Dumped by husband

[MancMama]

I'm an avid MN reader but never posted.

Bit of back story: been with DH for 10 years, married for 18mths. Had 1st baby 9 mths ago - DD. She's a brilliant baby, eats, sleeps, sociable. However I've been struggling with the isolation of being home a lot more, not going out and seeing friends. Generally feeling a bit lonely. And 2 of my closest friends have pretty much excluded me from their lives.

So the AIBU but also WWYD bit is this (& please be honest but kind if I'm just being pathetic)... yesterday, went out with DH and DD for a walk/fresh air and for some very rare time when it's just the 3 of us doing 'something' and spending quality time together. Nipped into local pub for drink and feed DD, and DH announces he's put a couple of quid bet on some football match and it wins/comes good. Has won a few hundred pounds. Buys us some fizz to celebrate. Having a fab time. After drinks, head out to another place that does drinks but also food. Starts discussing dinner and decide on takeaway as DD is getting tired and it's nearly her bedtime.

Then he gets a message from a friend who asks to join us. DH then says (in a joking but serious can I sort of way) could he stay out with friend and I take DD home. I say that's not fair or nice on me and I wouldn't do that to him. He doesn't respond but carries on chatting/playing with DD. Friend turns up and within 5 mins asks if DH can stay out (obviously been texting each other). Both then start laughing, chatting, etc but ignore me and DD. DH then asks in front of friend that he wants to stay out and will pay for me to a taxi home. Friend says go on 'mum, release the ball and chain). I've never stopped DH going out or doing anything in fact. I'm pretty laid back. Probably a pushover! By now I'm fed up, upset and annoyed. I feel our lovely afternoon and evening spending some quality time together has been spoilt and I've been sent home and dismissed like some 1950s housewife or even secretary. I go home (& walk because I don't want his bloody money).

At home, I put DD to bed and go to bed myself crying. DH comes home hours later (gone midnight) and is so drunk he falls asleep on couch! Good!

His turn to get DD up (7am) and breakfast this morn - doesn't cos he's hungover. Asks why I'm upset! Then says I'm ruining his fun. I never let him go out and see friends! (Btw he goes football every week and since DD has had 4 times as many nights out that me - I've counted). He says I'm being unreasonable. I'm fed up. I feel hurt and rejected. Am I being unreasonable? Please help me MN!

He is a selfish idiot.

So he asks if you can go and leave him to hang out with his friend, they both ignore you and he says nothing when his friend calls you 'Mom'. And this morning he's too drunk to take care of his child.

I can only imagine the replies if a man posted an equivalent thread to this about his partner. In fact I can easily imagine them. People would suggest that you (the male you) find a partner who had basic human respect for you and didn't emasculate you.

There are lots of men who bond with their friends by putting their partners down, whether it's in a jokey fashion, in a scapegoat way (using her as the excuse when they don't want to do something or go somewhere) or the passive-aggressive "if you were a good wife, you'd..." way, and it's something that is minimized like crazy on here even though it's such a hateful attitude to live with - perhaps because so many women are living with it...

I think men sometimes find it difficult to adjust when a baby comes along.

The poor loves. Us women only have to carry the baby for 9 months; put up with all the side-effects of pregnancy from high blood pressure, all day vomiting and varicose veins, up to life threatening conditions; deliver the baby over hours/days, and get sewn up if we need it, get blood transfusions if we need them; act as a human milking machine for however long and deal with things like mastitis and sharp little baby teeth, while also getting our figures back and running things on very little sleep. It's so selfish of us not to make sure our precious menz are adjusting well

Agree persephone and KingsCross- I tell my dds that it is basic good manners to honour a prior engagement, even if something more exciting is offered later by someone else. If someone was posting this about their dd- "DD's friend was meant to be here for the whole evening but dumped DD and went off with friend B when B asked her out" all the posters would be horrified. It is very bad manners, and it is also deeply unpleasant and puerile to hear another man call your wife "Mum" and "ball and chain" and not tell him where to go.

Oh wow I think we have married the same man 😢!!! No advice but gutted for you having to deal with that.

Ohhh how horrible. My ex husband would have so done this. He even ditched me in the middle of town by myself at night to sneak off to see some woman (we got divorced. He is and always will be a pig!) my husband now is lovely and as much as I'm sure I drive him mad he would never abandon me.

Also getting the friend to just turn up anyway, throwing in the 'ball and chain' card. That really annoys me too!!

I would've gone chicken oriental at the way he did it! And possibly at the friend.

Well I'd have been pissed off too, OP. If it was an isolated incident, forgive and forget.

Hmm. Hard to judge, I can see both sides here. I'd be a little hurt but realise it's good for my DH to get out and sees his friend, just bad timing. He was probably looped about winning money too. Mine would probably say "would it be ok if I..." to which it's almost impossible to say no, really! You need to arrange some nights off for you too. I ended up studying for a qualification just to have me time, it's not just drinks out with friends. Explain to him why you were upset as it may be that you seemed OK at the time. My FIL used to do this with my DH all the time until I explained to my DH that going out left me on my own with the baby while he got drunk. He doesn't go anymore!

He was selfish & manipulative. Sounds like it took you by surprise this time but keep watch for it in future.

Sometimes an experience like this shows you other behaviour in a new light (past & future).

Id feel exactly the same tbh and did. My husband sleep d off to his man cave aka the garage and spent every evening in there, totally forgetting me and the fact I'd spent all day at home with a very grizzly baby and the night to, as I was b/f. He wanted a baby, she was planned, but when I told him he just said "oh" and carried on in the garage.
I've since told him exactly how angry and how much I literally hated him during that period. He was so controlling with money my DGM used to send me bits here and there, just so I could escape the house and have a coffee out.
I had the same thing with friends too. Best friends dropped by the wayside as our lives changed courses. I think was some jealousy on their part.
I've also told him that I bitterly regret allowing him to get me pregnant when he wasn't 100% committed. I didn't force him, by no means; he thought he was the right age to have his first child.
Have you thought about joining some local baby groups? Your health visitor should know of a few. Maybe ask if anyone in a similar situation on a local fB forum would be interested in getting together? I think those groups were my saving grace... It's surprising g how many mums feel the same or similar.
We'd even gone thought a year of not touching my salary to see if we could live on his salary. We put it straight into a savings account, ffs. I almost left him before becoming seriously ill myself. Now I'm totally stuck. There is only one way out for me, unfortunately... 🤔

I had a similar problem early in my marriage to DH. He would phone from work and ask if he could go out to the pub with his mates.
If I said no, this meant I was the 'baddy' because I denied him a night out and so he could play the martyr and/or be deserving of congratulations for being a 'good' husband and, of course, I couldn't get cross with him for sulking/wanting to spend yet another night with his pal etc. because he done the 'right' thing.
However, if I said yes, then I wasn't allowed to be cross with him for getting home drink horribly late and not spending the evening with me because I said it was 'okay' for him to go out.

After yet another sad evening on my own, thought about how to deal with it. I eventually sat him down and explained to him that I didn't like being manipulated into being the decision maker on his nights out. I said that I was not his mum and that from now on he was not to ask for permission; he would have to decide how he was to behave and he could decide the appropriate way to treat me. I would then decide if I was happy being treated in that fashion and that the marriage would last or fail accordingly. This pushed the responsibility for his behaviour back onto him, and 17 years down the line we are still together. We each enjoy our nights out together and separately but the silly manipulative manchild crap stoppped immediately. He still went on the odd night out, but I was free to feel how I wanted and he had to deal with that like a grown up instead of whining 'but you said it was ok' etc.

If this sort of behaviour continues, you might find this a useful way to get him to think about how he is treating you and DC. You might also want to consider refusing to give or deny permission to the friend - DH is a big boy; you're not his mum; the decision he makes are his and imo they will demonstrate what is important to him.

I went through similar with DH when we had our first baby. He would just not come home from work - and I would be left with a very colicky baby, and wondering what to do about dinner.

He also, I'm afriad to say, celebrated his birthday 3 mths after baby was born by going clubbing with workmates, staying out all night. Planned - but still pretty shitty. I don't know why I put up with it tbh. Except that I was vulnerable, as I'd just had a baby.

We have 3 dc now, and have been married donkeys years - he is a very different man from that one that was around when ds1 was born. But you do need to stick up for yourself - and tell him it;s not acceptable to do this. I think it took him a while to adjust to 'parenting'. But there really is no excuse. He was a shit to me, and I have told him so. I've also told him I wouldn't put up with that shit again.

Hmm. He's apologised, but he still did it. I wonder if this will develop into a pattern.

Isn't there a saying about it being easier to ask for forgiveness than permission?

Contented little baby

Anyone else doing Gina ford book? Been doing it for last 5 weeks and just wondered if anyone else is doing it, has done it and what thoughts are?

Agree with shoeshavesouls, after DS1 DH behaved like this, claiming he had to play sport every weekend and go out following this to 'support his community'. This culminated in a boys ski trip away which included women and a an affair with said woman whilst I was pregnant with our second DS.

We're still together and he put all the above down to 'adjusting' to children and how hard he found it because I was putting him first. We survived JUST, but men seriously get your act together. Why should life go on as normal for you whilst your ' ball and chain' has to function as essentially a single parent!!!!

You handled that well HOtfootit

user1492087375
You need to start your own thread.

I think this is common in the adjustment period after a baby arrives. There's always arguments about who's life has changed the most, who has more freedom and it's is invariably the mum that bears the brunt of the changes while Dad tries to stick his head in the sand and carry on as before. There comes a point when you realise that the old life has gone and you have to work out a new way forward together and work to get the balance right. I personally don't believe in counting nights out or free time like a scorecard but if you both have what you need and support each other then life is a whole lot easier.

he went about it all wrong put u in a position so u would look bad if u said no

completely manipulative thats the part i would bee worried about

and his friend is an arseehole

I don't fucking believe the martyrs and man child apologists on this thread. You must have some pretty low expectations of the relationships in your life.

Yeh. "He did the family bit very well" - seriously?

I don't fucking believe the martyrs and man child apologists on this thread. You must have some pretty low expectations of the relationships in your life

Some of us have very high expectations, that involve mutual respect and both parties having lives and friends and fun away from each other. And luckily these very high expectations are both shared and met.
You might try it sometime, its a great way to live.

@ChaiTeaTaiChi I don't see the mutual respect from the OP's husband in his actions.

And thanks awfully for your concern, amazing how you can diagnose how I conduct my personal relationships from my posts.

Is he by nature an extrovert and needs to socialise with others to relax? Do you feel like his life hasn't changed since the baby as much as your life? Or are you feeling a bit taken for granted because a baby can really kill the romantic and sexual side of a relationship. .you're a woman and not just a mum. Maybe try telling him that you need a little more romance and you're starting to feel like wallpaper, tell him you were in a sexy mood and he poured cold water on it by going out with the friend at such short notice..such a pity he ruined his sexy surprise

And thanks awfully for your concern, amazing how you can diagnose how I conduct my personal relationships from my posts

Now that you realise you can't, perhaps you could refrain from doing it to others then?