or just an unreasonable wife??

[Bananamash]

I had a blazing row with DH last night, still feel pretty crap about it, but fairly sure I didn't behave too unreasonably... unless you tell me otherwise!

As a bit of background, DH works in a v stressful job in the city, long hours, usually he leaves at 6.55am and is not home til close to 10pm at night. However, the past few weeks have been much worse than normal, not getting back til midnight and having to go in at weekends too. :(

I have come down with a nasty virus, nothing serious but enough to feel shitty all the same- high temp, swollen neck and glands, achey, tired etc

As usual last night, i fed the kids, bathed them, and put them to bed. The 18m old co sleeps. I got into bed at about 9pm as i felt terrible. I got a text from DH saying he's be home at about 1030pm.

I heard him come in but went back to sleep. I think he pottered about downstairs for a bit and then came up. He turned on the TV in our room to watch family guy. This made the baby stir. Then wake up a little. Rearrange himself and lie back down again. Stir some more. This went onfor a few min, before i huffily said, "Turn that off! You're goign to wake him up properly and he won't go back to sleep!". He didn't pay any notice, and of course within 5 min the baby was wide awake, and sat their watching tv with his dad. I was still lying down with my eyes shut, trying to sleep and feeling like death whilst seething silently.

Of course, when the program finished DH turned tv off and wanted to go to sleep. Baby, now WIDE AWAKE did not. Baby, kept crawling all over me, telling me to get up etc. By this point i was furious.

Last week DH woke him up when coming to bed after getting in late from work, at about midnight. It was an accident, it just happened that baby was stirring as he came in and got into bed, and it was enough tio wake him up fully. Once wide awake he couldn't/wouldn't go back to sleep, and i had to take him downstairs and was up with him until 4am when he eventually went to sleep. I took him down as obviously DH needs his sleep, and whilst it was a total PITA it was an accident on DH's part.

However, by my reasoning, last night was entirely DH's selfish fault. I was a bit pissed offf that he would turn the tv on when i was asleep, or trying to anyway, but when he could see it was waking ds up, and particuarly when i pointed it out to him, i would have expected him to turn it off. If he was that desperate to watch it, we have a tv downstairs.

So.... i got up, said I am ill, and not dealing with this, you woke him up, you deal with it. DS is very clingy to me, as of course it is always me who puts him to bed etc. I left to go to the spare room. Then DH comes storming in and starts shouting at me, saying do i think it is fair to leave him to look after wide awake ds as he has to be up for work at 615am. I said, or tried to say through his shouting, that I thought it was fair as he had selfishly turned tv on and refused to turn it off waking up ds, therefore he should get him back to sleep. He shouted that if i inisisted on sleeping in the spare room and leaving him to get ds back to sleep he wouldn't be sleeping at home tomorrow, and stormed out slamming the door.

I heard them talking, and dh trying to get him back to sleep for about 15min, but they didn't have to go downstairs etc.

I didn't see him this morning, just heard him slam the front door as he left....

I think we are both overtired- me from being ill and him from working so hard (which he does for the good of his family, i know). But i really don't think he was being fair execting me to have to properly wake up, and then get ds back to sleep, probably by rocking him, walking him up and down etc....

So, AIBU or not?

This is one of the reasons I refuse to allow a TV in our bedroom. And I'm not even sick nor do we have kids.

@Cupoftea, it's not unreasonable as long as it doesn't wake up the sleeping person.

Erm who are all these experts on co sleeping? Who says the baby needs to be I'm his own room? Why? That is a very personal decision and nothing at all to do with the issue at hand.

In his own room. Sodding phone.

Munkysea - but now, when the DH is away (often) the dd (12) and I love a snuggle in the big bed watching the box when her big bro is glued to ghastly sport. winky - I agree it's a choice - sometimes between DH and child - child will be better off IMO with two happy parents.

laptop, iplayer (or whatever) headphones.

Jeck, agree with your point, but in this case I don't think anyone's "needs" are being ignored. There's a difference between needing something and behaving like a selfish arse to satisfy OP is a single mother and her dh is working all hours then behaving unacceptably when he's not working. If op needs him there more, she's not being unreasonable. When you have kids it's a joint decision and both parents should play as big a part as they can. For her dh to go out every Friday after work when he's spent NO time with the family isn't good enough, imo. He has needs too so a solution needs found for that. eg spare room (if there is one eg toddler's room-to-be?) could be the space where he gets dressed, has the tv in it, and a wee beer fridge.

Bumpsadaisie by "family friendly" options did you mean moving client-side?

..selfish arse to satisfy them. OP is a single mother...

I am genuinely to hear posters say "poor little DH, he deserves to unwind however he sees fit, his bedroom should be a haven" WTF??!! Completely ignoring the whole co-sleeping issue, a grown man goes into a bedroom where his ill wife is asleep and turns on the tv - completely inconsiderate and rude. If he "needed" to watch the tv in bed why didn't he go to the spare room?

I would be seriously pissed off if DH did that, let alone if DS was in bed and he woke him up. And if I told DH that doing XYZ would wake up DS and he chose to do it anyway then damn right he would be the one settling him back to sleep.

That said, it is tough when you are both dog tired, things are said that you don't mean and everything gets blown out of proportion. Your e-mail sounds reasonable and calm and very fair so good on you, not sure I would be so adult!

Just read your update, OP. Your email sounds great, very fair and reasonable. Your weekends sound lovely too. Hope you can get over this blip and sort out what you want to do from here :)

Agree with everything GetTHeParty said.

*bluefergie+ - youre right - at no point does the OP say her DH disageees with the co sleeping agreement.....because at no point in the entire 7 pages has she actually said how he feels....he could agree, disagree....we dont know yet. It would be good to know .

Oh, ffs.
We've been asked what we think about THIS ONE THING.
YANBU. He's being a prick.

Now, if you want opinions as to what we think about your family life/cosleeping/tv in bedroom, that may take longer to comment on.

Firstly get a screw driver and take the fuse out tv plug that will stop him doing it again.

I put my baby into his own room at 16 months and to be honest I was abit scared. Looking back it was a great decision as they get uninterupted sleep. Buy a decent sensor and put it in the babys room gives great peace of mind. You can still hear baby so you can relax.

When he comes home go downstairs and say please dont put the tv on in the bedroom Im not well and I need lots of sleep. I will be in the spare room for afew nights you dont want to catch this bug.

If he then comes upstairs to put the tv on opps it wont work without the fuse hee hee.

op,you sound like a very patient wife,if it were me he,d have got his butt kicked into the spare room.

For crying out loud, co sleeping suits a lot of people very well. Great for those of you who don't want to do it or successfully transferred their dcs to another room. Some people just prefer to co sleep and since the op hasn't asked about that, I don't see why she's getting told she should get the baby out of her room.

winky she has posted about it - co-sleeping isn't her choice or preference, it's driven by her toddler, and she doesn't know how to get him into his own room without him being upset. Have a look back at her previous posts.

You are both quite unreasonable. As lovely as it is to cospleep baby needs to be in his own room so your (very hardworking) DP can relax when he gets home from work, and he should have told you this instead of pretending his own room was his own too.

Seeing as everyone is banging on and on about the co-sleeping even though it is irrelevant to the issue of whether the DH was unreaasonable or not (which he was) my suggestion would be, if you do want to change that, you could try putting ds in his own room on a mattress on the floor, and go in to him when he wakes and sleep in there instead. This is what I/we did and most nights now ds either sleeps through or wakes at 5 and then goes back to sleep with me for another hour or so, which is fine by me.

They all grow out of waking in the night eventually, you don't have to do sleep training to make it happen.

WinkyWinkola, no-one I feel has said co sleeping doesnt suit lots of peoplke - but part of the problem was her DS was woken up and then OP was left with a wide awake toddler to deal with, which caused resentment between her and her DH as to who would stay with him, whereas if it had just been her DH had woken up this would not have happened. So it might not be the main issue (his selfishness is obviously) but it is relevant and will still be relevant the next time the toddler gets woken up, because even if he never puts the TV on again the todller can still be disturbed.

Its only advice on an internet forum at the end of the day - OP can choose to take it or ignore it.