DH is depressed in our new life

[SoCatEs]

DH and I are early 30s, we got married 2.5 years ago and a we have an 11 month old DS.
Before having DS I’d say we lived the life of many young London professionals, we lived pretty central, work drinks, days out with friends, any sports event an excuse to meet up with our friends.
A little over a year ago we left London for a small village, it seemed at the time atleast to be the logical choice. For the first few months and while DS was a newborn I’d say we were both pretty happy, obviously we missed our friends but I made a lot of new friends through baby groups and similar so quickly didn’t really miss my London friends. DH is still commuting into London 3 days a week so maintained a much closer friendship with his old friends.
DS wasn’t exactly planned, I was still on the pill and while we’d spoken about children in our future, the timeline was sped up. This has meant that we are among the first of our wider circle to have children, actually of DHs friends we are the first. DHs friends are also all a bit younger than he is at 25-29ish so probably all still a good few years off having children of their own. Obviously his friends have continued their lives as they were a year ago, work drinks, dinner parties, sports etc. DH has had to pull back from this a little, he still goes for drinks after work maybe once a fortnight but has to leave early for the train while everyone else is often out until 2-3 in the morning. A large group of his friends are going to Paris next month for the Paris masters tennis tournament and DH did want to go but considering they all went to Paris in the summer for the French Open I just didn’t feel it fair that he got a second weekend away.
DH today has told me he is depressed, that he is a social person and he finds his life really lonely right now, weekends are spent either at home or on days out with DS which he says he does enjoy but don’t fulfil his social needs. He said he just feels perpetually miserable, he works 8-5, gets home around 6:15/6:30 then it’s his job to bathe DS, we alternate putting DS down to sleep and cooking but either way by the time dinners done I just want to go to bed (DS isn’t the best sleeper and as I’m on maternity leave I do all the night time wake ups, DH does them on weekends). He said that it basically means from 9pm on he’s sat with nothing to do as I’m asleep, some nights he does go to the gym but he said he’s now lacking motivation to even do that.
I asked what it is he actually wants as the reality is we have a DS, whether we lived in Zone 2 or out in the sticks the routine would be the same. I suggested he tries to make some local friends, maybe other dads so he can take DS to the park with them on the weekend etc. but he got quite snappy and told me he didn’t need more friends, he had great friends, he just never gets to see them.
I’ve also noticed he spends a lot of time just sat on his phone, messaging his group chats, or at least that’s what he claims.
The conversation ended with him saying we should consider asking his mum to come and stay for a week and help me with DS so he can go get some space. I asked if he felt there were relationship issues too and he said “I do still love you but you go to bed so early we hardly even get to speak anymore”, I am also aware that the intimacy has declined a lot since having DS but I’m just not interested in sex really at all. He never mentioned the lack of sex and he never pushes for it but I can tell that’s bothering him too.

So I guess my question is, AIBU to think his mum coming to stay for a week so he can go get space isn’t the right solution? I hate that he is struggling but realistically this is our life now, avoiding it for a week won’t have any positive long term impact?

Has anyone else’s DH experienced this? Any advice?

I think most are being harsh on OP here. Unfairly so. Yes, there are signs showing that he’s not happy and OP knows this, hence the post. If she wasn’t bothered or didn’t care, she wouldn’t be here. It is such a difficult situation to be in and I don’t know the answer, but she needs advice. Not flogging for walking through.

Actually I think it's a rational suggestion from a man who has bothered to express his emotions - deeply unhappy - and who is trying to work out why he's so unhappy and what - from a range of possible scenarios - he and his wife might need to do to save their marriage.

"It sends a message of withdrawal not teamwork." As does - I'll be going to bed every night before 9pm, cos I'm tired; No, we can't go out the two of us one evening because I can't leave my baby; No, we're not talking about whether we'll ever have sex again; No, you can't see your friends in London because...(I never liked them anyway); No, I'm not going back to work; Can't you just make some friends here...

I'm surprised to say I actually feel sorry for him.... your life now is everything you have ever wanted, and nothing he wants.

Hes changed jobs, moved to the village and stopped the majority of his social life. He loves his child obviously, but he also needs some of his own identity, which it seems he has squashed since the move.

You love the village family life...he doesn't.

Is there anything you would be willing to compromise on? If not, I can't see you both being happy moving forwards. I can see resentment setting in quite quickly for your husband.

I think you do need to take the baby sitter offer and have an evening away from home to talk, as an adult couple away from being "mum and dad" and come up with ways he can feel himself a bit more that would also work for family life

OP did say she said no to him going away because she would be left with the sole parenting

No, OP said it was because 'I don’t think it’s very fair on DS for him to miss out on a weekend with his dad.'

I think what you've written is very fictionalised.

@SoCatEs sounds like an inverted snob disliking people with cosmopolitan international lives. Very small minded.

So what are you willing to compromise on-not leaving the baby at all, not on him having a second weekend away a few months after the first, not on him staying up one night a week, not on having the baby, not on living in a village.

How come you think you know what would make him happier better than he knows himself ? (Make local friends)

Have you thought about how it would look if your marriage ended? How much do you think DS would be with each of you? What it would be like for DS to see his dad have a new family in a few years?

Becoming a parent is a shift but it doesn't have to look how it does right now and it's only working for one of you.

Op as a single parent I get £400/£500 a month in child maintence. For 2 children I was married for 20 years. There would be no sahm. Obviously it’s wage dependent but ex took a pay cut and sees the children a few days a month. You would have to hand your son over whether you wanted to be apart or not. Your update sounds like you are considering your needs and not dhs. People wonder why affairs happen but it sounds like you are almost waiting for it. Burying your head won’t help you. Couples counselling may do.

Can't any of your friends stay with you two at weekends. Maybe diff erent friends at different times?

One of my best friends has recently left his very controlling wife and literally every one of us said ‘thank fuck, what took you so long’

He has done everything she’d ever asked and nothing was good enough, and he has left a shadow of the man he was before.

I’d almost guarantee this is the case when the DH in this case inevitably leaves.

It totally sucks being with your children only every other Christmas.

Sorry, I don't given her updates.

I did at the beginning, I thought oh here we go, the usual story about a crap, selfish fathe. But then OP has basically said she doesn't really care how he feels & isn't that worried about her marriage ending.

Not letting him go on another weekend away was extreme and not making efforts to wean the baby off her 24/7 is also a selfish act that is damaging their marriage.

Sorry to be blunt but he needs to grow the fuck up. Life changes hugely when you have kids, you have to sacrifice a lot and be willing to make changes to your life, especially in the early days. If he needs some time out then fair enough, take a day, but a whole week living alone in London and pretending his partner and child don’t exist won’t help anything. He will come home and still miss being young and free, which, due to his own decisions he is not.

Yeah but the Op didn't say that was the reason. She said "Our main reasons were all to do with quality of life for DS, schools, space to play, a garden etc."

Now shhe won't compromise on leaving the baby for a few hours so it's no wonder he feels trapped. She's planning on staying home and possibly having more kids, that will only make things worse.

I understand that your baby wasn't planned and having a baby now wasn't on the horizon just yet. Your husband is struggling to come to terms from being able to do what he wants/when, to being restricted due to parenthood. No, there's nothing wrong in seeing his friends, but ultimately he's a Dad, and has responsibilities. Babies take up a lot of time, the first year is bloody hard work and your priorities have to change. Your child has to come first, and that does mean changes within your husband's social life. I think some of the issue is that all his friends are younger, and are a long way off having children, and probably settling down too. No, your husband disappearing to London for a week to see friends isn't the answer. If my son requested me stay at his for a week to help parent HIS child, whilst he's on a jolly for a week, he'd get the biggest bollocking of his life!! It's not as if he doesn't see his friends, because he travels into London several times per week, so he could meet them after work. What he doesn't like, and is resentful over, in not being able to stay out until 2 am and doing what he pleases! He has to leave at a reasonable time, to come home to his family. Essentially, he needs to grow-up.

I hate to do this but all of the ‘I’m not cut out for family life’ men I’ve known have ended up leaving, and I think you should mentally prepare yourself for this, if not now then in a few years.

I feel for you. I’m 33, and our generation is very much used to an awful lot of ‘me time’ and a life packed with evenings out, weekends away, time with friends. Which is fine but just really not compatible with having small children, you have to dedicate yourself to them and it is very monotonous and a much smaller life for a while.

I don’t think it’s comparable between men and women. Women have to endure the pregnancy, give birth, in most cases breastfeed and take a a year off work to do nothing but solid baby care with broken sleep. Men have the caring duties at home, sort of, but still go to work and their routine is pretty much the same.

His life sounds like unrelieved shit. And I can't believe you expected his friends to be interested in a baby, lots of them probably never will be (none of my friends want/have ever wanted children) I'd find a hot girlfriend, with no maternal instincts, and move back to civilisation if I were him, poor man!

Or separate……unless you make some real changes that really is a possibility.

I know you’re tired, but sitting on the sofa on his own night after night can’t be much of a life for him, and I’m not understand he can’t have the trip away with his mates. it’s not like it’s every other weekend, and it seems a big deal to him.
He is telling you he’s unhappy. The choice is to make changes, or make him so miserable he leaves for a better life.

So mum has to find a way to prioritise both DC and DH. DH prioritises DH. Who prioritises mum? No wonder women burn out.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 perfectly put.

Men usually prioritise themselves and this for some reason isn’t seen as selfish. But OP isn’t prioritising him and suddenly she’s the selfish one?

I appreciate that you are tired but I can kind of see his point. You need to make time for yourselves as a couple. You need to have a sex life. You need to have some fun!

Are you a man?

100%

Happened to my friends brother. He'd given his wife everything. She had the house, money, lifestyle, children. One night he turned up at his sisters he was broken. There wasn't another woman. My friend had to phone her to say he'd decided to sleep over because he was seeing a client in the area.

He never went back. Her fury was a sight to behold apparently when he started divorce proceedings. She was the only person who was surprised.

He did remarry very happily.

OP, I think for a long time (and way before you had the baby) you've been expecting him to change who he is for you. He changed jobs because you didn't like him having a job that had a subtle expectation that he'd have work nights out until 3am? When you were both late 20s/early 30s and childless in London? Was he unhappy with that lifestyle or were you the one pushing for him to change it (you seem to be saying the latter). You also clearly don't like his friends but not because they're offensive, or exclusionary, but because (paraphrasing) they're not your kind of people. You were the one who was always imagining moving out of London, not him.

I think you have made the mistake of marrying and having a child with someone on the basis that they change who they are for you. He made the mistake of trying. If you hadn't fallen pregnant I think it's likely the relationship would have naturally ended because that's not sustainable. Unfortunately circumstances have meant that there's now a child involved - he didn't really have another option when you said you wanted to keep the baby (except leave you pregnant with his child), but you're again in the position where the only way thing that you're willing to accept is that he changes who he is to somehow enjoy being a dad living in a village and commuting to London. That's just not going to work.

Plenty of us agree with this and we aren't men.