Husband said that this Christmas has been the worst

[Shkbop]

Warning; very long post. Thank you for taking the time to read.

Last night husband said that this Christmas has been the worst. He said it so casually but the comment really hurt me.

I have found parenthood very rough. I ended up with PPD, a rough c-section recovery, colic baby with reflux and feeding problems who struggles with sleep.

However, I quickly recognised that I wasn't OK and I sought help and have been on anti-depressants for the last 4 months. LO is now 7 months and I feel like I'm starting to enjoy.

My husband clearly doesn't feel the same way and he said the following:

• Christmas has been really un-enjoyable (we have all 3 been quite ill but apparently this wasn't the only negative....)
• LO is hard work.
• LO doesn't sleep and the evenings are crap as I am constantly up and down trying to get him off.
• We don't do anything fun together anymore.
• We aren't intimate anymore.
• He hasn't enjoyed any outings with LO (with particular reference to when we took him to meet Santa, which I really enjoyed)
• He is always repeating the same days over and over again. Wake up, work, home, walk dog, cook food, bath baby, sleep and repeat.
• We don't do anything with our weekends.
• He thought things would get better by 6 months but they haven't.
• He has thought a couple of times that we would be better off 'without him'.

He then goes on to say that it isn't a criticism of me and that he is glad that I am here and that LO is also here.

I can't help but get annoyed. I feel as though I make a lot of sacrifices to try and make his life easier. I let him sleep in on all weekends, I do ALL night waking, I even took LO away with me to visit family leaving him child-free for 4 days. I cooked Christmas Dinner for us and inlaws from scratch, while ill and on 3 hours sleep. He spent 2 days in bed with minimal care of LO, only when I needed a shower. He constantly says he is tired which I acknowledge and try my best to accommodate even when I am shattered.

I dont know how to help him. He absolutely refuses anti-depressants and counselling. He has spoken to someone at work who told him that it gets better over time (the person giving advice has two teenage children). I made a few suggestions to try and help like:

• asking MIL to watch LO 1 or 2 nights a month for us to go out (he said it was a bad idea to leave LO with MIL as she drinks on a weekend but I feel that's a BS answer).
• switching roles up on weekdays like I walk dog and cook tea (LO will not sleep for anyone other than me so I can't change that).
• Sleep training LO so we get a bit more time to ourselves in the evening.

• Suggesting he talk to more people in work who have children about his problems.

I was quite blunt, and made it clear that LOs sleep will always fluctuate and pointed out he had been ill. I also said that my understanding of parenthood is that while it might get easier it's just ever changing and we have to adapt. I did ask whether it would be best if myself and LO stayed at my mother's for a little while to give him a break but he was adamant that wasn't the answer. He doesn't have an answer and that it will just get better with time.

I can't see that working. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to help? What to do? I feel like my marriage is disintegrating and that he probably has depression. I am trying to be empathetic because I have experienced PPD but the things he has said have shocked me.

Blatantly means = in your head based on nothing

Presume women who are struggling and finding it hard to ask for help are also deserving of a giant “fuck you” too.

people like you are the reason men don’t ask for help

Based on countless threads on here about men whining that they're not getting enough attention and 'intimacy.'

What was the point in him complaining to OP if he wasn't planning on resolving anything? To make her feel equally shit? I'm not having it. She's bending over backwards to make sure he gets all his hours in even though it means she is severely sleep deprived.

And no, women, as this case demonstrates, still have to crack on with depression and manage other people's feelings as well, it seems. Baby AND partner.

Oh @Shkbop I am sorry that you are all having a rough time.

One thing that stood out to me from you first post is I feel as though I make a lot of sacrifices to try and make his life easier. I let him sleep in on all weekends, I do ALL night waking, I even took LO away with me to visit family leaving him child-free for 4 days. I cooked Christmas Dinner for us and inlaws from scratch, while ill and on 3 hours sleep. He spent 2 days in bed with minimal care of LO, only when I needed a shower. He constantly says he is tired which I acknowledge and try my best to accommodate even when I am shattered.

In a weird way, what you are doing is showing him that you don't actually need him because you can do absolutely everything. What is his role? I think it's easy for fathers to feel like the spare prick at the wedding once a baby comes along. Is it possible that this is part of your husband's problem?

I know PP have mentioned sleep training, and I would also recommend it.

Be as kind to one another as you can, and try to remember that you both matter as much as your baby does (even though it doesn't feel that way). One reason my marriage failed is that I was so bloody good at doing everything to do with the children, and enjoyed it more than I enjoyed my husband, so I don't recommend this!

You don’t really understand mental health do you…

Actually I'm extremely well versed in mental ill health , not that it's any of your business. I'm also very familiar with men who refuse to pull their weight with their newborn children. To reiterate, if he is struggling, he can do what OP has and seek help. Not dump his issues on OP and refuse to engage with her re solutions.

The OP states when she was depressed he was a massive support to her.

This has been going on for a few weeks, not since LO was born.

What's your theory on his decision to give OP a list of things that are making him miserable?

Given a list? Surely he’s just had a conversation.

calling it “giving a list” is a really odd way to think of someone explaining why they are unhappy?

...did you read the OP?

Yes, I saw someone summarising points that were brought up

o didn’t read that he’d pre-prepared a list, written out ready to make his points. Did you?

Anyway, this is quite draining. He's offloaded to OP who has made suggestions and been met with point blank refusal. I and others have assumed that 'better without him' is an attempt to lay the groundwork for leaving. His 'list' of reasons to be miserable are very similar to those of other men who decided parenthood wasn't for them.

Good luck with it all, OP.

Indeed, good luck op
please don’t listen to the likes of this poster but listen to the many who have said he may be struggling. Have empathy, and talk.

men don’t have to man up, or shrug things off when they’re not doing well. They can struggle too.

@FloydPepper hear hear to that.

Don't know who's hurt @AllOfThemWitches but they sure are projecting.

Men matter too. Not as much on Mumsnet, admittedly, and that's fair enough in some threads. But it's ok for women to have empathy for men and not assume they have the worst intentions at all times. 🙄

Very few people are saying that he simply needs to "man up and get on with it."

Most are saying that he is struggling, but he needs to take ownership and seek help and support for it. Which he is, up to this point, refusing to do. This puts OP is a pretty bad situation (as well as him) does it not?

Absolutely have empathy and talk it through with him, and do what can be done to support him through this. However, he needs to step up and help himself as well. If he won't, there's very little OP or anyone else is going to be able to do to assist.

I, like others, am wondering if he's laying the groundwork to leave OP and LO. He has made a list of all the ways he's not happy (and it's good he's talking about that) and made reference to them being better off without him. This could mean two things-he's thinking about leaving or something even worse.

Either way, if he's not putting in the work to make it suck less (and I get it depression is hard but there are resources out there to help) this isn't going to get better.

@Shkbop I wonder if if he did some of the stuff you do for the household and LO, he will actually appreciate you more as he'll realize how much you do.

You have a 7 month old baby. Everything he complains about is normal life with a 7 month old baby. It does change as they get older. They get a bit more independent and hopefully sleep more but he's being totally unreasonable. He sounds depressed but he needs to want to get better.

What is the op supposed to do though if he refuses help? She can't carry on doing things to make his life easier to her own detriment.

Refusing help, not admitting you’re struggling, not asking for help, it’s all part of struggling.

how would you advise a man to help his wife if she was “refusing help”? I bet the advice would be much more in the “bear with her”, “understand how hard it is” and “give her space” than it is on here. Ok there’d be a bit of “be clear she needs to see someone” but it’d be a lot more understanding.

how would you advise a male poster?

Thing is, there comes a time when we have to just drop the rope when a loved one (male or female) refuses to get help. There's no call for us to damage our own MH or well being for the sake of someone else, no matter who that person is, if that person will not make any steps to heal.

If OP's DH refuses to get help after she's made all the suggestions she can think of, then she is within her rights to stop offering and to look to her and her DC's welfare. She does not need to facilitate his destructive or self-destructive behaviour.

It has nothing to do with telling a man to 'man up' or disregarding a man's mental health needs 'because they are a man'. It has to do with knowing when to stop beating your own head against a brick wall.

My own DS2 suffers from PTSD and anxiety, although it's largely under control now. We did all we could to no avail and there came a time when the professionals said we needed tell him we loved him but that it was time for us to back off and let him decide for himself what he needed and that if he needed our help to ask for it. There were a rocky few months, but he made his choices and the fact that he did it by himself and for himself was a HUGE part of his recovery.

If DS had been a DD, we wouldn't have acted any differently.