DH said I ignored our son as a baby

[PurpleGrapesandtea]

I’ll try to keep it brief…

DH and I have two children together. We have had difficulties but things have been better lately. Today we had a fight about my carrying all the burden for homework/kid’s activities/school and life admin etc. DH got defensive, made out that I was calling him a shit father and then commented that I “ignored our son for the first two years of his life”

He has said this before.

He’s also in an argument said I am “indifferent to our kids.”

Our oldest is 12 and when he was born I admit that I was clueless and didn’t know much about babies. Mil and DH are both control freaks who tried to take over everything, MIL was so bad that family members asked her “you do know he’s not your son don’t you?” I tried to stand up to her but she took over everything. I was so relieved when DH went back to work after paternity leave and could sing to and bond with my son.

I also admit that I was extremely self conscious when others were around when it came to singing to my son or talking to him.

I am utterly furious at my husband for saying what he did. I took my son to baby groups, songs and rhyme times, baby activities and when he was a bit older I read to him and played with him.

I also had an extremely traumatic birth and undiagnosed Postnatal Depression looking back which DH knows. 😢

I had postnatal depression and certainly didn’t want an audience to bonding with my baby. If my DH ever used that in an argument I would never, ever forgive him. Absolutely unacceptable.

For reference, DH and I had a “whirlwind romance” Looking back I was very very naive. We moved extremely fast and within a year we had a new house, a baby and we were living in a small village a long way from my support network. We didn’t know each other properly nor did I know his mother very well.

The practicalities are unfortunately very difficult right now. For reference, I have tried to leave twice before. Our youngest is severely disabled and practically, it would be very difficult as he mostly needs 2-1 care 😞

Sounds ridiculous but I have spent the day going through old baby/toddler photos of all the activities, groups and adventures we had (just DS and I) loads of stuff we did, I did plan to create a document to prove everything I did with and for my son but how ridiculous that I have to resort to that!

You poor woman.

None of this was accidental.

Text book abuser tactic, love bomb and remove your support network.

Reach out today.

He is abusive.

Tell your family and friends the truth.

For reference- DH has never taken the kids anywhere on his own in 12 years and when our oldest was a baby he would be glued to his mother (my mil) when I was working, she did everything for DH.

You need to tell your GP and support services you are being abused and have tried to leave twice.

Tell them you need help to leave him.

Just because your child is disabled does not mean you have to stay with him.

Start telling all services involved with your child that you are being abused by him.

If he thought you ignored your child and were abusive, he wouldn't have had another one with you.

Why are you listening to him? He sounds awful.

This isn't a good environment for you or for your kids.

Good luck

Oh no, don't start trying to prove him wrong. That way madness lies, as he'll just find something else to throw mud at you about in arguments.

Time to start plotting and planning about how to get out. It is more complicated due to your disabled son, but not impossible.

Hopefully you can start to detach mentally and emotionally from him, now that you are starting to see him for what he is: abusive and love bombing.

Your husband is spiteful. He has said this precisely because he knows it will hurt you, not because it is true. Think about the kind of person he is that he wants to hurt you like this. You deserve kindness. Parenting is about working as a team not one-upping each other.

That’s two sides of the same coin though. Whatever he says it’s just a load of shit.

The reason for course is that he doesn’t actually know what he thinks, and there is more depth to the Paper sitting in the printer.

Really really try to step back and just observe what he says and see how the nice stuff is always the precursor to wanting something (usually sexual compliance) from you.

I wouldn’t go further than “can’t you a least get your fucking story straight and try to be a bit consistent”.

Hugs op you sound like a good mum. I was also overwhelmed at first and had pnd. My dh was there to pick me up and help me. I would also be furious to say just a cruel thing to you. That was aimed to hurt you.

@BrioLover is right, don’t waste your energy trying to prove him wrong. Use it to plan your escape. Yes I know it’s much more complicated because of your child’s special needs and it will need mor planning and multi agency support.

You can start now by playing detective when you husband is out and getting information about your families finances. Scan or photograph every piece of paper you can find and store it on the cloud , not on your device.

If you don’t know what you are looking for it’s easy to miss things that are important, so do everything. most abusive and manipulative men hide money, there’s probably more than you think.

Once you have everything together, see a solicitor.