Am I being unreasonable? Dad to be...please help

[simba86]

My wife and I, married for 3 years, together for 10, in our late 20s are expecting our first child at the end of May.

My wife has never really got on with my parents, particularly my mum, and whilst they live 2 hours away we see them ever couple of months.

I am obviously very excited about becoming a dad. I love my wife more than anyone in the world and so much looking forward to having our own family. I am also looking forward to being a proud dad and introducing our baby to my parents shortly after the birth, when everything has calmed down and my wife is well enough to see not visitors, but our immediate family.

However because of the break down in the relationship between my wife and my parents, my wife does not want me to let them know if she goes into labour, so that they are not hanging around the hospital or nearby, nor does she want them to visit after the birth until she is ready, which she has indicated could be many hours after the birth, or when we go home, or even a week or so after the birth. She is so stressed out about this she has driven off tonight after writing me a letter saying she doesnt want me at the birth, nor does she want me to be her husband.

I can assure you I have been as supportive of her and her family over the past 10 years more than most people could ever imagine, and as someone who has a rare medical condition with no known cure and an uncertain future, an only child, I don't want to miss out on a special moment for me.

I dont want my parents hanging around or interfering and have made that clear to my wife, I just want to share a moment with my parents, my wife and our baby shortly after they are born when my wife ia well enough.

Surely this isn't me being unreasonable....or is it?

Please share your opinion on this

[LoonvanBoon]

Yes, great post, Stars. SDTG, this issue about simba's parents seeing the baby keeps being brought up again by him. He says he's not going to pressurise his wife about when his parents see the baby, but is now focussing on the order in which people meet the baby - so his parents have to see the baby before any friends, or relatives other than his ILs, etc. etc. It's still a bloody weird issue to be dwelling on in view of the info about his wife assaulting him.

I agree that simba needs to get help for himself - & the baby. All this emphasis on loving his wife so much that his focus in on "helping her help herself" is clearly not working. And if there is abuse on both sides, it appears to fit with the overarching theme of simba constantly trying to justify himself / label his wife as the "unreasonable" one - not a healthy preoccupation when, as you say, SDTG, an innocent, dependent baby is about to be brought into the mix.

[UserNameDenied]

What an epic and sad thread.
simba I don't know if this thread will have been of any use. As a lot of hostility and confusion on it. It's not possible for anybody to know the real situation. It does sound like you must get yourself help. You are doing no favours to anyone by staying in a relationship where you are the victim of domestic abuse
I feel wretchedly sorry for the baby. You may choose to stay in an abusive relationship but your baby hasn't had a choice to be born into such an unhappy and unhealthy environment.

[MrsCosmopilite]

Well I wasn't going to post any more but I have been watching the thread and seen the additional details that have now emerged.

Simba you say your wife is violent towards you. Has this been all through your marriage or since her pregnancy? If the latter, then that could mean that some medical/psychiatric support may be necessary during and after the birth for some time. A friend of mine suffered with terrible depression during pregnancy which made her unreasonable. After the birth she had undiagnosed post-partum psychosis, which lead to her being sectioned and kept under observation.

If the violence has been present all through your marriage, regardless of your love for your wife, you both need help. She needs help with anger management, and you need help as the victim of abuse.

Really, much has been said on the subject already by many people. Yes there are some comments which are confrontational/provoking, but in the main people are trying to help.

Whether your parents get to see the baby first or not is not the issue at this stage. Your safety, your wife's safety, and most importantly your baby's safety are paramount. Please seek professional help for these issues.

[squizita]

Brdgrl...what makes you believe that I am not a victim of dv?

Straight answer? We don't know from a forum. BUT the drip feeding might remind some of us of how some partners will manipulate situations and blame the woman when they realise everyone's blaming them.

I have a friend who work's for a men's DV helpline and refuge. One of his toughest jobs (emotionally) is checking/screening his clients. Because very sadly, a few every year have either convinced themselves their wife's self-defense is domestic abuse or are stone-cold lying to get themselves a defense in court/divorce proceedings. It's happened the other way too: I know of a woman who slapped and scratched her husband, then rationalised it and became puzzled at being required by SS to go to anger management because 'he' was horrible to her. So it's not a gender thing.

Also DV is often a 2 way thing - and not just the stereotype of a drunk couple slugging it out, but colder and longer term. Horrible for a child to endure.

NOT saying we can tell anything in any way from this thread: BUT with the drip feeding, and previous talk of control, it might raise alarm bells with some... especially those who deal with DV.

[AuroraRoared]

Your priorities are very strange indeed Simba. You claim to be in a relationship with a woman who is dangerously abusive, and yet are still banging on about who gets to see the baby first, and when.

I will repeat again. Even if your wife is deeply abusive to you, when she is in hospital both giving birth and postnatally, she is not obliged to see you or anyone else - this includes the baby, who will be with her.

From what you claim, your other problems are far more pressing - focus on them.

[SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius]

Not the central issue really, but how many times does simba have to say he is not going to ask his wife again about his parents seeing the baby earlier than she wants (which is what I take him to mean when he says he 'won't be asking the question again' after listening to people on here)?

He says 'I won't ask again' and immediately is told he's trying to get us "to agree to forcing a labouring/pregnant/new mother to do something against her will." Is it only me that finds this strange?

On the bigger picture - Starsinthenightsky and Chunderella have raised some good points, and Stars has given you some very wise advice, simba.

You say you love your wife deeply, enough to forgive her everything she's done to you. Now you need to love her enough to get help for both of you, before an innocent, utterly dependent baby is brought into the mix.

Iamusuallybeingunreasonable - so domestic violence is OK if there is provocation - is that what you are saying, when you say you'd have been tempted to throw an iron at simba's head? Or is it just OK because he's a man? If someone said that about a woman on here ('If I were your dh, I'd have slapped you', for example), they would have been flamed from every angle, and rightly so.

[Georgina1975]

Have not got time to read recent thread in detail. But Simba I feel so sorry for your baby right now. I know life is never perfect and no situation is ideal. But bringing a baby into this unholy mess (because that is exactly how you have described the state of this marriage) - how selfish of you both.

But it is done now. Stop obsessing about the people around you as you cannot change the behaviour of another person. Continue therapy (I suggest you need something a little more rounded that help with self-confidence. You seem to struggle, for example, with empathy). Perhaps change in you might deliver the behaviours you want to see in other people?

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

Stars, great post.

[StarsInTheNightSky]

Sorry about typos - damn autocorrect!

[StarsInTheNightSky]

I wasn't planning to comment on this again, but have seen the updates. I have counselled a lot of victims of dv (prior to career change) both men and women, and I myself have a disability, but simba's updates set up red flags all over, something about the whole situation just doesn't seem to add up.

If Mrs Simba is abusive, then simba please get help and stop focussing on the unimportant aspects of the relationship (parents seeing baby etc). DV against men all too often goes unchallenged/unreported, it takes courage to face up to the real issues in a relationship but it needs to be done, in my experience dv is a downwards spiral, it only ever gets worse, decreasing your self esteem as it goes and making it harder and harder to sort out.

If you are in fact the abuser and as mantha (excellent post by the way) suggested are rabble rousing, for want of a better term, against your wife, then you also need to get help asap.

If you are both abusive towards each other, then you both need to get help asap and face the reality that you either both have to give some ground and commit to working through your problems (which will take time), or call it a day on your marriage.

Of the three situations above, I'm unsure which is the reality. There has been so much drip feeding and twisting of the truth/just missing the point (the bit about nct for example) that it's impossible to tell. The only ones who know what's really going on are Simba and Mrs Simba, and even then I suspect they'd both have very different takes on the situation.

Simba can I very gently suggest you talk to your GP. To me, although it might just be the way I'm reading it, your posts throughout have hinted at underlying mental health issues, I'm not sure if you've ever been diagnosed with any, but I think it would be worth you talking the whole thing over with somebody medically trained and unbiased. If there are mh issues, that might explain some of the catastrophic communication break down between you and your wife, and you will both be able to get support to help you better understand each other and to communicate more effectively. Please do not take this as insulting, I mean no offence.
You mentioned earlier that you'd tried counselling but your wife felt the counsellor sided with you too much so she didn't want to go anymore, has your wife tried going by herself to a different counsellor?

[dammitsue]

What do you want op? This thread has picked apart every aspect of your relationship and yet you seem no closer to stopping posting!?
You will never get a mothering forum to agree to forcing a labouring/pregnant/new mother to do something against her will.

[simba86]

Iamusuallybeingunreasonable...wtf? I would be tempted to throw an iron at his head too....if there iused here comment to be made that would make me think your thoughts are not worth a second of my time...its that one.

Math...the point I was making about the house was that she knew we had been given inheritence to be used for a very specific reason, and frankly this was the only reason we were given it. So for her to try to blackmail me with her behaviour to try and spend this money to make her feel happy on something completely unrelated to the intention the money was given to us on, is ab example of her ofteb unreasonable behaviour. I am aware she has taken advice from friends about this who have frankly told her she doesnt have a leg to stand on.

Is she planning to leave me after the baby is born and thats why she wants to use up the money....hadnt thought of it like that before, although I would suggest its unlikely.

I say that because throughout all of the posts I have made it clear I love my wife so much that I have tolerated her behaviour. As unreasonable and abnormal as this actually is to any person reading this as a stranger to us, love can be blind but surely if I care for her so much my focus should and has always been on helping her help herself.

Brdgrl...what makes you believe that I am not a victim of dv? Is it because you think I am making it up? To be clear, I am not looking for lots of sympathy. ..thats nice but not very helpful in reality. I want to know from wgat I have said that has made you come to that conclusion.

Loon....if my wife changed her mind then I would ask her what had changed. If that question causes more arguments because I am looking to see if thats how she truely feels, or would be seen as me trying to bully her into admitting she was being unreasonable and that I am right....then that would be unfortunate as asking that question I believe would be human nature and not with malicious intent, and in any situation. Just like if a man brings home flowers is there a thought in the back of your mind "whats he done"! Fortunately I wont have to ask this question, as I have not pursued my initial request having taken advice from mumsnet posters...but I do expect my parents to be able to meet our new baby before anyone other than friends or distant relatives on her side

[slithytove]

Brilliant post math and I completely agree. Expressed far more eloquently than I managed.

[mathanxiety]

I am harkening back to Simba's report of a comment made by his wife to the effect that he was the one who put the baby there (i.e. got her pregnant) and contrasting it with his remark about trying for two years to get to this stage and several question marks have occurred to me.

I am also recalling the wife's (reported) reluctance to buy another house.

The first thing I have to say is that it really does all seem very bizarre, and especially so the last twist.

The second is that those posts suggest the wife may have been deciding to leave and wanted to do the current house up for sale and division of the proceeds in a divorce settlement at the point when the friends gave money to enable the couple to buy a new house (clearly without asking the wife if she was on board with that but that aspect of it doesn't seem to bother Simba). She may have been planning to leave when she found she was pregnant. Her angry comment about her pregnancy makes me wonder if she feels trapped by the pregnancy and realises she will now never shake Simba off (and I would like to know more about her thoughts of suicide, when they have happened, and how Simba heard of them). Desperation to be heard and her wishes taken note of may be at the back of the behaviour that was reported.

To sum up, I think I was right when I surmised that Simba posted here to get a posse to back him up against his wife. I would also like to draw attention to Simba's misinterpretation of what went on in the NCT class and suggest that sympathy in the face of reported incidents may also be misinterpreted by Simba to mean he is completely right here and his wife is completely wrong.

I would like to reiterate that imo both parties here are being abusive. The extent of the wife's abuse is not known, but it is possible to see what Simba has been doing. I am not sure it is a chicken and egg situation either.

If you're still here, Simba, and you are planning to take advice and go to get therapy for your very obvious problems with boundaries -- just like the counselling you and our wife tried early in your relationship, it won't 'work' if you retain the mindset that you must be right and the therapist is there to validate you. There multiple layers of bullshit here for a therapist to work through with you. If you want to go around for the rest of your life coated in that, dragging it into relationship after relationship, then by all means use a therapist the way you have tried to use people here, but bear in mind it will cost you actual money, unlike Mumsnet. It will also result in misery and loneliness for you.

[NaturalBaby]

Simba I don't really think all the other information is relevant right now. Your wife will give birth soon and your intention at the start of this thread was to work out if it's acceptable for your wife to dictate who she wants to see and when after giving birth. If you think she's being unreasonable now then imagine how much more exhausted and stressed she will be when she has gone through a marathon labour and has to feed your baby every few hours day in day out. She will feel worse, she will get baby blues, it will get tougher for you to support her. Focus on supporting each other so you can both get through one of the most exciting and exhausting times of your life!

When you have both recovered from the birth and newborn phase then maybe you can ask her about working on your relationship so that you can support each other better. It's a long, hard phase - it took many, many months before I was prepared to have a night out or couple of hours for a 'date' with my DH.

[LoonvanBoon]

Trying to be impartial, it sounds like BOTH have slipped into a cycle of abusive behaviour and need to perhaps reconsider being married.

I'm not sure anyone can say much more than that, squizita, given the nature of this thread.

I meant to stay away from it but saw simba's update. Clearly this is a very "dysfunctional marriage" (total fuck-up) & both parties need help & support, with a view to separation.

I feel so sorry for this baby. If what simba has said is true, s/he is being born to a mum with a violent, out of control temper; and to a dad whose perceptions / priorities are so skewed that, despite being a victim of domestic abuse, he was still banging on - pages & pages into this thread - about how his wife should show him due respect by respecting his parents.

Perhaps Lancelottie is right & some of the issues simba discussed were a distraction from the unpalatable reality of his marriage. But he's certainly given every impression of believing that those were the main issues, & has seemed passionately, convincingly engaged in the project of insisting on his "rights" in relation to the birth of his child.

Simba, if your wife suddenly changed her mind & said you were welcome to tell your parents all about the progress of her labour, & they could come to the hospital & meet the baby as soon as possible - would you really believe everything was okay in your marriage?

This all seems so bizarre, & simba's assessment of his own situation utterly incomprehensible.

[iamusuallybeingunreasonable]

Man, I would've tempted to throw an iron at this mans head as well, what a load of drip fed cobblers, honestly, there is such a thing as mental abuse as well, which standing in his wife's shoes I would no doubt be suffering

[TheFabulousIdiot]

please, remove yourself from the situation. Move back in with your parents for the time being.

You do not have to involve the police or Doctors - you just have to make yourself safe.

Once the baby is born it will need to be near its mother, you will have to work out the logistics of custody once the baby is no longer dependent on its mother.

In the mean time you need to be safe and moving in with your parents, who clearly care for you, is the easiest way to do this.

[AuroraRoared]

If what you say in your latter posts is true Simba, then you need to end the marriage. It sounds like you are both trapped in some very unhealthy patterns which are very unlikely to be resolvable.

However, your wife will still not be obligated to have you or your parents visit her when she is in hospital having the baby.

[squizita]

It is not because of his gender, it is because of his language, his communication style, his self-reporting of events.

I deliberately haven't commented because I am biased based on a past relationship. In it I was very controlled, but if the challenge of people saying "X, you're being controlling/weird" became too much ex would fabricate/exaggerate (e.g. I was a nutter who'd 'shut his head in a window' hence don't feel sorry for me... tit for tat ... actually, an hour earlier I'd carelessly jammed up an old fashioned window which later fell and hit him. An accident. I also 'dressed to upset him' etc'). I therefore am fully aware that my bias + drip feeding = I can't judge this situ.

Trying to be impartial, it sounds like BOTH have slipped into a cycle of abusive behaviour and need to perhaps reconsider being married.

[Buckteethjeff]

SDT if I'm wrong I will hold my hands up. It's not so much content, it's the style.

I'm in half a mind it's a pp who posts about complex situations that have posters falling over them selfs to offers, support, debate ect...

Or indeed, if it is true I second brd. MN sometimes is the last place a woman can hide and seek council and some times some 'D' h creeps in 'just' for a women's perspective. There are red flags all through this.

[brdgrl]

Buckteeth - would you be saying that if the OP were a woman opening up about domestic or sexual abuse? Or do you think that 'We believe you' should apply to all victims?
I would. Sorry, but I think there is a victim of DV in this narrative, and I don't think it is OP. It is not because of his gender, it is because of his language, his communication style, his self-reporting of events.

[SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius]

Buckteeth - would you be saying that if the OP were a woman opening up about domestic or sexual abuse? Or do you think that 'We believe you' should apply to all victims?