to kick up a fuss

[jambag]

I have been at home looking after Miss 12months since she was born, and although DP and I have both talked about my having some time out, I have struggled to be able to get this started (exclusive breastfeeding and she was 'funny' taking a bottle for a while, me sleep deprived, usual first-time mother and crazy-life-change-new-priority type thing.
A week ago I finally organised to have an hour and a half, twice a week, to restart something that I previously did before I became a mother (gym. Important to me, I have not lost my baby weight and feel like crap.). DP has been fully supportive of this and has been telling me to do this for months. I love being with my daughter, but pretty much 24/7 for nearly a year has been FULL ON. As I'm sure you guys know. And endorphins ROCK!

Since DD was 4 weeks old he restarted his previous musical interest which involved 5 hours out of the house one evening a week. Over the last month this has increased to twice a week, to practice for a performance which is Saturday week. Fine. Things are cruising along here and 5 hours with a screaming baby who won't go to sleep is less common these days. I can cope.

Today we were discussing our plans and meals for next week. He will be working late one night, and the 2 nights I am supposed to do 'my thing' it appears he has arranged two more evening practices at the same time, but not thought to mention it to me. So, out 4 nights next week, working late one night (unavoidable) and out performing the 6th night. (the 7th day is dd's birthday party, his idea, but guess who ended up organising it?)

AIBU to give him a hard time, because he seems to think I am BU and unsupportive for this "one thing"?
But the thing is, there was a performance 2 weeks ago that he had to practice "extra" for, another performance with a new line up 6 weeks ago which, wait for it, required lots of extra practice. A performance back in January, same. Another in February. So, every month atm.
He doesn't see it like this, for some reason. I am pissed off that once again, I am expected to fit in around everyone else's needs, without even having this discussed with me. Just "you can go another day" because its not a set thing like a course.
I have to be firm when I leave the house, and stick to a time, otherwise its like "oh can you fetch this . . . can you just help me with that" while I am trying to express milk, get my stuff together. This is all basic stuff for DD's bedtime routine that really doesn't need extra help (I should know! I do it often enough!!) He's capable, but its just easier if there's an extra pair of hands, isn't it? You know, when you've got a child in the bath and realised you forgot the towel. Or forgot to heat up the bottle. Or the child is crying because she is ready for bed and wants to be carried but he needs to get things ready. Whereas he gets to just walk out the house with his music stuff, safe in the knowledge that he made me a cup of tea before he left so it should all be ok.

I feel completely isolated these days. Yes there are playdates, groups and stuff I go to. I make myself. I'm not a particularly out-there person but do need the social contact. DP thinks this is my 'leisure': going out to playgrounds and playgroups and drinking tea with the other mums. yet its all dependent on DD - if she is having a bad time, we leave early. If she's ill, we don't go. Sometimes I don't even leave the house for 3-4 days, and I'm the sort of person that is climbing the walls after a day at home.
Its hard to hold a proper conversation when maintaining permanent surveillance to check she's safe. She's curious and into everything, and its gorgeous to see the world through her eyes!
Its taken me weeks to make a single phone call to arrange a new playgroup for DD, as I can't seem to take a phone call without her crying to be picked up, getting into something she shouldn't, or generally climbing all over me. I can't remember the last time I had a phone chat . . . although I manage a few mins on fb at a time where I can check whats going on in the world, but rarely have time to manage a chat with anyone online. I don't feel like I talk to anyone, get any real downtime when she's there. So its REALLY important to me to know there is a day and time I can aim for where I can be me and know she's safe and being looked after by her daddy.

I find it hard to be supportive of someone else's interests when mine are expected to go to the back burner whenever they're inconveniencing him, creates resentment, eh? Go on, I reckon you think I'm absolutely horrible :-/ and "entitled"
feel slightly better for getting it out though

tbh i'm not sure i'd wanting to try for a second child with dp if i was you, sorry. i think you are, for the best part a single parent and that he is trying in a long winded way just that, he doesn't seem that committed to family or future children.

sorry, 'he is trying in a long winded to tell you that' typos!!!

Haven't taken her to his gigs (maybe one last year) as not really practical (they have dancers they rehearse with and she likes to get all up in their space, also if she sees him she wants him picking her up - this was the case this weekend anyway: I did take her in but she wasn't very chilled about not being able to be with him - she loves her dad!!) She is just under 2 and sleeps well so I don't usually disrupt evenings without good reason, his practices can run quite late too

He realises he is a dad and does pitch in if he knows what needs doing and sometimes even if he doesn't(!) I can't really fault him too much in the hands-on dept. But he's so focused on the music which he loves. He runs a website for that type of music now, talks to people all over the place about it. Has just started importing and selling those type of instruments. Has converted half our shed into a workshop for repairing those instruments. Even when he is home, thats where his head is about 90% of the time.

I haven't asked him to rearrange a night, as I have respected his schedule and only once, when DD was unsettled and I was really ill did I ask him not to go that night, and he didn't because he would have been a big arsehole if he left us like that I suspect if I did ask him to rearrange it would be brought up in the future as evidence of how reasonable and flexible he is when the shoe is on the other foot. On the way back from the weekend away he was asking me if I wanted to do some regular music sessions, and the tutors at the weekend suggested I might like to; I just automatically dismissed the idea as I figured it wasn't practical around existing schedules and since we can't even maintain the one I already have, not point taking on more

He has made out his practice and teaching nights have been arranged around me but the opposite is true! He's actually changed his nights round about 3-4 times in the last year (not including the extra sessions that come up every few months, and the extra practices that seem to be required for pending gigs) and I refuse to change my regular nights according to everyone else's (his) needs (moving house meant I changed my nights just for pure practical reasons for busyness at the gym at the time I would go. It had no impact on anything he was doing at the time) and whims

hmmmmn the second child thing. If it came to it and we split up, I think I would be utterly resentful that I had passed up the opportunity for a second child that I wanted (that we wanted, I thought) for the sake of someone else's hobbies. If I ended up a solo parent, it may as well be with the children I want. If that makes sense.

I suspect the music stuff might need to be scaled back with 2 young ones but haven't brought that little newprobableargument up yet.

Going to go cool off and chill out for a bit, but will come back to this, undoubetedly

Hmmm I'd rather be on my own than deal with that kind of crap. And I certainly wouldn't be bringing another child into the mix

I suppose I can see what you're saying about trying for a second child. But make sure you don't go into it under any illusion that he'll ever change.

I have one like his as well, OP. I need 1 hour a week for myself for an OU tutorial (first thing I'm doing for myself in 4 years). Every Monday, without fail "can I go diving tonight?" That's on top of weekend diving, beer club, an evening class, and fucking play station games..........

i feel for you, i really do, my second husband was a workholic and it drove my crazy, family life revolved around work, work, work, he just wouldn't let it go, he had four kids [one sn ] and i was so tied up with the kids it was like living with a brother who i grew to dislike intensly, it transpired because we had had four kids and he only wanted one ! never told me that, he didn't like contraception, i always made it very clear i wanted a big family. in the end i struck out on my own, went on to remarry had two more dc... another thread... tbh i think you really need to have a clear think if this relationship is going to run the full course, you sound unhappy, stressed and put upon, he seems to want to live a 'single life' doing his own thing with music which is great if you do not have a young family, but you seem to be put on the back burner time and time again. how long will it be before the final straw ? obviously i can't tell you how to feel or what to do, but please, please think twice before trying for this second baby. i know it's not what you want to hear, but could you go it alone if need be, with dp's involvement with financial support ? what advice would you give me if i'd written your story on mums net ?

Sobbing on the sofa....wtf
I think I would lose all respect at this point.

meant to ask with out being rude, is it possible you could have another child at a later date, or have this child but be a one parent family if you want your dc to be close in age ? also and this is the BIGGIE have you talked with him about your feelings, does he agree changes need to be made by him or is it as case of we'll sort it out but nothing changes ? hope you give us some feed back, i 'll be back later to see how you are getting on with the mners advice. it will take a lot of thought, can't do everything in a few days. take care and be strong, in whatever you decide.

Does he make money from his music? Is cutting down his work hours to earn money from the music an option? Because it sounds like he is taking on too much - adding more sessions, importing instruments, doing repairs etc and he somehow thinks that life will stretch to accommodate it, when in reality it won't.

Perhaps he needs to read this and consider whether it applies to him: www.appleseeds.org/Big-Rocks_Covey.htm

Whoops - pressed send too soon. I do see your point about the children, but I think it needs to be something you discuss. If he is seriously having dobts about a second child because it will impact his ability to pursue his hobby, then that is a legitimate concern and you should ascertain whether that is truly the case before you make any decisions.

OP you sound like myself and my DH when we had young babies. It has got easier as they've got older, but still can be tricky.

Stick to your guns, remind your DP that you aren't a machine.

If you're anywhere near Belfast, NI I'll be your RL friend, seems like you could do with or .

Ooof what a horrible situation to be in. Reminds me so much of my exh. The feeling that you are basically a junior partner in the relationship. I regularly held the fort while he went sailing, sword fighting, practised his archery, went on golf days, whatever took his fancy really. He went and played Robin Hood while our dd was still in the neonatal unit. Git. And he would sulk like a good un if I objected. He's an ex for a reason. I realised how poisonous it was to be so put upon all the time. The resentment was killing me, destroying all the joy in my life, and it was turning me into someone I never ever wanted to be. We too were on rocky ground but went on to have a second child. It was of course the final nail in the coffin, esp as she ended up being extremely premature and very sick and the extra stress was too much for our struggling relationship. But I genuinely don't regret having her tbh. She is the apple of my eye and the joy she brings far outweighs any sadness at the end of a failing marriage. Its so much easier for a child dealing with seperated parents if they do have a sibling. I know only kids of seperated parents and there's so much more stress on their shoulders. I love that my two are like a wee tag team. My ex still attempts shit like that now, accidentally arranging to be out of the country when he's supposed to be seeing his children, then going batshit when i told him I had booked to attend an uni open day and he'd need to arrange a babysitter for one of those afternoons. But to not have to deal with his crap day in and day out and share a sofa with the childish arse... priceless.

He tells me I am just being controlling and inflexible and I tell him he's being massively disrespectful. For the sake of 2 hours sanity time a week for me, why should I have to regularly go through this bullshit? he's clearly not getting it.

YOU are being controlling? By merely wanting a minimal, but predictable, amount of time to yourself?

No, by constantly asking you to rearrange this minimal time, and expecting you to do the organizing not rearranging causes, he is being controlling. If you havent said that to him, do. He is repeatedly manipulating you into looking like a bitch for not letting him have his way.

The sad thing is this week we will be transferring an embryo in a bid for a second child. He tells me he wonders if we shouldn't be cancelling the appt for transfer and all I can think is 'your music really is more important than your family here, isn't it?'

Yes. Say that too. And I understand what you say further on about if you must go it alone, at least you want the number if children you intended, but that really is a poor reason to bring another helpless being into this situation. A new sibling and parental split at the same time won't be doing your DD any favours. If this relationship is shot, move on and take the rest of your life as it happens. Don't waste time and make your future harder with a new baby too. Parenting one with unpredictable support is what brought you here, and it is still easier than parenting two with none.

Really, him bringing up cancelling is the biggest red flag ever in the history of red flags. That is not a comment one makes jokingly because things are fine, really.

First time I have seen your thread OP. Come back to it as much as you like.

I really couldn't put up with this. He really doesn't respect you or your me time. He expects you to fully support and work around his hobby but doesn't show the same to you.

Your frustration and anger really shows in your posts and I don't blame you at all. He needs to scale back his hobby. Giving extra work going hours too, he need to accept that he does not have enough time to work full time, have a family, 'allow' time for his wife to have her time and give this big a commitment to a hobby.

He sounds like a petulant child. Keep asking to get the answer he wants because it isn't being given straight away. Stick to your guns OP. You are not in the wrong here at all.

Its so much easier for a child dealing with seperated parents if they do have a sibling...I love that my two are like a wee tag team.

That's very sweet. But an adult can't make a life plan on the assumption that siblings, one not even a viable pregnancy yet, will naturally be supportive buddies. My oldest two didn't sort out a sense of sisterhood until they were adults. As children, the only thing they had in common was a bedroom, and they first used masking tape to create a visible line of demarcation at ages 8 & 10.

I was you 30 years ago, a lot of it was work related , therefore was ' out of bounds'

Then there was ( I need to unwind! ) as working so hard !

Regularly the children did not see there dad from Sunday night until the following Saturday lunch time.

The twice a year I had a girls night out was a nightmare. Although strangely enough he could ALWAYS leave work at 5 pm for his ' thing' , I would be standing on the doorstep at 7-30 pm with the others waiting in the taxi for him to come and ' babysit' his children. I of course having fed, bathed and put them to bed.

Believe me it will get worse, you and only you will attend nativity plays, sports days, kids parties etc.

If you don't stand up and be counted it will not stop. There will always be another practice, another show , another something!

Strangely enough I have a better relationship with the children ( adults) and now he realises he was wrong ( although to tell you the truth , I honestly think he would the same again) .

I bitterly regret my acceptance of the situation and my stupid believe at the time that I was being unreasonable, as after all, ' he was working hard to provide for the family' .

Don't be writing the same thing to someone else in 30 years.

I get to what you are saying about having the children that you want, but please don't have another child with this man. He won't change.

If the embryo takes I guess you would have a 3 year age gap. I'm a SAHM with a 2.3 gap between mine and it is relentless. My time out has become even more precious. You will need more support, particularly in the early days, and if your DH can't manage that now he's unlikely to have a complete personality change when DC2 arrives.

What's the end game with the music? Is it just a hobby, or would he ultimately like to make a career from it? Because having spent much of my life around professional and amateur musicians, I can tell you that it's not an easy lifestyle for the other halves. And there is nothing sadder than a semi-pro in their mid 40s still waiting for their big break, to the detriment of everything else.

The more DC's you have the bigger the resentment you will feel.

Fair point Momagain. Snorted at the bedroom demarcation!!

Right, back to respond to replies. this WILL be long (ha, like my other posts aren’t?!!)

So before DP and I got together he was trying to start a family with his ex but wasn’t successful. He loves kids, kids love him, and he really wanted to be a dad. we’ve been together 15 years now, so its not like he was just looking for the next brood mare; we travelled, had careers, moved overseas. I’m 38, and 8 years ago we decided it was time to seriously get cracking on having a family. I heard the loud ticktock. He’s spent 15 years aiming for a family. More than!
Fastforward past 3 miscarriages, RPL clinic diagnosing the reason for the losses and serious implications for future pregnancies, DD was born after our 2nd round of IVF. There were also 3 embryos frozen from that cycle. I had always ‘seen’ more than one child when I thought of my future family and it was always agreed that we would try for a second after DD. But I also feel very at peace with ‘just’ having her, were it not for these embryos. I’m not catholic or religious and I’m not sure why I shoulder this catholic guilt, but I feel unbelievably upset at the thought of snuffing out their potential just for our own ‘lifestyle’ reasons. They didn’t ask to be forced into being, and I know its probably a bit late now for my philosophical musings on that.
I’m sure that to many people its just a bundle of cells without sentience, but to me they are the result of 5+ years of trying to start a family, and when I look at DD and think of them in stasis, they have the possibility of growing into the awesomeness that she is. I also look at her and wonder how she would weather the change of a new sibling; she’s ace, helps me with laundry, putting things in bin, plays well blahblah I know she won’t be like this forever and she’s currently in a really good stage. Very nurturing. I can only hope she will carry on being so involved (seen her with friends babies; she LOVES them) with a sibling.

Its really personal, isn’t it, how we feel about stuff like prolife, prochoice, whatever, and this is the best I can explain that part of it.

I mentioned that we moved house: that move was prompted by the fact our previous place was too small and not possible to have another child there. We moved house, and subsequently our lives, to make room for this second child and not necessarily for extra storage room for instruments and workshop, which is what I am wondering now, I weaned DD earlier than I originally planned so that we could get on track with the fertility clinic. I am literally 3-4 days away from transfer, the consent form for this further treatment was signed for by DP without a flicker of hesitation. the entire last 6 months has been building towards this, I am not backing out now. I totally hear you guys expressing concern for having another baby and you are probably right, you guys have experience, hindsight and all that stuff. Red flags. I do feel that we have spent the last 15 years hoping to expand out into a family and damn me if I am going to pull the plug on MY dreams just because DP got a new hobby 4 years ago? He ultimately needs to grow a pair and get with the picture. that would be my advice reading this from someone else.

So yep, age-wise we’re not in a position to delay, I want to get some closure on this incubator-time of my life. I don’t want to be a SAHM forever and the longer we put off completing the family, the longer it will be before I can go back to work. Living on one wage is tricky but doable, and I don’t want to live like this for any longer than is necessary. I also feel like I need some balance back as I do get a sense of DP going out to work to support us all. I worked in healthcare with a fairly reasonable position and income up until 7 years ago, burnt out in a toxic bullying work environment and got out as my health was suffering. I never thought I would be reliant on another person to ‘keep me’ and its taken some adjusting and, if I am honest, it does feel like I should be indebted to having this SAH ‘option’ when I know so many mums who have had to go back to work for whatever reason not at all like DP has had his work and business options enabled to progress by my having stayed home either?

I know its probably some classic dynamic thats seen on here too often, defence of the DP, and I do need to say that when its good, its very good with him, it does happen when he is home present and not distracted, we do well as a team. When DD was first born it was crazy, as it is for most new parents, and he was SO hands on, changing, bouncing her to sleep, looking after all of us, coming home from work and cooking tea every night. He can totally step up to it when its needed, and I see so many friends with absolutely useless DP’s (and a fair few alluded to in this thread) and think I’ve actually got one of the good ones most of the time
He seems to fail to recognise the amount of times he does want to do extra to what he has arranged, it seems to be a case of “ZOMG a gig!!! . . . how exciting!!!’ I have suggested to him that he needs to learn to not instantly say yes at the point of being asked (he can’t really forget that there is someone else in the equation, surely?!!). I think he might have indicated some issue to the person at the weekend thing that there was some issue with this weeks session, he had already told them he could, then when we were all saying goodbye both this person and his wife were all ‘yep, thank you for supporting him, you’re the one that holds it all together, blah blah’ which I think they were trying to be nice and acknowledging that I am actually a person and not just the drudge? But I just felt pretty fucking patronised (like, so STOP expecting DP to be able to be at beck and call??!!). All DP’s music friends were giving it the ‘oh its SOOO nice to see you ALL here, I’m so glad you came jambag’.

The money? I don’t see it. He makes some money from the weekly classes he runs. Somehow my place at the weekend was covered by the work he does for this person (I totally made sure we weren’t in debt to anyone when DP told me I had a place there if I wanted to come) but then brought it up to make some unclear point about the sacrifices he has made for me yesterday!!! Nope, throwing THAT one in my face doesn’t wash.
Whatever money he makes from classes, gigs, instrument sales goes into the business he has set up for (the webpage, fb page). He is notoriously shite with accounts and keeping money aside from tax so I would rather he kept this separate from our household money and I have been quite clear that we will not be sorting out his taxbill at the family’s expense.
Occasionally he’s given us a couple of notes if he has a cash gig, maybe once or twice a year, would be the equivalent of $20-30.
I think he doesn’t necessarily want to ‘make it big’, its just something he loves doing and wants to do full-time if he could. His current FT work is also something he loved doing and was passionate about when we got together. I don’t think he thinks he can quit work and do music, it would not be sustainable. he works 4-5 days at his business, more when it is required, and I always bend around that when he has late appointments which also impact on my time out; I can’t see that I can complain when its paying the wages that keep our house going!!

If I had to go it alone I would. He told me last night he doesn’t want to become the next (split up couple that we both know who have had a shit split, she is an absolute selfish psychopath, and I don’t say that lightly), I don’t know if there was a veiled insult there with the link to that couple. I do know that I don’t want to spend the rest of my life regretting not having that second child whilst I had the chance. that feeling runs very deep and I know . . . won’t somebody think of the children? If I need him to pitch in and cancel his second or third night out a week, this WILL be brought up and I expect that certainly in the initial couple of months he will be fitting his music around his family. Will he change? I don’t know. I am tenacious enough to keep at it, but the self doubt is the crippler. Hence why I keep coming back here to this.

Nowhere near Belfast ROAR, but thanks for the kind offer

Momagain I know you’re right there. And He is repeatedly manipulating you into looking like a bitch for not letting him have his way yep in so many ways “how can you be so caring and considerate to your friends when they are struggling yet not be so considerate to me when I need you to be” yes those words (I have a few friends having a rough time with their kids/newborns and I have gone and helped them out, got tea on the table, helped with bathtime. I have done this ONCE where I have needed him to look after DD, the rest of the time she has come with me)/
He’s begging me to ‘let him go’ (yes this came AFTER he TOLD me thats what he was doing anyway, and the world didn’t bow down to make it so for him so we bypassed asking again and went straight to begging. I felt humiliated for him!!), sobbing on the sofa (yep I don’t feel very respectful at that little show of ‘look what you’ve done to me’ either). the fact that he mentioned this four weeks ago to me seems to be quite important? Is four weeks the amount of time you can reasonably expect someone to change their mind after they have repeatedly said no? Doesn’t matter if its four weeks or four years, listen to the fucking answer: its final.?If someone says no, do you keep asking until they change that no to a yes? That makes me MORE inclined to not want to help. He doesn’t realise that all these little manipulative approaches make me dig my heels in THAT much harder.

ARRGH!!! Cup of tea time. Probably loads of errors etc in the above (disclaimer)

and you know what I foresee happening? That because DP's works car is to be booked in for work after our neighbourhood meth-head's drugdealer crashed into it last week that he will have to take the 'family' car that I need to get to the pool and back because he lacks the foresight to have realised that we both need a car to do our individual things at the same time and because he has to leave the house before me, wtf can I do?

Seriously contemplating leaving him and our friend a packet of tortilla wraps and a salad and some falafels mix next to the frying pan and getting the fuck out of dodge for 4 hours as soon as they walk through the door. I have nowhere to go at that time though, and the whole thing seems so bloody petty and I would put a small amount of money on the fact that I lose out on this one. But I sure as hell am not checking with him tonight what he has lined up in the way of transport

Sorry to hear that this situation is still dragging on. Hope you make it to the gym thanks to the babysitter

Regarding having another baby. Obviously this is hugely important to you. However your husband has effectively told you that it isn't as important to him. From everything you've written he'd rather have more time for his music than for family life.

So now you have a huge decision to make. I agree that he certainly shouldn't book extra music sessions when he knows you're not keen.

Should you go ahead with plans to have another baby when you know he's not keen?

Clearly these two issues are not really comparable in terms of life impact. So if it's not fair for him to book an extra night out without considering your feelings then how can it be fair to plan another baby without taking account of his feelings?

Having two kids is wonderful. It is also SO MUCH harder than having one.

And you know he isn't going to change unfortunately because he has different priorities.