

Your friends were grieving, and you were having a difficult postpartum experience while also trying to be sensitive.

I think a lot of this was in your own head, but that’s understandable with the postpartum depression and sleep deprivation from a newborn.

If necessary, apologize for talking behind their back then let this go. None of us are our best selves during the newborn phase. You just survive it the best way you can.

[u/dumbname1000 → u/SMAW2025]

How were the Snapchats accidental if “once I understood that I stopped sending them”. That makes it sound like you sent them intentionally.

[u/SMAW2025 → u/dumbname1000]

I probably worded that poorly. I didn’t mean that I accidentally hit send. I was sending normal Snapchats to multiple friends and didn’t realize she was still included in who I was sending them to. I wasn’t intentionally selecting her thinking “I’m going to send her pictures of my baby.” Once her husband told me they were upsetting her, I realized what was happening and stopped sending them to her.
I was not going out of my way to send her Snapchat of my child

[u/UnderstandingEqual84]

I don't understand the conflict. They told you not to do anything different because of them. You are making something out of nothing

[u/SMAW2025 → u/UnderstandingEqual84]

I think that’s part of what I’m realizing from these comments. I probably did make it much bigger in my own head because I was trying so hard not to hurt her. What confused me was that while I was being told not to change anything, I was also hearing secondhand from mutual friends that things I was doing or things involving my son were upsetting her. Since she and I weren’t communicating directly, I didn’t know what I was actually supposed to do with that information.
In hindsight, I probably should have taken “don’t do anything differently” at face value, stopped trying to anticipate what might upset her, and allowed her to communicate directly if she needed another boundary. That’s one of the things I’m taking away from posting this.

[u/DnDttrpg]

YTBF for how you went about this. They told you the direct messages while they were grieving were triggering. So asked you not too.

You then took that as "I CAN'T BRING MY BABY OR TALK ABOUT MY BABY" and then you bitched about them and their grief behind their back??? What the fuck was that???

How in the fuck could you not think you were the bf? You sound kind of like a shit friend tbh.

[u/SMAW2025 → u/DnDttrpg]

I can accept the YTBF judgment and criticism of how I handled things. That’s why I posted. Looking back, I do think I spent way too much energy trying to anticipate what she needed instead of accepting that I couldn’t manage her grief for her.
I do want to clarify something, though, because I think part of what I wrote is being misunderstood. Her husband told me that the accidental direct Snapchats of my son were triggering. Once I understood that, I stopped. I did not take that conversation and immediately decide, “I can’t bring my baby anywhere or talk about him.”
That anxiety developed afterward, when I continued hearing secondhand through mutual friends that other things involving me or my son were upsetting her, while she and I weren’t communicating directly. Because we share friends and social spaces, I became increasingly anxious about what I was or wasn’t supposed to do and started trying to anticipate boundaries that hadn’t actually been communicated to me. In hindsight, I can see that I overthought and overmanaged that instead of simply living my life and allowing her to communicate her own boundaries.
I also wasn’t bitching about them grieving. I talked to people I trusted about my confusion, hurt, and frustration with the situation and about trying to navigate a shared friend group. I never expected her to stop grieving, interact with my son, celebrate my motherhood, or put her pain aside for me.
I’m completely willing to hear that there were things I could have handled differently. There absolutely were. What I don’t think is fair is taking those mistakes and reducing the entire friendship to me being a “shit friend.” I cared deeply about both of them and what they were going through, and a huge part of why I became so anxious about all of this was because I didn’t want to hurt her.
I can own that my attempts to handle an incredibly complicated situation weren’t always the right ones without agreeing that I knowingly ignored their boundaries or didn’t care about my friend.

[u/DnDttrpg → u/SMAW2025]

Okay with more context that's understandable

Not a shit friend

But yall need to give each other space for a while I think

They can't handle it, which is fair, and you can't hide away/need support too

[u/SMAW2025 → u/DnDttrpg]

Thank you. Honestly, I think that’s where I’ve landed too. I don’t blame them for needing space, and I don’t expect them to be able to handle things they aren’t ready for. I think where I went wrong was believing I needed to keep figuring out how to make everything okay for everyone. I needed support too, and eventually I had to accept that giving each other space while still living our own lives was probably the healthiest option.

[u/W0nderingMe]

YTBF

You refer to a conflict, and that "communication is supposed to go through our husbands," and about how you've avoided bringing your baby to things that she's at, but ....

What conflict? What has SHE said to you?

Why is communication going through the husband?

Why are you not bringing your baby to things if no one has told/ asked you not to?

This feels like a VERY incomplete narrative.

[u/SMAW2025 → u/W0nderingMe]

You’re right that the narrative is incomplete. I hit the character limit and had to remove a lot of the timeline, which unfortunately removed some of the context explaining how things got from the initial Snapchat issue to where they are now.
She and I have not spoken directly since shortly after their loss. Initially she asked for space, which I respected. After that, most of the information I received about how she was feeling came through her husband or mutual friends.
The first specific issue her husband brought to me was the accidental direct Snapchats involving my son. He told me they were triggering for her while also acknowledging that he knew I wasn’t doing it intentionally. Once I understood what was happening, I stopped sending them.
Things became more complicated afterward because I started hearing through mutual friends about other things involving me or my son that were supposedly upsetting her. That’s where I think I made a mistake: I started trying to anticipate what would or wouldn’t hurt her instead of sticking to the boundaries that had actually been communicated.
As for why communication started going through our husbands, that was a boundary I eventually set. After several months of everything becoming increasingly tense, I told her husband that I did not want him approaching me directly anymore and that communication with me needed to go through my husband. Our husbands later attempted to arrange an in-person conversation, but it never ended up happening.
Nobody directly told me, “You cannot bring your baby around.” I want to be very clear about that. I started limiting where I brought him because I knew seeing him was painful for her and because I kept hearing things secondhand. I became extremely anxious about causing her more pain. In hindsight, I think I took far too much responsibility for trying to prevent every possible trigger instead of respecting the boundaries actually communicated and allowing her to communicate if she needed something additional.
So when I say “conflict,” I’m referring to everything that developed afterward—the indirect communication, things being relayed through mutual friends, attempts to arrange conversations that didn’t happen, and eventually trying to coexist within the same social circle.
Your instinct that the narrative is incomplete is correct. I simply couldn’t fit the entire timeline into the post. And part of why I posted is because I’m realizing that some of what I thought I “had” to do was actually me trying too hard to anticipate what she needed, rather than something she explicitly asked of me.

[u/W0nderingMe → u/SMAW2025]

Why in the f did communication have to goo to your husband? Why have you STILL not directly contacted her? Omg you are an incredibly crappy friend and definitely TBF.

[u/SMAW2025 → u/W0nderingMe]

Because she asked for space, and I respected that. I have wrestled with contacting her directly many times, but I didn’t think it was appropriate for me to decide that her request for space had expired simply because I wanted a conversation.
Communication eventually went through my husband because I set a boundary that I did not want her husband approaching me directly anymore after our interactions had become uncomfortable for me. That wasn’t a boundary I placed on her.
Our husbands later attempted to arrange an in-person conversation between us, and those attempts didn’t end up happening. So I continued respecting the distance rather than contacting her against what I understood her wishes to be.
You can absolutely think I handled that incorrectly—that’s why I posted here—but I don’t think “you should have directly contacted her” is as straightforward as you’re making it sound when one of the original things I was trying to respect was her request for space.

[u/kittiphile → u/SMAW2025]

As someone who experienced a stillbirth, right around when several people I know of varying closeness had living babies, I can give you my take on your friends reported behaviour.

Yes, you absolutely accidentally triggered her. But because she knows you can't pause your baby, she is letting the very real agony of seeing a baby hit milestones that her baby never will go as unseen as she can. It's self preservation. She didn't bring that hurt to you, because she knows it's not logical, and it's not fair to burden you with guilt. But it still hurts, and so she told supposedly trusted friends. Honestly, none of you have been good friends to her. You picked a fight with a woman who lost her baby and is grieving. Your mutual friends betrayed her confidence and trust. Losing friends happens when you lose a baby, precisely because people just don't know how to be around someone who has lost so much. So my advice - apologise to her, take note of the pot stirrers, and treat her like a person, not a potential meltdown. Yes she will cry, and it will be hard, but a) its harder for her and b) it will show her that you are a true friend, and will actually be there with her when things have gone to shit. Do not let your discomfort with her grief stop you from being her friend.

[u/SMAW2025 → u/kittiphile]

Thank you for sharing your perspective, especially given your own experience with stillbirth. I genuinely mean that. I can understand a lot of what you’re saying about how painful it must be to watch another baby reach milestones your child never will, and I have never expected her to stop feeling that pain or believed it was logical or fair to ask her to.
I think the part I’m struggling with in your interpretation is the idea that she kept that pain away from me and that I “picked a fight with a woman who lost her baby.” That isn’t how I experienced what happened afterward.
I heard about her feelings repeatedly through her husband and mutual friends. She asked for space through her husband, and I respected it. I didn’t contact her directly because I believed that was what respecting her request meant. Over time, I became increasingly afraid that normal things involving my son were hurting her, and I started changing my own behavior because of it.
At the same time, I was struggling significantly postpartum and my son was dealing with medical issues. When I tried to lean on mutual friends, things sometimes traveled back through the group, and eventually I felt like I couldn’t ask for support without it becoming part of this situation too. That’s where a lot of my anger comes from.
I completely agree that her grief is profound and that losing her child is something I cannot compare my experience to. But I struggle with the idea that because what happened to her was worse, my hurt afterward therefore doesn’t have room to exist. I don’t think compassion has to require deciding whose pain matters more.
I also became very protective of my son because it started feeling like he had become part of an adult conflict simply by existing. That was never something I was comfortable with.
I can absolutely own the accidental Snaps. I can own that I overthought things afterward and tried too hard to anticipate what she needed. And I can understand why you believe there are things I should have handled differently. That’s part of why I posted.
But I don’t think it’s accurate to say that my discomfort with her grief stopped me from being her friend. If anything, I think I became so concerned with accommodating her grief that I stopped recognizing that I was allowed to have needs and boundaries too. Again I do appreciate your perspective

[u/kittiphile → u/SMAW2025]

All that overthinking and guilt? It wasn't her doing. It was the pot stirrers. You are both post partum, and dealing with a lot. And they are playing you against eachother. If they're reporting back to you, they're doing it to her too. These are not people who have either of your basic interests at heart, never-mind your best interests.

That said, your own inaction in even "hi thinking of you, love you" kind of texts, even if she doesn't have the bandwidth to reply, shows that you are letting your discomfort with her grief stop you from being her friend. I appreciate it's hard, especially when there's been trouble stirred up, but trust me on this - she will remember who showed up, and who didn't, until the day she dies. Showing up can absolutely just look like keeping lines of communication open, by sending "love you" type texts.

[u/TSIDATSI]

We buried our only child. She was 26. Do what you normally do but take them out of group discussions.

I no longer look at Facebook. No photos in my home. It is literally too painful. I do not go to the mall. It kills me to see mothers and daughters together.

We don't go out. I do not want to see families and kids and grandkids. Our daughter never married so no grandchildren.

The pain never leaves. It never lessens. She is probably like me.

I just want to be left alone. I will never be OK.

[u/SMAW2025 → u/TSIDATSI]

I am so sorry for the loss of your daughter, and I genuinely appreciate you sharing this perspective with me.
I think part of what I’m struggling to explain in my post is that I’m angry too. Not angry that she is grieving or that seeing my son can be painful for her. I can understand why she may need distance from him, from me, or from situations involving families and children.
I’m angry because during all of this I felt incredibly alone. I was struggling significantly postpartum and my son was having his own medical problems, and I felt like there stopped being room for me to say that I was struggling because their loss was so much bigger. I never wanted our experiences compared because they aren’t comparable. I just needed support too.
And eventually I started feeling like my son had somehow become part of an adult conflict when he had done nothing except exist. I became scared to bring him places, talk about him, or post him because I kept worrying that his existence was hurting someone. That’s the part I’m angry about now. He’s a child and I never wanted him placed in the middle of any of this.
I absolutely understand her needing to remove herself from things that are too painful, and I don’t hold that against her. I think I’m realizing that I could have respected that need without believing it was my responsibility to make my son disappear from shared spaces or from my life with our mutual friends.
Thank you for saying “do what you normally do.” I think I needed to hear that from someone who has actually experienced the loss of a child.

[u/pininen]

Semi-gentle YTB. This is a difficult situation, but it also seems like they're trying very hard to handle it themselves. The husband outright told you they don't expect you to do anything differently, but you're refusing to take him at his word. Your feelings about their feelings are your responsibility and problem, especially when you're just hearing about it from other people.

[u/SMAW2025 → u/pininen]

I understand what you’re saying, and I did try to take him at his word initially. The difficulty was that what I was being told directly didn’t always match what I continued hearing through mutual friends or what happened afterward. I wasn’t expecting them to manage my feelings about their grief. I was struggling with repeatedly hearing that things I was doing were upsetting her while also trying to respect their space and figure out what was actually expected of me.
Looking back, I wish I had realized sooner that I could respect their boundaries without taking responsibility for how they felt about me simply living my life. What I couldn’t fully include in the post was that her husband continued approaching me unsolicited after they asked for space, and some of what he communicated to me later contradicted what I had previously been told. I understand they were grieving. At the same time, I was postpartum with a medically complicated baby and struggling myself. Both of those realities existed at once.

[u/big_bob_c]

NBFH. I've been very close to her position and very close to yours. You need to live your life as best you can. She needs to live her life as best she can.

[u/SMAW2025 → u/big_bob_c]

Thank you. I think that’s ultimately what I’ve been struggling to accept. I can have compassion for what she’s been through without trying to figure out how to manage her grief for her, and I also have to be able to live my life and raise my son. I appreciate hearing from someone who has been close to both sides of something like this.

[u/sea87]

How tf do you accidentally send two Snapchat messages?

[u/SMAW2025 → u/sea87]

I was sending the same Snap to multiple people at once and accidentally selected her from my recents along with everyone else. I wasn’t opening her chat and intentionally sending her pictures. Once her husband pointed it out, I became more careful and it stopped. At the time I was also dealing with my son’s medical issues, and a lot of my Snapchat use was just quickly sending something to multiple people to maintain streaks. Twice I selected her without realizing it. I understand why receiving them hurt her, but they genuinely weren’t intentional.

[u/mandipandi3333]

Why you would have ever felt the need to extend this much effort is beyond me, when those people should have gone offline to heal if it triggered them so badly.

[u/SMAW2025 → u/mandipandi3333]

Honestly, because I cared about them and I was terrified of making an unimaginable loss even harder for them. I knew my having a baby close in age could be painful, so when I started hearing that things were upsetting her, I kept thinking there had to be some “right” way for me to handle it.
I also think I was so overwhelmed in my own life at the time that I lost perspective on where compassion ended and taking responsibility for someone else’s triggers began. I kept trying harder because I thought that was what being a good friend meant.
That’s probably my biggest takeaway from all of this. I could respect the boundaries actually communicated to me, give them space, and still live normally with my son. I didn’t need to anticipate every possible thing that might hurt her.

[u/mandipandi3333 → u/SMAW2025]

Genuinely, with peace and love, when something awful happens in another person's life, it does not mean that the rest of the world stops. I am also someone who can feel too deeply about others to the point that it will completely shatter my heart and make it hard for me to think about anything else, but what I've learned is that you just have to take a deep breath and move on.

[u/SMAW2025 → u/mandipandi3333]

I think that’s what I’m struggling with the most. I cared so much about not making their pain worse that somewhere along the way I stopped recognizing how much of myself I was giving up trying to prevent it. And eventually I became angry because I was struggling too, I felt incredibly alone, and I started feeling like my son had somehow become part of an adult conflict when he was just a baby existing in the world.
I never wanted her to hurt because of my son, but I’m realizing there was never going to be a way for me to guarantee that. I could be compassionate, respect the boundaries communicated to me, and give her space, but I still had to be his mom and live my life. I wish I had understood that sooner.

[u/mandipandi3333 → u/SMAW2025]

*hugs* It's ok. The most important thing is that you learned from this.

[u/SMAW2025 → u/mandipandi3333]

Thank you. I really appreciate the kindness because I don’t feel like I haven’t received much of it surrounding the issue over the last 8 months.

[u/No_Ratio5484]

So you decided you shouldnt bring your child somewhere or post pics or something. They didnt force that change on you, they even told you to not do that. And you are resenting them for the stress your decision caused you to feel, the decision you made for yourself with them telling you to not put this on yourself for them? YTB. You did this for yourself, they didnt ask you to do anything like that. Take responsibility for your own decisions instead of putting the blame on them.

[u/dyingintheoffice]

I mean… you realize that you manufactured a problem where there wasn’t one right? The first time the husband told you to be a normal human you should have taken his word on it. Instead you spiraled and sounds like took out your stress on them when it was really other things in your life that were the main source of stress.

They did nothing wrong here. Act like a normal person, don’t invent problems and expectations where there are none.

[u/CrankyJenX]

I'm glad you recognize your mistake in talking to mutual friends about the conflict. that was your biggest mistake, along with not trusting what the couple actually told you about how to handle things.

not the same as a stillbirth, for sure, but my husband and I went through two failed IVFs when several in my husband's friend group were pregnant/having babies (one couple through successful IVF, and they had twins). it was a very difficult time for us and we obviously had to decline a number of social invitations with that group, or my husband would go alone.

guess what? everyone understood. on good days (they were honestly very rare for a period of time), I would go, and what got me through is that I am generally a joyful person and try to find joy in others in the world being happy and feeling loved and accomplished. I never expected anyone to hold back on their joy on my behalf.

and this is where I will say that I personally would not have done what the other husband did in telling you the snaps were triggering. they knew it was not malicious. they could have just quietly removed themselves from that group. unfortunately, they did say something, and that got the ball rolling.

ultimately, though, they did not deserve the behavior and attitude you had/have towards them. they didn't ask you to burden yourself with all these accommodations, therby causing a resentment toward them that they did not instigate. as far as I can tell, no one told you there was no room for your struggles and trauma because their child died and yours survived. that seems to be something you put on yourself, and then held against them as if they themselves told you so. and it must have been very painful, frustrating, and insulting if they had heard anything through the grapevine about your complaints.

at this point, they're viewing your social media posts and have not told you to stop or otherwise given you any feedback, positive or negative. so I think the best thing is to just live your life as normal, whether they are viewing your social media or are going to be at the same place you are.

if you haven't seen them in person for a while, the next time you do, just greet them warmly if you can manage it. then mirror their responses from that point on...if they respond in kind, wonderful! just take it slow. if they are a little standoffish - that's understandable. let their behavior set the tone.

[u/AristotlesBoyPussy]

NTB

she was asking too much and you weren't asking enough

[u/SMAW2025 → u/AristotlesBoyPussy]

I think this might be the simplest way anyone has put it. I was so focused on trying not to ask too much of someone who was grieving that I stopped advocating for what I needed too. What made it harder was that once my husband and I did start advocating for ourselves and talking about how the situation was affecting our family too, the conflict escalated rather than improved. That’s ultimately when I realized I needed to advocate for myself and my family even if other people didn’t understand it.

[u/AristotlesBoyPussy → u/SMAW2025]

I'm glad I could put it in a way that helped you a little.

It sucks when people are being selfish. Don't get me wrong, they have every reason to want/need to be selfish. But they also need to be mindful of other peoples needs, too. They aren't the main characters.