Do I need to manage better or am I not unreasonable?

[HomeDoesTheTrick]

He works Monday to Friday, leaves the house at 7ish and doesn't return until 7pm.

I get that he has a long day with a big commute.

But I feel like his own DC should still be of major priority to him above relaxing.

For example, on a weekday, he comes home from work, says hello to us and then gets changed. He won't pick DS up until he's changed. Once changed, he has a quick cuddle and then hands him back/puts him down to go on his phone or watch telly for a bit before he starts dinner (he does cook for me most nights which is nice and is one less thing to worry about).

Once dinner is done, he won't help with DS because he usually says 'I've just eaten'.
He won't help with bath time (if I bath DS at night, I usually just do baths for him in the morning), he doesn't show much interest but might pop his head round if he's upstairs at the time.

If DS is grizzly or upset, it's straight to me.

On a weekend, I can't leave him with DS to do a few jobs unless he's woken properly, because he says it isn't fair to have his eye on him whilst he's half asleep. This is usually after 9am.

If we are all downstairs and I need to put a wash on, wash up or whatever else, it's always "How long are you going to be?" Usually followed by my DH and DS standing in the same room as me, with the excuse of "He wanted to see you"

If I say "You need to have DS whilst I hoover the bedroom", I often hoover and steam clean the bathroom floor too (takes an extra 5 or so minutes). DH will often reply with something like "See, this is what annoys me about you, you say you need to do 1 job which is fine, but then you start doing other jobs"

Which is fair enough, but sometimes it's just easier to do it all at once. I always feel pressured for time

I'm angry sometimes because DH just goes to get his hair cut or goes to the gym twice at weekends at the drop of a hat. He just announced he's going at whatever time and that's that.

I, for example, can't even go to town on my own at weekends. I usually say that's fine, but I want 20/30 minutes on my own to just browse. This is often met with a bit of questioning as to why but I get him to agree easily enough.

It's frustrating all the same though. I could never just say "right, I fancy a trip to town. I'll see you two later on today".

It's always a question of "how long will you be" and "why can't we come" etc etc

DH's reasoning is that DS needs me for soothing because I calm him down. I say well you need to break that cycle and be someone DS can be calmed down by if he is upset, or whatever else.

He says it doesn't work like that because I'm his mum and he spends all of his time with me so naturally needs me.

He doesn't like dressing him, if I come out of the bathroom with DS and ask that DH does it, he says he's not good at it and I should do it. Last time he tried to do anything but a vest, he said "right, I've put his nappy on but I can't do the rest. It's too fiddly. You need to do it".

I just feel burnt out sometimes.

I love cleaning, I love doing the odd job on my own. But I can't even do that without him hovering over me sometimes which "when will you be done" and "how long are you going to be, I just want to relax, I've been at work all week".

DS is a very good baby so I can't compare the stress of domestic lifestyle to DH's job and travels, but it's still hard when you don't get much of a moment to yourself without being questioned.

DS's room is all in a shambles because we are decorating, and the other week DH kept saying "you don't have any housework to do so can you get it done this week please".

Little does he know DS is a very mobile 7 month old, needs constant watching because he's always getting himself into mischief and whatever else. I can't sort through anything with DS there.

I have bleeding down there from not being sewn up properly and it's very painful and, sorry for graphics, bloody when I try and use the loo. Surgery booked in for soonish. I can't go to the toilet without "are you almost done?"

AIBU? I know he does work hard but I feel like that doesn't come into it when it's your own children.

I'm hoping to go back to work soon part time but I'm waiting for a position nearer to home as I can't return to my old position, it's too far away.

I use to put my foot down when DS was a bit younger but it'd leave DH in the foulest of moods and I wasn't happy leaving a baby with him in case the baby could sense he wasn't wanted at that time.

My ex also insisted on coming with me when I went shopping. Tried to stop me from seeing family. Set the internet so I couldn’t access social media. 7 years it and I still have nightmares and suicidal thoughts.

Next thing he will want you to be pregnant again.

Next thing he will want you to be pregnant again.

That's exactly what he wants He says he'd like just one more and to get it over and done with, then he'd get the snip

Very wise words from Gruffalina.

I know we're only seeing part of the picture and it's hard having a lot of internet strangers telling you how to live your life. But some of us speak from experience. I promise your life can get better, though.

Please open up to your family or some friends in real life. I know this is hard but many people will be willing to listen to you and support you if you can just take that step. And, hey, if we're wrong and your husband is just being a bit selfish, then talking to your family and friends about it would still be helpful, right?

Yup. Keeping you pregnant is a way of keeping you under control. Please contact women’s aid. They can help you work out how to manage this situation.

zzzz he won’t LET her cook.

I am absolutely amazed at all the people advocating the OP just walk out on the baby for the afternoon and leave her 'D'H to get on with it when the man is, quite clearly unwilling to take proper care of his son. And as for Pumpkin's post, well words fail me...

You do sound quite pandering to your son too, you worry he's going to not feel wanted and you step in when he's upset etc. Stop. I do think your DH sounds insecure about how to look after your child, coupled with very long days and not much time with your child for the majority of the week. Of course your son wants you more, he barely sees his Dad and hardly knows him by the sound of it. This is normal, but your son needs to get over it too. He needs to be given time to sulk it out.

The child is SEVEN MONTHS OLD. He is not sulking it out, he is not being manipulative, he is scared of his father because he is to all intents and purposes a hostile stranger.

Moreover, advising the OP to take a confrontational stance with a man who is clearly controlling and abusive, riling him up and then leaving her son with him, is irresponsible in the extreme. Happily I don't believe the OP will do this because she loves her baby.

OP, I really feel for you. You need to start reading around coercive control and non-physical domestic abuse. I would say stop trying to force your husband to step up as he won't. Instead, start coming to terms with the fact he is not a good man, not a good father, not a good husband - not the man you thought he was. Start accepting that, start TALKING about it with people you trust - with the family he is trying to keep you from.

Can you stay overnight at theirs instead of them visiting you for the afternoon? Then he can cook his bloody special food himself, and habve all the peace he needs. You can put your DS down with the help of your mum or sisters, pour yourself a bloody big drink and then tell them exactly what you've written here. And all the other, worse stuff I imagine you're not even ready to admit to yourself, or the strangers of the internet yet. For example, is he pressuring you to have sex in spite of your birth injury? By the sounds of him I'd be STUNNED if he wasn't frankly.

You don't have to tell us. But tell your mum. She will love you, she won't give you wild, melodramatic advice not understanding your real situation. She will help you. She will probably be massively relieved you have accepted what she has been worrying about ever since she met this plausible, charming man her daughter loved and she just couldn't bring herself to like.

Make it a weekly/twice weekly thing. get away, stay over, talk about you - how you're feeling., what you need, what you want. Make room for you in your life. Get these things out into the world where you can't pretend they don't happen any more, or that they're not as bad as all that. Make them real. And when you're ready, act on them.

And absolutely yes, make sure that you can go and stay with family after surgery. You will need help. He will not give it to you. And he will force you to push yourself to hard and delay or compromise your recovery.

Oh OP I feel for you so badly. I really hope you can find your way forward. But please don't listen to the people telling you to disregard your instincts and your baby's feelings and just 'leave them to get on with it'. He's your baby's DAD; if there was anyone in this world you should feel safe leaving him with, it should be him. But you don't. Listen to that instinct.

There's a word you need to use. That word is no.

Stop allowing him to walk all over you. When you're hanging out the washing and he asks you to take the baby say no, I'm busy.

When he wasn't to go out, say no.

Go out yourself. Don't give him an end time. Leave food for baby and go out on a Saturday morning to the shops or for a coffee with the papers.

And FFS do not have any more kids with this cocklodger until he pulls his weight. I can understand you and him saying the house is more your job right now, as it's a split of labour but parenting should be shared when you're both there.

zzzzz you do not understand about coercive control. It is not something you just 'snap out of' and start running counter to the script. As you say, this is not how the OP has always been; she has been brought to this with years of undermining, controlling behaviour. You clearly don't know what it's like to be made to feel physically sick just by the sound of someone rearranging the pots in the cupboard because you put them away 'wrong', knowing that you will now have to endure the anger/sulking/silent treatment/being made to feel like an inconvenience or a waste of space in your own home... You do not know.

If it was as bloody easy as just saying "Don't be a twat DH tinkly laugh" and doing as she pleased, don't you think the OP would have fucking done that by now???

Thank you for all these supportive replies

I am listening but sometimes it's hard to face the fact that you're one of those poor women who are involved with abuse, if that is what's happening.

I just feel sick knowing I may have to face that he IS an abusive arse.

It's so hard.

I keep telling myself he isn't abusive, because he doesn't physically stop me from doing things, he doesn't tell me not to use the internet, for example. He doesn't belittle me or call me names.

He doesn't talk badly of me to others. He is very affectionate physically without being sexual. It's just all so confusing.

Yet I feel he doesn't want me to have much independence away from him, but on the same note, he doesn't want independence away from work and me and the baby either.

For example, friends are always messaging to see if he'd like to go out or whatever else and he always says no. He isn't interested.

I ask why and he always insists he'd rather be with me and DS.

It's been like this since we met. Ever since we became a couple, he stopped seeing friends more and more. Foolishly, I thought it meant he just wanted to relax and spend all of his time with his partner.

I've told him I don't want any more DC. He's adamant that I do, and says I will change my mind some day. He gets irritated when I bring up getting a coil fitted, or going on the pill.

My physical health isn't great and he says he is worried a pill would mess up my hormones some more. When I mentioned a coil doesn't have to be hormonal, he says "Well I don't see why you're bothering, it's not like you're going to get pregnant again. Your physical health is bad and you don't seem too bothered about that"

(For contents, I have a rare condition that requires specialists and it's gotten worse recently but manageable (to me). He insists I'm just not trying hard enough and should go back to the GP again and again for that and the birth injury issue. But he won't listen when I say there are waiting lists, even if you're put through as high needs.

He won't accept that even if you're really ill, sometimes hospitals just have too long a wait and you have to do just that, wait.

Name change fail

HI OP. Based on your latest reply I would like to backtrack a little and just ask you rather than assume - do you feel like you can just tell him no? Just laugh when he says "it's your job" and say "don't be silly darling, it's both our jobs, we're both his parents, and besides which I'm shattered today/have booked to have lunch with my mum/whatever". Do you feel able to just cook a meal and when he gets in say "don't bother cooking, I've made us lasagne"? Do you feel able to have your family over, lose track of time, and when he gets home just say "oh look, is that the time? Just one more cuppa then and I'll have to get DS in the bath", and not apologise, or worry he is going to be rude to your family?

If the answer to those questions is "yes, that would be fine" then you probably aren't in an abusive relationship.

If it is no - then why? What are you worried about happening? And actually, the smaller the answer is the more I would worry tbh. If the answer is simply "I couldn't do that, he'd be angry" then I'd worry. Partners in healthy relationships aren't scared of making each other angry. Anger is a normal emotion, and in healthy people with healthy relationships it can be processed in a healthy way.

Just working through these thoughts will help you know what type of situation you're in and what can be done.

But straight up no debate, he does NOT get to tell you whether or not you want another baby, or to have any kind of input into your birth control choices. The fact he feels entitled to do so indicates a concerning lack of boundaries imo.

"he doesn't tell me not to use the internet"

You sure? If my ExH went to bed before me, it started with him coming down to use to do something/get a drink 'its x o'clock, just keep an eye on the time' or 'don't forget you have to be up in the morning'

Then it went to 'its late, you should come to bed' and 'don't you think its time you turned that off?'

Then 'i'll switch the modem off, then you'll have to come to bed' and 'how much fucking longer are you going to sit there?

Then he did start turning the modem off at the mains, or my computer.

They don't start with the immediate red flag, they start small, then slowly ramp it up so by the time you realise you're at 'switching off the modem' its too late and you wonder what the fuck happened.

En I don't feel afraid to tell him no, in fact I'm always seeming to say it and moan at his protests recently!

But I do sometimes not say anything because it's emotional draining. He never gets angry, just sulky

It frustrates the life out of me

As far as I remember, he hasn't said the family can't come around at all. He just doesn't want them there when he arrives home from work. I don't know why that means they now don't come at all.

I used to work a 12-hour-day which ended with an hour-and-half commute by car though central London in the rush-hour. I regard visitors as an ordeal at the best of times, I certainly wouldn't want to deal with anyone, even have them present, at the moment I arrived home. I couldn't even deal with the people I live with, at that point.

OP I have read the full thread and I just want to say that you are in an abusive relationship. This isn't about a man child that you think it is. He is abusive and controlling. Please seek help from Women's Aid and leave him

Firesuit, fair enough, but if it meant your injured, isolated wife with whom you refuse to help out with childcare got some company and respite, you'd surely do the right thing and suck it up once or twice a week?

I haven't read all the posts but what comes across is I think you worry he doesn't love the baby and isn't interested in him (or you) enough to try to look after him.

Have you actually asked him?

He is a wanker. Read about a study where they asked people to gauge from babies expression what it needed. Hungry, cold, wet etc.

Men replied "needs it's mother!". That honestly would not even occur to me as a reply but doesn't it just say it all about the dynamics..

Have you posted about him before? this is all sounding dreadfully familiar. I seem to recall there was talk of you going to stay with your family in London for a while - and him coming too? - so that you could have some time with them and he didn't have to deal with them because he found it too "hard" at the end of the day?

If you are the same person, it was all very concerning then too. And it's not getting any better is it? He's now effectively got you not seeing your family at all, is refusing to let you go anywhere without him and is making it impossible to go back to work.

I also don't think I've seen any response from you re finances - are you able to access all your joint money easily:?

Your DH sounds a lot like my BIL. The main difference however is that SIL is the main breadwinner which gives her a little power. It's not ideal - she only ever goes to work or is with the baby as he complains if she leaves him with DN alone if she doesn't have to and if he's around he doesn't like her going to see family or friends as he wants them to have "family" time. BIL isn't actually a bad person, he just thinks that families should be a certain way and he's not able to see that she needs more freedom. And unfortunately, for whatever reason, she doesn't feel like she can tell him to get stuffed. Partly because she feels bad for him - he's so SAD when they aren't together and he wants to be with the baby etc....

I ask why and he always insists he'd rather be with me and DS.

It's because he doesn't want to leave you alone to possibly have a life away from him, going to meet a friend with your DS, or having a friend round.

I'm afraid you've picked an abuser to marry and have a child with. Unfortunately, it's easily done, as the abuse often doesn't start until getting married or having your first baby. There may have been red flags earlier in the relationship, but we either miss them, or dismiss them, because we're still in the honeymoon period.

He IS abusive. Once you accept that, you can make plans to leave.