To think DP is being a dick about this?

[BlairWaldorfsHeadband]

I’m 18 weeks pregnant with twins, and I’m high risk. I have complex mental health issues that include very severe anxiety.

DP insists he needs to sleep for 12 hours everyone day otherwise he feels exhausted and upset. It keeps causing arguments.

I have told DP that his sleep impacts on our lives because it stops us doing family days out, it means I have to manage DC1, who has SN, alone every morning and make the breakfasts and get ready and get organised while pregnant. It means I barely get any time with DP.

He keeps saying he will sort it and every time I bring it up I’m “nagging” which apparently makes him resistant to change and makes him less likely to sort it.

He then says I have a weird fixation on what’s “normal” and if I just accepted as a family we do things differently I would be happy.

But I am not happy. I don’t want the kind of childhood for my DCs where this happens. I come from a family where we used to get up early and go to visit castles, go for picnics, and have days out. Not waste our lives in bed. It makes me depressed and contributes to how isolated and anxious I feel.

Apparently when I mention this I am unsupportive and uncaring about his issues. He insists it’s a medical problem.

I have tried implementing household sleep schedules, letting him have a day without the dc to lie in, making him a strong coffee, but all that does is get me accused of being a control freak who wants to control his sleeping.

It’s not me is it? He’s making me doubt myself. He is being a massive dickhead isn’t it he?!

Does he actually work? Parts if this are beginning to sound not quite right

Yes, he does. He works shifts.

I'm sorry but he is being a shit. Of course he's an energetic parent once he gets up! We'd all love 12 hours but that's not parenting. I sometimes go to bed at same time as kids 7pm in order to get enough sleep - but usually parents are just exhausted. Him saying he wants his evening AND lie ins is unbelievable. I am on psychiatric meds that have lovely side effects of both fatigue AND insomnia and still bloody get up with my kids. Sorry but I'm really seething at his selfishness and trying to make you feel that you are in the wrong for wanting him to actually step up and be decent.
What would he suggest if you NEEDED more sleep too - the kids fend for themselves? He's lucky enough to be child free a couple of nights a week. Just grrr. Don't accept this, hold your head up high and insist on equality.

Oh and how dare he have a go at you whilst pregnant! Not a good man.

He's being a dick. I hate hanging around in the mornings. At weekends we take it in turns to have a lay in. My DC wakes at 6. The one having a lay in gets to sleep in til 8.

He's being a dick. I hate hanging around in the mornings

So do I. I prefer to just get up and go.

So you never get a lie in? I presume you always have to get up with your DS and do breakfast etc? That’s just not fair and not going to work when your babies arrive. What if you’ve had a bad night with the newborns? What does he think is going to happen then?

I don’t, no. Yes I do all the breakfasts and get DS ready. It’s not that that bothers me so much as me not being able to get a bloody shower until he gets up and not being able to get out the house.

For god’s sake. The surgery were insisting the psych hadn’t contacted them, so I rang the psych back and she told me she emailed them 10 minutes after we phoned her. Apparently she used a different email address to normal and people apparently are confused by this 🙄

She’s ringing the surgery now, to speak to them directly.

Doctors surgeries are always so goddamn slow.

4 something for thyroid is not high normal, it is hypothyroid enough to make you feel absolutely awful and exhausted. Considering 4 In range is completely outdated. Most doctors keep patients around 1. That result plus the exhaustion means he needs medication!!!!

I see that the thyroid issue is being addressed. I jumped the gun a bit because that result was so disturbing.

He’s said hes going to make a GP appointment next week. My own Thyroid result is 0.9 (I had mine tested recently for other reasons) so I remember thinking his seems high but they told him as it was under 5 he’s fine.

I’ve asked him if I can go with him to the appointment and explain his symptoms because he’s one of these who will say he’s okay even when he is ill, and he has agreed so hopefully we can get it sorted out.

Doctors surgeries are always so goddamn slow.

Its been a couple of hours, stop being so ungrateful

So he has he sleeping pattern of a student then?
He needs to go to bed earlier, like an adult.

Wow, a psychiatrist on tap like that who prescribes new medication at the drop of a hat. Not your usually NHS service there. Most drs are too busy seeing patients on ward rounds or in out patients to take personal phone calls. Amazing how quick and easy the solution was

That was lucky that the psychiatrist was free at the very moment you called. I have never known it. Nor that they were prepared to prescribe a new medication without seeing the patient.

Well they’ve prescribed it. We’ve got the prescription done now and just need to pick it up.

Hopefully it will help.

I would love to know where you are and how you get a psych contact who will drop everything the second you get on the phone and prescribe meds without seeing people in person despite awful side effects to previous meds.

And then the cheek of getting frustrated at the GP only a couple of hours later.

This if not the first thread where you've been incredibly demanding of an already overstretched NHS considering you seem to get exceptional service compared to most of us.

The psychiatrist service is great, it’s the surgery that stalled for some reason. But it is sorted now.

Do you have abs real life support OP?

You do appear to put an awful lot of your problems on AIBU which cannot be good for your mental health when you get less than favourable replies.

I have no idea how ‘abs’ got in there🤔

Yes I do. I just prefer talking to faceless people about my personal issues than ask people I know in person because I find socialising awkward and clunky. Usually there’s good advice among the shite, as is the case here.

That’s good then

I’m not really a “people” person as some of you will no doubtedly be able to tell, I struggle with talking about emotional situations and prefer to do that through the medium of a screen because I don’t have to do anything like think of appropriate eye contact or try to avoid well meaning but unwelcome hugs.

I’m socially awkward, and I know I am, so I prefer to use forums.

Realistically, you're going to need to overcome all of this - hiding behind a screen, avoiding social contact and eye contact for the sake of your three children.

You can't really function as a mother if you can't have face to face conversations with people - doctors, teachers etc. You can't teach your children how to be in the world if you can't cope with it yourself.

I can speak to doctors and teachers because there is a point to the conversation. I’m actually quite old at talking when there’s a point, or any factual conversation really.

But “free” socialising like asking friends for advice or going out for a coffee is where I am crap. I just don’t know what to do. I find it awkward. I feel silly.