Resenting Partner after baby

[BlueOrange99]

I’d like to start off by saying that I love my partner. He is a good man, hard working & hilarious. But since becoming parents to our 8mo DS, I feel resentment growing and I’m not sure how compatible we are as parents.

He was fully present and supportive during my pregnancy. He had 8 weeks off Paternity Leave and our DS is bottle fed so he was hands on with the nappy changes and feeding. I appreciate going back to work is a huge adjustment that I haven’t faced yet, but I feel as though I am doing EVERYTHING. I do the nights, the days, the cooking, the cleaning, the laundry and the other maintenance of DS (replenishing nappies, food, buying his clothes, prepping his solids). DH does bath time and settles for him for bed, which is a big help, but not exactly time that I get to myself as I spend it washing bottles and tidying up. Occasionally, he takes him on walks. He doesn’t kiss or cuddle our son. He has never bought him clothes. DH sometimes manages to dodge dinner time by going to the gym, so I do the solids for DS whilst sorting out our own dinner.

DH doesn’t understand or acknowledge nap schedules, but it is me that faces the consequences of a late bedtime (sometimes 11pm) or a cranky baby the next day.

DS is crawling & standing, and it is exhausting. I love motherhood, but would love to have a bit of a break sometimes! I have been out 3x since my son was born without him.

I have brought all of this up many times and nothing seems to change. Is this complacency, lack of confidence or he just simply doesn’t ‘get’ parenting?

Am I expecting too much? What do I do to stop these feelings from festering? Or am I better off doing this solo.

I think for men, the difficult reality is that until the baby is old enough to communicate back to them, they don’t have the same relationship that the Mum does, which starts before the child is born.

This was certainly true of my DH, who is now an incredible dad to our 8 and 5 year olds. But I remember feeling the same as you describe in the early days; I had to plonk baby in his arms for cuddles more often than not.

This is’nt ok, I’m not defending it, but it might be the reality for a lot of guys.

So it falls to you (yes I know) to push for what you need in these brutal early days; so often the men go on largely as they did before.

All I can say is, don’t expect your DH to guess. Spell it out. Write it down if he will receive it better: “Right now, This is what I need…. Long list

good luck x

Thanks for your insight! It is super helpful.

I have previously written out everything that I would be grateful for support with. He even totted it up into a rota. Since the day the rota was created, nothing has changed. I feel as though I’m holding onto false hope. But maybe I just need to keep reminding him, as exhausting as it is…

I don't think it's so much 'reminding' as it is 'telling'.

"I'm having a lie in on Sunday, can you take Bob to the park? Or literally anywhere that isn't here."

What do you want to do? Decide, tell him and expect him to care for the baby. Just like he does with the gym.

When I go out early in the morning on weekends I often see ashen-faced zombie-looking men wheeling babies around. I want to stop and tell them they are good fathers. I know why they are there and it's great.

If he can settle him to bed himself go out then. He can put him to bed then tidy the kitchen / bottles etc
you go for walk, gym whatever. I know as mums we fell we know best and just do everything but you have to trust him and give him a chance to learn

to add -your friends are prob not available at that time but it is important to have baby free time eg just relaxing in the park as you need a break

I've had a lot of resentment since having our DD, she's nearly 2 years old. And I BF which I loved, still do, but it did make it harder as I felt like I was so attached to needing to be there for feeds.
What has helped is really scheduling how we spend our time outside of work/nursery. So we plan each week who does bedtime each night, and I make sure that when I'm not doing it, I do something intentional for myself - swimming, yoga, run, cinema, see a friend. We eat together at about 6pm, no way doing 2 dinners and our daughter isn't usually asleep til 8pm so I don't want to eat after that.
For us it has got much better since I went back to work full time as we both work the same amount of hours so we have to split drop off/pick up and house stuff.
Are you going back to work? If so, this is a good time to start doing some really specific planning around how you will share childcare and house stuff. What is most important is that you both get an equal amount of time to yourselves.
And you absolutely have to split the nights especially if you are going back to work. Discuss what is best - either alternate nights, or for us it worked better for DH to cover the first half of the night and I did the second half.

You need to set a timer every week where you go out by yourself for 2-3h. Even if all you do is sit in a coffee shop. On Sunday morning, I go to the gym while my DP takes the toddler (and previously baby) to Tesco. We meet afterwards at a cafe. It means I don't have to do the big food shop, as well as being daddy-baby/toddler bonding time.

I should add to my post, that my DH is a lovely human (yours sounds like he is too) but I had to work SO hard to step away..and give him space to step up.

The first few months are so so tough on you, as baby needs mum most of the time, and in my experience I was ten steps ahead of DH in anticipating needs from everything to weaning to clothes to activities to vaccinations…DH was supportive and loving, but I was the leader.

then when dd1 was about a year, my mental health had plummeted and I realised I actually didn’t like DH any more. I told him as much! It was rough. We didn’t have sex for months. I was a zombie. On reflection I probably had low estrogen and PND.

One thing that made a huge difference is I decided one weekend to run away to an Airbnb for 2 nights, to a pretty local town. Chucked some clothes in a bag, took my teary self off. It was hard as I missed my DD and felt so guilty, but I needed that space away from her and DH so bad!

And after a couple of nights of looking after myself and good sleep, I came back soooo much happier.

Since that first weekend away, I now try to go on a solo trip 2-4 times a year, ideally for 3 nights. I always have mixed emotions; the first night I used to drink a bottle of wine to soothe myself but luckily now I’m older and wiser I don’t have to be so avoidant. A lovely glass of wine and dinner for 1 in a good restaurant or hotel makes me feel brave and feminist and free! I usually take a book, but I need it less these days. I watch my mental health improve over the course of the weekend and go back to my kids a happier woman.

The kids know about my breaks too - “oh mums going on holiday” they say! My own mother thinks it’s wild - doesn’t understand at all, but she took her anger out on us as kids and I refuse to do that. I am responsible for my own mental health.

ooh that was a long one! Anyway, it’s not straightforward, society and biology conspire against us.. but as baby gets older, I encourage you to take responsibility for getting your needs met. And set a brilliant example to all our children :)