AIBU to expect my husband to look after baby without it being a favour to me?

[Bumpyroads]

Asked my husband to hold our baby while I cooked dinner. I had already started cooki g but had baby in the carrier and was clearly stressed. He looked after him for 25 minutes max! He now says I should respect him more with how hard he works as he was helping me out.
He said i should have said something along the lines of "i know youve had a really hard day but please can you hold the baby" ie i have to preface asking him with saying how much i value how hard he works.

He now says he doesn't want the dinner I cooked and was going to put it in the bin(i told him no ill save it for tomorrow). He then tipped the beer I bought him earlier down the drain, something I bought him because I knew he'd had a hard day.

Im really tired of him saying im the primary carer for the children its not that hard, I have it easy. He works so hard if I ask anything of him he will say but yours the primary carer and I go to work.

Am I being unreasonable? Am I just lazy and need to suck it up as actually being a stay at home mum is easy. Am I supposed to be super mum doing it all with no complaints?
For context 10 month old still wakes several times a night so I am exhausted and he is an extremely difficult/clingy baby so getting house stuff dont if difficult.
Also husband does do stuff around the house but honestly it seem like I have to be so appreciative as if he's doing me a favour not that its just one of those things because its a shared effort.

Sorry rambling..
Anyway
unreasonable - suck it up you stay at home all day thats easy and you need to appreciate he has worked hard all day.
Not unreasonable- your not asking too much and even though he's at work he should still help without it feeling like a favour

Or something in the middle

I think that this:

"He now says he doesn't want the dinner I cooked and was going to put it in the bin(i told him no ill save it for tomorrow). He then tipped the beer I bought him earlier down the drain"

strongly indicates that your relationship dynamic is unlikely to be able to evolve to something sufficiently healthy to model to your child. I think that your husband's behavior will more likely get worse.

Please reach out to Women's aid.
You are being abused.
This is why your mental health is so poor.
Stop having sex with this arsehole and stop having children with him.
He clearly has no interest in them.
Can you tell family and friends the truth?

He's a shit husband and a shit father.
Reach out for help before you get seriously ill.
You poor pet.

If he wants a 1950s relationship:

• did he make this clear before proposing marriage, or was it a bait-and-switch?
• Is he being the traditional provider, happy to earn enough for his whole family, or does he expect you to contribute what you can financially?
• Is he honest about this to his friends and family, or does he act like the caring /sharing family man to others?

Because it sounds like he's picking and choosing which parts of a traditional nurturer/provider relationship suit him.

Also, when he portrays a different image to others, that's him performing to an audience. It shows that he knows his attitude and behaviour at home won't be impressive to others. He's trying to portray an image.

"AIBU to expect my husband to look after baby without it being a favour to me?"

AIBU to expect my husband to parent his own child as needed?

Fixed it for you op.

Of course you are not being unreasonable.

It doesn't really matter whether you love him or not though and it will probably take you a while to realise that. Love isn't the be all and all unfortunately.

I can't tell you how absolutely tired I am of reading variations on this theme over and over again with women being unsure if they're expecting too much of the adult man they're sharing a life with. You are pretty much never expecting too much. You are the 'primary carer' when he is at work. When you are both at home, you are both responsible.

Don't let this be your life.

Is he in love with you if he thinks it's ok to treat you this way?

That's a great point about how this impacts the children.

Frankly if my husband tipped my home made dinner in the bin without eating it I would have went berserk and screamed him out of the house. That's emotionally abusive to throw food you made out in front of you like some power move to control you.

I teach my toddler not to waste food and be appreciative when others do things for you. Let alone an adult!

I can't remember the quote but someone said you get what you put up with. Your mental health will be better not around this guy. Speak to a lawyer to work out your options. You might be better off getting child support from him and live your life by yourself with the 3 kids. So your kids don't get trapped in the abusive cycle - either your daughter finds someone like her father because that's what she thinks is normal and deserves or your son thinks all women should be a door mat. Break the cycle for them.

The more posts I read, the more I'm glad infertility stopped me from potentially dealing with this kind of bollocks

Do not let him portray himself as the perfect partner. Always call him out, every single time. Put him down in front of friends, family, work mates et al. See how he likes the truth and wriggles, just like the worm he is.

How can having the child(ren) all day be so easy that you have a cushy life and it's not work and you should be floating on air and simultaneously far too difficult and tiring for him to do for 20 minutes while you cook.

YANBU and you’re also not alone. Unfortunately a lot of marriages are like this, and we as women are sold the idea of marriage and children being The Ultimate Life Goal, when actually it’s a setup that benefits men far more than it does women. Feels like it gets completely mis-sold to women as a romantic dream so men end up with a free maid for life.

I don’t know what to say other than offer my sympathy because that sounds really hard to deal with and just saying “divorce him” is easy but in reality it’s complicated.

He's definitely been an arse about child care on this occasion but it sounds like there's a lot of other stuff going on along beneath the surface - OP said they having had sex since 10 month old was conceived- 19 months without sex is a very long time. Also OP says she hasn't worked in 8 years due to mental health - I'm curious what sort of mental health issue prevents you from working for such a long time and what impact that has on your DH. Does he support the decision that you don't work. DH might be stressed at having to be the sole provider and unhappy and acting out as a result. This may not be just a case of another uselesss bloke there may be a plethora of issues going on.

I'm 55 and my dad was way more hands on than this!

Have a look at a domestic violence charity like Refuge and give them a call. What you’ve described isn’t normal in a relationship, and it may help to get an outside perspective. There is support available if you want to leave - they can offer emergency accommodation and help with things like Universal Credit, Child Maintenance, and council housing if you need it.
What you’re experiencing sounds like emotional abuse. Things like pouring beer down the drain, or being told you should be “grateful” that he’s held his own child for 20 minutes while you cook for him - it's s not OK and it’s not how a healthy relationship or healthy parenting looks like

He sounds abusive OP. The tipping beer away and throwing dinner in bin sounds manipulative / controlling to me.

The fact he is outwardly nice and “proud” to show you off does not mean he is a nice person. A nice person wouldn’t see you struggling to cook and begrudge feeding their child. A nice person wouldn’t throw away a beer you bought and threaten to not eat and throw away food. A nice person wouldn’t expect you to do everything for their child no matter how hard they work. My DH did 12 hours days and still parented when he got home and shared nights and early mornings etc to let me rest.

Well done for recognising this is not right and seeking help on this thread. I hope you manage to find a way out. Maybe try women’s aid.

He is a twat. And I would say being a stay at home mum is way more exhausting than a lot of jobs out there. So depending what he does he is just full of shit and wants you to praise him because he thinks he’s the one doing you a favour letting you stay at home while he ‘slaves away’. When I was a stay at home mum I absolutely loved it but I was definitely a lot more exhausted than I am now that I work full time in the corporate world. I did more work as a stay at home mum. There was no down time or lunch breaks as a stay at home mum. He needs to be the one giving you a break!

I've never said this on this site before but you need to leave that guy. I'm not even sure that post is real it's so bad. Not sure what you were thinking having a child with this person but you need to get away from him. There are better uses for your time and energy than trying to figure out what's wrong with or how to change that person. Leave him to it and move on.

Unpopular POV, but I am the main breadwinner, sole breadwinner, actually. Mutual dp and my decision after dc turned 3 due to dp salary=nanny salary, so dp is a sahp.
Before we distributed our roles this way, I made it absolutely clear that if I am to bust my bum providing for the family, I want nothing with domestic chores, literally nothing, for the simple reason that if I am not exploited so hard both domestically and at work, I might probably last longer, for the benefit of all of us. The exception is when I am at home (I have a rotating work schedule), I let my dp go away for a week's fishing when I don't contact him at all, because I know he will go mad if he does not have this break.
But my dp, to his credit, never tries to burden me with any domestic chores or worries, he is intelligent enough not to try and compare his corporate-stress-free existence with my job. And I appreciate what he does immensely, because he understands that when I get home, I need to rest.

I will never understand men or women that say i have to babysit my own kids.

Create a plan on how you will get yourself back on track in life, and leave. In the meantime he needs to get used to doing things with HIS baby. I’m sorry you’re in such a crap situation.

I don’t even have kids and this makes me angry.

Binning the food and beer is pathetic. What an ungrateful petulant thing to do. And of course he shouldn’t treat his child like a chore!

And doing it while saying she doesn't show her appreciation for his hard work is ridiculous, that's two ways there he's throwing away, so how many more are there that he disregards.

He is an utter fool. Please. He can’t hold the baby for a few minutes? You have to bow down to him because “he’s had a hard day”? He’s in a mood because he’s been asked to do something really quite minimal as a father ie HOLD HIS CHILD and as a result he cannot eat the food you’ve cooked or the beer you’ve got for him. He has to be kidding. He is not sounding and behaving like an adult. To be honest he seems completely selfish and completely unreasonable. He is not meeting basic expectations for a human being never mind someone who is supposed to love you and your child. I suspect this is not a one off. You likely feel vulnerable now. But think about speaking to people you trust in real life to find a way forward. I suspect your mental health will improve when you are no longer with him. Take care and best wishes.

my dp, to his credit, never tries to burden me with any domestic chores

Seriously, @Feis123 ? You would classify holding a baby for 20 minutes as a ‘domestic chore’?

Not only is OP’s husband driving her to utter exhaustion, he misses out on bonding with HIS CHILD.

Why would a man choose to have children if he wants nothing to do with them? Unless it’s just for show, so he can present an image of being’a husband and father’ to the world.

Makes my blood boil.