To not speak to husband until he gets back

[Tophy124]

Husband is on a work trip in a different country. We share a DS who has been accident prone whilst his Dad is away. I’ve called Dad to let him know how he is, as he is a toddler and not yet talking.

Today he fell on to tile flooring from 2 feet up (in a standing position) and whacked his head very hard. I saw it happen but couldn’t get to him in time and am really worried about him.

Called his Dad who said why are you calling me? Be an adult and learn to make a decision on your own. I was calling as I struggled to decide if it warranted A&E or not, as no obvious concussion signs but he’s still young. I will be up every 2hrs checking him now and taking him in if anything progresses.

He has a lump on the back of his head but thankfully seems ok otherwise but it was really scary and so I was crying. I got told ‘oh it’s always woe is me isn’t it’ and told that running errands with a toddler in tow and running the whole house with no support (we live away from all friends and family) is no big deal. My toddler is hard work at the moment especially with the disruption of his Dad being gone.

Aibu to not speak to his Dad for the next 2 weeks until he is back off the work trip? I can reply if messaged but only about DS. I’m sat here wondering why I wasted my good years with this empathy lacking moron.

I feel like I started to hate him tonight.I hope I’m making the right choice in keeping him home and not going to A&E. Making all the parenting choices when I’m married seems unfair and ridiculous.

Op I'm sorry you're getting such a hard time. Mumsnet can be so cold at times. I've 3 kids and discuss everything with my husband. If any of the kids are sick or have an accident, we talk it through and decide next steps. There are often grey areas where the child is sick or hurt and I need to decide whether I can manage it at home or if they need medical attention. I find that junction stressful and always talk to my husband about it. I tend to overreact and he tends to under react so we balance eachother out. Sometimes he gets annoyed as I always go to the worst case scenario but he does contribute his opinion. I find it very important to bounce these thoughts and fears around and like you, find the mental responsibility of making the right decision the hardest part of parenting.

I don't think the solution to your problem is not speaking to your husband, but speaking more! When he gets back, you need to have this out with him and ask him why he is so reluctant to give an opinion or take any emotional responsibility.

Was there ever a period where he felt pushed out? I think men can feel useless when a baby comes along and this can raise its head in different ways, consciously or not. Or, I also think so men can't stand seeing their partner in any way vulnerable and they shut up their emotional supply as a result. It sounds like there is a lot of bitterness and resentment on both parts and this will corrode your marriage if unaddressed. I'm not excusing any of this behaviour, but you both need to get to the bottom of it if yiu want your marriage and coparenting to improve.

Your husband doesn't sound very kind. Looking on the bright side, he obviously finds it no big deal to look after your son and do chores, so when he's home you can feel no guilt at going out for the day to a spa or somewhere restful and leaving him a list of jobs to get done while looking after your child.

Also, OP, I live abroad too and I get how tricky it can trying to navigate a 'foreign' health care system where the procedures are confusing or you don't speak the language well. Even the bedside manner can be very different.

I think you should wait until DH is back from his time away and have a proper chat with him about your feelings (feeling unsupported, feeling like you parent alone etc) and hear out his side of the story too. He could just be a total unsupportive husband, or he could be dealing with something mentally that he hasn’t spoken about.
It must be really hard having no family and friends around either
Is there any mum and toddler groups locally? Perhaps you could look at those or see if there are any for mums who have a child with similar needs as yours
It sounds like you need a break too xx

Honestly he treats you like a doormat, he's infantilising and patronising you with that comment. I suppose he shouldn't be bothered what with his Big Important Job, which is way more important than family life of course.

Who the hell speaks to their wife like that, when they're expressing worry over a toddler who had a fall? He's disgusted me with that OP. I wouldn't bother speaking to him for the rest of the trip and I'd be re-evaluating everything personally if this isn't a completely out of character one off.

Oh do stop with the competitive parenting!

I agree that the competitive parenting needs to stop. Everyone's experience is different. My 3 have been easy toddlers and babies but the mental drain is still very present, and if anything, was worse when I just had one as a) I didn't have the experience/confidence and b)my other kids weren't around to help. By help, I mean just quickly watch the baby while I do something quickly, or go and grab me a nappy etc. I can't get my head around the concept of 'well I found it easy so you should too'. I'm one of the lucky one who finds parenting very natural, easy kids and I love motherhood etc etc but at the end of the day parenting is parenting and everyone is just at a different place on the sliding scale of 'relentless responsibility'.

He sounds awful. As do many of the posters here, frankly!
The whole point of being married is to support and care for one another - if he isn't offering you that, and causes you more distress, then why stay married?

Personally, I'd make plans to return to the UK and wouldn't tell him until after I'd arrived here. If he thinks you should be making unilateral decisions, this would be a good place to start!

Gosh there are some proper dicks on MN overnight! The bar for men is so so low for some.

Calling your spouse (who at the time wasn't working) twice (from what OP says) while they are away to express concern over two injuries knowing your DS has an underlying health condition is not at all unreasonable!

OP I hope your boy is ok and it sounds like there are a number of dynamics at play here that are making you reflect on the relationship as a whole. I hope you have the head space to think it all through

I think more of the replies would've been much more supportive if you'd put more of the key information in your first post and/or if you'd posted in Relationships rather than AIBU. Perhaps you could start a new thread in Relationships if you want more support and advice.

Having read all your posts, your husband sounds thoroughly unpleasant and possibly emotionally abusive. You are extremely vulnerable living in his country without the support of family and friends and without any financial independence. I expect that's how he wants it and why he treats you so badly.

If I were you, while he's away on his work trip, I would take the opportunity to go the U.K. with DS for a visit - but would also seek legal advice on international divorce and moving back to the U.K. permanently. In the U.K., two good websites are Child Law Advice and Rights of Women. But you will also need advice specific to the country you're in now.

@ImAvingOops I could get in serious trouble for kidnapping without his Dads permission to take him out of the country as my son is a dual citizen and has lived longer here.

Thank you for all the kind comments! I haven’t slept and keep worrying about him. He got up for a nappy change and was v wobbly on his feet but went straight back to sleep! But I will be stressing until I can wake him up properly now. Back to feeling like maybe I should get him checked so will wake him up early our time and if wobbly then going straight to A&E. Really hoping he was just tired!

I would class myself as a responsible and intelligent adult and work I make important decisions confidently every day.

However, I also struggle with anxiety around certain issues and if one of my dc is very unwell or injured I always phone dh, especially if it involves a trip to a and e.
If I can’t get through to him then of course I will manage by myself, but it’s mostly emotional support and his opinion (which is normally the same as mine) that I am ringing for which helps me feel less anxious.

The unkind posts on here towards OP are completely lacking in empathy. Not every one is the same!!

@CoveredInCobwebs fantastic, would you like a medal? The mental exhaustion and loneliness can be much harder for some than others depending on the situation. Surely you can't be so narrow minded to think your experience of things is a standard one size fits all? The lack of empathy based on "I do it OK, so should you" is astounding

Of course I don’t want a medal relevanceiskey. I was just answering your question ‘on what planet?’ I live somewhere where the nature of the main local industry means a lot of people have their partners away for months of the year and cope absolutely fine.
The OP is clearly incredibly anxious - understandably so given her follow up posts. She also has a completely unsupportive husband (whether he’s home or away - again, per her follow up posts). Solo parenting doesn’t need to be that hard. If she was able to address her anxiety about her child’s health - and to be honest, probably if she left her husband - she might well find parenting more enjoyable and generally easier.

This. My DH was you OP. I was away on work quite often when the DC were tiny and these aren’t boondoggle trips. These are high stress work 16hrs a day and fall onto a cot to sleep exhausted type work trips. I tried to be nice and sympathetic and then by the nth ridiculous call …this one was about the colour of the baby’s poo and did it sound normal to me. I snapped at him. I said grow up, you’re the parent. I can’t tell from thousands of miles away if the babys poo is the right colour and needs a doctor or not. Handle it. And hung up on him in righteous anger.

Later on we had a chat and agreed call me to update me on an emergency, but don’t call me with worries that I can’t possibly advise on.

I would absolutely call DH in your situation to get his opinion. If he was wondering whether an a&e trip was necessary I would fully expect him to call me wherever I was and I would be pretty annoyed not to be told about it until later. My view tends to be that if parents are divided on whether a hospital trip is necessary, then the one who thinks it is should win, worst case scenario there is that you’ve wasted NHS time and caused yourself hassle, if you’re wrong and stay at home it could be far worse. That being the case I would want to have the opportunity to insist that DC is taken to a&e if I thought it was necessary, you were giving DH that opportunity.

Your DH did not react in a way that I would expect or be happy with. However, as other posters have said his response may be a bit more understandable if you’ve been calling him with one accident after another for days. I wouldn’t make a decision not to talk to him for two weeks just on principle though - when you’ve both had a chance to calm down talk to him and see if he apologises/understands your position/explains his position better, then do what you feel like then. Policy decisions to sulk for a couple of weeks are not a mature way to handle things (though I’m pretty sure I’ve done things like that plenty of times when pissed off!)

I really agree that he’s being an arse. I have two children, one who was fine as a toddler, she listened and could understand then one who was accident prone whirl wind who almost gave a nervous breakdown. I had a very little emotional support from my ex partner who regularly went away. I ended up stopping communicating with him and it was the beginning of the end of our relationship. Is it worth telling how it makes you feel?

Pallisers · Today 04:40
Come on OP your husband is correct, what the hell do you want him to do when is in another country?

Oh I don't know. What could he do? Let's think. Oh I've got it! He could talk to his wife and discuss their child's injury and give her some input into the decision and act like a normal empathetic human being.

What so many posters on here think is acceptable behaviour from men/husbands/fathers is actually disturbing. I think many of you have never met a decent man who behaves normally.“

this. My husband worked away all week for years when the kids were small and I became extremely competent at dealing with issues/emergencies alone. However, he would have been furious had I not kept him in regular touch with what was going on at home/with the kids.

Another husband who 'works away'. Hmmm And not wanting you to contact him.... Typical standard 'works away' (and plays away) man playing at being single. Not something I would put up with. I think working away is a single man (or woman) job. It's not conducive either to couple life or family life. I would have left him if he didn't agree to get a proper normal day job where we lived. I would not be with someone who 'works away'. It causes nothing but trouble.

However, I will say that when he isn't there, you are solely in charge, not him. It is up to you to make decisions when he is not there. It is not rational to keep phoning him because you don't seem to know how to parent without someone else telling you what to do. If it happens on your watch, you 100% make the decision. If it happens on his watch, he 100% makes the decision. You could have phoned A & E (didn't need to physically go there) for advice, they would know more than he would, they are, after all, the professionals. Your husband barely even knows how to parent, by the sound of things, wtf would he know? Why ask him? Phone the actual professionals. In fact, if I were you, my 'D'H would be the very last person I'd ever ask for advice regarding our child.

Yep, this.

Also, you started crying because your son hit his head?

Really?

One toddler whilst not working is perfectly manageable tbh.

press are picking this up

Are you saying you want someone to be in then house with you, with him?
So two adults to one toddler.

Why does he keep hurting himself? Why can’t you get to him in time? Where exactly is he and you when this is happening.

I’ve had four kids and there
weren’t loads of accidents with any of them. Not even when my DH was away 5 days a week, for 10 months.

Pay more attention.

Hey OP how's your son doing today? 💐

And to be clear I think DH sounds like an arse, but OP needs to get a bit of a grip quite frankly.

One toddler!

One.

this