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??

OP, I'm surprised to see you back!

In your OP, you sound like your genuinely want to improve relations with your wife and are looking for some third party advice. My suggestions are:

1. When you get home from work, you take sole and full charge of your DD including putting her to bed, every night.

1. Now you've introduced formula, you do the first night wake (normally 11ish) and feed her then.

1. Don't wake your DW on weekend mornings to ask her how the night went. If you really must know, ask her in advance to leave you a note for when you get up.

I think you've attractive a lot of very unfair criticism with posters making unwarranted assumptions about your motives and behaviour. My honest opinion is that the first few months of a baby's life are very difficult on first time parents and that life will gradually improve as your DD gets older. You sound like you are genuinely making an effort and that you want to support your DW and be a good father. No one can ask for more than this.

attractive = attracted!

You say you take the baby all morning at the weekend and equate this to three or four hours. I'd expect "taking all morning" to equate to 6am through til gone 12pm so a good six hours. The move to bottles may make this more realistic.

And when you take the baby, if possible, take her out so the house is silent, no popping head around the door and asking q's, if this is the only unbroken sleep she's getting in the week it needs to be good quality.

I think you ARE contributing to your child's care, and ARE are working hard, I am just flagging up the thing I think would possibly make the biggest improvement - some people cope with it but broken sleep makes me feel insane, depressed and everything seem worse, she may be like me!

OP, if you only take ONE piece of advice from this thread this is it:

Both you and your wife, when posting on forums, need to use your own judgement for two reasons:

1. Only you know the real situation in your home and your relationship (from your own perspective at least)

1. ALL posters on any forum have their own baggage, and their own preconceptions, that is the basis of their posts across the board.

For example, some live in happy steady fulfilled relationship and post on the basis of what they think a relationship should be. Others have experienced abuse, and also post on this basis what they think a relationship should be like. Others again have no empathy, no experience of hard times, no experience of particularly good times, and will still post advice. Then you have another category poster again, those who live in abusive or bad relationships, or have done, but are so far in denial that that they normalize other peoples experiences of unfairness, abuse, or just ill treatment.

It is really hard to know who is who in the above, unless you have been here a while and posted across the range of topics that people discuss.

haileys

I love women, I am one. What I love more is equality. I can love women without hating men. Not everyone can be compared to your ex. The fact that you even compare a stranger on the net to him is indicative of some emotional baggage, telling me you're not best placed to be impartial.

I've not read the whole thread but wanted to give the OP my opinion.
It does sound like you do more than many fathers of new babies with regard to looking after your dd. however I really appreciated it when my dh cooked our evening meals if he was home in time. He'd sometimes chuck in some washing on a weekend which was great too (as long as he folded it nicely so it didn't need ironing, but that's another thread!!) The biggest thing he could have done for me was give me decent lie ins at the weekend - without waking me up to find out feeding patterns!
I bf for a year so dh couldn't get involved with dream feeds/night feeds but now your dd is on formula, doing some of these will help enormously.
What does your dw do when the babysitter is there during the week? Is this to catch up with housework/sleep? It's more in itself than many new mums can get, she needs to make the most of it.
Your first baby IS hard work, it really takes time to adjust. By the time you have your second or third you'll both wonder what all the fuss was about
Good luck and I hope you sort it out soon.

Forums are not by nature representational. We use them because we have an axe to grind. I have mine and rational, you sure as hell have yours!

Step away from the internet, both of you. Then sit down together and talk. It looks like both of you feel misunderstood, not appreciated, and taken for granted, and fail to see why the other is feeling like they do.

Your wife is exhausted and probably doesn't realise how much you do. You are exhausted, and probably don't realise how much she does. All in all it looks to me from what you describe, that you're managing quite well to share the load. But sometimes it needs to be simply talked about. Also, try to say 'thank you' whenever the other has done something for you.

It helps enormously. It doesn't matter whether it's 'their job' or 'I do it all the time, does he/she want a medal?', just saying 'thank you' when your wife (or husband) has changed a nappy, made a cup of tea, done the washing or whatever other household chore helps them tons to feel more appreciated.

So if he prints of the thread with the bits he wants, why would anyone report and let the thread be deleted. Surely if he did that the wife would come on Mn to see the whole thread and not just the bits he might pick out. She can't read the whole thing if it's gone.

I've just seen on your wife's thread that she's been sleeping on the sofa. Please put a stop to this immediately. It's not good for her quIty of sleep, her back or your relationship. Actually I was disgusted to read that

I don't think any father should compare himself and what he does, to other fathers and what they do.

They should compare themselves to the mothers of their children and what they do. That is a fairer and more reasonable comparison.

There is no evidence to suggest he's going to print off selected parts of the thread, that has been entirely made up by posters here.

Who are you disgusted at that she's sleeping on the couch? Sounds like you may be aiming it at the op when in fact I'm pretty sure she's an adult who can make her own choices about where she sleeps. I suggest you tell her on her thread that you believe the couch is unsuitable.

Calculations have already been done that show the op is in fact doing his share. He fully believes he is doing his share of the housework too and without evidence to the contrary we need to take this at face value.

Tell you what, why don't one if you pop round to their house, pick up some solid evidence that he's not pulling his weight, then come back here. I'll then happily agree that he needs to do more. At the moment it's his word against hers.

Why do we have to take it at face value?

All the research shows, that men consistently over-estimate how much housework they do. And also, women overestimate how much housework men do as well. Researchers asking a couple, gets a man saying he does 50%, his partner saying she reckons he does about 30 -35% and when they actually do the analysis, it turns out to be only about 20-25% - but the fact that he does it, is so over-rated, that it is over-estimated by both parties.

In the same way, both men and women over-estimate how much talking women do in mixed company. Both say that women take up more conversation space than they actually do - quite often people will say that women took up 60-70% of the conversation, when it turns out they did 30-40%.

So people's estimation of what they do, isn't always the most reliable guide. I'd prefer to go with the likelihood according to reliable, peer reviewed research, myself.

So because OP is a man he must be wrong about the amount of housework he says he does?

FFS calling this man abusive (from the limited info we have) is pathetic and bordering on insane. There is some serious projection going on here. By the way, I am not actually on the OP's side, although I can see why he wanted to give his side of the story.

Homer1978, you need to talk to your wife and stop bloody using the word 'help'. You're not 'helping' her. This is your child, you are sharing her care. I imagine that your excessive use of the word 'help' is probably pissing your DW off and is a large part of the problem.

Do you know what? There's fuck all he'll be able to say or do to look good I the eyes of most of you. That's why I suggested he just goes away and ignores all the crap that's been spewed on here. Nice to see no one is continuing to claim he's abusive anymore, no evidence for that either.

The same goes for her, in her present frame of mind coming here may only do more harm than good, by the time everyone convinces her what a total twat her husband is. He may well be, but I've seen no evidence to suggest that is the case.

How did this turn into a maths thread? I hate maths

yes you have a hard job but there's a lot of women out there with hard jobs and juggling work and mother hood and we still have to do it.

No Amateurish that's not what I said.

He may be wrong, he may be right.

I merely pointed out that we're not obliged to assume that he's right. Particularly in view of research findings which say that overestimating how much housework a man does, is really normal.

Rational, but he is not trying. He is not really participating much in this thread at all is he? He just got it going again by adding a one liner this morning.

What does this tell you?

It does seem far easier for some to assume he's wrong though, that I'm not comfortable with.

Quint, it doesn't tell me anything, and I'm not willing to read anything into it. Hopefully he's taking my advice and ignoring it all.

There would not be any need for assumptions though, if the op was engaging in his own thread, though, would there?

Why are you not comfortable with it?

People are throwing out a whole load of stuff which he may not have considered, which may actually be helpful to him.

Everyone else on the net and in RL is going to tell him he's a hero because he does a bit of housework. That 's not going to help him if his DW is really pissed off with him, he wants to find out how to make things better with her and IME generally couples don't make things better with each other by denying the validity of each other's feelings or getting entrenched in their own little bunkers. If he has as many suggestions as possible, he can pick and choose the ones that might work and if he chooses to ignore some, then that's his choice isn't it.