To Want My OH To Grow Up?

[UKSky]

We're lucky and I should count my blessings. My OH works from home and we have a lovely, comfortable lifestyle, and we have a much wanted, and long waited for 6 month old DD, but......

Spoilt all his life by his mother my OH is a lazy bugger.

DD is currently teething and has a nasty cold and she's recently started weaning. So, good sleep has gone out of the window. She's waking every 2 hours from 11pm and needs comforting and/or feeding. She won't take a bottle so I have to get up to feed her, but I would like, just once a week for OH to get up, change her and give her breakfast and stay up with her until she has her first nap, just so I can get about 4 hours uninterrupted sleep. But he just won't. He's done it twice since she was born and each time he's been back in our bedroom with her within the hour.

If he's playing with her and she starts to fuss he hands her over to me. He says he "can't deal" with when she screams and finds it "too upsetting". The other day he actually put his fingers in his ears and said "can't you take her up to her room"?

So, that's it, I've had enough and today I'm going on strike. DD has just gone down for a nap so I'm not cooking, cleaning or doing laundry. The house can stay a tip today and OH won't be getting his freshly made coffee in bed and he can bloody well stay there all day for all I care. When DD gets up we're going out shopping. We're going to have a big lunch out and when DD goes to bed tonight so am I and he can get his own dinner.

AIBU or is he out of order?

Of course you're not out of order.

He might be unable to put up with screaming but surely he can make his own dinner and coffee?

What the smeg were you doing that for anyway?

Well the fresh coffee in bed thing would have hit the skids the second she was born! Actually, it would never have happened here in the first place!

Have you actually sat down and discussed your expectations with him? He "cant deal" with her screaming etc, but he needs to learn and if you take her each time, or dont make sure he understands that he must pull his weight then he will never learn.

Going on strike out of the blue when he hasnt realised there is a problem is only likely to create more problems. They are not psychic, sadly!

But no you are NBU for wanting him to pull his finger out and actually act like a father :)

My husband is off ill this week & I haven´t been chasing round after him.

Do you sleep in the day when your daughter does?

That was the only way I could cope when I was knackered at night tbh-knowing that I could catch up in the day.

Husband went out to work so didn´t expect him to get up-but of course that´s not to say he didn´t!

Does your husband have set working hours?

I can see it would be annoying if he is trying to work & baby is crying or you want him to have the baby instead of him working.

But nothing wrong with you having a lie in when he´s not working imo.

YANBU, and I would be wondering what the hell he thought a baby would be like if he's disturbed THAT much by her fussing.

You are knackered. Sod the house, go out, have a nice day, and let DH look after himself like the adult he's supposed to be.

You need to sit down with him and have a proper discussion about responsibilities. You BOTH work full-time during the day - he has a job and you are a mum - so you need to share evening/night duties. Next time he hands her to you tell him YOU can't deal with it this time. And leave him to it. Unless you think he REALLY won't cope - I mean in a danger-to-dd way - and then you really do need to think about what to do

Do you have family/friends who can take DD for a few hours in the morning for a couple of days so you can have a nap? It's hard to think straight when you are sleep-deprived. I know.

saying he can't deal with his crying child is being a knob of the highest order. How dare he abdicate responsibility like that? She is his daughter.

You should tell say " I can't deal with you being such a twat" the next time he says it, put your fingers in your ears and leave the house.

yanbu and you dont need to be catering to his every whim BUT i had pnd with dd1 and 2 and the thing even now with an 18 month old dd3 that alerts me to not coping with things very well is that i cant cope with them crying, its like a physical pain in my head and its so hard i want to scream at them to stop, of course i dont and im rarely in a position to hand them over in those circumstances but if i had been you bet i would have handed them over to someone. its worth looking into why he feels that way, if it turns out to just be laziness then a kick up the ass is in order but if he has a genuine problem then it needs looking at.

Of course you're not being unreasonable (freshly made coffee in bed? WTF????) but I'm not sure that you're going the best way to resolve the situation.

I think you need to discuss the expectations you both have of each other, and come to an agreement that you stick to, where he's able to take much more responsibility for his child, and recognises that this isn't a choice now that he's a father.

And although he sounds like a bit of a tosser from your OP, it may be that he has some valid concerns - maybe working from home with a small baby isn't working any more, and he's very conscious that at the moment, he has three people to support on one income rather than two people with two incomes.

We have had talked about it and because he knows he's wrong he just starts shouting and trying to get me agree with him as he is obviously right. It's how he's always got his own way and he thinks it will work with me (you'd have thought after 7 years he'd have realised it doesn't work for me). He knows that I won't talk to him when he's shouting as I just say that he's obviously quite upset and when he calms down a bit we can carry on the conversation.

He can cope, he just chooses not too. He doesn't really have set hours but he likes to stay up til 2 or 3am surfing the net so sleeps until 10 or 11am. He then has to have at least an hour to "get going", most of which is spent in the bathroom reading!!

I can't nap during the day. Never been able to. I feel so rough and get so grumpy that it's not really worth it. And as DD sometimes only naps for 45 minutes it's not really worth it. So today just sitting here enjoying a cup of tea and catching up on MN.

I never expect him to take DD during the day when he's working, and if she's really fussy and OH needs quiet for phone calls then we go out or play in the nursery.

My Mum's great and we see here every week but she already does all our ironing, and I actually want to spend the time with her. The Inlaws are 3 hours away..... but we're visiting at the weekend so perhaps I'll ask them to take DD out for a few hours. But MIL thinks its unreasonable that DD won't take a bottle and her answer to a crying baby is to give her a dummy (which we don't use) and try to "force" her to sleep by intense rocking!!! And to make snidy comments about my parenting choices.

GrendelsMum it's definitely not financial worries. We are very lucky in that area. Basically, he's a lazy bugger and hoping he can get away with it.

He's actually got an office in the house and with the door shut very little sound travels in so he's not really disturbed.

...well if he's up till 3am on the net, he can do the night feeds, yes? As in, he can go in, try to settle her, and bring her to you IN YOUR BED for a feed if she needs it.

Or is he an overgrown teenager who wants to stay locked in his room and play WoW, ignoring his family and just coming out for meals?

If so , you need to give him a bloody big kick up the backside.

YANBU to pander to his every whim; but YABU to disturb him unnecessarily when he is working.
Where DO you think your comfortable lifestyle comes from?
I think it is YOU that needs to grow up a bit, too.

That does change things.

He is being an arse.

His sleeping pattern is a habit he has got into and needs to change by going to bed a bit earlier, only say 15 minutes, every night and getting up 15 minutes earlier in the morning. It is unreasonable of him to stay up half the night out of choice and then lie in all morning, if you dont ever get a lie in despite having no choice about lack of sleep.

As he clearly doesnt need to work in a morning, tell him the day before that you are having a lie in the next day. Then take her to him and say "I am tired and am going back to bed, I will be down at 11" and GO. He has had fair warning that you will do this, and if he chooses to stay up til 3 am then thats up to him. Oh and make it clear that waking you up because she is crying is not an option!

He is banking on the fact that you will pull up the slack and wont make a fuss. So you need to start making a fuss.

Its difficult but in a way you have brought this on yourself a bit. Coffee in bed, all morning lie ins with nothing said, he is used to it and as far as he is concerned if there was a problem you would have said something before!

I mean you are not unreasonable NOT to pander to his every whim.
He and you need to accept that between set periods of day he is not contactable except for emergencies.

YABU to disturb him unnecessarily when he is working

But she said that she doesnt! He doesnt even start work til most people are on their lunch, and she doesnt expect him to do anything with her when he is working.

People who earn enough money to have a comfortable lifestyle don't usually do it by being distracted by other things, the OP should grow up and realise this.

Why can't he do it at the weekend? Do you not take turns in having a lie-in then? (this saved our sanity when we have 2 under 2...)

I still dont see your point Marantha!

SHe isnt asking him to be "distracted" by their dd when he is working! She is asking him to do his fair share when he isnt working, and stop taking the piss by staying up all night for no reason and sleeping half the day, when she needs her sleep too!

If he doesnt need to work til lunchtime then fine, he could use atleast a couple of those mornings a week to allow her to catch up on her sleep to, and get used to spending time with his daughter so that he can "deal" with her crying!

marantha, so you think that by expecting my OH to take some responsibility for our DD on the odd occasion is being unreasonable?

He is not at all distracted during the day, perhaps you should read my other posts.

Having a baby was a joint decision, and comes with joint responsibility.

UKSky, does he work into the evening?

That will prove harder as your dd gets older and needs family interaction around bedtime and meal times etc. I think he needs to sort himself out so he is working more office type hours that are set in stone. That would make things easier for you both now and in the future.

Oh and the "I am in the wrong so I am going to yell at you about it" happens here too.

YABU and childish to "go on strike". I'm not even sure how that works since I suspect you wouldn't leave a child in a dirty nappy or refuse to make her some food ;) But that's beside the point. You need to have an honest chat with your DH about roles and expectations around the house - have you ever done this - and did things change if you did? You seem to have a very good setup, not working and OH working at home, but perhaps it needs to be refined.

The only way forward with this is discussion with your OH, and if you genuinely can't agree to a comprimise... well I'll post these 7 golden options again on MN because we have so many of these threads:

1. Do it all, feel undervalued and have no time for yourself, teach offspring shite life lesson about your/women's value. Usually crack under the pressure whilst you're attempting to live like the adverts quaintly try and frame the "busy mum" image

1. Do only your share, this is often seen as a challenge to e.g. MIL and your DH, blame you for not making his tea too. Not possible when you have kids as e.g. for 2 kids you still do 75% of the household duties, it's just a washload for 3 not 4 people, cooking for 3 not 4 people, etc. Not an option to opt out of this 50% of the time since social services would step in grin

1. Live in a pigsty. Lower your level of cleanliness to match your husband. If you're OCD compulsive, this is probably best for you anyway. But if you're quite sloppy and your husband is disgustingly unclean, this means living in a shithole.

1. Employ a cleaner to substitute as the "new wife", usually in a worse economic/social position than yourself. Let her (and it's 99% of the time female) fill the wife work gap your husband refuses to step into.. even though in 90% of cases he can. Not many men work 80 hrs a week, etc.

1. Change him.

1. Surrendered Wife Do the wife thing but be very strict on the 'traditional' gender roles and each happy in your own role e.g. DH v appreciative of wife, DW appreciative of husband.

1. Separate

sounds like you've chosen option 6 so far...

Woops, just replace the housework-only slant of the above with a dash of childcare references too :)

"Live in a pigsty" maybe we should change to "bring up a feral child" in this case Or whatever the equivalent of fatherly neglect for childcare is.

Why don't you get a nanny? If he is wealthy he can afford it, and would take some pressure off you.
I don't think you are getting the fundamentals of this, though: a man who earns a lot of money needs to focus on his work and not be distracted. Now whether this is right or wrong is irrelevant; it's just the way it is.
A lot of women accept this and are happy with clearly defined roles.
No offence but if you wanted a hands-on dad who does the touchy-feely stuff you should have found yourself a nice but lower-earning man to have children with.
I think your man is very much of the 'I earn a lot of money, you look after our child' school.

Here you go Marantha, for the most ridiculous post I have read in a very very long time.

So, if my assessment is correct- which it appears to be, I don't think you properly worked this out at all and you are BOTH to blame for that (if blame is to be assigned here, which you appear to want it to be)>

Bogeyface, why is it ridiculous? Because it does not fit into any politically correct notions?
Do you honestly think alpha males who earn pots and pots of money sit around changing nappies all day?