To be annoyed at DP for leaving me holding the baby?

[MermaidTail7]

DP and I have a 5MO DD. When I was about 2 months pregnant DP's DF passed away very suddenly an unexpectedly. It was a massive shock to everyone and understandably everyone was very upset. DP did not have a great relationship with his DF, his parents seperated when he was young and his DF was pretty absent and unreliable. DP was the executor of his DF's will and is still wrangling with bits of his estate as he lived overseas when he passed away. DP's DSis was hit particularly hard by it all.

Today DP announces his DSis is upset as she wants the family to be together for the anniversary of thier DP's passing. This is on the same day as my DM's 60th birthday party. I offer to take DD and go to my family party so DP can be with his DSis. He says he doesn't want to. All is well and I respect his decision.

Fast forward to tonight, I have my fourth night out without DD since she was born (home by 9.30 and no booze as I am BF/expressing!! ), and I get home and she is still up clearly tired and fractious and overstimulated (her bedtime is 6.30-7pm). So I have a cup of tea, go upstairs and go to bed to settle her, leaving DP downstairs with a beer.

I wake up at 1am to a crying upset DD with a cold, and discover that DP has literally upped and walked out if the house with no note or message and gone into town for an impromptu drinking session while me and DD are asleep upstairs.

I sent him a (strongly worded) message saying I was really dissapointed in him doing that, as I felt it was selfish, irresponsible and unfair if him, especially when tonight was meant to be my night out, thus ensues a conversation where he says that I am living in a bubble, that it's not a big issue and I'm blowing it out of proportion being ridiculous, and that I am the selfish one because 'don't I realise his DF passed away a year ago this weekend'.

AIBU for being annoyed at him? 12 hours ago he said he didn't want to go to his DSis's to 'remember his Dad', as he can remember him anywhere, and suddenly (after some beers at home) he is so struck by the anniversary of his father's passing that he has to leave the house and go drinking at 11pm at night with no thought about his DP or DD.

He absolutely should have told you, either in person or a note or a text. But apart from that I don’t think what he has done is too bad. He sounds like he is having a hard time and an impromptu night out and a few drinks might be good for him.

Don’t underestimate how stressful things are for both of you right now. You have a new baby which is always an adjustment for any family. Your DH is probably right when he says you are living in a bubble - it’s very common for new mums to do this. In fact Bion (influential psychotherapist) coined a name for that sort of bubble , maternal reverie, and thought it was essential for the development of thought and eventually language in the baby. That being said, it doesn’t make it easy for the people around you who are trying to cope with their own stuff.

Equally Freud (even more influential psychotherapist) called mourning a temporary insanity as a person adjusts to a world that no longer contains the dead loved (or hated) person so it is not surprising that your DH has done something so thoughtless and out of character. The fact that your DH and his dad were not close will not make this process easier and the fact that he has had to shoulder a lot of extra responsibility in terms of the estate will make it even harder.

As a couple and a family you are both coping with some seriously heavy shot at the moment. Cut each other some slack and remember that you are not enemies but two people each doing their best. I hope you can forgive and move on.

I would be furious waking up not any idea where he was.

I would want to talk to him. My estranged dad died and I couldn’t care a less. I am not saying your Dp does or doesn’t but it may be an excuse deflecting his bad behaviour.

You could easily get it touch with him by text. He answered. You knew where he was.

You’d come home ridiculously early.

It’s the anniversary if his fathers death. That can hit one unexpectedly. It’s not as if you were sitting with him to comfort him. You were asleep with the baby.

You are not being unreasonable. I'd be livid if my dh pulled this shit! You sound lovely and supportive op and actually I think there's two separate issues here.

1. You went out to try and get a bit of a break from the relentlessness of a 5 month old and he was clearly being lazy at looking after Dd.
2. You're not a mind reader. His words and actions indicate he's fine. If he's struggling and not telling you, what are you meant to do? Walk around on eggshells in case there's something somewhere he might be struggling with?

Does he have form for not sharing/communicating feelings?

Winbinin-thank you! I'll a
admit I am in a mummy bubble right now, we are both first time parents
of a much longed for and hard won baby girl after 3 years of fertility issues and treatment and I don't think that is nesasarily a bad thing..

custardandnoodle thank you for understanding. He can bottle up his feelings yes.. His DM and DSis can get quite emotional and panicky, and he has always assumed the role of the calm one who sorts stuff out, fixes things and is pragmatic. But I've always known that and so err on the side of caution when he says he is 'fine' - which is why I double checked about me going out in the first place.

For the record bankofenglandfiver I was upstairs asleep with the baby because he'd failed to even attempt to put her to bed, it was 1am, and I am up every two hours breastfeeding her in the night, every night.

I wasn't up 'comforting' my DP as he showed no signs of needing comfort, he was sat up having a beer, smiling, chatting and watching motorbike racing... It wasn't until after I went to bed that he decided to head out to continue drinking.

Who did he go out drinking with?
Have you spoken to him about whether he feels better for his impromptu night out (eg he gut the chance to unload to a sympathetic mate?).
With respect, in the same way that you think he’s struggling to “get” the hormonal/emotional aspects of motherhood, if you still have both your parents then you won’t fully “get” the emotional impact of losing one.
Yes, what he did was bizarre- why on earth no note? And was he drinking alone, or to excess?
Also a bit strange that he didn’t put DD down to bed, what was his explanation for that? (Although at 4 months “bedtime” is a bit of a random concept, at that age ours just stayed downstairs in Moses basket with us till we went to bed).

YANBU!

If he'd said 'I'm really struggling tonight, would you mind if I went out for a bit?' I'm sure this all would have been a non-issue!

He should have told you he felt the need to go out and ask if you were ok being on point while he was gone

This with bells on!

She’s BF. It’s reasonable he might have difficulty settling her.

You went up to her and fell asleep. It was 9.30/10pm. You were home way beyond I’d have expected anyone home from a 40th.

If you’re having difficulty with BF overnight, maybe consider night weaning - I know getting little sleep is awful, but it’s up to you, as the person with the boobs, to decide if you want to carry on with feeding all night or night wean.

Grief and grieving is unreasonable. It doesn’t do what you think it should and it hits you at odd minutes out of the blue. I lost my mum a few years ago and was driving home yesterday and a song came on the radio. I cried the whole way home. That’s the way it goes.

YANBU at all.
Fine for him to go out and do whatever but absolutely not fine to not tell you or leave a note.

So, I've had a chat with DP this morning.. He apparently tried to put DD to bed (he does one bedtime a week midweek usually so DD will settle for him with a bottle of expressed milk) but she wouldn't go down, and he admitted he knew I wouldn't be home late and knew she would go down for me when I got home.

I apologised for not realising he was struggling so much with his Dad's passing, reiterated that while I know he doesn't like to talk about these things that I am here for him and he can talk to me, and again tried to encourage him to consider spending the actual anniversary of his dad's passing on Sunday with his sister, highlighting that he might find it hard being around my family on such a day and he might find he wants to be with his sister. He is still refusing to go, but I have left it on the table that if he changes his mind he should go and I won't have an issue with it at all.

But, I did say it was unfair and unreasonable of him to go out with no note or message (sorry to those of you who didn't thing this was U, but I do this it was U), pointed out I'd have had no issue with him going out if he had spoken to me about it, and that it wasn't very nice waking up realising that he had just upped and left without a second though to me or our DP.

He went out to see his mate who runs a bar in town. He tried to defend his action of going out with no note or anything after I'd fallen asleep with 'but you were alseep' and 'I thought i' d be back before you woke up', but did admit that it was only half about his dad, as he had had a few beers and just fancied going out and seeing his mate too. He has apologised for being thoughtless about disappearing out without saying anything.

Yanbu. The fact you went out, are breastfeeding and (to an extent) the fact it’s the anniversary of his dd’s death are all largely irrelevant.

It’s common courtesy to let your partner know if you’re leaving the house unexpectedly in the middle of the night. Otherwise it’s not ‘just going out’, it’s sneaking out which suggests he’s either doing something he shouldn’t be (which he clearly isn’t) or he thinks that he’ll be called out on the fact trotting off for impromptu drinks leaving you with the baby is a self indulgent thing to do and feel guilted into not going, much easier to just do it which makes him a selfish shitbag tbh.

You let people know what you’re doing so you don’t needlessly scare them when they hear someone coming in the house in the middle of the night or should they wake up needing you for whatever reason. When there are children/babies involved whoever is left deserves to know any situations that occur are solely down to them.

Fine if some of you are happy living your lives with your partners doing their own thing but that’s not how a team works imho. Grief is awful and unpredictable (more than my fair share) but it’s the anniversary, he’s not in an initial spin of grief, he’s more than capable of having an iota or consideration for others.

I always say to DH that I don’t care how often he goes out or how lates he’s back (unless it impacts other stuff we have planned) BUT he must always let me know so I don’t worry about him.
However your DH is grieving he had no right to just walk out like that without telling you or leaving a note at least

Cross posted, that sounds like a reasonable outcome mermaidstail7

What gets me is the men that do this most often aren’t being asked to ask your permission just to inform you of their plans. Dp does this and it pisses me off immensely, yes I may pull the odd face when there’s no equality in situation or it’s ridiculously self indulgent, but own it. I’m still not going to stop him doing it or create a scene but I’m allowed to be pissed off at being left with all the drudgery again. I’ve once put a stop to his social life (he wanted to go a weeks jolly with one weeks notice after I’d pestered him for months whether he was going or not) because I couldn’t organise my work to cover his share of pickups from the childminder in that time.

It’s just childish behaviour.

Cornettoninja- you've hit the nail on the head there.. While I do grump at beog left with the drudgery, I accept it is part and parcel of being a BF mum to a small Baby (which was my choice) and that my DP will have more flexibility and freedom than me. I'd just like to be told of his plans so that I have enough time to plan around them when nessasary...

Sounds like a good resolution OP.

A person posted this from the other way.
Her husband left her alone to go to a party on the anniversary of her parents death.... She said she spent three hours crying, with a baby who was upset as well.
My god he got bashed so bad for doing it, just because some people say they are fine does not mean they are.
You were wrong to have a go at him, you should have been asking if he was ok, and saying you were worrying about him...

For those of you ranting at me that it’s ABSOLUTELY FINE to drink and breastfeed. This link shows exactly the same guidance as the supposedly outdated advice from the NHS.

www.laleche.org.uk/alcohol-drink/

It’s NOT “perfectly fine” to consume alcohol and breastfeed. You have to take precautions around doing it to so to airily say it’s perfectly fine is irresponsible and dismissive and that was my argument, so rant and berate me if you want to because you don’t like that viewpoint. All links say that moderate drinking has not been shown to harm babies but people’s ideas of moderate are different and we don’t know do we because they can’t tell us and people with problematic drinking habits are unlikely to be honest about the units the consume. To make the blanket statement that it’s perfectly fine to do so is wrong and ALL the guidelines say so.

I breastfed two children for extended periods of time and even drinking for example too much orange juice or eating too much sugar gave them terrible colic and nappy rash. I am fully aware that anecdata means very little bit but that combined with the guidelines shows me that is not harmless and it is not perfectly fine and it’s irresponsible to insist it is.

Now you rant away if you wish. I am hiding the thread as I can’t be arsed to spend my Saturday arguing about this.

OP good luck, I really hope you get this sorted and it doesn’t escalate for you.

Mummy2017- have you read all my replies in the post? I had been seeing if he was OK, I have also tried to get him to see his sister on the actually anniversary of thier father's death numerous times, which he does not want to do. The fact of the matter is that at the points at which I was leaving to go out, and when I got home, and when I took our DD upstairs to bed he was genuinely OK. It was not until after that that he decided to go out. He has also said this morning that it was only partially about his dad, and he just 'fancied going out to see his mate'.

However, DP and I have now managed to amicably sort this out, which is the outcome I was after.

YANBU. I’d be worried about my DP if he suddenly upped and left in the night without so much as a note! All manner of things would be running through my mind. He was irresponsible and thoughtless.

Sorry missed a page, but I do think most people's first reaction is too be upset for their point of view.
Mumsnet seems to villanise the man, and it quickly escalated to LTB, so glad to read your not like that ..
I think he will need you on the day, could be the reason your child was not put to bed, as daddy needed cuddles.... Wish the best of luck for what is a day of both joy and sadness .

It sounds like you've sorted it out very well @MermaidTail7. You're probably right that he'll find tomorrow very difficult. Is there a possibility that the three of you could do something to remember his dad in the morning, go somewhere significant or even a walk and talk about him? Just might help him deciding if that's enough for the day and he wants the distraction of your family, or if he does want to go to his sister after all.

As long as he's apologetic about not leaving a note nor sending a text, it's ok.

YABU for not having a drink or two on a rare night out though, you're breastfeeding not pregnant and it'll do no harm as long as you're not too drunk to look after the baby later on. If you make breastfeeding too restrictive on yourself then it'll be harder to keep going.