OH hugs me and tells me he loves me

[PaperHalo]

AIBU to be cross with my OH for hugging me and telling me he loves me in the morning?

We have an 8 week old DD who sleeps more or less through the night and will wake anything between 04.00 and 07.00. I’m still getting up in the night to express ‘the good milk’ as DD has some health issues so we’ve been advised to make sure she gets it even if she won’t wake to feed.

OH goes to work at 05.15 and EVERY morning he comes into the bedroom and gets in bed next to me, cuddles me and talks to me!!! He isn’t satisfied with just a sleepy grunt in return, he keeps going until I answer him properly and engage in whatever pointless little conversation he feels he needs to have at 05.15!! He will often message me later to ask if I’m ok as ‘you seemed a bit off this morning’!! Well yes!! Yes I am!! You are waking me up!! I don’t need to be awake right now! I could be getting some precious sleep!! But you are waking me up!!

I wouldn’t mind but he sleeps in the spare room at night to make sure he isn’t disturbed by me or baby while he gets his precious sleep!!!

Am unreasonable to hate him just a little for doing this???

@watermelon when my baby was a newborn I had to get up and express in the middle of the night too, the reason behind it is actually because the hormones that are produced at night help to increase milk supply as long as you are a/ideally feeding baby or b/expressing. My DD did have a rough start though and for me it was all a part of establishing B/F (with the help of a lactation consultant).

It sucked so bad, from memory I had to set my alarm for 12am and 3 am and if my DH had woken me at 5am for a 'little chat' I would likely have kicked him in the balls haha.

@limpbizkit the abuse is where the OP can't raise a perfectly normal request or concern with her partner because if she does he will shout and rage and ruin the weekend. That's the abuse.

Bloody hell. This gets labelled abuse.... Jeez. I'm the first to think actually he sounds really sweet. Inappropriate timing of course. Just tell him.

Do you call and message your friends? I'm sure you do - and that they appreciate your kindness in thinking about them. Try doing it at 3am, just to have a nice little chat (assuming they aren't on the night shift or in a different time zone) and see how long they think that you are really sweet.

Anybody with half a brain (young children excepted) knows that you don't wake a sleeping person in the middle of the night unless there's an emergency. It's just very unkind and, yes, can be abusive if done repeatedly.

As a PP said, love is primarily something that you DO - just saying it but showing the exact opposite through your actions is not being loving at all. In fact, it's a very common tactic that abusive people use to assert control over you.

"I only get angry and hit you whenever you talk to a man because I love you so much and I just can't bear the thought of losing you. Would you prefer that I didn't love you enough to care about you being chatted up by other men?" Even when the 'chatting up' is a waiter asking if you'd like any more wine or the postman knocking to ask you to sign for a parcel.

Getting angry and screaming as the default reaction when somebody asks you to stop doing something that directly impacts on them is normal. If you're 3. If an adult chooses to do this (and it is a choice unless they have severe learning difficulties or other conditions - which can be understood but still don't have to be tolerated by other people), it's a way of asserting control over you - making it clear that if you challenge them in any way, you will have caused them to get angry, so you just learn not to 'disobey' them or stop them from having their way.

He knows exactly what he's doing - and he's definitely not being sweet or loving.

Oh my goodness you're a saint! I've a six month old who still wakes every couple of hours and if my husband even coughs too loudly when he gets ready for work at 6am I go nuts!! Like yours hes in the spare room to get real sleep... and also we have a toddler who gets up at 8am so it's not like I can nap or doze during the day. I hope you manage to get across to him how badly this is winding you up when you speak to him. Good luck!

Thank you SausageRoll. Beautifully explained

@dudsville spot on

I wrote quite a long answer about adults communication get. @dudsville 's says it just right:

he needs to see your anger and frustration. I think justified anger expressed in an adult way is a powerful voice women have been trained out of using. You've tried reasonable discussion. No need to resort to covert tactics in the hope he'll understand.

I can totally see your frustration OP. BUT... might he be wanting to sho support knowing you have had a disturbed night? Affection despite sleeping separately? I’m all for calling a cock a cock but this doesn’t strike me as cock behaviour. Thoughtless for sure, but possibly coming from a very good, nurturing place. My husband did th same, but it came from a good place even though I wanted to bury the bedside lamp in his head.

It’s easy to fly off the handle when you’re knackered. Can I suggest you sit him down, tell him you love him and you love that he wants to show you love, but could he please not wake you up before he goes to work. Simple as that. Say you will give him a text when you wake up, or create that missing intimacy another way. Tell him you are exhausted beyond the point of reason and need every spare scrap of sleep. In time, a cuddle before you get up would be wonderful, but for now, cuddles only when you are clearly awake and ready to communicate with the world. Please could be leave you to sleep and leave quietly like a cat burglar.

If he does if again after that chat, then definitely clock him one.

shit have you read all the OP's posts? She has repeatedly asked him not to do this - and yet he still does. He flies of the handle and any disagreement.

But you are right about one thing, I think - he doesn't like not being the centre of the OP's world. Jealous of a tiny baby.

But by her own admission she hasn’t done it directly. She needs to sit him down to have a conversation about THIS and this alone. With calmness, love and possibly a bit of humour thrown in. It worked for us. Now my kids are older, he still sleeps elsewhere sometimes and I love that he crawls into bed in the early hours before he leaves for work. In time the OP may appreciate the intimacy he is evidently trying to show her (albeit badly and thoughtlessly) now.

Jesus fuck, is she dealing with a small child or a grown man and father?

Ps I’m guessing they are both tired, stressed and not thinking straight. My man was as utterly exhsauted as I was even though he wasn’t getting up - he could still hear the crying etc, his sleep was still disturbed, even though he was ‘sleepign’ in another room. He is as likely to be thinking as unstraight as the OP.

River, see last post. They are both knackered. Shouting and arguing isn’t the answer. Sometimes, having a direct conversation without boobs out, bums out, poo everywhere or a baby crying is the answer to all the confusion that can arise when ‘discussing’ things with all that going on in the background. It’s not treating him as a child, it’s the common courtesy you say he is lacking.

No one is suggesting shouting and arguing! The exact opposite in fact. The issue is that the OP is worried to raise it directly exactly because her partner is very likely to shout, swear, sulk in response.

yes, but it's up to her to be calm and loving in the face of that, right?

It sounds like a very normal couple who are utterly exhausted after a new baby arrives. I’d prescribe a big dose of kindness all round. Weren’t your partners knackered too? Didn’t they make mistakes, fuck things up? If she has a calm, straight conversation and THEN he shouts, then yes, he’s is a nob. But we aren’t there yet.

Miscommunication during exhaustion is the worst thing about very small babies. Teamwork is the answer. Someimtes team members need telling very specifically what to do, when the are too knackered to think straight themselves.

He's sleeping in a separate room and not getting up in the night, yet the onus is on the OP to point out that waking her up at 5.15 just for him to chat is selfish?

I would speak to him about it and make sure he understood that I did not want to be woken by him in the mornings.

As a reminder, I would put a notice on the outside of my bedroom door saying something like "I am asleep. Please don't wake me xxx"

If those methods failed and he still came in and woke me up, I would be very annoyed. In that case, I would make a point of going into his bedroom with the baby for every night feed/night waking and ensue that he had been fully woken up each time - and tell him why I was there!

The OP said that this has happened over the years, and she has put up with many things she perhaps shouldn't have due to being afraid of his shouting.

It doesn't sound like a new thing due to the baby at all.

Weren’t your partners knackered too? Didn’t they make mistakes, fuck things up?

Yes, of course. But I would never ever have been afraid of bringing something up because I thought my partner would shout and swear about it.

The OP is being very casual about not bringing it up because she doesn’t want an argument, no point ruining the weekend, life’s too short, etc. But “I can’t ask my partner to stop waking me up because he will shout and swear and ruin the weekend” is not a casual thing. Minimising it like that is very understandable but it doesn’t make the partner’s behaviour seem less bad, it makes it worse because it’s clear this is a pattern.

HRTFT. Until I joined MN I never realised that abusive people can come up with so many sly ways to control and abuse their partners. "Awwwww, isn't it lovely, someone loving you so much that he just has to tell you before leaving for work.", as opposed to the reality which is "You're bloody well going to wake up and pay attention to me no matter how tired you are, because I'm the important one here, not you or the baby.". The abuse always seems to ramp up when a baby comes into the picture - either because the woman is now vulnerable and not in a position to leave, or because the baby is getting attention that should be focused on HIM.

Wake him up everytime you fed baby, get milk or go for a wee! I'm sure he'll soon change his mind about doing it to you !, My husband used to do this but after I did it back he soon stopped !

Go in where he’s sleeping EVERY morning while you’re expressing and have a chat! The message will soon get through to him and if it doesn’t maybe he won’t need to wake you when he leaves as he’s had his morning chat with you?

YANBU. Speak to him tonight and explain exactly how you're feeling. Save the cuddles and love for before bed and maybe a wake up text when you are actually awake for the day. Or wake him when you're up in the night feeding and expressing for a quick chat and cuddle. He may not feel so loving towards you come 5:15 and just shoot out the door

Juells, sly is a very good way of describing those sort of men. I really feel for the OP as I hope she's not going to put up with years of this. He sounds like he's got all the makings of a gaslighter. But sly covers most of EA's

@StoppinBy

Oh I see...
I just didn’t want OP to be getting up to express unnecessarily.