DH says my family are too over involved in our (unborn) baby - WIBU?

[ShinyPrettyThings]

Have nc'd for this and am genuinely interested in hearing viewpoints.

Currently pregnant with much wanted baby. I suffered two mc's before this.

The pregnancy has been awful - I've had HG since week 5 and have been in & out of hospital at least twice a week for fluids. Now entering the 3rd trimester, feeling much better and beginning to get organised for LOs arrival.

My family are really close knit - lived next door to my cousins growing up and count them plus my sister as my best friends. DC is the first baby in the family for over 20 years. I live 200 miles from them but in touch everyday. Also have a WhatsApp group which DH is part of.

DH has shown no interest at all in "baby stuff" bar finding out sex and colour of the nursery. I wanted a surprise but he desperately wanted to know - I booked a surprise private scan for him. We've gone with his choice of nursery colours despite him and his ex fiancé jointly purchasing a significant item with this colour scheme - bit but I was just happy he offered something more than "don't care" or "you choose."

I have tried discussing prams/cots/changing bags/names with him countless times - shown him videos - but he genuinely has no interest and changes the subject, so I talk to my family about it now instead. He is now claiming my family are "taking over." Just a few examples:

DM sent us a little package of a few baby grows plus some nice toiletries for me (& a book for DH which he hasn't picked up).

My cousin very kindly sent us a little outfit plus a voucher when we found out we were having a girl. Every time I suggested going to the shop to spend it, something was more important - The Ashes, transfer deadline news, needs to paint the shed - so I ended up going by myself. We had a massive argument when I got back because I didn't involve him

My DSis bought a little baby blanket back from her holiday for us - DH got upset because my family are choosing "everything" for our baby.

Today reached a new pinnacle.
I've been talking to him for months about prams, asked his opinions, dragged him to MC (via Homebase) to look - when I was speaking to the shop assistant about the one I'd been researching, he wandered off. My DSF very kindly offered to buy it for us and this morning it arrived in the post.

DH completely flew off the handles because I apparently haven't consulted him about any of it, again he doesn't feel he has any choice for "our baby", I may have just as well used him as a sperm donor.

I'm really hurt and upset that he feels like this but equally don't understand how I'm meant to communicate with him about "baby stuff" when he shuts me down. I genuinely think he believes she will just arrive and a fairy will magically kit our house out with everything we need.

Who is BU? And if I am, what can I do to involve him more when he clearly isn't interested in discussing anything baby related with me?

Also when you said your family were too involved I thought it was going to be they were pressuring you to be there at the delivery or requesting you choose a name they like or telling you to find out the sex when you didn't want to or demanding they come and stay with you for a month after the birth and have baby on their own overnight etc. Buying a few bits, especially bits you've chosen yourself, is not being over involved and is completely normal!

im not going to tell you to leave him - because i dont know the ins and out of your marriage. What i can say from your post is he sounds immature and i would be very wary of how he will behave once baby is here, sounds as if if wants to drive a wedge between you and your family. Will this phase pass? I dont know OP - for your sake, i hope so.

He's been acting like a complete knob, your family are not over involved at all just being interested and kind and thoughtful.

Sounds to me like there is something else going on with him here.

You’ve made no mention of his family. Why?

Firstly congratulations! You are not being unreasonable. Perfectly normal for your family to be excited and want to help you and buy things for your baby. Your DH should be grateful for their help.
His behaviour seems odd tbh. Do you think he is worried about becoming a father? Do you think you could talk to him about how he feels. Perhaps it just doesn't feel real to him yet and he's afraid of making plans? You definitly need to talk to him about it before the baby arrives.

I agree with @PeoniesarePink. It’s good that your family are excited about the baby because, to be honest, it looks like they may be helping you raise it. It could be that he’s showing you who he truly is, and it might not a nice person. YANBU at all, but you will be if you let him make your life miserable (either talk to him, get counseling, or if he refuses both, then consider if going home to your family for a bit is right). He’s ruining what should be a happy time for you, especially after you’ve been through HG.

NOW with that said, is there any chance he’s still afraid this might end in miscarriage like your previous pregnancies and his coping method is not to get too involved? Some cultures don’t buy anything for the baby or decorate the nursery until after birth for this reason. That doesn’t make it right of him (unless this is his culture???), but that changes him from a selfish asshole to a scared asshole. Either way, he must communicate with you, though, not fly off the handle and yell at his pregnant wife.

Also you mention his ex-fiancée. How long have you and DH been together and married? Did he go through miscarriage with her too and that’s also on his mind?

Sorry, OP - obviously YANBU (and neither is your lovely, supportive family) and something must change.

TBH I'd just get on with it without involving or asking him - unless he appears to want to be involved - and I wouldn't be telling him too much what your family think or are doing. Some men show very little interest until the baby's actually there.

My dh was like that until our first arrived, but he's always been the most lovely dad. I couldn't have chosen a better for our dds.

So please don't get upset or assume he won't be a good dad.

I'm also going to say a lot of these replies are a bit on the over-dramatic side.

My DH was very engaged during my first pregnancy. During my second he went into complete denial, even though it was planned. I'd watch him look at me sometimes and see the realisation hit him square in the face and then the denial would sweep him away again.

At the root was a high level of anxiety and depression. He found his way out eventually and I found my way to telling him how devastating it was not to have a 'present' husband during what was a pretty grotty pregnancy.

I say this because I think @CrisisCrunchie has nailed it - he doesn't sound abusive, he sounds confused and in denial/ostrich mode. When he occasionally surfaces, he panics that he should be more involved. He probably feels guilty at times that your family are doing far more to support you but that gets covered up by blaming you for not involving him.

I'm not saying this is ok but it's far away from gaslighting and abuse. I'm saying he's a human with complicated feelings who isn't very good at articulating them to himself or you. Some people have never properly learned to be an adult in their upset or anger. They revert to childlike behaviour like blaming someone else. You can't force him to change but you can alter how you respond especially when you are confident that you've not done anything wrong.

Be matter of fact about his involvement. If he doesn't engage be really clear that you're going to make a decision without him. If he tantrums about it, ignore it until he calms down and then ask him if he wants to be involved.

I hope the final trimester goes better than the first two - good luck!

Does he not have any family?

Sounds like he's upset everything isn't about him. Not a particularly good sign, but hopefully he gets his head out of his ass when the baby arrives. I've often heard that a mum starts feeling like a mum once they are pregnant, but a dad starts feeling like a dad when the baby arrives. Maybe that's the case? Hope so. But to answer the question asked, yanbu.

My OH is terrible at getting involved in this stuff because he is still traumatised by our previous 2 miscarriages and birth of our DS 4y ago which made his mental health go down the drain. He doesn’t like to talk about it at all. Could your DH be having similar feelings/nerves? Have you asked him why he hasn’t wanted/felt able to be involved much so far? Perhaps giving too much benefit of the doubt but maybe worth a conversation if you haven’t already?

He’s only going to get worse, sorry.

He won’t want them to help, but then won’t help himself either - meaning you end up doing everything. Seen this so many times before with this kind of attitude pre birth towards mums family.

He's being an idiot immature twit (pred text sug toss pot, which would also work). He doesn't want to be dragged around the shops looking at baby clothes. Fair enough. some men find this boring. But he cannot get jealous of others stepping up to fill his role! Try telling him that you would prefer that they didn't feel the need to get involved, but that they clearly do.

He is gas lighting you, he isn't interested in choosing stuff for the baby he just doesn't want your family involved. Don't apologise to him you haven't done anything wrong.

Being charitable he might be anxious about becoming a father but that doesn't mean it's o.k. to punish you for it by being an arse.

Whose idea was it to move 200 miles away from your family?

What is the exact nature of his relationship with his exFiancee?

I don't understand how people can draw a distinction between 'abusive' and 'immature'. Abusers are by definition immature. They are adults whose emotional, social and psychological development has been arrested at some point. If an intimate partner experiences their treatment of her, whether verbal, physical, sexual, emotional, or psychological, as consistently hurtful, mean, spiteful, intolerant, neglectful, or scary and if it continues after the impact is pointed out and requests are made to change, then the behaviour is abusive. If you keep on doing or saying something to your partner despite knowing you are hurting them and causing them grief you are interested in exercising what you see as power, not in mutuality in the relationship.

Attempts to drive a wedge between an intimate partner and their family are big red flags. When the occasion of a partner's 'immaturity' rearing its ugly head is pregnancy, then you are usually dealing with a man who believes himself to be the centre of the universe, has poor boundaries, and can't cope with attention being paid to the mother of his baby or to the baby. Domestic abuse either beginning or ramping up during pregnancy is a well-established element of abuse and it happens because intimate partners can't deal with the fact that their partner is quite clearly a separate human being, not an extension of their personality.

There is jealousy at play here. It's not nerves because the baby is coming, or the strange inability to even pretend to be excited about their own baby, or inability to feign interest if they are genuinely puzzled about all the 'fuss' about the baby that some here are suggesting is normal.

Men who understand that supportiveness is important when it comes to a pregnant partner are the normal ones and even if they are nervous or bored out of their minds by nursery wallpaper they can put on a decent show of interest.

The only men I ever knew who behaved like this man while their partners were pregnant - i.e. antagonistic, unable to find it in themselves to even pretend to be in it together, and making it plain that the baby and all symbols of the baby were of limited interest to them - did not change after their babies were born.

Whatever you do, don't hide any of his behaviour from your family. Do not let him isolate you, stand up for yourself.

Also, tell him that you are now sooo glad that he obviously would like to be more involved. Then ask him to submit a list of his top ten names and ask him which model buggy was it that he had his heart so set on, if he's obviously so upset with the one that you'd chosen.

Do he and his ex have a child together ?

what's the deal with the ex?? What are they buying?? Is it baby stuff, cos that is so far outside of normal, normal is a mere dot!

Please explain.

What @mathanxiety said. ^

@ShinyPrettyThings are you ok?

I would throw it back in his face - you said that I should choose, that you don't care. So, I asked people who actually do care.

What a big baby!

It sounds like he's gaslighting you. Starting arguments and making out you're in the wrong. It's abusive. For you safety and your baby's safety you'd better prepare mentally and practically to leave. Move back to live with your family now then when the baby comes it's settled there where you have the support you'll need. It'll make custody easier for you because no doubt he will try to control you via the baby.

Why is he choosing colours with his ex-fiancee? Why is she still so involved in his life?

Only on mumsnet! Calm down everyone.
You're only 6 months pregnant. Your husband probably thinks there is plenty of time left and he'll get round to it all later on, while you're keen to be prepared and talking to your family about it, who are also excited and wanting to get presents.
This all sounds pretty normal to me, although shouting at you is not acceptable. Talk to him about how excited you are to get everything ready and how you'd like him to be involved, but it needs to happen sooner rather than later. I found that threatening to spend lots of money galvanised my husband into action!

He's not being nice at all... But just wondering if he's being like this, not getting excited through fear of loss or disbelief that it's finally happening? Could you try to press him on this...it may not feel real to him but it certainly is to you with baby in your womb, all the feelings of pregnancy and moving baby kicks. You might need to make a scenr/kick up a fuss/argue with him if that might make him realise he's being a twat and needs to get involved