DH and maternity leave - Who is BU?

[ILoveBostonTerriers]

DH and I have our own business, I run the accounts side of it and he does the field work, we have a small team and our own office though I work from home 95% of the time.

We've decided that we want to start TTC soon and we had a big discussion about what a baby might look like for us.

It turns out that, although we would hire someone to help with the office when I went on maternity leave, DH wouldn't want them to do any of the finance stuff and as we pay weekly, this basically means I wouldn't even get a full week truly off. I said I would show him how to do it, but he's refused to learn or to really negotiate, he's just saying it's what I'll have to do to keep the business going and staff in work etc.

For some context, I don't love the job. It's hard and it's stressful and I was always operating under the assumption that I would get to be a SAHM at least for the first few years until the baby went to school. It has some good points, in that when a potential child was at school I could easily work school hours only and be there for them before and after. My friend was in hospital for a week after her baby was born, and I know that some people get HG in pregnancy so it seems totally unrealistic to me. I'm also worried that he will expect me to go into the office 3-4 days a week to supervise the new office staff we get. He didn't say this directly but I feel like it was implied.

Also, DH is a massive workaholic and expects that his life won't change, that he will be able to work as much as he always has and that I will do everything for the baby as I do everything for the home and family now. I feel like that would have been okay if I was a SAHM but not if I'm expected to carry on working too.

I'm having a massive reaction internally to this, it's seriously making me feel like I want to leave him and have a baby on my own. I'm aware that's probably an overreaction but it's been a couple of weeks since the conversation and I still strongly feel like that.

What do you think, AIBU?

Oh god yes.

The stinking up the bathroom.

Oh lord.

On a site full of horror stories, her awful story really stood out.

I rarely connect the stories, and certainly didn't join the dots on this one.

So sad if it is her that she would inflict him on a child.

If it is her, that thread is 3 years old, and she said she'd started other threads about his behaviours over "the last few years" 😭

Is there a link to the other threads?

To be fair, this one is bad enough all on its own (I posted earlier on too)

OP please don't have a baby with this 'man'

I'm not posting links, OP has name changed, I don't 100% know it's her and it would be just plain wrong to post links anyway, given she's name changed.

@ILoveBostonTerriers , please come back and post for support. I'm sorry if this has derailed your thread, I didn't mean to.

But if you DID post 3 years ago about an argument, and you getting a place on teacher training, and oh so nearly leaving your monster of a H.

Please, keep on posting.

And if that wasn't you, please keep on posting,anyway.

You need our support.

I don't know what's wrong with me. I just keep going round in this cycle. I managed to get another job interview this week and I feel so guilty about it.

He really got a lot better. The past year hasn't been too bad, the rules don't feel as strict and he actually spends some time with me properly and sorted some things out.

But then a couple of things happened and it set me off on this cycle again of wanting to leave, including this that I posted about. I started seeing a new counsellor who is really good but I'm now back in this place of feeling completely stuck. Enough time has passed that I've forgotten about the thing that made me start looking for a job again and see a counsellor, the memory of it has faded and I've fallen back in love with him. I could leave if I wanted to, it would be hard and a struggle but I could do, I could just pack up and go but I don't. I'm sorry I keep posting, I try to keep it vague but I feel like someone always knows it's me, I think I keep posting here because I'm hoping that one day something will be the thing that pushes me over the edge and out of the door, posting here before really helped me to open my eyes so much when I've posted before but I still willingly look the other way but I can't fully forget what I know now.

I started looking for jobs and I've got an interview for one but I feel so sick at the thought and I just want to go but I also love him and want to stay and wish I could just forget all of this that drives me to want to go. I'm terrified of both staying and going and also terrified of wasting my whole life being stuck doing nothing.

Oh OP. I’m so sorry you’re still going through this 💐

Have you got external help? Family friends? There’s obviously something going on that is stopping you from leaving and it will take the right counsellor/friend to help you leave because I’m not sure if you can see things clearly enough to go through with leaving.

Love isn’t smothering and destructive. It should make you feel like you’re growing and thriving. I love gardening so I tend towards horticultural analogies, but it should be like a flower blossoming because it’s received enough sun and food and water and it’s been tended and given space and time to become the best it can be. If you hide it in the shade, never water it and make it become pot-bound it may stay alive, but it will be stunted and will never fulfil its true potential. If your DH isn’t going to give you space to blossom then you will have to take over. Plant your feet somewhere secure and feel the sunshine on your face!

It's such a sad post to read.

Can you be happy if you stay and don't TTC? If not then you need to leave.

Does he know you have this job interview?

Oh OP! I think if you're honest with yourself you know you can't have DC in this situation, it will really mess them up. You've said you want to be a Mum so make this the catalyst to leave, noone should have to live in this situation!

The rules aren't as strict?! There shouldn't be rules. There are no rules in marriages, except the basics - don't cheat, don't be abusive.

He's not your dad, your keeper or your jailer and you cannot subject a child to a set of "rules" that means they are born into the control of a monster like this. Do you want to be excusing his behaviour one day to a teenage girl who isn't allowed to leave the house or have a shower with "Oh, your dad's just like that"?

@ILoveBostonTerriers imagine yourself as an 80 year old in a care home thinking back on your life...your one chance at life.

What will you think about? Do you think you might reflect and think you really should have done something about this situation?

You are wasting your life on this man. What can you possibly love about him? You are allowing someone else to dictate your life. Why?
Why aren't you angry? You need to find ways to believe in yourself, stop relying on this man for your happiness. He's an idiot by the sounds of it and it doesn't sound like he loves you at all

@ILoveBostonTerriers you're the lady who got offered the uni place you wanted, I think? Just based on your last post. I'm sorry you didn't end up taking it, if it is you.

I'm so sorry you're still there. Please don't have kids with him. All of these controlling things he does to you, he will do to your kids. And that makes a sad childhood. But then to make it worse, kids replicate what they have seen, so the chances are, any daughter you have will end up in a relationship like this. Any son you have will treat his partner like he treats you.

It also sounds like he's clever enough to not do the thing that will make you say I need to leave at the moment. But remember that behaviour escalates when pregnant, and you are much, much less likely to leave then. So what he's doing now, the controlling side of it, it WILL get worse, but by then you will be tied even further to him.

That part of the cycle of their abuse, they sense you're just about breaking point so they switch back on the love-bombing so that you get sucked in again to the fog of confusion.

Have you done the Freedom Programme at any point? And read Lundy Bancroft's "Why does he do that?" (if you search the title + pdf you'll find it free)? Two great resources often recommended on here for good reason.

OP, he is never going to let you have a job, and he is never going to let you have a baby. Please face facts here.

He’ll persuade you it is your decision (like it was your decision to give up your job and do his accounts), but it won’t be, it will be him bullying you until you give in. If

And if you are planning on arguing that he is happy to TTC, and it is you who has changed your mind - QED.

You want to TTC. He has given you a list of impossible conditions (no mat leave, working through labour, he won’t parent in any way) which make it impossible, so you have given up your dreams. If you hadn’t changed your mind, his behaviour would have become more and more unreasonable until you fell into line.

I shudder to think what he would do if you actually had the temerity to fall pregnant, but he’d be busy convincing you that a termination was your only realistic option one way or another.

I’m not familiar with your other threads or the background but am getting a sense from this one and what other posters are alluding to.

My advice is get another counsellor. If you are describing everything here to them, and more besides, and they are not ringing a very loud klaxon in your ear shouting ABUSE, they aren’t the counsellor for you.

Hope you find the strength.

Oh you poor pet, it is you.

Such a lovely young woman.

Please don't inflict him on a child.

You are better than to do that.

Keep posting.

We are ways here for you.

Was thinking if you and hope you’re ok @ILoveBostonTerriers x