DH is antagonsing me to the point I'm going mad.

[Clemetipops]

I am organised and like to plan, DH is the opposite, which is fine. We have 2 young children who aren't sleeping so we are trying to work in shifts all managed and organised by me of course. I am trying to protect everyones sleep, but giving DH a larger chunk of unbroken sleep than myself as he has a full-time, demanding job.

Sometimes, if the baby is up a lot more during my shift and his bigger chunk of sleep, I might wake him 20 minutes or so earlier than usual to take over, particularly if he's had a chunk of 7-8 hours sleep, which he does sometimes get if the baby doesn't wake during his shift. The most ever I get in one chunk is 4-5 hours of sleep as I feed the baby myself.

I am however despairing now as he will not organise/plan our sleeping shifts but is constantly finding fault in what I'm doing. Last night he woke me to say
"it's your turn to go in to the baby"
I said "not for half an hour yet."
"You woke me 20 mins earlier than my time this morning."
I just want to cry.
Wtf?!
He always gets much more sleep than me which I'm trying to protect but he behaves like a rebellious teenager over the slightest adjustment.

This is telling of our lives full stop.
I organise and plan everything whilst he finds snags/short-cuts/loop holes with everything I do. I plan our meals/do the food shop and order online for ease and he will find fault and criticise what I buy/how much I spend etc and tells me I need to find time in the day to shop at Aldi with the baby who never stops crying. I tell him I can't face it and I get disapproving looks. He says he is happy to do the food shop at weekends but always comes home without shampoo/toothpaste/ cleaning products but will brag about how little he spends in a food shop.
I do all the correspondence with our eldest child's nursery, but he will intervene if he doesnt agree with something. I feel hes watching my every move like a hawk, whilst taking on nothing himself. He refuses to clean the house and says it is not necesary to clean (wtf!) So I hired a cleaner to do it instead and he harps on about how much money I am wasting on her. He never says he expects me to do it, but this is obvious. I tell him I can't manage it myself, the house is too large for me to keep clean all by myself and yet he refuses to downsize.

I try to leave the planning to him and he does nothing or tells me he needs direction. I think he is subtly and antagonistically trying to control every thing. I feel like I'm actually losing my mind.
I want to punch him so hard at times. I am trying so hard to make family life work as smoothly as possible but he wants to criticise/question or even just do his own thing. I always feel he has his own hidden agenda.

I can't live like this anymore and my anger is bubbling away so much so that I'm actually worried I might lash out and hurt him.

I know some posters will tell me to give him more responsibility over stuff but it's genuinely more hassle than it's worth. I have tried this so many times. We would all end up eating chips at every meal with no vegetables on our plates and washing our hair with hand soap.

What do I do?

Op you sound exhausted and over whelmed. Give yourself a big chunk of sleep on a night your husband doesn't need to get up for work. I think you need to try couples counseling, it will hopefully help you communicate.
I can understand how frustrated you feel, the consequences of him doing a half arsed job fall on you. Can you let him deal with the consequences, for example let there be no toothpaste? Once you go back to work start hiding money incase you do want to leave.

And as was said earlier, move to a 50:50 split of sleeping time and stick with that.

It is possible to have pnd and still not be unreasonable.
My dh worked very long hours.
It was my MIL who drove me over the edge.
Constant criticism, waking the baby when I had only just got him to sleep, wanting the tv on at full volume all day, it was horrendous.
Sleep deprivation is torture.

Alma and Blueberry

“Some people have little to worry about I guess...”

Clearly neither of you have ever been chronically sleep deprived. You so flippantly reject this significant point with a brag about your out-of-the-ordinary child who slept well and vague advice to hire a sleep consultant. You should write a book on parenting and how to be a good little wifey.

My kid has never slept well and it’s been years. Screams half the night. Just get a sleep consultant, you say? Tried that. Several times. In fact I’ve tried everything there is to try, aside from medicating the poor chap. It’s just how he is. If there were a solution, I - and the close to 10,000k of cash I could ill afford to part with - would have found it by now. I wouldn’t wish the levels of sleep deprivation I’m dealing with on my worst enemy.

Not everything is the way you want it to be in life, sweethearts, but I envy your childlike egocentrism. So much for the sisterhood, eh. It’s people like you who help perpetuate the abuse women deal with. Well done. Back to Stepford with you.

Clearly neither of you have been sleep deprived. You so flippantly reject this significant point with a brag about your out of the ordinary child who slept well and vague advice to hire a sleep consultant. You should write a book on parenting and how to be a good little wifey.

First of all, you're accusing me of writing something I haven't written. So, before you start, please get your facts right.

Oh, and for the record, I most definitely have been sleep deprived thank you. I bought my two dd's up completely alone, as their so called father didn't want any responsibility and left when my youngest was a month old. Even when I had only one child he did fuck all to help.
(There was no offering to help with sleep shifts or help with the family shopping etc)

So don't you dare dictate to me that I don't know what sleep deprivation is! . Many a night I'd be up with two tiny dd's, feeding them/looking after them when they were ill.
And I did this alone, night after night.

I had no partner to give me a break and I'd also be up early the next day cleaning, shopping, looking after children and also going to work part time.

So read the comments properly.

Oh and I didn't say anything about getting a sleep consultant!

OP - Just chill out, try and relax. Your children won’t sleep if you are so clinical about everything during the day too. Just calm down, stop jumping up the second your children wake and give yourself and your DH a break - enjoy your babies and DH they are not things to be pushed around and organised to this extent.

He doesn't sound like an arsehole. He sounds like a typical man. Who loves you.

You're talking absolute bollocks @almutasakieun. He refuses to clean the house. He wakes her half an hour early in a horrible "tit for tat" even though he knows she gets less sleep than he does. He insists she carry the whole mental load by telling her to tell him what to do, and then refuses to do it. If that's what you think a typical man is, I feel sorry for you. My husband shares the housework 50/50 and worked very hard when our daughter was small to ensure I got as much sleep as possible. That's a typical man who loves someone.

Aw OP that sounds though. From what you described he is in need of a little training in the ways of just general day to day household stuff.
Have you had it out with him and told him how you feel? Is there anything you can trust him with?
He might be as frustrated as you, he might want to help but not sure how and he won't match your level of household management.

I don’t know f your husband is abusive or not. At the least he’s spectacularly unhelpful but I don’t think it’s normal to have nightmares about your husbands face looking at you. That gives me the chills a bit. If you feel like you’re constantly under a watchful eye when he does sweet fa then something isn’t right. I’d be making plans to leave as you don’t sound compatible anyway.