Shouted at 3 days after giving birth...I blamed tiredness

[nonskatergirl]

I'm just processing some things that my exh did.

We have 1 ds together and he was an elective c section.

I also have 2 dc to an ex partner.

I gave birth to ds in the summer holidays and my eldest dc had been with their dad for 10 days and due home the day before I gave birth.

It was decided when the dc came home that evening, they would go straight to my mums and stay with her as I had to be at the hospital for 7am the next day so logistically it worked better.

On this day, I can't remember why, we went to exh mums house. She only lives 5 minutes away from my mum.

I had a text from my mum to say my dc had been dropped off with her and they were fine. We were sat in mil living room when I said to exh that I was just going to pop to my mums to see my dc. I said I'd only be 20 minutes. I hadn't seen them for 10 days and I was feeling extremely nervous about my c section the next day so I just wanted to give them a cuddle. Exh then shouted at me saying I never want to be at his mums house and I always make excuses to leave. This was in front of other people too.

I ran upstairs crying and locked my myself in mil bathroom. I didn't visit my dc and spent the next few hours crying. The day before I gave birth.

He never apologised for it. He said he couldn't understand why I wanted to go. He didn't understand that I missed my kids and just needed to see them.

The birth was fine.

Then 3 days later, I had the baby blues. We had seen the midwife earlier that day who warned me and exh that I might feel emotional.

All I remember is going upstairs around 6pm and getting into bed and I cried. I was in pain and just teary. I remember him coming upstairs too, seeing me crying and saying

'What are you crying for? You will be fine soon, I've got arthritis. I've got that for the rest of my life. What do you think that's like for me?'

He then walked out. I remember saying 'why can't you just be a normal husband?'

He did come back and apologise for that and gave me a cuddle. I put it down to tiredness.

But it wasn't tiredness was it? It was abuse. Shouting at me at my most vulnerable times.

Sorry I just need to process and getting other opinions always helps. I write it exactly as it was. That I remember anyway.

You are well out of it. His behaviour sounds appalling. Not surprised he is now an ex.

I wouldn't call it abuse.

he was an insensitive pillock mind.

sorry your early memories are taken up with that, try to focus on the happy ones with your new baby.

It most certainly is abuse. Shouting at someone for wanting to see their child and dismissing them and their feelings when they are crying after giving birth is emotional abuse. You need to adjust your boundaries if you can't see that.

There's so many things. They are the ones I think about the most.

I remember hours after I'd given birth, the nurses got me out of bed and in a chair. I was starting to move out and the baby was on the hospital bed. He needed to go somewhere (can't remember now) and he made me stand by the hospital bed incase the baby rolled out. I wasn't ready and I threw up everywhere.

Im free of it now but some days i just don't believe that he was actually that bad.

Sounds like you are finding it hard to put the memories to one side. I sympathise, I too had similar feelings about an abusive ex for years. Have you considered therapy op?

To add, I wonder if CBT might help you?

Men shouted at me not to be so stupid when I picked up a miscarriage support leaflet telling me I didn't need it. He was very abusive. So was yours.

He drove me straight to his mums after being told I was miscarrying at the hospital. He needed to tell her. She had Take That playing in the kitchen as we walked in. She turned it down, he told her, she said 'oh that's a shame' turned the music back up and carried on singing and dancing.

Literally the last place I wanted to be.

A few weeks later he was back to gambling behind my back.

I'm sorry you experienced this with pregnancy. It's just awful.

I'm struggling at the moment between believing it was really that bad or if I was the problem and that I should have been stronger. If I could have stood up to him then maybe I would have been able to deal with him better.

Here's how you know you werent the problem: you're agonising over it and trying to work it all out in your head. The bad guys don't do that, he won't be.

It's not good to keep on thinking about past events, especially if they aren't nice. Live for today, look forward to tomorrow, but leave the past where it belongs. Especially as you've dealt with it - dH is an XDH.

You are right.

I've been doing really well with it all. He's got a new partner and which he needs too because he cannot be alone.

But it's just left me trying to process what the actual fuck was that....as in our 'marriage'

He honestly believes he did nothing wrong.

I've done therapy, the freedom programme, spoke to the police and woman's aid

Yet I'm still left processing absolutely everything