My DH has just started a new job. Only a few days in, he is coming home fairly late and is very stressed about the work and the prospects for the next few months. Tonight he came home in terrible form, very pessimistic about how things look, expecting to work the weekend etc.
Now I feel my DH is overly pessimitic about his work and always has been. He's never known how to put things in perspective , or how to quit at a decent hour while he's still productive. He just gets more and more stressed and has a terrible outlook. His jobs have changed over the years but he hasn't, and it always ends up the same: regular late hours and disillusionment with the job.
What has changed is now we had a DD. I'm on maternity leave. I often find the days very long and sometimes lonely, though I do my best to seek out adult company. DH had a few weeks off before starting this job and it was great to have a partner there to help out and be as interested as I am in all DD's doing...naps, nappies, feeding habits, sleeping triumphs and failures, the lot. No one else in the world is going to be as into these details as him or me.
Now that all seems to be by the wayside with this new job. DH missed seeing DD both tonight and yesterday evening. When he came in tonight he didn't ask how she was today. I'm bursting all day to tell him our news and how things went and now nothing. It didn't help that we had a sort of argument where I tried to tell him he needs to change his attitude to work (by ignoring the long hours culture) or he'll never be happy. He took this as criticism and went on the defensive. It probably didn't help that I expanded the argument to cover how negative he is and how I feel he brings me down when he's like this but it's true. I dread him coming home when he's like this.
He's now gone to bed in a huff (even though he normally stays up to give DD a dreamfeed so I can go to bed early) and I'm feeling a bit miserable. I feel I was trying to help and be constructive but he nearly always thinks I'm attacking him when I do that. I feel now DD is here we need to try to slot work into our family life - not the other way around. I also feel he should understand it can be lonely for me and I need to share my day with him too - but he was "too tired" tonight to even contemplate a normal conversation with me, obviously.
Am I being unreasonable or not? Either way, would appreciate a 3rd party perspective, and some advice on how to wind him down when he comes in like that. Tbh, when he's in the sort of mood he came home tonight in, I feel annoyed with him and think he's being a bit of a drama queen.