To have not let him leave?

[Feron2]

I’m six months pregnant and for the first time in a while, my DH and I had an epic argument.
It escalated beyond reasonableness on both our sides. Nothing cruel or abusive, just rough.

I have a huge all-day work meeting today that I’m organising and chairing. I won’t be back till midnight tonight and have the same again tomorrow.

At midnight I asked him if we could please calm down as I desperately needed some sleep. I was worried about running the meeting on no sleep. I’m exhausted enough being pregnant.

He said he needed space and was going “home” (his parents house).

We live near his parents but my family live the other side of the country, so I couldn’t leave even if I wanted to. Our spare room is being turned into a nursery so we don’t have another room to sleep.

Firstly I feel really strongly in general that you don’t leave your spouse overnight during an argument. My dad sometimes left and didn’t come back for days and it’s a huge boundary for me.

Furthermore I knew if he left I’d never sleep, and I was very nervous about today’s meeting, especially if I didn’t sleep.

I asked him to stay so I could please at least sleep. I knew I’d be wide awake otherwise.

He did, and I did sleep. He did too.

WIBU to insist he stay? It’s the first time this has come up for us but it’s a massive issue for me.

At the same time however, I’m carrying a lot of guilt today over making him stay. On the one hand I do feel that leaving in the middle of the night due to a row is shit in a marriage, and I was selfishly wanting some sleep too. On the other hand, he is entitled to his space.

I have no issues with taking space during an argument and revisiting in a few hours but overnight is horrid. I’d rather go to bed with a hug, even if it’s half hearted.

Seems like you expressed your need and he listened and agreed.

What does your partner think, does he think you were being unreasonable?

I don’t know. We left for work and he’s barely spoken to me since.

You asked him to stay and he did 🤷🏻‍♀️
I think it’s quite shitty that he was prepared to wake his parents up at midnight just because you’d argued though.

everyone deals with confrontation and arguments differently. dependant on what they saw as a child your dont want him to leave because of what your father did. but what did his parents do when they argued . its just patterns that we repeat. i think the fact he wanted to leave but stayed shows he loves you. you must remember we dont intentially hurt our partners but sometimes we say and do thing that do exactly that. the answer is to talk not shout respect you can differ in opinions and never lose sight from each other

He obviously cares enough about you and your welfare to stay, despite the argument. II would take that as a positive.

And personally I think you were right to ask him to stay for all the reasons you gave. Not least that I agree walking out the house to go back to your parents and leaving your pregnant wife home and distressed would have been damaging for your marriage long term.

I agree with you - running away from your marriage to your parents has always smacked me as immature and avoidant. You need to be grown ups and resolve the conflict, horrible as that is. Maybe not in the middle of the night, but the next day, as calmly as is possible.

Calmly asking him to please stay is fine.

'Not letting him leave' is not fine.

They're very different things. One is asking someone to consider your feelings when they're making a choice - but the choice is still theirs. The second is controlling/coercing someone into staying in a situation against their will.

I asked him to stay. I told him he could leave if he wanted but I’d rather he didn’t as I’d never be able to sleep. I didn’t even beg or cry. I just stated my needs.

I’m not sure how I’d have literally stopped him leaving!

When you say that the argument was rough, what do you mean, Op?

If my adult son ran away after an argument to come “home”, I would be telling him to grow up, go back to his pregnant partner and stop acting like a child.
In the morning, I’d be checking in on her to make sure she was okay.

Speaks volumes that he thinks he could just run back to mummy.

Is he the type to flounce and leave because of an argument? Immature behaviour like this needs work. Once you’ve both calmed down, you need to have a talk. Not being able to resolve an argument without leaving is a real worry.

Absolutely this!

I think he was overreacting to plan on leaving and waking his parents at midnight. It was probably sensible to ask him to stay. Unless you were blocking doors or making threats I don't think you did anything wrong.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, my adult son always knows he can come home if he needs to.

But also, I’ve raised a man who I know wouldn’t run out in the middle of the night after an argument, and certainly not on a pregnant partner who was upset.

Yes, I picked up on this .

Physically rough? Emotionally rough?

You need to sort out your marriage before bringing a child into the equation as any issues magnify once a baby is born.

I totally agree.

You say it got rough OP, what does that actually look like/mean as that could be interpreted differently depending on the person? What exactly what rough about it? If it got really bad then tbh I think sometimes it's better for one person to be out of the house for a bit so he's not necessarily just "running back to mummy". I think we need a clearer picture of this to really understand this properly and advise accurately.

I don't think you stopped him from leaving you simply asked him not to and he agreed. Personally I think it's important to be able to take space if it's needed and if things are heated it's better to walk away and cool off provided you're both clear that you will both come back to a calmer discussion and it's about diffusing rather than avoiding/running away. Is this your first child? Obviously what you witnessed with your dad's behaviour has made an impact on you and stability is now very important to you, but equally you won't be able to have blazing rows in front of a child so you maybe need to talk calmly about HOW you argue or handle disagreement so you can give each other space when it's needed to avoid a big row but in a way that helps you to avoid feeling abandoned.

Running home to mummy is not a grown up action.

It seems a bit of an over reaction on his part to say he was going to stay somewhere else just because of an arguement. What's your relationship like normally?

You are pregnant. Your needs, wishes and welfare come first. Full stop.

Hmmph. Running home to Mummy. He'll do it again.

Running home to mummy is pretty pathetic. Would he do that in 3 months when there's a baby in the house? What if both you decided to 'run away' at the same time?

Time for him to grow up.

He runs to mummy and daddy because you've had a row? What a prat 🙄

What would his parents have said if he turned up in the middle of the night saying you had had a row? I think he probably thought better of it rather than you changing his mind. He probably realised that his parents wouldn't like him walking out on his 6m pregnant wife or looking for a bed at midnight. Maybe you should have let him embarrass himself to his parents!