Is my DH being unreasonable or am I?

[Pregasaurusrex]

We are expecting our first baby and it's not been an easy pregnancy and I am currently undergoing every test under the sun. I struggle massively with anxiety and loss of control- which I am working on. I've only told my very few close friends and work that I am expecting. We did tell a few more people after the 20 week scan. Today my husband has been into work and shown his colleagues the scan picture ( of the inside of my body!) and I found out he's been telling people for weeks and just not telling me. I really am struggling, much planned baby, but all off work, have terrible dark thoughts about my tummy getting bigger etc. Is it to much to ask, that he respects my need for privacy and tries to show some understanding. I get that exciting for him and hard for him to see me go through this. I have explained my feelings to him and asked him not to share my medical info etc - so I don't understand why he can't just keep his gob shut!

Op please try to focus on supportive posts myself and others have made. Although this is a great place for people to post all sorts of differing opinions, I know that personally if a lot of this was aimed towards me it would worsen any feelings of anxiety (which is why I'm not brave enough to ever start a thread here!) I believe that although it's important to share opinions, there is a kind way of doing it and sometimes people are more blunt online than they would be in real life.

My love, you probably have antenatal depression and anxiety. I had the same and it developed into full blown pnd (but that's another story for another day).. the dark thoughts about your stomach.. what are they? Your husband is being a proud daddy. I feel for you here. It's not nice but you'll come out the other end stronger x x

OP You asked if you were BU. The vast majority said you were, but also recognised you need help with your anxiety. Is that an unfair response to you?

You've had loads of responses, very few of them nasty. I think it is incorrect to say you have been attacked and that answers are a sad reflection of mental health perception.

Insight works both ways - you don't seem to have gained any from the responses and it doesn't come across that you recognise that ideally you need to work on a compromise with your husband as things must very hard for the both of you.

Rather than focusing on the anger you feel with your husband, as I have no doubt that he didn't intend to hurt you, why not concentrate on what you can learn about your anxiety and control issues from this experience.

So rather than obsessing over what your husband said about your body to strangers, and whether it's reasonable to be angry, look in detail at why this is a such problem for you.

When things go wrong with your mental health every difficulty is an opportunity to examine the underlying factors causing the problems.

At the moment you're stuck in a place of grievance, which isn't a particularly fruitful.

With all due respect, I think it's normal for a first time dad to be excited and want to show people the scan photo I could do nothing to stop my husband. Yes the scan photo is of inside your body but it is his baby too.

I do understand how scary pregnancy can be as I was very scared all the way through my pregnancy due to problems in the past with pregnancy.

I say be happy that you have a partner that is excited there are women that wish they had that.

You need to talk about when the anxiety first started and work up. Start from child hood I found it very therapeutic how you feel is not your fault. If you continue without getting help then it is your fault because your an adult now. You have to remember 1 important part you will teach your child that behaviour and I don't think you want that. You said you suffer with crippling anxiety you don't want your child to pick up that behaviour. When you get anxious try and do something else to get your mind of how your feeling. Is there anything you like to do?

I do know how you are feeling I have been there myself and I didn't have outside family for support. Be strong you will get through this. There is courses you can take from human givens it will teach you about your self and how to help your self. More or less how to get your life back. I read one of his books very inciteful. I wish you and your family luck for the future and look after yourself. Take a bath, read a book.

Most people view scans as an image of a baby, not an image of someone's uterus. Tbh, I doubt it ever crossed your dh's mind that you would think anyone looking at the picture would associate it with your internal organs rather than just seeing it as a baby picture. I also think it must have been extremely difficult for your dh not to say anything at work, otherwise he would not have talked about it. Has he been at his place of work for longer than you have been at yours, OP? If he knows his work colleagues very well, he may have found it impossible to say nothing as they would know from his behaviour that something was up and, once he'd told people the good news to explain what was up, didn't know when to stop - maybe he worried that being tight lipped would mean everyone assumed there was a serious issue he wanted to cover up, and knew that having been unable to keep quiet was going to upset you if you found out, so didn't dare tell you until he thought (wrongly) you would be OK about it.

I lost 3 angels and my dd's pregnancy was high risk and I was pregnant with her less than a year after my last loss. I also have ocd. The ultimate control freak mh condition!

Having said all that, yabu on some points and I think you know you are. My then husband and I agreed to tell nobody about my pregnancy with the exception of my boss (in case there was an emergency) until at least 14 weeks and even then we didn't tell everyone straight away.

As soon as family knew they wanted to send clothes etc, I wouldn't have anything in the house until baby was born (superstitious nonsense) but I couldn't and didn't stop them buying/making things even though it made me very anxious.

There were other difficulties too and with ocd generally motherhood is certainly challenging! I was undiagnosed at the time but knew myself.

Ultimately however hard it is and believe me it's been bloody hard I've had to accept that my anxiety is mine and it's unreasonable to expect others to alter their behaviour to accommodate my condition which makes my thinking disordered and irrational.

You say you know its your issue bit don't seem to really accept it. Hope your appointment is soon, that your pregnancy is healthy and you can move forward.

Fwiw imho telling his workmates and showing them scan pic, reasonable, discussing blood test, unreasonable.

I don't think either of you is being unreasonable. You are going through an incredibly difficult time and it sounds like your DH is generally being supportive. Have you tried reframing your thoughts about this incident? Your DH wants this baby, he wants the pregnancy and he probably wasn't expecting you to feel like you do. He was probably imagining your pregnancy as a time of excitement, which I'm sure is what you wanted it to be like too. Except it isn't like that for you so your needs take priority and being excited and positive would be pretty insensitive. You seem particularly upset that he has shared with people you don't know. I think he probably shared with people you don't know because they are only people he can talk about things with without having to focus on your needs first. He might have his own anxieties that he doesn't want to burden you with or he might just want to be happy, excited dad for a while. Maybe he needs his space to do that because he is dealing with a lot as well. I hope you start to feel better soon.

Thankfully most in here think YABU, but there's a few that seem to think:

The men can't tell anyone who is carrying his child

Tell anyone that he knows that she is pregnant

Share scan photos or voice concerns or worries/ insecurities he has (imagine an aibu the father of my child is being unsensitive and just keeps going on about how nervous he is about my complicated pregnancy and it's making me worry more)

It's like some pp expect men to help conceive the baby, then after they find out about it not talk about it only to sanctioned people or when the pregnant woman wants to. Turn up at the delivery room and connect with the baby straight away.

I think YABU, I think the scan photos are just seen as normal and nobody thinks of it as insides of a body, it's about the baby and most of the time you can't see anything let alone make out parts of the baby! I think talking about the tests are his way of destressing and just seeking some comfort in talking about it, and thinks of you're already worried it will make you feel worse, especially if you're leaning on him for emotional support and to keep composed.

i think that assuming "I have mental health problems" therefore "I need to get my way" doesn't help. People need to be understanding but you also need to try to get better.

Once you accept you have the problem, it is about seeking and accepting all the help you can to make it better. Please do not see your DH's behaviour as a sign of his lack of empathy (it is a fantastic thing that he is excited about the baby), see this as a sign that you need to try to get more help.

This is not about you and your body anymore, it is NOT. This is about your baby and your family. You really need to get in a better shape before the baby is born so you both can cope with the pressure of having a newborn at home.

Talk to your midwife or GP, you need more support.

OP, you are right in that the pregnancy is your medical issue and you want privacy on medical issues.

As far as I can tell, you were ok with his colleagues knowing you are pregnant.

You were not ok with him sharing the scan or the blood tests. It is absolutely your choice.

I think the "norm" would be sharing the former but not the latter. Did he know that you didn't want the scan shared and go against your wishes? If not, I doubt he thought about it and certainly it's uncommon to think of it as a picture of you. So can you talk to him on that?

The OP is far along in her pregnancy, never. That's an unkind post.

I think Lostthefairytale makes a good point. If your dh is banned from talking about your pregnancy and baby with almost everyone, you are effectively bottling up all his stresses and emotions and allowing him no outlet. He has to tread on eggshells around you and anyone you know, and can't let off steam anywhere that you are aware of. Maybe he thought telling people at work was a relatively safe outlet, because they don't know you, so won't get involved and interfere. If your dh can't express his happiness and excitement anywhere, but has to wrap himself up entirely in your extreme anxiety, he is putting his own mental health at risk. You need your dh to be looking forward to this and feeling positive enough to be able to support you. So yes, I can understand why you are upset and I would be annoyed about sharing blood test results, but to be angry about the sharing of a scan picture is your illness speaking and is unreasonable.

Never- if I knew how, or cared what you thought about whether I should have a baby or not, I would report your post for bullying. Are you really saying only sound mind and bodied people should procreate? What about if I lose a leg? Is it "fair" or "sensible" then?

Only perfect mothers need apply. Oh- you've got anxiety. Sorry "not fair or sensible" Next!
Oh- you've got a physical disability. Sorry "not fair or sensible". Next!

I think you ABU, OP, and I suffered from severe ante natal anxiety and PND/anxiety. The vast majority of posts have been extremely supportive. You have given very little information with which to help you on, so perhaps posters are having to second guess the situation. You are defensive against a perceived attack, but really there is no need as you asked for opinions and you have got them.

There was an excellent post up thread about the realities of early motherhood which you should re-read. You state you've been referred - excellent- and perhaps you could begin putting in place strategies you will probably be given. Challenge your thoughts; are you being reasonable? Are your fears unfounded? What evidence does history present? Replace self centred thoughts with altruistic ones etc.

Pregasaurusrex - your feelings are just an extreme of what a lot of women feel. You are doing brilliantly - you were even brave enough to ask AIBU on mumsnet! You are obviously very self aware and it's lovely that your dh is excited.

Do you know, it has never occurred to me that a scan pic shows the inside of my body. I've never looked at one and thought oh look SILs uterus. So I think you a being a little bit U about the pic. But sharing info that you have explicitly said not to is not OK, so YANBU about that. Having said that, people generally ask questions to be polite, they're not actually interested, and if they are, then they will be well meaning. I don't think you are unreasonable for being upset that DH broke your trust, but I think you are disproportionately upset. But you have acknowledged that you need help with this so I think if DH acknowledges that his oversharing was wrong then you should really try to get past it. I really hope you feel better soon.

Hi OP, congratulations, I hope everything will go well, I have 4 kids and had one really scary pregnancy with one threatened miscarriage after another and have never cried so much in my life. I know I put my husband through hell and much as he tried he didn't always get it right.

I don't think it helps to look at this as who is right and who is wrong (or reasonable/unreasonable) Can you maybe look at if there is a middle ground where you feel respected and listened to but he has some scope for sharing his excitement?

I'm not clear from your post if the tests are completed now and if everything is OK. From my own experience I can say I had an underlying worry even when the baby was born, I knew it was ridiculous but it took me a few weeks after the birth to relax, don't want to worry you but just to warn you it doesn't always just magically end with a good test result or a good birth.

I do hope everything goes well and remember that for the vast majority of us it all goes well in the end.

It took me quite a way into the thread to change my yabu to Yanbu.

Telling people you are pregnant is ok, sharing the scan is ok. The comment about the insides of your body is slightly worrying - people just don't see it that way.

It took a while before I realised he had been sharing the test results. In that area ya definitely not bu.

Never take your last post (I can't see the other one that's been deleted) is hugely offensive. Are you saying I shouldn't have had my wonderful, thoughtful, kind, compassionate, intelligent, funny daughter?! That I should never have been a mother ? (The one thing I think I've got right in my life BTW!) That's quite possibly one of the nastiest most prejudiced posts I've ever seen on mn!

Nevertake ridiculous post