Partner said something and I feel upset..am I over reacting.

[Hereigo89]

I have a 5 month old baby with my partner. He found the newborn stage very hard and when she was 3 weeks old be basically had a breakdown and told me how hard he was finding it and he was worried he had lost all his freedom. It sounds silly writing it down but he couldn't cope with the sleep deprivation. We worked through this and things have been great. We were chatting this eve about how hard the newborn stage is as her sleep has been all over the place right now. He said that he was glad he could tell me how he felt when she was a newborn because if he had kept it bottled up then he could have ended up cheating on me. Obviously I got my back up about this and said so if times get hard then you will cheat? He said I took it the wrong way and thats he's basically saying that people cheat because they can't communicate. I just can't shake this niggle feeling now that if things get tough ..which they do once in a while especially when you have kids together...that he will start looking elsewhere. Or am I over reacting?

He is depicting your future with him to you. Don’t have any more children with him. What an absolute bastard. I have no words..

This...

How would cheating have helped his sleep deprivation because of a baby? It doesn’t make any sense. He’s basically told you when the going gets tough I’m going to feel entitled to cheat. 😯😬

My H told me a few weeks in that he was really struggling, that he couldn't help with the baby for fear of hurting him accidentally I think he was expecting me to tell him it would be ok and take care of him as well as the baby. Instead I felt he had abandoned me and was telling me he was checking out of parenting. I was extremely sleep deprived and he had done little in real terms to help.
I wasn't wrong. It was the first hint of far worse to come. He eventually turned to alcohol and drugs to help him 'cope'. It was utter hell. I could never have predicted that would happen before DS was born. Needless to say we didn't have any more children.

OP this is a warning sign, don't ignore it.

Losing freedom could be a clumsy way of saying he feels overwhelmed with the responsibility and the pressure. That’s ok

and talking about that feeling is good. Both parents can feel it

saying it might cause him to cheat is definitely not ok.

Because why would cheating be the thing you bring up as a possibility? Cheating would have to be in your mind to bring it up in the first place. Even when I’ve been very stressed in a relationship I’ve never said I might cheat - I’ve said I’ll leave but cheat No🤷‍♀️

Like other PPs I can’t see the correlation between finding things hard and cheating. Bizarre.

It’s also manipulative, he wants you to do all the work so he won’t find things hard and cheat. You were meant to be a partnership, this isn’t what you signed up for.

That's rather like telling women to be grateful if their husband does the laundry badly and keeps shrinking their clothes etc because at least he's trying.

It's great he communicated his feelings. It's not great that he thinks if he hadn't communicated them he would have had sex with another women. Its really not great to communicate that to his sleep deprived wife who is equally in need of his support as he is of hers.

Let's face it there are no winners from this conversation.

Does he by any chance come from a background where a brother/father/close friend has had an affair? It's an odd comment but I have a friend who's said similar things and it's because his dad had an affair and his reasoning was "I was very stressed at work", so now my friend thinks everyone who has an affair must be very stressed at work

What a weird random thing to say!
I mean it may have just come out and nothing was really meant by it, but how does he even connect the two? 🤦‍♀️

You're not over reacting at all

@Hereigo89 You know him better then everyone else on this thread. What do you think? Was this just a badly communicated way of saying that marriage without good communication leads to distance and an eventual end to the relationship? And he’s grateful that it didn’t?

Or do you think that he is manipulating you into letting him have a pass on all the difficult areas of parenting by making you fearful of him cheating on you?

Have you confirmed with him that this goes both ways? That if he didn’t listen to you and support you then he’d think you’d be justified on cheating on him?

Oh and by the way, I don’t think yabu to feel the way you do. A really awful thing to say, bad communication or not.

Did he cheat op? That’s how I’d take it, as a partial admittance of guilt . Could he have had the opportunity?

at the very least he was telling uou he was considering it, there was someone else he was looking at

He's cheated already and was testing the waters over what to blame it on.

He panicked and had a massive anxiety attack over the sudden change in lifestyle when the baby came along I can relate to that 100%.. I felt exactly the same and I was the mother. I panicked and wanted to hand the baby to the midwives and run away, it's completely overwhelming for some people. But yanbu to be pissed off that instead of saying he felt like leaving to escape the pressures of having a newborn, he said that he felt like cheating on you. Those are two very different things. I don't really have any advice on how you go forward from here but I think a calm discussion with him might help clear the air and put your mind at rest.

Op if he’s been a good partner prior to this fo you think it could of just been something said that spilled out because he was trying to sort of say I’m glad we can communicate? Men don’t really think before they speak sometimes I wouldn’t leave him over this if you trust him. It’s not acceptable that he said it but many he said it sort of jokingly ? It’s a bad joke if he did but maybe what he was trying to say just didn’t come out the right way

Woman places bar so low that a ridiculously offensive and unsettling comment needs to be appreciated because “man is trying to feel”.

He didn't say he was going to cheat. He clumsily remarked they were going through hard time and best to communicate as when people don't communicate it can lead to other things like cheating . It wasn't the best approach but he's not wrong. He also didnt say he woukd cheat because the baby was hard work. He tried to open up and look where it's got him. Lots of LTBs your anxiety through the roof and thinking if ending it. Step away from mumsnet OP before you leave a perfectly good relationship over a not thought out but we'll meaning comment.

He clumsily remarked they were going through hard time and best to communicate as when people don't communicate it can lead to other things like cheating

@Redkettle No, communication problems do not lead to cheating. A complete and utter disrespect from the cheater leads to cheating. A decent person who respects you and loves you will seek to improve communication. And if all else fails will respectfully end the relationship before having sex with somebody else.

@Hereigo89 How did you deal with the tiring newborn stuff? I think that’s the key here, about whether he’s an arsehole or not.

Did he find it hard (it IS hard!) but step up and share the load?

or did he find it hard, need more sleep, and leave you to look after the baby because he was tired?

This!

But that's his opinion it doesn't mean that will happen or has happened. He may have just been giving an example as to how things could go wrong. Yesvit was a stupid thing to say but the intent wasn't there op herself said he's always been anti cheating. This baying mob would have him out on his ear for using one bad example. It's batshit crazy

Being glad he can talk to you about his feelings, that’s good. Saying he would have ended up cheating is so far beyond the pale that I’m really hoping he badly worded what he was actually feeling (potentially that the relationship would have broke down if he’d kept everything bottled in because he couldn’t share that burden with you). If he actually meant he’d cheat if you’d not listened and supported him then I’d leave him right now, that’s outright confirmation that he’ll look elsewhere if the going gets tough and you’re not there to mother him.

@Redkettle Fair enough. Most of us have probably communicated something badly and not meant how it came out.