Did you feel they understood your experience and were they supportive? Had they prepared in a particular way/read about it?
I found it a period during which my relationship became rather strained. And second time round, just based on some conversations we have had, I am worried about it happening again. I just felt
so much resentment that he didn’t ‘get’ various things - even though I was probably rather clumsy and grumpy in my attempts to explain how I felt.
Examples included not appearing to understand how hard breastfeeding was, particularly to start with. How tired I was, doing the vast majority of the baby care day and night. How much I missed having any quiet time to myself. Why sex was the last thing on my mind for months.. To this day he still refers to my mat leave as my ‘career break’ - which annoys me because it was anything but a ‘break’!
He is in many ways a wonderful partner and is much more involved with our daughter now she is older but the post partum period just seemed to be an absolute blind spot.