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

Not reasonable. Being a SAHM is tough and relentless. your husband sounds a complete twat. Maybe he needs reminding of all the unpaid labour you provide. The cooking, cleaning, family diary, and child care... I have a similar issue with my husband, it is challenging.

Then unless he has suddenly changed she has put up with it way too long.

Dream on

More chance he avoids or pays the smallest amount of CMS he can get away with and maybe see the kid once a fortnight

Not sure why women assume that divorce will get the more free tine

Mate, as soon as he's off-shift from his paid work, the starting point is 50/50 on family life. As standard. He seems to think his "manual labour" exempts him. It doesn't. Just during his paid working hours. How has he never understood this?

And he should be taking more of that percentage on because of your mental health. I'm really sorry he isn't, and isn't helping you recover, and doesn't seem to understand how wrong this is.

I don't understand where some men get this "helping" business from. It's bizarre.

So your hard working husband works an 8 hour day and then he’s ‘off duty’? Meanwhile you are working an almost 24 hour day due to baby not sleeping so when do you get your ‘off duty’ time ? Your husband is lazy .

Get a divorce, it's the only way your sanity can be free of this narcissist!

Does your eldest at least have a decent father?

You already know the answer to this one, don’t try to convince yourself that there’s any shred he’s right!

you need to talk though- I’m not one to immediately shout divorce at you 🙄 but you absolutely need him to understand parenting is team work and he needs to pull his weight, ask him why he doesn’t want to do things with his ds? As for you I’d book yourself an overnight somewhere with some girlfriends for a weekend just to give him an idea of the work involved in caring for your own children. Maybe he’ll find a new appreciation for you? Either way his attitude needs to change.

For Gods sake he sounds like an arse. What a dreadful dreadful man, partner, father.

He is a prick tipping beer down the sink and going to put dinner in the bin .. don't put up with such shitty behaviour he is a father ok he may work hard but holding your baby should be something a father wants to do to spend time with his child /children.
Stand up to him .

I know this sounds scary but id rather leave get help for myself and start afresh .
Look into help for mental health depression all of these things.
Start afresh on your own you can do it .

So he doesn’t care about being a dad or the wellbeing of his wife. Why on earth would anyone be in a marriage like this?

Sahm isn't a 24/7 job, just like he doesn't go to work 24/7.
Also doesn't include all the househokd chores, cooking, laundry etc

You're not his housekeeper/PA/maid.

His life shouldn't be work and then "do whatever he wants th rest of the time because he has a handmaiden woman at home to do everything else".

Your life sounds truly awful.
Do you have family or friends you can confide in?
Please try & enlist some support.
If there is a way you could seek legal advice, this would also be helpful.
In the meantime, grey rock your uncaring DH. Ignore the toddler tantrums (him).
Imagine your new life with the DC. Good Luck.

You work as well? Surely not?

@Bumpyroads is he the sort of man who would respond to costing what you do as 'primary caregiver'?

Day nanny
Night nanny
Cook
Housekeeper & cleaner

You're looking at the thick end of a hundred grand BEFORE pension contributions & employer NI for that workload.

So no, you're not supposed to be carrying 100% of that on your own. Not even 80%.

You're supposed to be a team.
You're supposed to be capable of parenting all of your children together and independently.
You're supposed to be able to be in hospital, or go to see family for 3 or 4 days without the other one having a complete catastrophe.

Time to have a 'we need to be aware of what the other does' parenting relationship.... That means you get to find out what savings accounts you have, what your family pension pot is tracking to be, which utility companies you are with, what payment plan you're set up on, what the account login passwords are etc. What life insurance he has (and that it's up to date you and all DC are named as dependents). Similarly with any pension & health insurance. You need to know how to keep your family on an even keel if he were to go under a bus (no suggestions of who might put him there, though!)

He needs to find out how to change nappies, wash & dress children. Make food for all, ideally without resorting to only pizza (for their long term health & a decent fibre intake for their short term health!). How to do enough washing in a week without shrinking anything or leaving it damp & mouldy. How to clean enough in the kitchen, bathroom, surfaces & floors that no-one gets sick (possibly a different standard to your own, but not being ill is the key benchmark!).

It sounds like he's got used to you not working and assuming the position of billy big bollocks for bringing in the family income. It's time to hammer home how much he would have to PAY an assortment of capable human beings to keep his family in the manner you do, if you just disappeared overnight.

On the realities of such family economics and workload, can teamwork truly be built!

(and as a bonus, if he's lucky, you might even salvage enough respect for him as a competent human being to actively want him anywhere near you with his sexual organs again? A heavy dose of 1950s attitude is a pretty good prophylactic for ever wanting any intimacy again though!)

My ex couldn't cope long enough to even let me have a bath without bringing the baby to me if she was crying. You need to tackle it now or from my own personal experience resentment will continue to build and it just becomes toxic and unsustainable. It was eventually the downfall of our relationship.

Get quotes from three nursery’s for your 2 to go full time and then forward them to him. It will be thousands.

Then give him the option. Option 1 is you stay home as you are. Option 2 is you go back to work full time but the cost of that will be £x thousand.

His choice.

MAKE him pick one. Then any insinuation that you’re not pulling your weight you remind him “the cheapest quote for childcare was £x, so that’s the monetary value of my being at home- I’m saving us £x. Become a broken record.

Maybe seeing the numbers in black and white will get through his thick skull.

Only employ this tactic if it suits you to stay with him for now. Obv make a plan long term to get the fuck out.

OP, I don’t know what’s already been suggested or discussed in this thread but even your initial post set off alarm bells.

My ex had this exact same attitude, and some may consider it extreme but my advice would be to plan your exit from this relationship.

He is already framing any disagreements - you’ll find usually based around a pretty ordinary sense of fairness, logic or reasonable boundaries, (and any subsequent punishment you may face, this could be revoking your free time, silent treatment or moods etc) as your fault, because you didn’t ‘ask nicely’, or ask properly. This is not how you treat someone you love and care about. These are some entry level tactics and I predict his behaviour will get worse over time.

That’s my 2 cents, watch him carefully and pay attention to how he makes you feel, does his behaviour seem loving, caring and fair? Or does he make you feel anxious or on edge, dismissed and alone?

EDIT: please also do look up the ‘cycle of abuse’, it won’t be bad all the time because then it would be harder to make you stay. Being nice is part of gaslighting you, and making you confused to doubt yourself. A father caring for his own child isn’t helping you and you know that, you know it’s part of his adult responsibilities, that’s why it seems so confusing when they try to convince you no really, you’re so lucky they’re so helpful.

Heard a man not so long ago telling someone he was unavailable for an event because he was babysitting. It emerged 2 minutes later he was referring to his own children 🤔

They don’t though. This is the issue. They have the child one night a week max, if at all, moan about child support as being ‘payment to the woman for no reason so she can get her nails done’ - takeaway or chicken nuggets on the night they have them and let them stay up gaming etc. once you have married them and they are like this and think they have it so hard- it will never get better ever.

Just read this out to my wife and told her to take notes, she gave me the finger

Anyway, leave the bastard

Sorry to say but that’s the beginning of the end…mine was exactly the same “ I work and you do nothing at home and blah, blah.”. He is now ex, I’m working, kids are older and life is beautiful. Start saving as the resentment will build up more and more until you will start wondering why you need this man child as you are already doing everything alone anyway…

I love how men forget if they didn’t have a wife and kids they’d still have to go to work AND run a house themselves. He can get lost with his crappy attitude and using you for free labour. You’re not the primary carer, you’re the sole carer right now so bin the man and at least that’s one less thing to worry about.

Pathetic behaviour, throws a tantrum so he doesnt have to parent his own children. So off putting and unattractive. As soon as you can get a job.