To not understand this , dp is leaving me

[justhataye]

Hi everyone

It's 4am I am tired and livid

Our poor baby who has the cold atm woke up during the night screaming , dp was trying to soothe baby whilst I went downstairs to get baby his medicine & some water etc for him, when I had came upstairs dp was frustrated as baby wouldn't settle & dp raised his voice at me about how I was taking my time downstairs I replied "I don't know who you're speaking to like that lower your voice towards me" his reply was "I'm fed up of the way you speak to me I'm done with you I'm leaving in the morning" which I replied "why are you waiting till the morning? You have a car outside, go now"

He is now sobbing asking why I didn't beg for him and treating me as if I caused this whole situation.

I am sorry but if you don't want to be with me I will walk you to the door . I don't beg , absolutely not.

Am In the wrong here? He's seriously making me feel as if I am.

Agreed but it seems to be a rhetoric going around at the moment on mumsnet and I'm baffled as to why?

Men do deserve to be told that if they find married life difficult and want to leave, the are free to do it. Life is short for a constant bickering. I personally cannot live with a moaner. Yes, parenthood is tough, how much more for couples with kids with SEN. So? Be a man/woman and get on with it. You wanted to get married and have kids. If you did not, why made the kid to the poor woman.

Yes, this. The word "divorce" was mentioned several times in stressful moments when DS1 was tiny - we're still happily together nearly 40 years later.

“I am sorry but if you don't want to be with me I will walk you to the door . I don't beg , absolutely not “

I came on here just to say, My god what a sentence OP I love it 💪🏻

As others have said, the 4 am , screaming sick baby exhaustion is brutal on relationships. Personally, I think his threat to leave was ridiculous in the first place, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he was just at the end of his tether. Your response was totally perfect because threatening to leave and causing that instability in your partner, even if it just is in the heat of the moment, is a completely DICK move. HIs behaviour now where HE is the victim because YOU didn't beg him to stay? That is the one really big red flag for me and it's the bit I have zero sympathy for. It suggests that this is a pattern he is trying to establish now (probably unconsciously) where he gets to behave badly but play the victim.

This sort of controlling, manipulative, almost narcissistic behaviour is known to ramp up at the time of a baby. So it's worth keeping an eye out for other signs or red flags.

as a side bar, Dh and I have only ONCE got to the "maybe I should just leave" moment in an argument after months of difficult times. It took us months, and a lot of work, to get past that.

Well done OP, perfect reponse.
Of course a crying baby at 4am is hard on everyone and I am sure many people have said something they regret but this mans reaction to OP standing up to him was awful
Anything other than an immediate apology from him was unacceptable and his pathetic reaction would make me lose all respect for him

FFS perhaps he could have supported his partner rather than speak to her like shit so that she didn't feel like he only wanted her as a brood mare!

OP I think you handled it the right way. What kind of person wants to make their partner beg them to stay when the priority at that moment in time is a sick baby.

You're both tired and stressed but threatening to leave because you pulled him up on shitty behaviour is not acceptable. If you were less secure and pandered to it he will do it every time he needs to feel special. Hopefully he will learn his lesson and not do it again.

There is a lot of casual sexism on here - a man with a sick baby who cries at 4am after a nasty and pointless argument with his partner is called pathetic, a baby, a wet lettuce. If a new mum cried in the same situation she wouldn't get similar insults. Are all the posters making these comments teaching their sons that big boys don't cry'?

well done for standing your ground OP. Hopefully that will put an end to similar threats in future.

that being said, don't put too much importance on anything said in such circumstances. Things generally look better in the morning. As Neil Patrick Harris used to say in How I Met Your Mother 'Nothing good ever happens after 2am'.

Hi everyone,

Thank you so much for all of your replies, I really appreciate it bc dp really made me feel like the worst person for not begging him to stay & instead i told him to go now if he wanted to leave.

I completely understand that dp was frustrated, waking up to your screaming sick
baby who won't settle is tough, but it was uncalled for to take it out on me as I was rushing to get baby's medicine etc, however I know taking it out on your partner does happen it times, it's pure frustration, I get it.

All I asked was for him to not raise his voice at me , 1 because just don't who do you think you are and 2 especially not in front of baby.

Because of my response he told me he was leaving me & which I responded basically what are you waiting for if you want to leave, leave now. - this HAS happened before. Where he's threatened to leave and because I shrug my shoulders it causes the worst argument ever.

This is what happened last night, everything before him threatening to leave was dropped, it was completely all turned around on me. The argument was, me not caring about him leaving.

He sobbed because "I don't care if he leaves" - I would like to add he is extremely emotional , cries if I as much as look at him the wrong way

Anyways, I woke up to DP gone, assuming he went to his mums as he's off work today , (he told me before I went back to sleep that he's not going back to sleep, he's waiting for his mum to wake to let him in🤣)

He also sent me a message apologising about how he reacted to me after I came back up stairs about me taking my time , but didn't mention anything about us breaking up. I replied with "thanks for the apology , in future if you want to break up with me, don't expect me to beg for you to stay, if you want to leave , I can't make you stay"

His reply was, in future if I break up with him he'll walk away and not beg like he has before (I have broke up with him twice in past due to his errors and behaviour and he cried, sobbed & begged for me back) he doesn't like, that he reacts like that when I break up with but when he breaks up with me I do nothing. (That sounds like we break up all of the time lol but we don't we've been together yearssssss)

I replied with ok, I have nothing else to say ( I really don't I'm fed up of how childish he is )

I don't know what's happening now, he's very childish.

This.

What a shame you had a baby with such an immature needy man.

This is extremely classic covert/vulnerable narcissistic behaviour. Whether he is or isn't is not really that relevant, but understanding the common traits of this type of behaviour can be very helpful in dealing with it. In particular their tendency to turn on one tiny thing that you have done as a way to avoid any discussion of the underlying problem, caused by him.

Most likely, he honestly has no idea that he is the problem and he genuinely and truly believes he is the victim. But that is not going to help you as the inability to take accountability for his actions is the core factor of this type of personality. He On some deep unconscious leve he needs the drama so if you don't give it to him, he'll attempt to create it.

You replied with "ok". What will happen now is that either at some point he'll start blowing up your phone with a bunch of accusations and/or complaints/things he's upset about. Or, he'll come back but he'll be sulkly and quiet and "upset" for days.

There is a lot of casual sexism on here - a man with a sick baby who cries at 4am after a nasty and pointless argument with his partner is called pathetic, a baby, a wet lettuce. If a new mum cried in the same situation she wouldn't get similar insults. Are all the posters making these comments teaching their sons that big boys don't cry'

From what I understand of the comments calling him a baby it’s not simply because he was crying. It’s because he was crying and complaining Op wasn’t “begging” him to stay. The whole scene is slightly reminiscent of the toddler who storms off or turns their back on the adults for attention and then cries when no-one reacts. I think that is what people are finding both upsetting and immature about it. It’s cute and innocent when a toddler does it not so much when a grown adult does.

FWIW I think many (not all) would say the same if a mother had threatened to walk out on her child and husband after he told her not to raise her voice and then cried that he didn’t beg her to stay.

I’m all for men - or women - crying if they need to, but I think in these specific circumstances it does strike most people as deeply manipulative and cynical.

All I'm getting from this is, you've both had very little sleep, you have a sick baby and your DP was supposed to be home today on annual leave.

Instead of staying home and taking turns to look after the sick baby, he's created an argument, ensured you've got even less sleep and then buggered off to his mums for a nice rest while you look after the baby on your own.

Is that about right?

Does he do this a lot? Offload the shit work of housework and parenting onto you by creating an argument out of thin air and excusing himself for the day?

What's his mum like? Does she also overdramatise? Will she work him up as the victim he thinks he is, or will she tell him he's being an idiot, or - what?

Yeah, I was also thinking this. Is n't it convenient that he's now goign to his mum to be looked after while you're still at home with a sick baby/

Well-spotted, @buttonsB4

My immediate thought was lucky him. He can sleep and chill out at his mums today whilst you continue caring for a sick baby

I am presuming that as responsible adults, you did both discuss having a child? I am presuming that as responsible adults you both came into parenting knowing how hard, stressful, tiring the first months were going to be? I am presuming that you both discussed sharing the work load where possible and factoring in other aspects such as work, daily chores etc……?

If this kind of behaviour has happened prior to pregnancy, then it’s hardly a stable relationship to raise a child in, and surely it’s your baby and it’s long term future that is the priority. It’s not about who begs who, it’s about trying to work things out in the calm of the day, commit to each other and especially your child, otherwise there will be no winners.

I hope you can work things out, calmly and positively. Apportioning blame, bickering over stress induced harsh words, try not to do it if you can. You both made the baby, now help each other to raise it in a good environment.

Op, hope your wee one gets better soon. Well done on clearly expressing and holding your boundaries.

I do think it may be time for a sit down with him, to ensure he understands that , as a parent now, flouncing out on you abd the baby is not on.

I have zero problem with him crying - sleep deprivation does that to most of us. But now pissing off to his mum’s ? Seriously not the actions of a grown up.

While he’s gone , think about whether you want him back. Your update states you have ended it before. I do think he needs to understand that his behaviour is utterly unattractive

His reply was, in future if I break up with him he'll walk away and not beg like he has before (I have broke up with him twice in past due to his errors and behaviour and he cried, sobbed & begged for me back) he doesn't like, that he reacts like that when I break up with but when he breaks up with me I do nothing. (That sounds like we break up all of the time lol but we don't we've been together yearssssss)

I’m going to take a guess that he actually behaved in ways that were out of order and he had good reason to ask for forgiveness?

Him threatening to walk out on his family over being told not to shout at you (DARVO) is not the same thing.

I remember once dating this guy who reacted badly when I expressed being a bit unhappy at his last minute cancellation of a date night at mine after I’d cleaned the house and got food in etc. He said I’d upset him so much he needed to take a few days to recover and he didn’t know if he could see me that weekend at all 😒

He had cried when I tried to break up with a couple of months before and now I see this was him trying to “regain control” by making me plead for him in return . However it backfired - as it was such a clear attempt at manipulation over nothing I’d done wrong , I told him to have all the time in the world to clear his head because we were done and split up with him. As the kids say FAFO 😆

The fact that both of you seem to use threats to leave and ‘breaking up’ as a tactic when you argue is so toxic and so wrong. I assummed this was a one off and thought YANBU but it’s a massive drip feed that you have also ‘broken up’ with him several times in the relationship. It’s so unhealthy that threatening to leave is a tactic you both use; nobody should be threatening to leave and break up unless you 100% mean it which obviously neither of you do or you wouldn’t still be together. Both of you need to grow up and start taking your relationship seriously and treating each other with respect.

How are you still sexually attracted to this man?

You advise she divorce after one spat?

Your bias is showing.

Yeah, he played a blinder.