Why do you think some men change after a baby is born?

[HemmieH]

Or show their true colours?
I'm feeling a bit all over the place today as STBXH is moving his stuff out of our house. I'm mourning what I thought our life was going to be.
We had been married five years so you think you know somebody. But after the baby was born all we did was argue. He seemed to become a different person. He had crazy high expectations of what I should get done in the day and seemed to resent me not being at work. He became very critical of everything me or my family did (They weren't imo over involved, my mum would come over to hold the baby ect once or twice a week while I showered or take her for a walk so I could have a nap).
He was totally disinterested in anything I said to him and never made conversation or acted attracted to me. He would do things with the baby and seemed to really enjoy her, just not me.
I'm sorry this is a ramble. I've had a very upsetting few months I was just wondereirng if anyone else had ben in a similar situation?

Justmatureenough, hi, that's me, the "mercenary and devious" one. Thanks for that.

The reason I'm planning rather than doing is I have a 1YO and 3YO, I'm currently s SAHM (I want to be at home with my children while they are small) though I'm planning on going back to work one day a week in October. Financially and selfishly, so I can stay at home with my DC until they are school age, that is why I'm waiting. Things are not good in my marriage but most days we just carry on and there aren't massive arguments or anything for the DC to pick up on, other days there are. Previously, my H has walked out on me, told me he doesn't love me and doesn't want me or the house or our life, he swears at me and belittles me and is generally someone I just don't like, let alone love.

Not that any of my life is your business. But you seem too naive or maybe just not quite mature enough to realise that there are bigger pictures and life isn't black and white.

This thread has really opened my eyes how often this happens!

just I was just talking generally not specifically to you but now you've got me thinking: for me personally I WAS more exhausted than him because I was breastfeeding day and night and he didn't do ANY night feeds. That isn't a dig at him -he COULDN'T help because he drives for a living and needs his sleep. My point really was that if it wasn't for the fact we were both open and honest with each other about our feelings I can see how easily we could have broken up. We nearly did.

So sorry you are going through this.

Why? I think it's complicated... (British understatement).
Some blokes are absolute stars, some are daunted/overwhelmed, some need to grow up, and some have controlling personalities, etc. It's all shades rather than black and white and could easily apply to a same sex relationship. I've met with the controlling/manipulative sort, and found out the following:

• Abuse in pregnancy/following childbirth is a typical pattern. When you are pregnant/caring for a young chidren, you are a soft target if you have a partner with a controlling streak to their personality. You are dealing with hormones, emotionally and physically vulnerability (PND), sleep deprived, financially dependant, trying to achieve society's impossible parenthood ideals, busy being superwoman, etc. Remember Rob Titchner in The Archers...
• It's not just men (see Ursula Titchner, oh and my MIL)
• They were probably abusive/controlling before. BUT no-one loves a total b@stard; they were also sweet, kind, caring, charming, etc.Where do you free the line between normal ups/downs? Hindsight and all that.
• Once baby arrives, they are not providing for a family but their genetic legacy. You have the 'luxury' of living off them. Well, they have 'expectations'.
• A relationship is not about balance but who won, a battle for control.
• Friends with 'normal' blokes had rough patches (sleep deprivation is never a pretty) but if said bloke was able to talk/listen/empathise/pitch in, etc., baby problems were overcome.

Yes to talking etc monny and to add to my earlier point (to just) it was also me who has the tear and bruising in my vagina from giving birth AND the sleepless nights AND the breastfeeding AND the hormone fluctuations AND still had to cope with the normal day to day chores. He didn't go through any of that. So maybe yes MY exhaustion did trump his. Understandably so in my opinion. I don't think that's just an MN thing though. I also think we were BOTH massively under prepared for any of that. You are told it will be hard but you don't fully appreciate it until you go through it.

I think a lot didn't actually want a chid but did so to keep a partner happy or worse were led to believe contraception was in place.

A lot of women change too, where they were once happy to be equals they suddenly opt out of working etc.

The warning signs for both sexes are usually present before but some don't want to admit them or think they are the one to change the person.

My xh actually told me his answer to this : he wasn't my priority anymore and he hadn't realised how much our life would change. He hated the fact that previously I'd been a party girl and then preferred to stay in and wasn't prepared to give up that side of his life. He found someone 10 years younger than me to party with instead of coming home for bathtime...

Have you got a link to statistics about the first statement in your post Rainbows.

I think they become jealous as they are not the only thing in their partners lives anymore.

We all have to change a little, it's tiring with a small baby. I think surviving the upheaval highlights real long lasting love as opposed to infatuation.

I have rarely met couples where it is the man who wants dc more than the woman, though that was the case with DH and I.

Have you got a link to statistics about the first statement in your post Rainbows.

I will answer, as I would have said similar in the past, but on googling was surprised to discover that men are only slightly less likely to say they want children. Having said that, maybe a big difference would be found if the researchers tried to work out how much each wanted children. What sacrifices would they be willing to make? Maybe half the men who said yes were picturing life with a 50's housewife.

My partner was an absolute dream. Had flaws of course but nothing LTB worthy. During my pregnancy with DS2 I became unwell and stopped working completely. As soon as he became sole provider and I didn't work it was like he lost every ounce of respect for me, he was vile. He also became abusive at this point. I really thought I knew him too.
This wasn't all that long ago and I only plucked up the courage to make him leave fairly recently so quite raw for me too OP. Pm me if you ever want to chat x

I think that because you're not working (not you particularly, but the mum) due to mat leave etc then some men seem to automatically slip into some sort of 1950s gender stereotype of being the 'provider', with you in the role of domestic servant. They either like this and play on it (nagging you about housework etc) or don't and feel pressure or discomfort about it.

A lot of people (not just men) are also ridiculously naive about how much life changes when you have children. Not just a baby, a child. The amount of times I hear people say 'oh our lives will carry on and the baby will just fit in with us' etc. Yes a newborn can be quite portable and easy going (mine weren't!) but a toddler? Not so much. You have to accept that your life will never be the same again and embrace the new normal, I think women are better prepared for this as their life changes in pregnancy and during mat leave.

What has helped us? Shared parental leave. For both children we took the first three months off together and did everything 50/50. It's not a financial possibility for everyone but it's the best money we ever 'spent'. My DH is in no doubt how hard a baby can be and how hard it can be to manage housework with a newborn and toddler because he has seen it for himself. A lot of relationships would really benefit from this.

The thing is that having a baby is hard, and nearly everyone underestimates how hard it will be so they're unprepared for it. I'm married to a good man (together 20 years now with three DC) but when the DC were very small we went through a rough patch for all the usual reasons - tiredness, lack of quality time together, feeling like we were existing only for the DC rather than as a couple etc etc. I sometimes think it was luck really that we made it through - we were both prepared to hang in there and wait for things to get better. Which they did as soon as the kids were a bit older.

I think a lot of men don't actually want children in the first place but, are too spineless to admit it.

Having a baby changes everyone, men and women. However it's not an excuse to become abusive towards each other. My wife changed a lot and I think I did too. Some of those changes were for the better others less so such as worrying all the time that we were doing everything wrong! As long as it doesn't turn people against each other then it's just a normal reaction to a huge change in life.

They don't like not coming first in the family for a while and having their needs solely catered for. Selfish, immature men that is. Many men change in great ways, like many women.

My friend has been with her DH for over 10 years in total. They got married about 18 months ago and they had their first baby about ten weeks ago.

She told me a few days ago that she can't believe how utterly selfish and lazy he was until baby came along and she's basically been left to do everything. He goes to work, comes home, puts his feet up for the night and then goes to bed and that's now his life is whilst my friend does everything for the baby and around the house. He will do things for her but she has to ask him and when she does he gets all huffy and puffy and makes a big scene about how he's been at work all day etc.

My friend is genuinely shocked and upset that the man she has known for so long is now someone completely different to what she thought.

I don't think it's solely down to male character flaws. Men an women both change when they have children. I wonder if the these changes are magnified when one partner becomes a stay at home parent? That is a new dynamic with expectations on both sides that need reconciliation, add to that the dependant/dependency aspect and I can see why issues arise. I don't really know what the answer is, in some cases really discussing roles and responsibilities first may help but we all know the effect children have on a grand plan!
As for men being too spineless to admit they don't want children I think that argument is awful. The counter argument is are women pushing men into having children? I don't think either are common place but I suspect men and women share the same insecurity regarding the descion to have children.

I have a friend ( who i didnt know when she had her children as babies) who said that her dh had a form of PND! She showed me some pictures of him with her eldest and he does look so depressed. She said that he dealt with it by just working all the time. they are still together, but she maintains that he altered a lot when the children were very small and he couldnt handle it at all. Another friend who i've known since infant school, they broke up when her second one was only 1. He just couldnt do the whole full time dad, but was brilliant at a part time role in their lives and is still around for them now they are in their 20s. she always says that it was the best thing for them all.

my own dh wasnt that great, we got through it all but add a meddling mil to the mix and it was hard going for us all , with lots of ups and downs. He changed a lot too - i think that men just cant cope that well ( not the ones i've known anyway!) and thats why a lot of marriages and partnerships end up apart. just my theory ( and from what i;ve seen happen to friends and family over the years) There is also a pressure for things to be perfect and life isn't.

I suspect that many men who have children in spite of not particularly wanting them are not especially spineless but have been deceived by our culture into thinking that "babies are a thing that women want, and men go along with it".

If we allowed men to express more joy and delight in children, perhaps we'd also allow those who actually don't want children to not want children rather than jollying them along with an assumption that their reluctance is normal and should just be ignored because they'll love a baby when it arrives.

(this jollying-along happens to women too of course, but in that case because all women want children really)

I think some men have been spoilt by their mum s and have to centre of theirvwomen world cannot share with kids at all. Get divorce and second wife thinks it will be better this time I want kids . Has kids and off he goes again . They are finally happy when they age and get with a women who is too old to have children.

I have known one that use to spend Christmas on his own with his mum as he could not bare to share her , his wife when to her parents .

I think it's quite common for a woman to shut her DP out of the relationship when the baby is born, it's probably an instinctive protective behaviour, certainly several of my friends have described that kind of situation.

If you feel that your DP no longer wants a relationship with you and is trying to prevent you the having much of a relationship with the baby it can create all sorts of resentment even if it's a relatively short lived thing.

Mine was compounded with DW having PND which put a strain on our relationship for about 18 months after the birth of each of our DCs.

I think mine had a mental health condition that he self medicated by drinking, and he didn't want to stop drinking. I also had mental health issues, but having DD got me to sort my shit out and I'm now fairly happy and stable. Fourteen years on and he is still going out getting drunk and getting into fights. DD has said she doesn't want to see him any more, he doesn't care about her and she doesn't feel as though she knows him. I've done my best over the years to keep the relationship going between all of us but now she can make her own decisions I've given up.

DH and I nearly broke up after DS1 because I changed and he didn't. We'd previously been utter slobs and not in debt or anything, but used to having much more disposable money. I switched on to the baby being the priority much quicker than he did and I think there was a bit of resentment towards DS1.

But we communicated, worked through it and had DS2 quite quickly after and he was incredibly supportive with him from the start.

I think the early days with a newborn can either make or break a relationship, I know it was a trial by fire for my BFF and her DP too.

I agree with a PP that in fact it's more that many men DON'T change when they become fathers, whereas virtually all women do. The less pleasant sides to them become more prominent through pressure and tiredness, and the woman no longer has the time or energy to put in all the previous work that she did to maintain the relationship. (I've known a few women get divorced because they discovered post-kids that what they thought was a partner is in fact an extra child; one they didn't mind caring for when it was just the two of them, but when they actually have a REAL child, they figure they might as well be single and look after ONE child as be nominally 'married' and look after two.)

Add to that that so many men are raised with a sense of entitlement to a good time, to love and attention from partners and often to not doing much work in the house. A disruption of this feels to them like being deprived of their natural rights and instead of sucking it up and mucking in, they go and find another idiot woman who runs around after them and puts them first.

That and some men are fucked in the head and when you stop having relative power in the relationship because you've given up work or have less money, they exploit that because it's all they know how to do - crush the powerless.