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??

Well, isn't this just creepy? I have visions of op's wife having printed out copies of this thread with the posts backing up his woes nearly outlined in highlighter thrusted at her.

Parenting is never 50/50... Someone always picks up the slack, I work full time, I'm not in a relationship with dd's dad but we co-parent, we do all various things that need done between us, despite us both working... That's just what you have to do, some parents have to do it alone, if you are together you should be parenting every moment your child is awake when your wife needs it to be so.

This idea that you seedling something extra, something more than you need to by doing your duty as a father is ridiculous.

Rational - and you're supporting him because your husband isn't (and your kids were easy kids)

I doubt he's even talked to her tbh. She is presumably asleep, I'd bet he's on the computer and has seen what she's posted. Nice.

I don't have an ex husband

True, maybe I am being naive!

I'm not supporting anyone, I'm just saying I think, from what I've read, he does his share.

Me neither AF.

"I doubt he's even talked to her tbh. She is presumably asleep, I'd bet he's on the computer and has seen what she's posted. Nice."

You're just making stuff up now to make him look an even bigger twat. That's not fair.

Actually I would have had no idea about some of the horrible things mentally abusive men do til until I was fairly horrifically mentally abused. No I wouldn't have recognised the techniques before my ex (Heck I didn't even recognise them when they were being done to me or for some time afterwards)

rational

ask him, when he comes back

good luck with that

I just can't see why he'd post here, knowing that she had already done so.

Really Rational where in the post does he state anything about doing what needs to be done to run the house?

But he's very explicit about what he thinks we want to hear e.g. about playing with the child, he even mentions changing nappies

ninky try not to worry about the link, you did it in good faith to highlight a potential issue.

I wasn't aware of the other thread and it does look suspicious and uncomfortable.

There have been genuine male posters on here, but there was something a little up from the style of the first post to me. It was to put things in black and white to put under her nose and prove a point perhaps?

I just hope the wife is okay, and has some clarity of thought. She sounds trapped and thoroughly miserable, and as someone who could only afford 5 months of mat leave I empathise with her dread of having to leave her baby at such an early stage. TBH that made me more upset than any lack of sleep.

My DH is a SAHD and he does the best he can and is getting better, however all the things I took care of seamlessly and never bothered him about I still have to organise. I have been asking him to book a bloody dentist appt for 4 weeks, chase up doctors bills etc. I have to write a list of the jobs I think need doing. DS only wants me at the weekend, so I don't even get a lie in. DH would sleep until 11am due to apneoa, but I now go and wake him to join the family and make breakfast on one day.

I still spend my lunch hours running round fecking post offices, paying bills, shopping for shoes, phoning for appts etc. He was previously in the army, away a lot and never had to/was around to do this stuff. He never even thought about it.

He did formally apologise for taking it all for granted, and learns a little more about my wonderwoman capabilties each week, and he does try to do more, it's exhausting having to think for two though.

Op - if you are actually taking this on board, and not just holding the screen up to your DW face to prove a point, your DW feelings are her feelings, not yours so don't belittle them or rationalise them, you have to accept that is how she feels, start with a fresh sheet of paper and start sharing the responsibilities. however if they are her true feelings, she needs to take ownership of them and tell you exactly what she wants from you to readdress the imbalance.

Something quite disturbing about a man who trawls the internet stalking his wife.
My ex did ther same - and yes note the 'ex' bit. It's the type of thing that men who end up as exes do.....

Some people would find it really creepy to find that their partner was on the Internet posting personal shit about them to strangers (especially if they knew the reality was very different to what the MN audience was being told). I guess that is ok as it is the basis of how MN works, but I wouldn't get too freaked out by the odd partner wanting a right of reply. I expect I would and I reckon a lot of others I here would feel the same.

I can't see why if he was genuine he'd need to post on here at all. I have never seen another post like it!

"I will maintain what I said a couple of posts ago, these days some are just making waaaay to much of a meal of it"

Well the OP certainly is, if he has to wake his exhausted wife up because he finds parenting too bloody hard by himself. But then, he's also said he's working hard and she isn't, hasn't he?

And he says he "helps" here. Which says it all really - that means it's her job, her responsibility and he's just the helper.

And some women are saying that that's better than their husbands and partners. Which only goes to show, that there are an awful lot of really crap husbands and partners out there.

OP, read Wifework and What Mothers Do and stop helping your wife, do your fair share instead. "Helping" implies it's not your job, it's her's. Stop it, that's not equality, no wonder she's pissed off with you.

So...

Rather than asking your wife what else you can do to help, you
a) come to the conclusion she is being unreasonable
b) invade her personal space (I'd be a bit pissed off it my DP came on here to give his "side" of an argument
c) dismiss her experiences as a SAHP, as she's "not doing proper work, guv'nor"

If she's asking for more help, ask her what help she needs. Don't come on here, moaning to us. Ask her, and help out where you can.

He does not do HIS share. He does A share. A tiny one.

rationale - didn't mean to upset with the use of the word supporting, I thought mirroring your term and using the phrase wife bashing might have been a bit emotive

SGM I couldn't tell you the make or size (washing machines have sizes?) of our WM and I do all the laundry!

Erm yes - about the helping thing I agree with all the others.

Childcare sounds like a fairly even split, but I like maths so I've worked some figures out for you. when you look at it you're spending 18 hours per week in charge (I've been generous on the weekend mornings since you didn't say you do every weekend and you shouldn't really have to be waking your DW for direction, surely?), you have a nanny for 9 hours a week and your DW is "on duty" for the remaining 141 hours per week. Night hours do count if your DD is waking for night feeds, but I'll give you a solid 6 hours per night to count as uninterrupted sleep time, once you factor in the time spent trying to resettle the baby and then get back to sleep and the fact that these hours are more disruptive in general than childcare in the daytime. So that's 99 hours she's in charge to your 18 hours.

If you split the time spent as percentage of available time - yours being based on an 8-6 work week and assuming you're both aiming for 8 hours of sleep (so including a nap for her) - you're spending 29% of your available time looking after the baby. Whereas she is spending 88% of her available time looking after the baby. Twice as much time as you spend at work (45% of whole week excluding sleeping times). If you add together your work hours and childcare hours as a percentage of the whole of your awake week, you have 51%. Even taking housework totally out of the equation, this is not an even split. By these caculations your DW has just 13 free hours a week, whereas you have 44 free hours. Housework will account for some of these hours as well, there is not much housework you can do while in sole charge of a 4 month old. Of course this will change as your DD gets older and is more able to play alone or help.

I hope that makes things a little clearer for you :)

@ BertieBotts

Rational you are the star of this thread. How unbelievably sanctimonious, anti woman, patronising and belittling. Has made all my angry nerves stand on end. The shorthand for your posts is:

"I am a great mother, that's why my children are perfect, I don't have off days because they don't exist for me, my children slept through, because I expected them to. If yours don't it's because you are not as good a mother as me."

You have got to be fucking kidding me. Some children are better sleepers than others. Yes parental input is a factor, but only a factor. Chance plays a part as do your circumstances at the time.

OP, words fail me. Your poor DW. I have a DH who does less than you, but that does not excuse anything. You have no idea when your own DD is hungry ffs. Moreover, you have no idea how she slept or how much she ate at night. So your poor DW has been struggling alone for all but a couple of hours a day, when you come back and wow put DD in the bath.

No housework, no emotional support. I'd be livid.

Bertie You are amazing!

it took me about half an hour. I got carried away!