to think I would be better off being a single parent?

[pinkypanther]

DC1 is three weeks old (born by emergency caesarian section after becoming distressed during delivery and needed to spend four days in special care as a result)

DH took one week's paternity leave (all but one day of which DC1 and I were in hospital for) then went back to the office. He works long hours in a high pressure job and if I'm lucky he might be home by 8ish - frequently it is later (one night last week it was 10pm). As a result he does very little with the baby - maybe one evening feed and one nappy change. He doesn't help at all with anything before he goes to work and doesn't lift a finger around the house.

I am struggling as DC1 doesn't sleep much and just wants to feed all the time. Because of the section I can't drive for another three weeks and I feel totally trapped.

AIBU to think that I would be better off just leaving and going to stay with my mum for an extended period? At least then I would get some help and support...

i think that;s because OP has posted in AIBU. If she had posted in chat or somewhere she would have got a better response.

Other than that totally agree with you LITR

Not about competitive suffering at all!

I didn't find having a baby was about 'suffering' - well, labour was but twas lovely after that.

Still don't get the big deal - she had a cs which leaves you unable to drive or lift heavy stuff for a bit, but other than that what's the big deal? It's a baby, it cries, it sleeps for short bursts, it needs feeding a lot. Hardly something to leave home for a week over. or compare yourself to being a single parent!!

You sound knackered and emotional and I can't blame you for that. Go and stay with your mum for a bit or get her to stay with you. Your DH sounds as though he has no choice but to work these hours as you described it as a high pressure job. Decisions like this need to be made when you are not sleep deprived or hormonal. As others have said it will get easier. I look back on the first few weeks with DC2 and at times it was hell. My DH is around but not much help TBH so I do empathise. As for being a single parent, my mum was a single parent and it isn't a walk in the park. As much as you may feel you are doing everything now you presumably have him around at weekends and he provides financially. That may not be the case if you were a single mum so you woudl havhe a whole load of other things to think about as well.

Perhaps she didn't think it would be like this and was severely underprepared. Too many shiny baby magazines with lovely accessories and beautiful shots of madonnas at home, and not enough talking to mothers of babies with sleep-deprivation, no make-up and who truly put the mad into madonna.

LINTR - you are spectacularly missing the point that people are judging the AIBU post made by the OP and responding in a way that THEY feel is appropriate. Sometimes, people need a brisk, direct, 'Stop feeling sorry for yourself'. Sometimes they need different advice. From what the OP has said, I think on balance things are not that bad, they sound entirely normal. And I don't think it helps to pretend otherwise, and say 'Oh poor you, your DH sounds a real twat, yes, I agree you should leave and move in with your mother for a week'. I actually think that would backfire on her and make their positions more entrenched. Her DH will feel completely sidelined, and will therefore do even less.

If you read the thread, you'll see that I offered advice for now - ie, she should get in the car and go along with her DH and the baby for shopping etc, and for the short term - ie, accept that while she's at home she will need to do more of the home stuff, and for the long term - ie talk to her DH about whether they'd both be happy having a fair division of earning and home stuff.

I can totally see where you're coming from pinky, although thankfully for me it's all a distant memory now.

Things will get better I'm sure, but it takes such a lot of adjustment for you both to come to terms with your first baby, let alone the distress of an emergency CS.

I remember feeling like my life had ended and I totally resented my DH going back to work, back to his life, that he could escape whilst I felt trapped in a situation that I was totally unprepared for.

He resented the fact that he had to go back to work whilst I got to spend all of my time with the baby and he felt under pressure to provide for us like he never had before.

Even though I did the night feeds, obviously he still woke up and we were both shattered, grumpy and struggling to adapt and we both felt he had the worse deal.

It took a lot of honest talking and tongue biting to get through those first few months, as we both felt under attack when the other complained, but we managed it. 3 years on, I can honestly say he really is a wonderful man, a fantastic father and brilliant husband.

You will get through it I'm sure, try to talk and to listen to each other and to focus on finding a new balance that works for you both.

Good luck.

''If he has such a high powered job he cannot possibly help around the home'' is the start of the sentence... it finishes with ''then you can afford a cleaner''

It was not a statement that the op's dh shouldn't help around the house. I hate when people are misquoted.

And BTW, I actually think if people post saying' god what a bastard your DH is' when actually it really doesn't help those who are in genuinely awful situations.

If her DH was out boozing every night, or was being abusive, I'd be saying, yes, get the hell out and stay with your mother. But to give that advice when actually I think the right thing is for them to sit down and talk, would be irresponsible, and pretty offensive to those people who truly are in bad situations. This woman isn't.

Even though I did the night feeds, obviously he still woke up and we were both shattered, grumpy and struggling to adapt and we both felt we had the worse deal.

hi op, i really sympathise. i had an emcs and if dh had gone back to work after 1 week i would have struggled. everything was just so exhausting/painful. if you think about it, forget the baby and imagine you had just had the abdominal surgery for something else, no one would expect you to be all better after just one week!

maybe you could talk to dh first without being too stroppy and see what he thinks his role is in all this and try and negotiate something. if you need to go and stay at mums then do it - sounds like a short remr solution anyway if dh cant take time off

I also agree that if you post in AIBU, you have to reasonably expect that some post will say yes, you are!

If the OP had posted on another thread, explaining that she is feeling very low and unhappy and wanting advice, I think she would have received a lot of support for how she feels.

But she posted on AIBU and also used a quite provocative title, which if anything is starting the 'competitive suffering' idea by comparing herself with a single parent

"If he has such a high powered job he cannot possibly help around the home, (and if he's working 14 hour days it's a touch unreasonable to expect him to) then you can afford a cleaner."

Yes. He has a full time job and therefore it's unresonable of her to expect him to do any housework. I love the way that the "correction" and complaint of misquoting involves cutting out the part of the post where the OP is told she is unreasonable.

This man is doing no work around the house at all and this is fair? He is going out rather than helping his wife who is recovering from a CS?

She should bite the bullet and get on with it as she is fortunate she's not being abused?

After my sections my DH was happy to help with washing, loading the dishwasher, cooking and so on. Because he is loving and kind and normal. He would not have wanted to leave everything to me.

I am still interested to see the many places where the OP has contradicted herself in her 3 posts.

I wonder if people think that thye OP should suck it up and get on with it, as that makes them feel better about their own situations.

In fact he wasn't "helping", he was simply doing his part in keeping the household going, our household, while I was fairly incapacitated after a CS and trying to get to grips with a new baby.

I want to know why the OP didn't go to the flooring shop with her DH and the baby as she's feeling trapped being at home.

I also think it's interesting that in the OP she says her DH works long hours in a high pressure job and she's lucky if he's home by 8. Maybe he would feel lucky to be able to be home a little earlier too!

It all seems very centred on thinking she has the worst deal.

Who knows. Maybe he just announced "I'm off out" as he swung out the front door with his car keys.

The fact the he does no housework at all is just all wrong, i can't get past that. If my DH was at home having had abdominal surgery I would cook for him and so on. i just don't understand why you wouldn't look after your OH in this situaiton.

I do wonder if she has spoken to him or is just sitting there seething.

Oh for God's sake!

Is any of this helpful? Really?

Do we really think the OP should be making life changing decisions like deciding her husband is, out of the blue, a complete cunt and leaving him - 3 weeks after having a baby?

The OP needs help, and she needs support. getting things in perspective, sorting out her relationship inequalities, all this can wait. She needs to rest, and she needs to be looked after. If her husband is, for whatever reason, working so many hours that he cannot or will not look after her, she needs to go to her mums or buy some help in.

LadyintheRadiator, you took the words right out of my mouth.

Violethill, your posts smack of bovine smugness. You had a wonderful time. Good for you.

"God help her if she has more children", yet you could go to a gig four weeks after birth? Methinks you had a week bit of support from somewhere, then.

"Genuinely awful situations". Please. No one can complain about anything unless they're being abused/an inch from death's door?
You've got a headache? I've got a brain tumour.
You live in a cardboard box? That's be like THE RITZ to me.
FFS.

I posted while in a hormonal state when I was newly post-partum and was ripped to shreds on here. I sat in front of the computer feeling totally and utterly humiliated, tiny and low when I read the responses to what I had written, as my ability to brush off what I had read was hampered by the MASSIVE amount of hormones in my body! Come on ladies, you were all there!

I was probably unreasonable in what I had written, but I was so shocked by the response I found myself grovelling for the approval of nasty bitches glorying in their own ability to tell me how up my own arse I was (often directly calling me names! And telling me I would look back and feel ashamed!). I was so bloody hormonal that I spent a full day on here with tears streaming down my eyes telling my husband to keep my baby away from me because I was so ashamed of myself. A completely ridiculous, OTT reaction provoked by my hormones but fuelled by the nastiness on here. I didn't eat, I didn't drink, I cried. I was one step away from a total and utter breakdown. Haven't you people ever heard of PND? (I have since been diagnosed with a postpartum anxiety disorder). Violethill, you are just whiling away some down time.. think about what your smug responses might be doing to a real live human being who is in a bit of a state right now. It is so utterly unpleasant to read.

And all you single parents who are outraged by the title of the thread, get it together! For god's sake, it hardly takes a genius to see that she means it in the context of feeling totally unsupported by a relationship and not in the grand sense of the logistical and financial realities of single parenthood. She is immediately POST-PARTUM. Were you all so amazingly erudite and calm in the weeks following childbirth that every word you uttered or wrote absolutely matched your every thought and intention?

Just to clarify, I don't mean my PND was provoked by Mumsnet, but be sensible and realise you may be abusing a woman who could very well be suffering from this common issue but is as yet unaware of it. Play fair.

And that's so helpful.... ?

"Do we really think the OP should be making life changing decisions like deciding her husband is, out of the blue, a complete cunt and leaving him - 3 weeks after having a baby?"

She is only talking about going and staying with her mum for a bit, not leaving him. Not sure where you got that from.

mrsbean, you make a fair point but the op has volunteered to come on an internet site, seeking an opinion from complete strangers as to whether or not she is being unreasonable. We already have the italicised warning at the top that you might be exposed to posts that upset you. Just how much more paternalistic should this or any other site get?

For what it is worth, I appreciate the op is swilling about with hormones, struggling with the reality of a new baby etc, etc, but I think it is unreasonable to suggest that this state in any way compares to being a single parent.

If you find that unsupportive, it is not meant to be. You asked if you were being unreasonable. I think you are. It is not 'comptetitive suffering' to point out that doing all that the op is doing without a man behind the scenes bringing in some money, is rather different.

And, ImSoNOtTelling, you have quoted my first reply entirely out of context.