Passive Aggressive

[namechange20233]

Looking for some advice. Me and husband have been happily married 2 years, have DS 23 months and I am 6 months pregnant.

We have never been a couple to argue or bicker but ever since having our son I feel I have become this passive aggressive wife. Its almost like I speak to my husband as if he is the inferior parent.

I have seeked advice from councillors on this and understand the source comes from anxiety surrounding childs sleep and health.

Examples

"DS wouldve eaten all his tea if we didnt give him those snacks earlier!" - knowing DP gave him snacks

"We shouldve have picked him up from nursery early, we have ruined his routine and now hes upset!" - knowing it was DP suggestion to pick up DS early

"We have completely messed up bedtime tonight, he's overtired and its a mess!"

I feel like a horrible horrible person and as soon as I snap out of my grump (usually once child has settled down or asleep) I can see I am being a complete a££hole!!! In the moment I am just in fight or flight and so rude to my husband.

He does not deserve this, hes an outstanding parent, probably better - and significantly more patient- than me.

Can anyone suggest any tips or advice on how to stop snapping unnecessarily at my poor husband ?

Are you getting enough sleep? Tiredness is the worst for snappy moods. Also pregnancy hormones!!

@Wavescrashingonthebeach thank you for replying waves. I get around 8 hours, albeit broken as DS doesnt sleep through but unfortunately I cannot blame this on pregnancy as I was ratty and short before falling pregnant with DC2.

Ooo I'm jealous of your 8 hours sleep haha! At least it does rule that out.
Do you feel he is undermining your parenting? You're trying to do things "right" and he's ruining your dcs routine with excessive snacks and him going to bed early. You said dc doesn't sleep through does your dh settle him back down or do you have to do the wake ups?
I wouldn't be making passive aggressive comments at this- I'd be tearing a strip off him!
My dp would let our older son just live off chocolate and chips if I let him, and the baby wouldn't get fed at all!

@Wavescrashingonthebeach If anything I genuinely believe he is the better parent! I dont think he feeds him incorrecrtly or doesnt settle him right - if anything our DS reacts better to my husband. I just loose my head when my baby doesnt sleep or is poorly and completely take it out on my poor husband with shi77y comments.

My husband works full time but does do the night settles too - I cant complain about that!

I genuinely have no reason to be so condescending to him but I seem too.

Its almost as if, anxiety takes over of my baby not sleeping or being poorly etc and I have to blame someone! In the moment I am completely irritational. Last night for example, we were trying to get baby ready for bed who was overtired and husband put some socks on my son, I was stressed our baby was crying and dreading bedtime so I snapped "those socks are way too tight! Why we havent just gotten on top of the washing recently I have no clue!" Completely unreasonable behaviour and actually - in all honesty- the socks were fine .

My little boy currently has chicken pox, my husband took the day off work to care for our son. I asked him to keep on top of calpol all day but son refused to take any apart from 1 dose at lunch. Bedtime was hard - because he was overtired likely - but I snapped again at husband "this is because he hasnt had his calpol all day! Hes in pain and deserves better" - now I am out of the panicked performance I can think sensibly that my poor husband cannot FORCE calpol into an unreasonable toddler if they wont take it and my son probably was just overtired rather than in any form of discomfort. My husband felt I was indicating that he hadnt looked after son very well during the day.

I hope this jumbled response makes some sense

Its almost like

Toddler cries / doesnt sleep / gets poorly = me reacting like its the end of the world and having to find a nit pick and blame my husband in some irritational way. Once our toddler has come round or is fine I can think clearly and apologies for being so unreasonable

It seems like you have really thought about this, and want to change your behaviour.
When you want to say something like that to your husband, can you pause for a few seconds, and then think of a different way to say it?

It seems like you and your husband are both really good parents!
I am not a parent myself, but I believe it must be a busy life having a 23 month old child, and also being pregnant. So be kind to yourself.

Ohh OP are you me? I definitely fell into this pattern after having kids, looking to blame everything that I felt went wrong (when in reality nothing had gone wrong just a toddler being a toddler!) on my poor DH. like your DH me husband is an outstanding parent and husband and incredibly patient but some how I just felt so much resentment. TBH something clicked a few months ago on holiday, the holiday had been frought with tension with my continuous sniping. We were with some friends whose marriage was crumbling and have since separated (for very different reasons) but I had a thought one night that I didn’t want to become them. That I loved my husband and our family and I knew he was always doing his best for us all, even it wasn’t exactly how I would do things. I made a decision to just let all the resentment and just bite my tongue, not become a push over but stop looking to blame. I didn’t tell him any this because deep down I didn’t want to admit I had been in the wrong all along but a few weeks later he told me how happy he had been recently and he wasn’t really sure why and our household has been so happy and calm since. Accepting that with young children routine/ meals/ sleeping/ days out sometimes dont go to plan isn’t anyone’s fault ( except maybe the children!) and we are a team.