Thursday, I gave notice near the end of the day letting my General Manager know that I secured employment elsewhere. A decent thing to do, not required, but decent at the least.

He asked what my plan was. Give them 2 weeks or end it today. I told him: "Whatever you choose. I leave it up to you guys."

"Let me talk with the Shop Manager and the owner."

I went back to work, 20 minutes later he came to me. "We discussed it and if you want to finish what you were working on and pack up today, that'll be fine."

So I did. I finished what I was working on, packed my things, and left. Now I get to enjoy 2 weeks off before starting back up. (Gods I love actually being unemployed.)

It was *sort* of surprising that they opted to separate immediately, the last 2 places I gave noticd **wanted** 2 weeks.

My girlfriend (20F) and I (21M) are in college, and she’s about 26–27 weeks pregnant now. We found out earlier in the pregnancy that the baby has Down syndrome.

I don’t want to have this baby.

I’ve tried to make myself feel differently about it, but I can’t. I don’t feel ready to be a dad at all, and this isn’t just a normal situation where you figure it out as you go. This is something that will affect the rest of my life in ways I don’t even fully understand yet.

I’m scared of what my future is going to look like. I dread the future now. The medical issues, the appointments, the therapies, and the possibility of lifelong care. There’s a chance there could be something wrong with the baby’s heart. There’s a spot on it on the ultrasound and while it hasn’t gotten worse since they first spotted it, it also hasn’t shrunk.

Nobody gets what I’m going through. None of my friends have kids, let alone kids with Down syndrome or illness or anything. No one in my family has any experience with this either. It feels like everyone around me is either guessing or just deciding how I should feel about it.

My mom has gone all in on it. She’s reading everything she can about Down syndrome, has a whole stack of books, and keeps talking like “this is what it’s going to be” and trying to normalize it. I know she’s trying to help, but I’m not there yet. I just can’t accept it like that right now. 

I’m struggling with a lot of resentment and guilt at the same time. I feel like a terrible person for not wanting this, but I also feel like I’m being pushed into a life I didn’t choose.

We’re still together, but it doesn’t feel the same anymore. We’re just two people stuck in the same situation trying to deal with it in completely different ways. She’s scared and worried but she already loves the baby. I’m sorry but I don’t feel that way. 

On top of that, my dad has kind of inserted himself into everything. I was planning to finish this year of school and then take at least a year off to work and figure things out. I just have one year left after this, but what are you supposed to do when you have a bay coming, and that’s baby will likely need special care? Instead, he’s decided he’s going to pay for everything my last year of school. I’m grateful for it, but he also went behind my back and wrote my girlfriend a huge check without even telling me first. Now I feel like I’ve lost control over that part of my life too.

I think about breaking up a lot. Part of me feels like it would make things simpler, like it would be one less thing to worry about. But I don’t even know if that’s true. It might just make everything more complicated in a different way.

I feel stuck. I don’t want this life, but I also don’t feel like I have a real way out of it.

I’m just trying to get through each day without completely losing it, but the fear is always there in the background. I just tried to ignore it as much as I could for as long as I could but time is flying by and the baby is due in July. I feel like I was in denial and some part of me kept saying “it’s not really going to happen, that baby really isn’t ever going to be here and this isn’t your life.” Now it’s like I’m finally starting to accept it’s actually happening in a few months and there probably nothing that will happen now to prevent it. 

My wife and I frequent a local diner once a month and order approximately a $40 meal after tax. We always tip at least 10% when it’s the two of us, and have occasionally brought the entire family (5+ people), and have left larger 20% tips. The only time we have not tipped is when we order food to go.

Today, we sat down for breakfast, ordered a couple drinks, and were then asked to speak with the manager out front. He informed us that the servers did not want to serve us to do us not showing enough appreciation and not leaving tips. We clarified that we do leave tips and he said that we need to leave at least a 15% tip. I asked if we were not allowed to return and he said that is correct.

I like to think we are considered to be friendly people and are always thoughtful in saying thank you and verbally showing appreciation throughout our dining experiences.

AITAH?

EDIT: We are in CA.

Edit: Appreciate the feedback. It wasn’t our intention to be disrespectful. However, we see that our frugality was overextended here and we will be adjusting our tip habits moving forward. We would have appreciated feedback from the the restaurant on their frustrations as opposed to just being asked to leave. We are saddened by how things were handled but it is what it is now.