Man Shaming Wife's Best Friend for Breastfeeding in Front of Him Slammed

A man accusing a woman of "exposing" herself while breastfeeding her newborn son has received a storm of criticism on Reddit.

The post was shared two days ago on Reddit's Am I The A***** (AITA) subforum, where it had received 8,100 upvotes at the time of writing.

Under the username Electric_Angels, the 28-year-old mom said she and her 32-year-old husband hosted a barbecue at the weekend, so that more of their friends and family could meet their five-month-old son.

At one point, the woman went to her son's nursery to breastfeed him. Her best friend's 29-year-old husband later came inside the house to use the bathroom and ended up opening the door to the nursery.

The poster said: "My husband tells me that when best-friend's-husband (BFH) came out of the house, he immediately reprimanded my husband for the fact that I was exposing myself and acting inappropriately in front of guests."

Was the best friend's husband overreacting? Or was there some other explanation for his reaction towards the breastfeeding mother?

Life coach Tarla Makaeff told Newsweek: "The poster was completely in her right to nurse her baby in 'privacy' in her own home" and "this certainly all goes back to him and his inability to deal with his own discomfort."

In a March 2013 study in Pediatrics, about 60 percent of mothers were found to have stopped breastfeeding earlier than they wanted to.

How long a woman breastfeeds her child is influenced by several factors, including "cultural norms and lack of family support," the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says, citing a July 2016 study in the Journal of Women's Health.

The mother in the latest post said she went to her son's nursery to breastfeed, "as most people were in the backyard, I thought that this would be a quiet spot for the two of us."

When her best friend's husband had come into the house to use the bathroom, the poster said: "I think he was having a bit of a snoop around because he ended up opening the door to the nursery where I was with the baby (which is nowhere near the bathroom)...he was quite shocked and fumbled his words a little bit before closing the door and leaving."

According to the poster, the best friend's husband later sent a message in a group chat with his wife, the poster and her husband, saying: "He could not believe how I had exposed myself to him today when I knew he was happily married, and that I should have more shame."

He claimed that the poster "was not setting a good example" for her son, "who would grow up as some kind of deviant because I am refusing to feed him in a 'normal and healthy way.'"

The mom said: "I am honestly quite upset," but wondered "maybe I should have just gone with a bottle feed during the event so that this never would have happened..."

'Shame on This Man'

Etiquette expert Lisa Mirza Grotts told Newsweek: "Shame on this man. His happy marriage has nothing to do with a woman's right to bare her breast. The mother in question was not a topless dancer."

Makaeff noted: "It seems like he was caught in the act of 'snooping around' and felt his own sense of shame. Rather than admit this, he projected his feelings onto the mother with his moral disgust."

She explained: "His accusation of deviance may very well be his own mortification of feeling sexual arousal towards his partner's best friend. And it could emanate from his own experience of what he feels was inappropriate contact with his mother as a baby.

"It also speaks to his insecurity regarding his 'happy marriage' and his subconscious need to convince himself that he is happy to begin with," the life coach added.

'Deflecting and Projecting'

Several Redditors sided with the mom in the latest post.

Insomniatic-goblin said: "NTA [not the a******] HE walked in on YOU in a private moment with you and your son, if he saw you breastfeeding, it's his own fault for wandering around the house and snooping."

Tachibana_13 wrote: "Exactly, he's deflecting and projecting...she was nursing in the room literally named for it behind closed doors and that he walked in on her..."

PopGenProf said: "She could have fed the baby in the middle of the party and still not have been doing anything wrong."

The original poster couldn't be reached for comment as her Reddit account has been suspended.

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