wife thinks I can help more and very angry with me

[Homer1978]

I have a problem and I need your advice. I have a strong, beautiful, smart, ambitious wife. our gorgeous little Baby Girl is turning 4 months next week. My wife said the other night that even in Mumsnet they reckon that she is like a single mom. It crashed me.
I want you perhaps to show me the other side, perhaps I am doing something wrong, perhaps I need to change my perspective.

We have been married for 2 years, knowing each other 4, this is our first one. We love each other like crazy (or I can speak for myself).
I am running my own biz with 200 employees and offices around the world. I leave to work at 07:30 return at 18:00. In the last 4 months I can count on one hand the times I returned after 18:00 (at around 19:00), 3 of which were last week. I traveled abroad for Biz, 3 times in 4 months, for 2-3 days each time.
My wife is alone in the country as her Family (that anyway are not a warm family but good people though) lives in Germany.
She is working in a high-tech company as an analyst and took 4 months Maternity leave. The only help we get is from my Parents that are helping a lot relatively and from a babysitter that we took in the last month that comes 3 times a week during the day for 3 hours at the time.

Where is the problem? She reckons that I am not helping enough and I reckon that I don?t know any husband that helps more than me (considering the circumstances). Although it sounds quite like a simple argument, it got her to treat me really bad and accuse me of her problems (gaining weight, being exhausted?) and it reached a boiling point, that I fear can harm our future.
I am not perfect, like her I am righteous, I can say sometimes things I don?t mean. However, I am Loyal, Loving, caring. As for the Caring, I care too much and it is a problem as I get stressed from things (is our BG cold/warm/healthy?). I am confident in our relations that they are based on mutual love and a lot of passion (recently from obvious reasons I am more ?passionate??).

Now for the Technicals: in the first month I looked after our BG 5 hours a day from 18:00 to 23:00 every day (after returning from work), my wife slept at that time as the nights were rough., at 23:00 she put her to bed.
After a month we started a shower routine at 20:00 then feeding and then sleeping hence, I looked after her from 18:00-20:00 including giving her a bath every night up till today. Then my wife breastfed her and put her into bed. I never put our BG to bed till today and never woke up at night for her cries.
On weekends almost on a regular basis I m spending all mornings with our BG. 3-4 hours in the mornings and my wife usually sleeps. The rest of the weekend I would say that we spend time looking after her equally (of course I don?t breastfeed so my wife spends a bit more time with her).
I am very involved, singing, reading, jumping, changing Diapers, showering? and love our BG like there is no tmrw and it is reciprocal.
Last week we started to gradually give her formula and my wife wants to stop breastfeeding her completely at the age of 4 months ( I personally prefer that she will do it for couple of more months, however I support her decision and don?t give her hard time at all). I also support her decision to go back to work after 4 months (I like the fact that she is ambitious).

What does my wife want from me? ( I will try to be as much as accurate as possible and represent her side on the best way):
That I didn?t put our BG to bed till now, that I came back from work late (at 19:00 3-4 times), that I don?t take my wife out on a date, that I am not helping enough with the baby.
That I was stressed when she was pregnant (I admitted in my stressfulness and apologized and she says that she forgave me). That I wake her up in the weekend mornings asking her how was the night (I am doing so as I am spending 3-4 hours with our BG so I need to know when she needs to eat etc?). that she is dead tired, exhausted, feel bad about her body and I cannot understand and support enough.

Her perspective of equal relationships is the actual 50-50 however, I say that it doesn?t work like that and being equal is nice in saying but as I am working hard and she isn?t we cannot spend equally the burdens and responsibilities. When she will be back at work in 10 days , I believe that things will be more equal. I support this approach and will contribute my part in almost an equal way.

My problem is getting worse, as she is building this ?loathy? feeling towards me, that is tearing us apart.
If she is depressed, the it is a relief since it should pass, if not, then it is serious as I don?t expect from someone who loves me to feel so negative about me.

I need your help, please let me know what I can do more? Is she really a ?single mom??

oooooOoh.

no

not in that name, anyway

last post to dueliingfanjo

I've seen you have this argument before Rational, and I don't think I could be bothered to get involved then. So I won't now either after saying this:

Having bad experience with men does not make women into men-haters any more than having a bad experience with a black person would make a white person into a racist. Please, credit us with some intelligence to know the difference.

Secondly, it's way more man hating to constantly make excuses for men acting like twats. That just assumes that men can't help it, ergo, all men are twats by default and any man who isn't a twat is some kind of shining paragon of knighthood who is constantly fighting his impossible man-urges and should be applauded. Sorry, but no, you don't get applauded simply for not being a twat.

Bertie I'm going to have to challenge your maths!

Taking all of OP's statements at face value.

OP's work (52.5 hours) excluding trips abroad

• OP's time in sole charge of baby (18h) = 70.5h.

I will exclude the rest of the weekend because OP says care is shared, so I won't count it for either of them.

DW's sole care (weekdays, assuming 6 hours sleep, as you said) = 90 - 9 (babysitter) - 10 (OP care) = 71h

So a pretty even split IMO, bearing in mind that a) we know nothing of housework arrangements and b) in-law child care is not included

Op probably won't he will be too scared. Rightly so

@Bertie and Eleanor

Just as well I never said ANY of that or it would indeed have made me out to be an idiot.

Seriously, stop making stuff up, it's making you look stupid.

Amateurish don't forget to the 1 hour lunch break. The baby is 4 mnths old and he has I think 3 trips abroad that 3 days in a month away. To sleep the whole night. To be able to your old self. He just doesnt get it. s

Where did you get that 90 from? I'm confused. And OP does 2 hours per day in weekdays, plus 3-4 hours each weekend day.

I did working hours at 50 hours per week assuming he works 5 days and counting a 10 hour day (8-6) and I was allowing 8 hours of sleep, baby needs 24 hour a day care but probably allows 6 hours for sleep, so 18 hours. (Baby will probably sleep longer than 6 hours but I adjusted for the fact you still need to be around, you tend to sleep more lightly, and that getting up in the night also involves getting back to sleep.) So in addition to the 6 hours' sleep in the night the mum needs a 2 hour nap or lie in to make up her 8 hours to make it fair.

So mum + dad both have 8 hours' sleep allowance = 56 hours out of 168.
Dad works 50 hours out of 168.

Baby needs caring for 126 hours of the week. Dad does 18, babysitter does 9. Mum does the remaining 99, because there can't be any time where nobody looks after the baby (aside from those 42 hours a week where everyone in the house is asleep.) I left the PILs help out because I had no figures for it and I figured if it was a once a week or more thing, OP would have mentioned it.

@Rational (this isn't twitter BTW)

"Just because your ex was a twat doesn't mean all men are twats!"

Was just pointing out most intelligent people are well aware of this and able to tell the difference.

I didn't include the lunch break either.

No, mumsnet didn't say she was like a single mum, and bah....turn your computers off and talk to each other.

Let me put it another way. (this is reminding me of my OU work)

Baby needs caring for 126 hours. Agreed.

On weekends, 28 hours is shared care (36 waking hours - 8 hours OP sole care). So exclude these 28 hours.

Remaining hours of baby care = 98 hours.

OP does 18, babysitter 9. Therefore, DW does 71 hours.

OP does 52.5 hours work (his figures) + 18 hours sole care = 70.5

Disregard in-law care. Disregard lunch breaks (unknown) and baby naps during the day (also unknown).

In my previous post I was pointing out that some posters tend to see men as abusive.

Okay, fair point. I didn't count the "shared care" in. Mainly because, TBH, I doubt that it is fully shared. When there are two parents around one always still seems to be in charge even though the other is around when needed. But perhaps I am projecting. Giving the OP the benefit of the doubt on that score your figures are correct.

You mean you were biased, glad you acknowledged that. So will you now stop making things up? You most definitely are projecting.

i do lots of housework,in fact i think we share it equally in all areas- laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning...

Welcome back OP. Why don't you treat your wife to a weekend away, and then see if you manage without calling in your mum? (Or wife!)

FWIW my ex would make out to anyone that would listen that he 'often' did the cooking. The truth is he didn't even know how to switch the cooker on...I kid you not!

The bits about how often the op has the baby could have been written by my dp, except he leaves for work at 5.30 and gets back at 18.30, he also does his fair share of house work.

We don't have any other help and I could quite easily go off for the weekend and dp would manage fine on his own.

Not all men lie about how much they do or wouldn't be able to cope if left with the baby

Hello OP.
Any comment on your side perhaps?

Your thread has attracted a lot of attention and a lot of comments. Perhaps you would like to share with us your reaction to it?

Look OP, you're not going to get a balanced, reasonable opinion here.

They've originally jumped on you for not pulling your weight time wise, they were proved wrong. So now you're going to have to provide evidence of how much housework you do because they're assuming you're lying or overestimating. I'm really not sure you'll ever get a fair deal so move on.

You're wife might be struggling with the baby, try to find out exactly what she's struggling with and discuss between the two of you how this can be alleviated.

Oh, and recommend to your wife that this might not be the best place for advice. They are essentially going to tell her you are abusive and manipulative when in fact you sound quite reasonable. It's poisonous hysterics!

There are some really good posters but they get drowned out by the ones with an agenda, and that agenda appears to be to always side with the woman, and inevitably accuse her partner of abuse. 'Gaslighting' is a favourite term, I see it was used here too. If you're wife is already experiencing problems, thus certainly won't help.

Rational.you don't like women much do you? Especially when they......gasp! Talk to each other! You sound like ex h and you'd get on great!