Am I being unreasonable to think DH resents our DS?

[ClawFriend]

Bit of backstory — DH has fertility issues, we tried for years before going down the donor sperm route. Wasn’t easy but we both agreed and now we’ve got our lovely DS, he’s 2 now.

DH was brilliant when DS was a baby — nappies, feeds, up in the night, proper hands on. But since DS turned into a proper toddler, he’s just pulled right back. DS wants cuddles, climbs on him, wants to play, and DH just moves him or tells him to go to me. He barely interacts now unless I push it.

Had another talk about it last night and it turned into a row. He ended up shouting that he hates DS and that going with a donor was a mistake. Then he stormed out and slept on the sofa. This morning he just got up and went straight to work without a word.

I feel sick. We agreed on this together. I know it’s complicated and I know he’s struggling, but DS didn’t ask for any of this. He’s just a little boy who wants his dad.

I’m heartbroken and angry and don’t even know what to do. I feel like I’ve got to protect DS from his own dad.

I said I hated my eldest and wished she'd never been born when she was about 2 or 3. Was at breaking point with her.

I'm sure other parents have as well.

This.

You are living a lie and the enormity of living with that is taking its toll.

it sounds like he feels very isolated as he cannot talk about this to friends and family.

He absolutely should not be taking it out on his little boy of course.

The thing is, OP's DH clearly feels like the little boy is a cuckoo in the nest. Not his at all.

When a woman conceives with a donor egg, she carries the child, her chemicals go into the foetus, the child's chemicals go into her. It is a totally different relationship.

When a couple conceives via sperm donation - the male has no physical connection to the child at all.

When a couple adopt a child - everyone knows about it. It's not a big secret. Both parents are similarly related to the child.

OP's DH clearly wanted the sperm donation to be a secret because he was embarrassed or ashamed, demasculated, you name it. When the boy was a baby, it wasn't so apparent. Now the child is talking and making specific demands of him, things are changing.

What are you going to do OP? I feel so much for you all but mostly for the little boy who must be getting so confused. Honestly I think you need a frank chat with your DH and if he can’t pull himself together, you and DS need to go it alone.

He is being eaten up inside by this, and clearly he isn't coping. The update about his family saying how he looks like him is heartbreaking, he just feel like he's had his insides ripped out every time someone says something.

And you say you don't know how that makes him feel, why on earth haven't you asked him? You can guess how it makes him feel right? If he's not even talking to you about it then it's all just festering inside him and being released in the wrong place ieb your son. You need to talk to him.

I’d agree with you if he was taking it out on the wife. But how can he be so cruel as to take it out on the child?! Say he was thinking of leaving or whatever, if a 2 year old was trying to love you, you would at least fake interest while you decide what to do, FFS!

It can, sure, but there’s no guarantee - and what happens in the meantime?

Aww OP this is so sad 😞
It doesn't sound salvageable really if he's got it into his head he hates your child, poor little soul...What if it escalates? The child will pick up on his hostility and it will lead to a whole host of issues.
Don't blame yourself though, no one held a gun to his head!

This is really sad OP. The emotional turmoil for your DH is probably so much greater because his own family relationships aren’t good.

It sounds like he has a lot more healing to do. Having little kids can bring up buried pain in anyone and he has a lot of layers to this. I wouldn’t give up on him yet. It sounds like he needs more therapy and it needs to not be a secret, at least with the people in your lives you can trust to be supportive.

I think you got to be a bit nasty as well to treat your child adopted or not like that. Ok inside you might not be cool with the idea but struggling to be kind to someone you see and watch grow up.. most ppl would get attached regardless to the child being there's or not.

I would have some compassion for him, which it does seem like you’re doing, to be fair. I think you may have overreacted and I think that’s what triggered this. It’s totally okay to stop and 18 month old from crawling on you if you are touched out and had enough. You saw that as rejection of your ds, but it’s a healthy boundary. Parents can say no and still love their children and this might be something you need to work on in yourself if you had this sort of reaction to it.

As for the rest of it, if he’s not otherwise a big jerk, my guess is this is pain that bubbled over in a bad way. One of the things about being a parent is that it re-opens all your wounds from your own childhood. It sounds like he didn’t have a totally happy childhood and carries a lot of pain from his relationship with his parents. Sometimes when things come up with our dc, they’re actually about us as children.

Does that mean it’s okay to shout and scream and be horrible? No. It’s not a free pass. But it sounds like with your ds he was just trying to have some space, maybe because he was tired or sad or frustrated or whatever. If he’s didn’t work on his own family stuff as part of the counselling he had, it may be worth doing it now.

Fucking hell OP. Sending massive hugs, you must be floored.
Your husband needs counselling asap. Would he be open to this? You need a calm conversation when he’s home from work later.

I know keeping it all a secret wasn’t the best idea — I can see that now — but it was his choice and at the time I supported it. We both knew his family wouldn’t be supportive, they’ve made all sorts of insensitive comments about other people’s situations in the past and more than likely would’ve said something awful. We just wanted to protect DS from that. But yeah, it’s ended up being this massive thing that’s clearly eating away at DH.

I am going to talk to him again. I’ve avoided messaging him today because I’ve been so upset and just needed to get my head straight, but we need to have a proper conversation — like really talk. Not just him saying he’s tired or me dancing round the subject trying not to trigger another row. I need to know if this is about DS’s conception or if he’s struggling in general.

He hasn’t seemed overly withdrawn with me until recently — still going to work, still doing usual routines, still watches TV with me in the evenings etc. But with DS, he’s like a totally different person. And I’m not going to just sit back and let it carry on.

I don’t know what the next steps are yet, but I know I won’t let DS grow up feeling rejected or confused. If DH can’t work through this, then I’ll go it alone. But I’m going to give it one more shot to talk it out first.

I need to know if this is about DS’s conception or if he’s struggling in general.

Could be both, OP. Plus other stuff.

I would try more than one shot to talk about it, tbh. Counselling, talking, it all takes more than one shot.

Try and come at it with empathy, and patience. Even though that may not be what you're feeling. Try not to be accusatory, because that will shut him down. Ask him how he's feeling, because you're worried about him. Or whatever.

This.

@ClawFriend

You say you haven’t even messaged him today as you’re so upset. Gently this isn’t about you. In a relationship it’s not always 50/50. Sometimes it needs to be 60/40, 70/30 etc because one partner needs the support and grace more for a million different reasons.

Your DH is going through something big right now and he needs your support and empathy and not for you to be defensive and thinking about yourself.

You really can get through this with open conversation and help.

I went through years of ivf treatment. My age and my husbands vasectomy were the causes. I never told my family a thing. I justified that if I fell pregnant it was meant to be. I never fell pregnant and I now have to endure all the words which silently slice you.
‘She was never the child rearing type’
’wsmott is happily child free by choice’
’you can’t understand what it’s like to be a mother if you never wanted to be one’
’wsmott doesn’t have children because her step kids are enough’

It’s been too many years to put everyone straight now. But if there happened to have been a child in the picture being affected by the secret I would definitely spill the beans for some support and a little bit more understanding from my family on the gravity of their words.

Yeah I get what you’re saying — I do have compassion for him, I really do. I know he’s hurting and I know he had a rough childhood that he’s never properly dealt with. I’ve tried so hard to be patient and understanding, but I also have to protect DS.

Just to say though — DS is 2, not 18 months, and what happened last night wasn’t just a “touched out” moment. DH physically blocked him from climbing onto his lap, like put his arm out across him. DS didn’t realise and just laughed, but it really hit me seeing it. DH didn’t know I’d seen it either — I didn’t say anything at the time.

Later on, once DS was in bed, I brought it up gently. At first DH just said he was tired, same as usual. But when I mentioned what I saw, that’s when he snapped and said he hates DS and that using a donor was a mistake.

So I get that sometimes things bubble up and people say stuff they don’t mean, but that wasn’t just being tired or touched out. It was anger, and it came out in a really horrible way.

I honestly don’t think he worked through all his stuff with his own parents in counselling — not properly. Maybe he thought he had. But I agree, it’s clearly still all there. Whether he’s willing to go back and deal with it now… I don’t know. That’s what I need to talk to him about.

Oh OP this situation is so terribly sad for you all. I'm not surprised you are blindsided - first by your DH's growing coldness and now this outburst. It must be all the worse for you when initially he seemed to be such a good and loving dad.
Your DH needs to agree to some professional help and fast! While your little boy may not have noticed what's going on yet (although I think he will have taken on board more than you realise) he will very soon be fully aware of this rejection and it will damage him.
It's simply not good enough for your DH to have changed his mind. I agree with others that all the secrecy has been counterproductive and people commenting that your DS looks like his dad can't help things.
I have not been in your situation but my older DD was a toddler when I met my DH and he has always been a loving parent to her. Anything else would have been totally unacceptable and a deal breaker.
If you have a family member or friend you can trust to talk to about this and who would keep quiet about it, please do so. I know your agreement was to keep it all hidden away, but I think that agreement has been somewhat blown out of the water by your DH's recent behaviour and change of heart. You can't now be expected to deal with all this on your own with no IRL emotional support. I wish you all the very best and hope you are able to work this out and move on from it as a family 💐

I very much hope you didn't tell her this. I speak as someone whose mother told them on a weekly basis growing up that she wished she'd never had kids, what a disappointment we were and how it had ruined her life. This led to a lifetime of self esteem issues for me and my sister.

I would make it clear, however, that dealing with these issues effectively, to the extent that the child never has an inkling they exist, is mandatory if he wants the relationship to continue.

Another thing I keep thinking about is DH hasn’t cuddled DS in ages. He still does bedtime a few times a week which I’m glad for, but even then it’s just reading a book while lying next to him, then he gets up and leaves straight away once he’s done. Doesn’t cuddle him or stroke his hair or anything.

I usually lay with DS for a bit after, just cuddling him till he nods off — partly because he likes it but also because I know there’ll come a time he won’t want cuddles anymore. Maybe that’s just me, maybe I’m being too soft, I don’t know. But it’s hard seeing that change in DH, because he used to cuddle DS all the time.

It’s like the older DS gets, the more DH pulls back. I don’t know if he’s struggling with DS developing more of his own personality or if it’s the donor stuff or a mix of everything. Just feels like something’s been broken for a while now and it’s finally come to the surface.

I've had therapy on three proper occasions between 2006 and 2021 and my family relationship has been prominent in everyone. I still need more each time I get more clarity but as I grow and age experience more of life different aspects of my childhood come to the forefront. The therapy I have had means most of the time I can utilise the skills learnt previously but other times I need more support. For me at least I think it's something I might need support with on and off for the rest of my life it's not something that you deal with once and forget about. Becoming a parent has probably been the hardest time. The combination of not wanting to repeat history but then also not being able to understand why my mother behaved as she did.

It's good to have taken some time to gather your thoughts. I'd send him a message before he gets home and let him know you are there to listen. Calmly discuss what's going on with him and then together you can look for a plan going forward whatever that might mean for your family unit. Is there anyone that could take you son for a few hours over the weekend to give yourself some time to talk through everything without distraction?

This is where I fall on it.

My son is 99% me in looks and character, and even though he's biologically my husband's, I can hear a little bit of desperation in my husband trying to spot things to relate.

Especially hard when babies become challenging toddlers.

That being said, therapy and counselling NOW as a red line, or end the relationship. Your little boy deserves a shot at the only daddy he knows and wants, or else I'd say leave now.

Why? Why "leave now"? That's an ultimatum.

This is a situation that needs careful, ongoing work. Not "Shape up or ship out!" type arguments.

OP's DH may not be ready or open to therapy yet. That doesn't mean he won't be.