To think I should leave DH??

[everybodylovesgin]

DH & I have been together for 14 years.

We had our first baby this year born in March.

DD is now 6 months old.

My relationship with DH seems to be declining fast and I just don't know if we can ever get things back on track.

All we ever seen to do now is argue.
We don't seem to be a team, on the same side or supportive of each other.
Instead I feel like we're against each other and we're competing.

I feel angry towards him, I feel resentful and I don't really know why.

He helps around the house, he cooks dinner, he does the laundry, he gets up early on a weekend with DD so I can catch up on sleep, but I just feel like it's all done so he can throw it back at me, or that he's doing it to keep me quiet rather than he genuinely wants to help.

I feel like I'm struggling being at home with DD and he's at work all day and not feeling the same pressures of parenthood that I am.

I don't ever feel like I get time to myself, and my DH has complained that he doesn't either, but he's at work all day, he gets to have adult conversation, eat his lunch uninterrupted, go to the toilet when he wants.
I feel like that's much more time to himself than what I get!!

My stress levels feel higher than ever and I just feel like DH doesn't actually make much of a difference by being in my life.

He leaves for work at 7am and he arrives home at 5.30pm.

He will come home and he will cook us dinner, we will eat.

After dinner one of us will bath DD and get her ready for bed whilst the other is doing the dishes.

DD is going through a phase of not wanting to be with DH when she is tired and will not settle with him, only me.

8pm I take DD up to bed and that's me for the night.
I stay up with her 1. Because I don't feel comfortable putting her to bed without me.

1. Because it can take a while for her to fully drop off and she doesn't sleep for very long without waking up and needs to be settled so it makes sense for me to stay with her.

Some nights DH will come up with me and just lay next to me, others he will stay down.

I just feel so pissed at him because I don't feel like he does enough with DD.

It's so hard that she won't settle with him, even on a weekend for day time naps she barely settles with him, and it's always on me after lots of bouncing and hard work to get her to nap.

I feel really exhausted with it all, I miss having any time alone with my husband but all we seem to do now is argue / compare who's most tired or who's done the most around the house.

I feel like I always have to justify what I've done all day, admittedly he never asked or complains, but I just hate the thought of him thinking I'm lazy or unmotivated.

I do love DH, other than him cleaning the house, cooking and getting up early with DD on a weekend, I don't really know what else I get from him and how I benefit from him being in my life.

I don't want DD to have a split family but I just don't think I'm happy with him anymore.

Like before I had my son, my parents, auntie and I went to Australia to visit a friend of my mum. The friend was like ‘Piglet’s mum, do you remember you were pregnant with Piglet and I was pregnant with [her son] and you said to me when we both were back at work - “I love Piglet but sometimes I wish I could leave her somewhere and walk away”?’

My mum was affronted and vehemently denied ever having said it. But that killed me, honestly. I didn’t even have kids at that stage and I got it. I guess subconsciously I knew they were crazy hard work and one might want to get a bit of space from them from time to time! I don’t doubt my mum loves me - it’s just looking after a little baby is so tough! And my mum was one of those who genuinely thought her life wouldn’t change. Killing myself now even thinking about it.

OP, how old are you? Are you very young? Do you not have any family that could step in and give you a break for a couple of hours? Mum or Mil? Siblings?

I know alot of people here are saying that this is normal but I wonder if this is from people who experienced PNA and PND because from my experience this is far, far from normal. I would urge you to go to your GP and discuss.

Hi OP, just wanted to send a support hug for you and to echo all the brilliant advice on here about just hanging in there. Sounds like you have a good supportive husband there - it just sadly IS this difficult having a first baby! You are both doing really well but still feel flat out and resentful which is compounded by getting no sleep.

Six months is the really hard bit. It does get easier.

I think husband not being able to settle her at six months is also not unusual - she’s still tiny. Things change so quickly and just because she won’t now, doesn’t mean she never will. I also disagree with previous posters that if he doesn’t learn how to do it now, he never will. It’s a long game, and she’ll build her bond with her dad more gradually.

Re naps - will she nap for DH if he just takes her out in the buggy or sling?

The other thing that saved me when at home with my first was getting out and about to groups and activities or even just out for a walk. Previously I was banging my head against a brick wall trying to get my baby to settle in the cot - around six months I gave up and it was out for the day and pram naps after that, until about eighteen months when he was more tired out and would start having one long nap in cot with no bother.

Sorry if that’s not relevant to your situation. Getting out and about to find people in real life who were finding parenthood just as overwhelming really helped me.

Give it some time before you make any decisions - let yourselves grow as parents a bit first. Good luck!

OP no wonder she won't settle for your DH when you are only breastfeeding, and cuddle her to sleep. And you never leave so he never has the chance to do anything on his own.

If you want him to do it, you need to go out. Feed her, then go out for a few hours and leave them to it.

@XiCi

OP, how old are you? Are you very young? Do you not have any family that could step in and give you a break for a couple of hours? Mum or Mil? Siblings?

I know alot of people here are saying that this is normal but I wonder if this is from people who experienced PNA and PND because from my experience this is far, far from normal. I would urge you to go to your GP and discuss.

@XiCi

I'm 33

We haven't left the baby with anyone, simply due to Covid and Covid restrictions.

@XiCi

Was your experience a well-supported one? I ask because of your mention of family support. In this atomised age it is more and more usual for parents to have to manage with no-one but each other for support as people move for jobs, grandparents themselves having full-time jobs, etc etc. It is tough. Finding it tough doesn't necessarily mean you are unwell.

Also did you breastfeed? Breastfed infants tend to be very strongly attached to the mother due to her being their food source and source of comfort. It makes it much harder to get a break before they are weaned onto solids and sometimes even then depending on the child. In my experience, it also strengthens the maternal bond (hormonal effect) and makes it emotionally harder for the mother to leave the baby (although this is not universal as many a breastfeeding mother will tell you). Again this is biologically normal and does not mean you are ill.

I feel like PND has become a catch-call now for every negative emotion about early parenting, and even gets used against women to pathologise their totally explicable emotions and instincts.

There is a lot of clear blue sea between a severe and unnatural hormonal imbalance causing black depression and thoughts about harming oneself/one's baby, hallucinations, intrusive thoughts, irrational beliefs etc, and feeling conflicted between the normal maternal attachment to the baby and the natural human desire for rest and diversion. PND runs a spectrum and has many presentations, but is not the case that every woman who is not skipping merrily off to coffee dates without their baby is of necessity mentally ill.

Also not all depression arising from or in tandem with the challenges of parenthood (and I am talking here about diagnosable mental illness, not the doldrums) is PND! PND is a form of depression, and it is not simply depression felt by new parents. This misunderstanding results in the current absurdity of 'fathers can get PND too you know' now entering the lexicon.

Can we please get past this thing of every time a woman who has had a baby expresses any dissatisfaction with her lot immediately ringing the PND alarm? Never hurts to check it out but the OP has not said anything to my view that expresses anything other than the normal reaction to a lack of sleep and a buggerload of pressure!

@VodselForDinner

What more do you expect him to do?
Can you make a list so that we can understand what gaps you see? From the outside looking in, it looks like he does a lot but you’re obviously not feeling that that is the case.

Honestly, I don't know. I'm not sure what it is that I want or need.

When gets home he will tell me to go for a walk or have a bath with a book etc, but what he's not understanding is that I don't want to go and sit in a room by myself away from him and my baby, I want to be with them both, but it would be nice if he took over responding to her needs for an hour and I could take a step back, whilst being in the same room as them both!

@everybodylovesgin

When gets home he will tell me to go for a walk or have a bath with a book etc, but what he's not understanding is that I don't want to go and sit in a room by myself away from him and my baby, I want to be with them both, but it would be nice if he took over responding to her needs for an hour and I could take a step back, whilst being in the same room as them both!

Then tell him this! Sometimes you have to spell it out, people aren't psychic. He obviously understands you want something from him, but he won't know what exactly unless you tell him! It is lovely to watch your baby and child interact and will help them develop a bond.

baby and husband!!! Not child

@mummmy2017

Your baby has you trained to react and not let her dad help.

she's just a baby!!! She's not some sneaky manipulative adult that knows what she's doing.

I'm responding to her needs!!

I want to be with them both, but it would be nice if he took over responding to her needs for an hour and I could take a step back, whilst being in the same room as them both

But would you actually relax if you were in the same room though, OP? Or would you be on edge, waiting to see if DD cried or would DH be worried you were going to take over. Honestly, you may find it easier to turn off just by being a bit further away. And DD may cry for you if she knows you're there.

When my DC were little, I sometimes had to chant in my head "Not Wrong, Just Different" to remind myself that just because DH was doing something differently to the way I would do it with the DC didn't mean it was wrong, it was just his way. I had to let him work out his own path with them and not leap in, as hard as that is to do.

@everybodylovesgin

When gets home he will tell me to go for a walk or have a bath with a book etc, but what he's not understanding is that I don't want to go and sit in a room by myself away from him and my baby, I want to be with them both, but it would be nice if he took over responding to her needs for an hour and I could take a step back, whilst being in the same room as them both!

I get this. Same thing. Eventually talked it through with my DP and basically he felt like I was monitoring his parenting, that I didn't trust him to manage without me there. And, if I'm totally honest, he was right. I'd intervene if he was holding her 'wrong', if she started to cry... I wanted to be there because I felt safer when I had my eye on her. And he sensed that and resented it. He wanted me out of the way so he could practise, get it wrong, learn to get it right, without interference, the same way I was when I was home alone with her all day. Not to mention when I handed him to her she would scream bloody murder and try with all her tiny might to get back to me! As someone who prides himself on being very capable in all areas of life, his ego took a massive bashing.

I don't have personal experience of how to square this circle - me and DP were very much at loggerheads. However I do know a breastfeeding mum with a very involved partner and while her baby is still a mummy's girl it's much more even-handed - their secret? He changed EVERY nappy when he was around, and did EVERY bathtime. Always. Those were HIS jobs, his thing with baby. Not something he did now and again with mum subconsciously vetting him in the background.

Might be worth considering if they do need alone time for him to gain confidence? But I know it's not easy. Maybe split the evening so when he gets home, you spend a bit of time together as a family both equally caring for her (30 mins or so) then you pop off for a bit of time (another 30 mins) and then return - if things seem to be going well, come back but take the back seat and let him do the caring, maybe make a start on the dinner while you all hang out in the kitchen... And slowly lengthen the amount of time he has her on his own?

Oh gosh - that first year after a baby is born is truly a test of your relationship. I told DH I wanted a divorce about 5 times when our first son arrived (in the 6 months following birth to be precise.) And we've been together for about the same length of time as you.

I just remember spending a lot of that first year crawling around on the floor, half-naked, eating peanut butter out of a jar like some wild animal! The house was a midden, I cried, baby cried, relatives came over with good intentions and I was embarrassed at the state of myself and the house and the kitchen. I wished they'd all just fuck off. But instead I just made them cups of tea whilst they cooed over the baby - which initially, was just like a little frog that screamed at me for milk and made sporadic movements.

I wondered what the hell I'd done, and why I'd taken this conscious decision to fuck up my life. And my marriage. And my career.

We got through it and then went on to have another one. I think what you're feeling could be a touch of PND too - again, perfectly normal to experience this, most women do, whether they admit it or not. I had it, again with my first, but not my second. I remember feelings of low mood, resentment towards DH that his life continued in a linear fashion whilst I was literally left holding the baby. I also had feelings of guilt, that I wasn't doing enough, a good enough mum, that I felt annoyed and lonely and angry and fucking exhausted ALL THE TIME.

It is tough. But your relationship, if it is a good one (and it sounds like it is) is built to withstand the rigors of parenthood. You are both learning on the hoof, and having a little person suddenly thrown into the mix after 14 yrs of "togetherness" sort of pulls the rug out from under your feet a little! You'll both be fine, because you sound like you love one another. Just get through the first year and then see how you feel! This stage passes quickly as well - you probably don't feel like that right now but it really does. The days are long but the years are short so the saying goes. And soon enough you'll look back on all the tough experiences and realize that those were the times you bonded the most and grew the most.

But again tbh he is making all the right noises - he's getting it 'wrong' for what you want, but he's trying really hard to get it right!

I know you're frustrated with him. But he really really does sound like he wants to be a good husband and father.

I think you could have got into a vicious cycle.

You always respond to DDs needs and you DH has no confidence plus he knows he can't feed her milk or will she settle to sleep with him.

He may feel far more comfortable learning how to respond try I her needs without you there potentially ready to take over or criticise?

Have you discussed this issue with him?

You are saying you want time away from DD but when he tries to give you that you don't want that either?

I want to be with them both, but it would be nice if he took over responding to her needs for an hour and I could take a step back, whilst being in the same room as them both!

And how do you expect the baby to settle for daddy while you are in the room and she can hear and smell you? And when your husband knows that you can see if the baby doesn't settle as quickly for him as for you? When this will make him more nervous and baby will pick up that?

Sorry, but you really are setting him up to fail here. You have bonded with the baby because you did not have to learn to be a mother in a room where some already bonded super-parent was sitting watching you. Give him that chance!

And above all, give the baby a chance to develop a separate, but equally important, equally trusting relationship with her dad.

@Ori82

I just remember spending a lot of that first year crawling around on the floor, half-naked, eating peanut butter out of a jar like some wild animal! The house was a midden, I cried, baby cried

Aaaaah, memories!! I'm pregnant again due in Feb and wondering at times why I would do this to myself when I am only recently getting a reliable night's sleep and eating all my meals at the table without someone on my lap!

@everybodylovesgin another vote for baby steps. I know it can be hard. It's illogical that it's easier to let dad take care of baby while you're sleeping than to leave the house with them both in it. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't experienced it. The first times I just went for a walk around the block, a trip to pick something from the (local) shops. Little by little I increased this, with the support of my DH until it was more normal feeling.

You say you're BF but you might well have noticed a pattern in the feeding, or plan to go out once baby has just fed so that you can remove the worry of baby being hungry.
Communication is key. Explaining to your husband what you're going through and asking him for support is important. From the sounds of it he's doing his best but you are married to a normal human, not a mind reader. Time for you is important and it's not a reason to feel guilty. Resting and recuperating, a change of scenery, breaks so you can be in touch with you as you not you as mum, are all really good in making sure you can be the best mum for your baby.

You can do this!

Another voice for letting him do all the nappies and all the baths when he's home. Nothing is as relaxing as confidence, nothing builds confidence as securely as experience.

I can relate to a lot of what you've written; I remember not leaving the house without my firstborn for the first seven months. (The first time I did go somewhere without him, I didn't quite know what to do with my hands!) It was all so intense and I was exhausted and I was annoyed at dh who seemed to be carrying on as before. But at the same time, I was a bit controlling, I guess, and anxious - I would have also said my baby could only sleep with me, or wouldn't take expressed milk etc. Guess what - when I had to go to hospital for three nights, my baby drank expressed milk and went to sleep perfectly well without me. I think you should maybe take a leap of faith and let your husband handle things from time to time. It might take him longer to get her to sleep at first - it's no big deal. He also needs to find his way, and your baby needs to get used to the idea. Go out for a drink with a friend so you can't hear what's going on and be tempted to intervene - and trust him.

Also - look up Michelle Obama's recent interview about marriage. It's very interesting and she addresses this resentment. She said she finally realised she needed to stop bitching about Barack being at the gym and work out how to get there herself. I think this is very wise.

Don't worry - as everyone says, it's all normal. Having a baby changes everything and there's a process of adjustment. But let yourself let go a little bit, give yourself some time away from your baby, let your dh enjoy some one-on-one time with her.

Good luck x

And baby steps! Go for a short walk when he is due to e.g. change her nappy. Then a daily walk. Then something longer.

The first time I did go somewhere without him, I didn't quite know what to do with my hands!
The first time I went to the supermarket without mine, I found myself giving reassuring to-and-fro pushes to my trolley!

I feel for you because I remember how hard it is in that first year. The strain on the relationship and on each parent (but often it is especially the mother) cannot be underestimated. Even though I was expecting it, I still felt the same after my 2nd was born. I know many of my friends felt the same way.

It's also very very hard adjusting to the end of maternity leave as well, as the expectations on each part shift yet again.

Hang in there, try to keep the lines of communication open and try to work as a team. Good luck.

@everybodylovesgin

When gets home he will tell me to go for a walk or have a bath with a book etc, but what he's not understanding is that I don't want to go and sit in a room by myself away from him and my baby, I want to be with them both, but it would be nice if he took over responding to her needs for an hour and I could take a step back, whilst being in the same room as them both!

I've just read this again and I realised something. What we both wanted, actually, wasn't anything from our husbands - we wanted the baby to accept either parent equally!! But because we can't get angry with our babies, we get angry with our partners for not being equally palatable to them

I think it is unrealistic to expect the baby not to prefer you - always around, food, comfort, familiarity since before she was born. My partner expected this egalitarian approach of our baby and was sorely disappointed when it didn't happen. Dads need to work on developing their own relationship with baby, but the smaller they are, the more likley they are to swerve in favour of mummy if she's there. Nothing much either of you can do about it but try to be patient with her and with each other.

If you're in the room with them both, and the baby needs something, do you automatically react? Or do you step back and let him do it? Be honest with yourself. You have the opportunity to go out without the baby, you just don't let yourself do it because of this guilt. Which is natural by the way. Until you can force yourself to get past this very unhelpful feeling, you're not going to be able to get the resentment to go. You need to take the initiative and go out. At the moment you're resenting dh for doing what you don't feel able to do. That's your issue, not his. So take steps to go out as well. Leave the baby at home and walk round the block for 15 minutes. Nothing bad will happen, nobody will judge you for being out without your baby. You've got to do it sometime and when you do you'll feel so much better.