My husband said he isn't happy

[Lottie585]

I'm not really sure what to do and I'm really panicking. First off I should say I have OCD and this can have a detrimental impact on my response to things - I often overreact, obsess and then develop compulsions so if I'm overreacting I would love someone to tell me.

My husband told me today before he left for the weekend that he hasn't been happy since our child was born and it's been the most miserable year of his life. He said it's been really difficult, we've been unkind to each other and it's not how he wanted life to be. I was stunned to be honest as I thought we were going to be looking to start trying for baby number 2. This is not the case.

I'm heartbroken as whilst I knew it had been a challenging year, I felt it had been very rewarding. Our wee one isn't a good sleeper so I took the night feeds and the majority of the share when I was on maternity leave whilst he went to work. I also was diagnosed with OCD throughout the year and I feel so much calmer knowing that actually it is OCD - there is a name, a reason for it and I've found it really freeing as well as working to lessen the symptoms say it out loud etc ... I felt so positive!

I'm heartbroken that while I've been doing this work to improve myself for him, me and our wee one he's been so miserable. I thought we were happy and now I'm realising how delusional I've been.

Is it wrong to feel this way? A different perspective would really help.

He was wrong to dump that on you. Really wrong. I’m so sorry this is happening. Has he described it as stressful organising the stag? Or has he been happy about it?

Has he helped 50/50 prior to the baby arriving? Or is his failure to help a new thing? Has he been allowed to care for the baby in his way or are you controlling about how he interacts with the baby? Or is HE a big baby who doesn’t do much?

Is your OCD new since pregnancy or has he been living with it for some years now and could possibly be struggling with it intensifying now (rather than it being an isolated thing postnatally).

I think if you want to have a marriage with him being curious about his experience is crucial. Like some PPs my DH has mental health problems and it gets harder to cope over time, the sheer repetition of patterns, knowing you are locked into this and cannot ‘fix’ it, being dragged into negative and catastrophic thinking.

I realise you’re working hard and commend you hugely. When my DH got his various diagnoses it hit me so hard - this is for life now, and it was awful. Could it be something like this?

I disagree, I feel that if he cared about salvaging the relationship he would have brought this up at a time that he and the OP could talk about it.

He also would have researched help... counselling etc..

He is opting out of being a father and giving himself the opportunity act as a single man this weekend. He is also being very arrogant, telling you when you will discuss the core issues in your marriage and laying all of the load and fault implicitly with you and new DC.

If you have somewhere to go I would leave for a while and be clear you will talk when you are ready to and not just when he is.

Needs careful thought on what you do next. It does sound like he is bailing out perhaps?

This will probably seem like a hot take. But what if he said those things to you because he thinks if he says that, he will feel less guilty about cheating on you at this stag doo

Why is everyone presuming his big master plan is to cheat?? No one knows the full story, who knows what she was talking about before he said it - maybe she was saying something and he cracked. Maybe she was saying about trying for a second baby and he just couldn’t take it. Maybe she was bitching and moaning about him going away for the first time since the baby was born and he snapped. There’s way too many threads on here lately where men aren’t happy - after major life changes and lack of support and wives who haven’t spent an hour away from a baby in a year - and they get completely and utterly villainised

He’s had his head turned. Sorry. I’ve spent the past 20 years working in a very male dominated field and often being seen as ‘one of the lads’ so I really do have insight (unlike many on mumsnet who like to brag about their perfect partners who would never, ever cheat but don’t actually have a clue what goes on behind closed doors). It happens so, so often I wonder if it’s some sort of biological programming that a man has a baby and then wants to move on.

It’s always the same pattern - happy new dad at first and then 6 months or so in they realise this is forever and start to get itchy feet. They start looking around, head turned, then start saying how unhappy they have been for ages, how everything’s changed (yeah sherlock, of course it has) and lay the groundwork to leave.

Some hold out a few years. Some stay married and have long term affairs.

It happens way more often than most on mumsnet realise.

I’d be checking his phone, socials and cosying up to the bride to be for this wedding as if your husband does anything off at the stag he’ll confide in her. (One of the new dads at a stag my husband was at left a day early to go hang with his mistress he’d flown out to join them, for example. He was also ‘unhappy’ in his marriage).

What a fucking shit.

He is leaving you tortured with worry so he can nip off and shag someone with his mates and then have the option of you never asking any questions or holding him to account because you will be so desperate to keep him and feeling guilty that it was actually your fault.

Don’t be played, be ANGRY.

So many of these twats have the same playbook.

My ex husband announced he was “not as happy as he deserved to be”.

I was completely shocked and I turned myself inside out trying to please him even breaking my own principles and living a life full of nothing for me and everything for him.

He then left me anyway, telling me I was mad when I asked if anyone else was involved and that my questioning him showed exactly his point about how awful I was to live with.

Six months later I found out he had been having an affair with my best friend for almost 2 years.

OP your husband doesn’t sound at all supportive from what you’ve posted. You’ve got a new baby, that first year is so hard and so tiring. Most of us will have sleep deprivation at some point when a baby is little and you’ve also had to deal with OCD. It doesn’t sound like he’s been particularly helpful with the baby (doing nothing after 8pm) and it all sounds a little bit ‘poor me’ him thinking what a tough time he’s been having since becoming a father and having to do and deal with more than he’s used to. He sounds very immature.
Without sounding too blasè I think this is a massive wake up call for you. He’s really let you and your child down - in the longer term you may come to realise that perhaps you are better off without him.
Awful for him to say all this to you then bugger off for the weekend - do you have any family or friends close by that could keep you company?

Because, sorry, men tend to follow a very very predictable pattern. What is that line from a movie - ‘i always stereotype, it makes things quicker’.

but for the sake of argument yes he could be the 0.000001% of men who says he is unhappy and needs to think on a stag do because the thinking he will be doing is researching a good couple’s therapist and thinking of ways he can help his partner get more sleep and feel more herself again? He’s going to think about ways he can work on their relationship.

^^ i really hope it’s true but it just doesn’t sound plausible, sorry

1. He's not pulling his weight with baby/getting annoyed if asked to wake up. 2)He's ignoring your diagnosed MH struggles, at a time when you are particularly vulnerable. 3)He's a coward - dropping this on you and running. Leaving an already struggling partner to cope with this, whilst being wholly responsible for baby's needs.

I don't doubt that you have been a challenge to live with OP (I've suffered from anxiety and OCD), at a challenging time for him too. BUT he sounds totally self centred and, is not prioritising even his child's needs.
This is likely to keep recurring, at all times of stress and difficulty. He, is his number 1 priority.
You will struggle to maximise your own mental health, because he's not just ignoring it, he's actively contributing to your struggles.
Is that what you want?
You will live a life of keeping the ship afloat and trying to keep him stable and happy.

Yes but we’ve no idea how much he’s supported her over the last year - he might be doing everything he can to help - he said they’ve both been unkind so maybe - just maybe - there’s two of them in it and he’s not a horrible selfish man who does nothing to help. The timing mightn’t be great but like I said, who knows what the build up was. And everyone jumping to oh he’s going to go cheating and spend the weekend figuring out how to live on your own - maybe some advice from people who struggled after a baby but got things back on track might be more helpful?

Sounds like things have been tough.

There’s never a good time to say that you’re struggling in a marriage. You have drifted onto different pages and your husband being honest with you is really important as you now know how far apart that has got.

It is really hard being with someone who has ill mental health. Even for the most supportive person it’s sapping of energy and fun and it cumulatively takes such a toll on that person’s wellbeing. His experience and the impact is just as legitimate. Am sadly speaking from experience, roles reversed.

Why is there different responses because he’s a man? I’ve been there and am out the other side. I lost myself and my happiness supporting someone, luckily my kids were older.

He’s doing the right thing laying the cards on the table and there is a place from that for you to move forward in an informed way together. You seem like you’ve heard him and that’s great and a good starting point to changing the balance back to where it was before and things were good.

Best of luck.

He's either already cheating on you, or setting it up so that he can. This is the script.

I'm so sorry X

He dumps all that in you before going off to a stag do? Leaves his wife with a young baby?

i wouldn’t trust this bloke as far as I could throw him. Hear him out next week. Listen to his proposals for how you can move forward. If he puts it all on you then be prepared to call it a day. It is very easy for me to say that as it isn’t my life of course. However I bet if the worst comes to the worst and you break up you will be so much happier without this lump of misery in your life. Trust me, never mind that he is unhappy, when/if he goes you will eventually experience a happiness that you could never have imagined.

Sending you best wishes.

Well make sure he knows two things:

1. No one is happy with newborns. It's a sleep-deprived, poo and vomit scented hand grenade into a marriage which in no way reflects the true state of your potential happiness and true compatibility in years to come.
2. if he leaves, 50% of all sleep deprived mights, nappy changes and boring preschool parenting duties will be his to enjoy dingle-handed while juggling his job. Because if you have to run two households it will be twice as expensive and he will need to be the main parent 50% of the time. So he doesn't get to walk out on his child.

Or... he can grow the fuck up, act like a man, pull his weight, support his wife, bond with his child and learn to appreciate the joys of family life.

Agree with this. Please find some time and space to just be together and talk. Leave the baby with a grandparent for the evening or similar. You don't really know what the matter is grit your teeth and wait.

So when a woman struggles he needs to grow up, when a man struggles he needs to grow up

A man cant be unhappy in marriage he must be having an affair

Ok right

It is definitely the opening gambit for "the script".

It's happened too many times to too many women for it to be considered coincidence without investigation.
The next line is "is there someone else" to which his response is "no, of course not".
In my experience men never leave (or lay the ground to leave) unless they have somewhere else to go.
If you thought you were both happy then don't assume the blame.
Rewriting history is also part of the script.

My heart goes out to you.. It really hurts, and the shock is palpable.

I'm afraid my first thought was that he has romantic intentions towards someone else, my second thought was he wanted a free pass for the stag do.

The fact that this is out of the blue for you @Lottie585 , really points to this.

I am sorry things have been difficult for you both this past year. Often when we dream of having children, the reality is not what we expected, particularly for men it would seem!

A member of our family has OCD and has had fantastic results through seeing an OCD specialist. Apparently, OCD is one of the most treatable mental health disorders so if you seek help there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

My sympathy lies with you, but I do know that it is difficult living with someone with OCD and the sufferer is not always aware of the impact on others. This, coupled with the pressures of a newborn, has possibly led your DH to reevaluate what he wants out of life.

OP has been the one struggling and the one up through the night with the baby. She had no idea this was coming.

Men and women are very different, girls are socialised to put everyone but themselves first, boys are socialised to look after themselves (at best). So yes, your statement does turn out to be the case in most cases.

I’m afraid if he was my husband I wouldn’t be there when he got back, and my phone would be off.

Another man child who can't cope with the reality of having a baby and wants his bachelor lifestyle back...

I am so sorry OP you have to deal with this and it was very cowardly of him to tell you this out of the blue and then just swan off to a stag do.

If I were you I would tell him not to bother coming back home.

The first year of a new baby is really hard for quite a lot of people. It was unkind of your DH to tell you he's been so unhappy. But I agree with others that its very possible he is having an affair.

Well, actually still me haha. Husband followed the very predictable pattern and started shagging some 24 year old at work.

i found out, kicked him out.

Long story short we had therapy, worked things out, he was very very sorry and has been a model husband in the decades since.

I mean we worked things out but he was still cheating.