DH says I’m ruining DC’s life

[QueenMammoth]

DH and I keep falling out because he says I’m “controlling everything” and “ruining my kids lives” because (in his view) I’m too overprotective of DC. I know I am overprotective but I don’t think anything that extreme. I get annoyed because he doesn’t try to compromise, just gets angry and tries to push me to do things I’m not comfortable with. For context, I got diagnosed with postpartum OCD & anxiety and they’ve never really faded away, although much better now than when the kids were newborns. DC are now 4 and 1.

These are things he takes issue with:

Me not wanting DC to run on pavement of a busy main road in London when they were around 2 years old, without someone holding their hand.

Me saying “be careful” the first time he carried our newborn up the stairs.

Me telling him to watch 2 year old DC when he carried them on his shoulders down the road, as they kept leaning backwards.

Me telling him to watch DC on scooter to school as they were getting used to it and were wobbly.

Me asking him to put DC in buggy to cross a very busy road, rather than letting them sit on his shoulders.

Me not wanting to let DC climb up a hill to run ahead to the play park, out of our reach, when there had been multiple reports of attempted abductions in our area in recent weeks. DC was 2 at the time. I did snap at this point, and said “fine, do what you want but if anything happens I’ll blame you and I will never speak to you again”

He’s just gone to pick our youngest up from nursery, and slammed the door calling me controlling because he said he’d carry them back, rather than taking the buggy. It’s a 15 minute walk, and he was saying yesterday how heavy DC feels after you’ve been holding them for a while. I pointed this out and he just ranted at me

I’m expected to stay on top of all life admin, all housework, pretty much all drop offs/pick ups, organising childcare, then he muscles in and tells me I’m making terrible decisions and am going to ruin their lives by putting them in bubble wrap. I feel so annoyed but I don’t want to let my DC down.

AIBU?

I mean this kindly OP.

When I met DH, his behaviour was peculiar to me but he had been used to his ex wife who was partially sighted and he described his married life as him having to 'do all the thinking'.

I thought this was a mean thing to say but gradually I came to realise what he meant.

He found it weird that I was so independent, I drove myself around, went to work and was a fully functioning person with agency when this was not what he was used to. He used to grab at me when I went to cross the road as if I was two and there was a hundred other things he did that made me feel stifled controlled and weird generally and I became snappy and off as a result.

He stopped doing it though and I noticed so he said that as he drew breath in to say the thing he took a moment and decided to not say it but wait and see instead and he gradually was able to accept the difference between me and his wife and he hasn't done it for years.

This is why I made the suggestion.

Sorry OP but you sound stifling. I would want to get away from you just to be able to relax and breathe, and enjoy being with my child.

I know that women don't often go into labour on their due date, but you definitely could have done and he was being a twat by going out and getting shitfaced.

He doesn't sound particularly supportive. He finds your OCD and anxiety annoying and makes sure you know that he is annoyed.

You should definitely try and get some therapy for your OCD/anxiety but maybe also see a counsellor about your marriage. You acknowledge that your OCD and anxiety can be annoying for him and can undermine him as a parent.

However, he doesn't make any allowances for your mental health conditions and seems devoid of any empathy for you.

What bit is rubbish? OP has already previously being diagnosed with a mental illness. She needs help

Me not wanting DC to run on pavement of a busy main road in London when they were around 2 years old, without someone holding their hand.

Possibly reasonable, depending upon how wide the pavement was. Reins solve the issue without necessitating him bending over sideways to get his hand to their shoulder level.

Me saying “be careful” the first time he carried our newborn up the stairs.

Unreasonable. He wasn't going to bounce them upstairs like a basketball.

Me telling him to watch 2 year old DC when he carried them on his shoulders down the road, as they kept leaning backwards.

They've got legs, he'd be holding them.

Me telling him to watch DC on scooter to school as they were getting used to it and were wobbly.

I'm sure he was aware to look at them.

Me asking him to put DC in buggy to cross a very busy road, rather than letting them sit on his shoulders.

Unreasonable - they weren't going anywhere.

Me not wanting to let DC climb up a hill to run ahead to the play park, out of our reach, when there had been multiple reports of attempted abductions in our area in recent weeks. DC was 2 at the time. I did snap at this point, and said “fine, do what you want but if anything happens I’ll blame you and I will never speak to you again”

Completely unreasonable. Child abductors aren't loitering in bushes ready to do a running snatch tackle of a toddler waddling up the hill. Reins probably not necessary for this, and most with them would still let the child have a little taste of free movement.

He’s just gone to pick our youngest up from nursery, and slammed the door calling me controlling because he said he’d carry them back, rather than taking the buggy. It’s a 15 minute walk, and he was saying yesterday how heavy DC feels after you’ve been holding them for a while. I pointed this out and he just ranted at me

Pointless. He said they were getting bigger, not that he was going to drop them on their head.

Now, had he been taking the DC on the train and not bothering to do up the buggy strap nor concentrating on minding the gap so when the buggy was pushed off, the wheels went down, the buggy went down sideways and a strange old woman about to get off the train grabbed said child as they were tipped out, dangling them in the air by an arm whilst people on the platform got the buggy out (yes, very specific - it happened today - I'm quite impressed with myself for that midair catch, to be honest), I'd be 100% behind you.

But he didn't. He's capable of more than you give him credit for. Breathe before you tell him the bleedin' obvious or come up with vastly less likely scenarios to worry about.

Maybe to people who are afraid of their own shadow….

You sound a lot like my DH. He was (in my view) a bit overprotective about a lot of the same things, and I was more relaxed. We muddled through somehow and our now adult DC are alive and well and not too screwed up. If you generally like your DH and want your relationship to thrive, I would suggest you talk about the things you don't agree about and try to reach some workable compromises, because nothing here sounds outrageously extreme. It's not like you're refusing to let DC go out at all and he's dangling them in front of crocodiles.

My children loved it when their dad carried them on their shoulders. He never dropped them and I never imagined that he would.

Just because someone doesn't feel.100% comfortable with it through their own anxieties doesn't make it wrong.

I agree.

@QueenMammoth why should he always be the one who must compromise, as per your OP?

Blimey, have you always been a control freak? Does it affect other aspects of your life?

He's a parent too. He doesn't need someone parenting him.

So what if it was a newborn? I've never told my DH to 'be careful' simply because he was carrying newborns up the stairs.

"Reports of multiple abduction attempts" bloody hell, where do you live?

It sounds like you know you have a problem with hyper vigilance but possibly your DH is not being very understanding of your OCD. Is he being oversensitive to your occasional comments do you think? I can understand how he might have found your comments undermining if they were more frequent in the past but if you have stopped doing it so much now his reaction should change too. Have you both got into the habit of reacting to each other in a certain way?

Has your DH ever been kind to you about your post-partum OCD and anxiety? If he was originally very understanding and supportive but now thinks that because the children are older that you are being ridiculously over-protective, maybe he has a point.

If he has been unsupportive from the start and doesn't take into consideration that you have been diagnosed with a mental health condition which makes things really hard for you, he isn't a very nice husband.

I worked with someone with OCD and it can be debilitating and very frightening for them and catastrophising about something happening to their loved ones was part of the illness. A lot of posters just think you are controlling rather than ill.

She has post-partum OCD and anxiety which are medical conditions which cause her hyper-vigilant behaviour.

You obviously couldn't even be bothered to read the OP which provides this information before you put the boot in.

I am a decade on from you, and with hindsight I'd say trust your own judgement not your DH's. I really could not emphasise that enough in fact.

So, when you blurt out "be careful" you can apologise and say it just came out.

And when you think he is taking risks, tell him. And let him tell you when he thinks you are OTT, and give it some thought and consider it and then make your own decision as to whether he is right or not.

When he thinks you are controlling of him, say that he might be right but that when he criticises you, you give it some thought, and so he could do the same thing (but keep it light, this is not worth a big argument imho)

I think your instincts here, if that is the right word, are correct. It is ok for your DH to pass comment and it is ok for you to pass comment and it is ok for you to decide to ignore your DH (as long as you have given it some thought!).

Deep breath, enjoy the parenting, and don't let the small things or small criticisms bother you!

And I will be cheeky and tell you to ignore the 66 percent who are telling you you are being unreasonable - they don't sound like seasoned parents! Or they are the ones whose kids will be getting your kids into trouble in senior school (light hearted)

There's a stupid dad in my husband's family who gave his son brain damage after dropping him from his shoulders and then trying to cover it up.

My nephew has multiple conditions now and it's affected his growth and social development too and likely restricted his life expectancy. I am 100% on your side because he used to say the same type of shit to his wife. He was desperate to be the cool despite doing no real parenting at home.

Just because you haven’t heard of something doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. I haven’t either, but that doesn’t mean I think it doesn’t happen.

Because you’re constantly mothering him and not the children……..if you notice you’ve written told him, told him, told him not told the children………you’re doing his head in basically…….

I watched a man carrying a small dc on his shoulders when leaving a restaurant. As he walked through the doorway the dc smacked his head very hard on the lintel.
Can't bear to see dc on shoulders.

Quit the man-bashing. Many toddlers I’ve known absolutely love being carried around on someone’s shoulders. It’s less common to see women doing this because, at least in part, they’re less likely to have the strength to do so.

Oh yes, this old gem. Yep, me too! My kids are a little older now, but my relationship problems have mostly been him telling me I’m controlling and overprotective. Meanwhile, he argues about them needing a car seat, being on his phone while they’re in the playground, feeding them sweets, putting them to bed “when they want” etc.
If you’re the main caregiver then you get to dictate what you do and how you do it!
Choose your battles.. some things aren’t important enough to get wound up about.

@QueenMammoth I had post natal anxiety too so I get it.
But when you say 'be careful' you are implying that he is NOT being careful. That would be quite insulting for him to hear. Rather than saying 'be careful' you could try saying 'he's leaning backwards, ds lean forwards for daddy', for example. Therefore you are stating what you see and you are not blaming dad.
I get very anxious still with my 4 and 6 year old when they are running near a busy road. They veer off all over the place. One way I get round this is by distracting the kids by running to a lamp post and stopping. Or playing 'freeze like statues' so if they start to run too far ahead I shout freeze and make it a game.
I found sertraline really helped with my anxiety post partem.
I would talk to your husband when things are calm and reassure him that you dont think he is incapable and look at strategies to manage your anxiety.
Good luck.

But being devil’s advocate, if he’s not taking care of them safely and appropriately then he needs micro managing.

I think the comments here are crazy. IMO most of your examples aren't awful of you to mention, and most are sensible.

But crucially, I'm glad that I'm in a relationship where we can potentially both be a bit unreasonable sometimes. If I'm overprotective on occasion, that's ok, and vice versa. We also have a rule that if it comes to safety, we should never feel afraid to raise something.

I didn't feel the need to ask my husband to be careful when carrying our newborns upstairs, but if I did, then he'd have been reassuring, not offended.