To get wound up by DP's attitude

[Goodgollymissmolly01]

We have a lively nearly-three-year -old boy and a 5 month old girl who's still waking in the night. I'm tired. My partner is SO untidy. I'm marginally better. I get fractious. So does he. But then makes it all my fault with comments like "did I wake up in a bad mood?" (Implication: no, YOU did, you stroppy cow, and have thus created this bad vibe in the house), or "I know why you're in a stink: it's because you've got 3 things to do today" (implication: you flaming lightweight, pull yourself together). These 2 comments were made this morning.
Now I'm not saying he's an arse, or 100% wrong! I'm just writing this because I feel so lonely/unvalued and unloved by comments like these. He clearly has absolutely no idea how my life is, or how demented my hormones make me (please tell me I'm still hormonal six months after giving birth), and is able to piss off on his bike to his (admittedly hard) job that he loves, where he can still be his old/real/other self, go to the loo unaccompanied, etc. And I can't.
My point is : AIBU to have feelings of 'grrrrrrrgh!' and utter frustration towards him? What do other mums (/drudges) do in these situations? At the moment I'm tending to yell or snap, which clearly does wonders for our relationship.

He sounds horrible. You have 3 things to do, what besides taking care of 2 kids??!! The untidiness would drive me nuts, is the house a tip? Does all the housework fall to you?

Tell yourself and him it's normal to be grouchy with each other in the early days of parenthood, laugh about it and give each other a hug ASAP

So when he's so untidy, is this in the expectation that you should be finding time to pick up after him?

He IS being an arse, I'm afraid, but I suspect it may be because he has no idea how bad you feel right now.

You need to set aside some time to talk to him about it calmly, and help him understand how you feel. Listen to him, as well, as I'm sure he'll have things he wants to tell you. Love each other, get on the same page and make a plan for how you're going to make things happier for yourselves. It's a really tough time, when DC are this small - you and DP need to be a team and help each other, not add to it all!

Also, do you get any time to yourself, without the children? Does he ever have them alone? If not, that's a key thing to work on - might help you stop feeling so jealous of the fact that he gets to go off to work and do his own thing every day, unencumbered by ankle biters. When DS2 was about your age, I started going swimming in the evenings a couple of times a week after the DC were in bed - even though I knew DS2 would be up around 4am for a feed, he was reliable enough until then that I felt I could go out for a few hours (Ps DH couldn't feed him as he was a fully breastfed bottle refuser). I used to get my swim then have half an hour wandering around Sainsburys BY MYSELF, it was bliss

I could've written your post! I am very envious of dhs job; I gave up everything to have kids and his life has hardly changed. I feel pulled in a million directions all at once, and as a result I feel I don't do anything particularly well or efficiently!

Are you sure it's hormones at play and not a touch of pnd? How are you feeling generally?

Please don't blame your hormones.Blame your insensitive arse of a husband.He sounds like hard work.What to do?I really don't know.Was he like this before the kids?Perhaps try sitting down and talking as others have said but quite honestly I would find it difficult to refrain from raising my voice or giving him a (metaphorical) slap.In which way is he untidy?If that was remedied perhaps the rest will follow.Best of luck love.

Thanks for all your replies.
I should point out that DP is not always like this, but it does happen occasionally.
In answer to your questions. No, all the housework doesn't fall to me - he'll do some at weekends, but until then he's the kind of person who picks up a tea towel from the hook and then puts it down on the counter the moment he's used it. He'll make supper (fantastic), but it won't occur to him to tidy/wipe as he goes, or that putting a wet pan lid on top of the mail is a bad idea. So he's a walking chaos-maker. He's also a lovely guy in many ways, and I'm not up for bitching about him, but he does seem to have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to my feelings.

He didn't seem as insensitive before we had kids but then we didn't live together, so we weren't in each other's pockets or under the same kind of pressure as we are now. And don't get me wrong, he's great with our son (I do pretty much everything for the baby), and doesn't mind cooking. He's really not an arse, but he can behave like one sometimes!

I love the sound of going swimming twice a week, Puntastic! I keep meaning to, but haven't yet as I haven't got my daughter sorted with a bedtime routine yet, so she falls asleep on me at around 8.30 most evenings.

My partner hasn't really had to look after them both yet. The baby is also exclusively bf and won't take a bottle, so she's pretty much strapped to me. I have a hair appointment tomorrow and will have to take her with me - with travelling times it'll be over 4 hours. God knows what I'll end up looking like! But I do fantasise about him having to look after them both for a week (no MIL allowed, which basically is an impossibility - she'd be here like a shot, taking over - but that's another story). Then he might have the vaguest inkling of what's involved.

I've recently also decided not to go back to work in September at the end of my maternity leave - it just doesn't make sense for us financially. But I really need to do something to turn things around for myself as I really do feel like a drudge, and wish my partner was a bit more empathetic.

I do think sitting down and having a calm conversation is a good idea. Trouble is, we've had them before and he seems to forget the content as soon as he stands up. And he wants them over as quickly as possible. I think he's uncomfortable talking about feelings. When I say 'I feel like X when you do Y', he often retorts in the form of an argument ('well you always do blah blah...') and things escalate/I don't feel heard/it all gets out of control. There can be a lot of eye rolling from him too, which tempts my red mist no end.
I'm not making him sound good am I? To balance things out I should say that I can be moody and have a sharp tongue sometimes. And I don't find living with a middle aged teenager engaging (and he knows it), so that can't be easy for him.

Anyway, thanks for your advice - I'm going round in circles. Definitely think a routine for the baby, the odd bottle of milk and some me-time will help me gain some perspective.

Have just read your second post and can empathise completely. I found it a massive adjustment when I gave up work following ds2 to be a SAHM. I expected it to be easy, and in many ways it was just a continuation of maternity leave, but I did also struggle with feelings of being a general skivvy, not contributing as much as I previously had etc and I don't think those feelings are oftern recognised. We are just supposed to be grateful to be at home with the children. I found getting out a couple of nights a week to do a hobby really helped and also setting a routine to the week with certain times for household chores and certain times for getting out/ focssing on the kids so I didn;t feel I should be cleaning all the time. Now ds2 is 18months and I've completely settled into it and love it. But it was really hard to start with.

Having two small children is HARD! If you feel that you can't quite communicate it when you sit down together, could you write it down as a letter or diary entry. Ask him to read it all before reacting and to take an hour before you then both sit down and discuss it. Having it in black and white might help you and also help him really 'get' how you're feeling.

I think the letter writing idea is brilliant, Howaboutthisone - thank you so much.
And it's good to know it gets easier PourMeSomethingStronger - at the moment I'm feeling a bit like a lamb to the slaughter about becoming a SAHM - I've worked full time for 25 years (older mum), and can't get my head around this new kind of work where I feel I'm constantly getting it wrong. I think feeling unsupported just compounds things. Hopefully I'll learn to love it too, like you have. Thanks ladies!

I'm glad that helped! I've just found in the past that sometimes I can get too frustrated and muddled to make things come out the way they need to. It also helps to vent it out on the paper and read it back to yourself sometimes I think.

I hope you find a way to feel better soon. It's such a massive change and at a time when you feel you don't really know who you are anymore. Its understandable that it'll cause emotions and feelings you didn't think we're there to start to surface.

Take care

Are you 100% sure about not returning to work, not even part time? From what you've posted, it's not that the benefit would be financial (in your shoes, I would be happy if I more or less broke even) but that it gives you adult time and a sense of a life and identity of your own, which can be hard to maintain when caught up in the relentless routine of childcare. I would seriously look at whether part time is an option (if your DS is three you could claim 15 hours care for him) or whether you could at least take a year off unpaid from your job (some public sector employers among others offer this option) so that you at least then get another chance to return if you then want to.

Jacking in your job to be a SAHP when you are not married can make you very vulnerable in many ways. Financially it is a very poor decision unless you are independently wealthy in your own right.

You had a new baby with a 2 year old with a man who can't clean up after himself or respect you.....

He's not 'uncomfortable talking about feelings.' He's just quietly determined that the bulk of the domestic work is your job and he's not going to do any more than the minimum of it, because he has a penis and therefore is entitled to carry on with his life pretty much as before.
If you have had several conversations about the need for him to pull his weight around the house and treat you like a partner rather than a servant and he has not changed his behaviour, then he's not going to. He doesn't want to change. You exist to make his life better and that's all there is to it.

Do you remember when you asked what I do all day?
Well, today I didn't do it.

I think there should be some sort of mediation service that comes on the NHS to couples who have babies. Like the 6 week check, like the HV coming round, it should be absolutely standard that to a couple who has a baby, a person is assigned to force the man to listen to the woman when she explains how hard her life is now. Men in general tend not to have enough respect for women in general so if necessary, this professional should be a man. He should have actual legal powers to penalise men who, despite this service, cannot stop being dicks: fining, curfews, etc. In the end the ultimate penalty for steadfastly refusing to stop being a dick would be removal from the family home (while retaining financial responsibility for it).

It's so hard that a thundering wedge of impossible jobs lands on a new mother SIMULTANEOUSLY while she is bleeding and anaemic: Learn to breastfeed! Be loving and cheerful without sleep! Entertain a flow of visitors! Learn to read this strange, demanding, tiny hungry primate! And on top of this comes: Communicate complicated and subtle things to a man who is basically not listening - but you need him to understand them or your life will be utter shit for the forseeable future! so unfair. So unsurprising that so many women aren't able to do it. And so many men remain dicks. or become enhanced dicks

Talkingof, brilliant post

I'd reconsider going back to work. I know it doesn't seem worth it with childcare & General work related costs but you'll keep in & it goes sim sat.nbefore you know it, the kids will be in school & you'll be trying to get back into the work force.

Re your partner. They become annoying once kids come along. Small bad habits become huge especially when your bother tired.

Shove all his crap in a box or put it all on his side of the bed.

Bloody hell, my ipad is typing random shite. Sorry.

it goes so fast, before you know it, the kids...

and is able to piss off on his bike to his (admittedly hard) job that he loves, where he can still be his old/real/other self, go to the loo unaccompanied, etc. And I can't.

These words say it all for me OP, he can cycle freely to get the hell out of the house work whereas you cannot even take a poo in peace, says it all. Such is the lot of mothers. And men wonder why we get totally pissed off when they can't even pick up their dirty socks or plates. The house that we, the SAHM (full or part time) have to live in a heck of a lot more than them becomes a fucking shit tip,so no, YANBU OP

Would you consider a few counselling sessions for the two of you? He is closing down discussion by turning it into an argument. Maybe a third party would keep him on topic. And challenge him to commit to making changes, you said that he knows you don't enjoy living with a middle-aged teenager. Again, that's within his power to change, if he could be arsed.

There is no "us" financially if you are not married.

You would be insane to make yourself financially dependent on a man who can walk away from you without a backward glance.

Particularly when that man has a "blind spot" about your feelings.

It is not at all true that all men are inconsiderate wankers when babies are small. Lots of them are delighted to muck into the post-baby chaos and are kind to their partners as a primary instinct.

It doesn't make sense for you financially (or otherwise) to give up your job. It is a crazy move to make yourself even more dependent on a man who already doesn't respect you.

I've read a million OPs like yours (unfortunately) after being on MN for so long.

Now that I'm old and wise this is my advice:

Do NOT stand for this. Even if it means a few weeks or months of rows, tension and confrontation until he gets it (if he doesn't get it, there is very little hope for your relationship is there? So you will have resolution either way).

My dh is, overall, a Good Bloke - he's kind, hard working, loving, does most housework, childcare. BUT he's also selfish and bad tempered sometimes, sometimes for a few days or weeks.

When the latter starts impacting on myself or the kids, I turn into a steely ice queen. I won't have an imbalance, I won't have him acting like the 'man of the house' who can say and do what he wants - fuck that.

We have a wrangle and he gets it (I compromise too in our marriage, I'm no angel!) and harmony is restored.