Is this baby a mistake?

[Basse]

Hi
just looking for some advise please...am halfway through 1st pregnancy and am discovering how much my DH does not seem to want this. Though it was a joint decision to try for this baby, he has never been pleased about it, only scared, and last night told me he feels he let himself down because he agreed to do this something for me, not for him. It was so easy to fall pregnant (despite what I thought-2 weeks is hardly usual is it) and he seems to think he was LIED to by me-utterly shocking as he knows I don't lie-or at least I thought he knew me but now I am not so sure! Despite what I try to do to cheer him up, or say, he has basically hit the wall and thinks everything will be awful once baby is born, that he won't have a life, that he will have to change into a person he doesn't want to be, etc etc. I just don't know what to do do/say any more. When I can't help myself and start crying because it makes me so upset he just says 'here we go again, I shouldn't have said anything'. I try to make him talk to male friends/relatives with babies but he stubbornly claims none of them would understand. And he got really angry when I suggested he might want to see a professional as he seems really confused.
Sorry for the long rant - but I am starting to really panick and just don't know what to do/say any more as I just seem to make things worse by talking, but if you don't talk about how you feel, you have no chance as far as I can tell.

Ok the first thing is this isn't your fault, don't let him make you think it is. He doesn't get to use this against you. I'm afraid he needs an ultimatum like piss or get off the pot either he is going to step up as a dad or he isn't worth having around otherwise he will carry on getting to live his life as before because you'll be afraid he'll bolt if you ask too much of him. In some ways it's a clever game he is playing. Every parent has minor wobblies at being a parent but not to this extreme and involving your partner to this extent is selfish and cruel. Sorry Op he is a twat.

Hi Basse,
I don't like to see this unanswered, but I don't really know how to answer, except to offer my sympathy for what seems to be a shit situation for you at the moment :(
I think you've done the right thing by asking for some help here and hopefully someone else with some sensible advice will be along soon.

How old are you both and how many weeks pg are you? Your DH does sound scared, the responsibility of parenthood had dawned on him, which at least he's thinking about..I really understand why you feel so let down however and your suggestion to talk to someone else is a good idea as you are unable to support each other.

Does he have specific concerns, like finances or plans that he had hoped for?
It might be useful if you attend counselling as if he feels lied too and you feel let down you will both have resentment. New babies are stressful to most relationships so you both will need support.

One other thought - I don't think his feelings are unique to him. Get him to browse in a bookstore/online for books on new fatherhood, or dealing with a pregnant partner, they all have a thread of this idea in them. My DH also freaked a little when we got pregnant, but he came round after the first few weeks; yours might take a bit longer. Another idea would be to post on dadsnet (there is a talk topic here on mumsnet for it).

But fundamentally, you have done nothing wrong, it sounds like everything in good faith and or will be his loss if he misses out on it. He needs to step up to his responsibilities, regardless of whether he was lying to you or himself at the time.

You have a little while before you need to really panic, but you might want to start thinking about lining up some backups - eg does your mum/sister/best friend live near by? Are you hooked up with any local support groups yet for expecting / new mums? I would suggest you Hope for the best but plan for the worst and be pleasantly surprised.

No, the baby isn't a mistake. To think like that is very odd really, as your DH's reaction isn't his/her fault. You both agreed to have a baby and you got pregnant believing that things would be fine. To an extent your DH's feelings are normal, everyone has an "oh shit" moment at some point but most people have a chat about it, and carry on. Either your DH is depressed and so is lashing out at you or he is a massive twat who wants to make sure he has to do nothing when the baby arrives and is paving the way for that by striking fear in your heart. You need to decide which one it might be.

Either way, you're both grown ups who have decided to bring a new life into the world. Depressed or not you both have to face up to the responsibility you've taken on. He needs to either get out and stop acting like a spoilt brat or actually do something about his feelings by seeing a GP or chatting to someone like you suggested.

He is a father now whether he likes it or not and he can't just wig out like a baby any more.

Good luck with it all.

The truth is that things will change when your little one arrives - they should be changing already. It all depends on how the change is viewed. In some ways its part of growing up and most blokes I know with young children are proud to have the responsibility of caring for little ones. Your dp has yet to experience the feeling of seeing your child for the first time, seeing them smile at you for the first time and these are powerful in helping the negatives of having children seem insignificant.

I don't think it is unusual to be apprehensive about the future. He will either man up when the time comes and enjoy his new role as a father or behave in a way that proper blokes have very little respect for!

I hope for your sake he gets over this soon and gives you the support you deserve!

thank you all for your posts-I am so grateful for all your thoughts & advise, what a great response! to respond to some of the questions-I am 34, he is 3 years younger. we have been together for 2 years and things have been great, so for me it was a case if why wait until I am past 35 - we love each other and you don't know how long it takes, etc etc. Anyway, now I am 19w and having the 20w scan next week. I really hope that it helps - the 12w scan did help make him more with it for a while and maybe now that you can see so much more that will do the trick?! (either that or he really will run a mile). I think dadsnet sounds a great idea and will suggest it to him - he really needs to get over this idea he is alone. I might buy him a book too! Basically he is not a very career-minded person, who loves travelling, and his great fear is that he will be 'forced' to give up travelling and start to become obsessed with money, a bigger car, blah blah blah once baby is born - despite me trying to reassure him that is not what I am about-and we are even now making travel plans for next year. in the past he made a mistake with a previous partner where he 'let' her stop him from going travelling and he is clearly angry with himself for that still. But that's several years ago and clearly has nothing to do with me - he only told me the other week. so a mix of stuff from the past and a fear of responsibility (and, I think low self-esteem) is the big problem here....nice bag of goodies to battle with! but at least now i have some ideas about what i can do to try and sort this mess out.

Do bear in mind that it's not, actually, the end of the world if you have to finish your relationship with this man. Of course he may well just be having a panic at the reality of imminent fatherhood and may settle down and be an excellent father.
But what you really need to avoid is letting him take hold of the idea that it's up to him whether or not your relationship continues, that he can make you prioritize pleasing him by threatening to leave: unfortunately a lot of shitbag men only start behaving horribly when the first baby arrives as they expect to be the most important person in their partner's life and to be indulged and deferred to all the time. SO when a new mother is understandably preoccupied with a baby and the man has to wait his turn and even, you know, make some effort to take care of his partner and child, some men turn into total arseholes.

He sounds very immature to be honest. Realistically, having a baby does completely change your life. You have a new vulnerable needy person to look after and he or she takes absolute priority. He needs to get his head around that now as best he can and basically stop worrying about travelling and cars. It sounds to me like he is thinking of fatherhood in completely abstract terms - he's not thinking of his own baby whom he will love and want to look after, he's thinking of "a baby" who will be a burden and stop him doing what he wants.

Perhaps you could encourage him to start thinking about a real baby? Talk about names, what he or she might be like, what he or she might grow up to be. How is his relationship with his own dad?

To add, my DH also had some difficulty getting his head around being a father. He wasn't nearly as bad as your DP but he did act a bit like DS was an annoyance when he was born and had a tendency to try to get out of doing things for him. He complained about not having enough time to play computer games when DS was 6 weeks old! Rather than losing the rag with him (which I was sorely tempted to do) I sat him down and basically said "DH you're the dad, you're DH's father, he needs you. It's hard and tiring but you can't let him down." I think hearing you are the dad really hit home for DH - it reminded him that he had a new role that he had to step up to. To be honest it worked better than I'd hoped - I suggested going out today and he said no, he has too much to do around the house! Never in my life would I have thought I'd hear those words coming out of his mouth. So, change can happen but it needs to come from your DP.

He does sound frighteningly immature.

However, assuming you want this relationship to work with him, then in reality he doesn't have to completely give up his travel plans - he can still go travelling, with or without you and baby. He may not want to. But he might. Can you put up with that? can you bear the idea that he may want to be away from you both for weeks/months at a time? But then think about wives/partners of men who are in the army, who go off for 6m tours; or on oil rigs, who are away for weeks at a time. It is different, in that those men are earning money while they are away, and your DH wouldn't be, he'd be spending money - but the time away thing would be the same.

In the end, the best thing to do is wait and see what happens when the baby is born. He may do the whole "falling in love with the baby" thing and not want to be away from him (My DS is 4 now, and my DH hates when we go back to England for 3w without him - he feels that any longer would be too long because he would miss out on too much)

Do get him a book as well. And I hope he steps up to the plate properly as a Dad instead of the eternal teenager he's looking like at the moment.

CailinDana-you are absolutely right. it's all very abstract atm as any mention of this is YOUR baby freaks him out as he can't seem to make an emotional connection in positive terms - like you say, only as a burden. he is a middle child and i think that has something to do with it as well - wheras i am from a small family, he is from a big one so perhaps that makes a dfference to how we approac this as well. thanks

Much sympathy OP, it's v hard. My DH had similar frets when I was first pregnant, I hope our story will be of some help...

DH had originally not wanted children but grown used to the idea as having children came part and parcel with having me! To make things worse, the pregnancy wasn't planned for right then so it was sprung upon him (similar to your DH?). We had several other stressors at the same time too and I had quite a few nuisance symptoms so he admitted he didn't feel 'like a dad', rather that he just had a sick wife now! This was made worse by attending groups/speaking to proud fathers to be which meant he felt guilty and worried even more about his potential feelings when DC arrived (so maybe your DH has a point avoiding other dads right now?). Anything he read was v rose tinted and also made things worse.

It took me a while to realise that DH was not planning to leave and/or have nothing to do with our child, he was just venting his concerns at someone he knew wouldn't judge him like friends or family might. Not easy to listen to, but if I took things too much to heart (eg offering to move out with DC), then this compounded his guilt so I left him to calm down and I offloaded to others most of the time! Things eased as the pregnancy progressed and he could feel kicks/see scans (about now for you?), but I think he was only truly reassured when he met DD. I remember him saying he believed more dads struggled with impending fatherhood than is made known. To reassure you he is a brilliant father now :)

I have read this to DH, who agrees this was a fair summary. He adds that gentle reassurance that I would support him to still enjoy his own interests once DD arrived, taking things one step at a time with no pressure to make extra decisions earlier than necessary (eg when I go back to work should we nursery or childmind) and "generally not thinking/talking about it too much until we had to" helped most!

I really hope this reassures you a little. Try not to make any big decisions just yet, it would be great to tell our other halves to "man up" but if this is his biggest worry that might just inflame things. Could you try to invest in some bonding couple time and see how things pan out after a couple of weeks? Offload here as much as you need to, PM me if it will help.

Thinking of you

Sorry, v long post!

Thank you for sharing your story Tinwe, that really helps!

To an extent, lots of women feel anxious, resentful and unsure if they've made the right choice during pregnancy and early motherhood as well. It's not actually wicked to have mixed feelings about such a major change in your life (though for women who are unhappy during pregnancy it's a lot harder because you get a lot of bullshit about how you are fulfilling your destiny by becoming a mother and there must be something wrong with you if you are not ecstatic...). If your H is an otherwise lovely chap who has always treated you well and done his share of the caretaking within the relationship, cut him a little slack, but if he's always been a bit of a prick, prepare yourself for having to get rid.

I think it's normal to be a bit scared, seems your dh is just venting this at you a bit.

The reality isn't as bad - wasn't for me anyway! It's possible to be a great parent, and have a great life. He is quite possibly underestimating just how he will feel about his child too.

I would just encourage focusing on the positives of parenthood and make an agreement now to support each other through the tougher bits, and to enjoy together the nice bits.

If he keeps on 'blaming' you for getting pregnant quickly that's just silly. It can and does happen immediately but for some people it takes years of contraception free trying. You just never know - you weren't to know. I think this daft blaming of his is just borne of the parenthood panic in general though.

The only thing I would add is do really decide what's happening now don't ignore the situation i've just had my 3rd dc she is 2 weeks old and despite being in a very supportive relationship now (my dh was pretty useless with out 1st but has learnt) it's still bloody hard work physically and emotionally.
You are in a very vulnerable place right now and you don't need this crap is he going to get cold feet every time life gets tough. If this was an unplanned pregnancy i'd be cutting him a lot more slack but he agreed to a baby you don't get to change your mind at 20 weeks and if you do it's just tough. I had many wobbles during my 3rd and unplanned pregnancy.

Do try and sort it out rather than waiting to see what happens.What is his
suggestion? Does he want to leave you? Does he want you to get rid of the baby?My guess would be that he wouldn't want either but he will use it as a stick to beat you with every time he wants to do something like a trip away you'll feel guilty for making him stay because he didn't want the baby or a night out etc. I would stay strong and be firm he needs to step up or let you know now. Completely agree with SGB, you may find you would be better off on your own than him pissing about when you have a new baby.

How are things now *Basse"?

My DH was like this when i first fell pg. We were married and trying but like you not expecting to get pg so quickly (on first go). He basically had a mini meltdown saying he wished we had spent more years together (we had been together for 5 before we married) without a child, that he was terrified about being responsible financially and otherwise for a 'family' and that he was very unhappy that he would no longer be able to afford a "fast car or expensive golf clubs" (WTF!). I was devastated. I wanted my DH to wrap me up in his arms and tell me he couldn't be happier (perhaps with a tear in his eye).

Well after a week or so of making me cry. I suggested we go and visit his parents and i basically told his mum what was happening. His mum talked about all his fears with him and he was a little reassured. But my pregnancy was not smooth (Hyperemesis) and it was not kittens and roses that's for sure.

When DS was born DH was completely overwhelmed (in a good way) and wept as he was handed our baby for the first time.

He is a mediocre father but improves everyday as DS gets older and more playful. He always tells me how much he loves DS (usually when i have just got DS to sleep). When we argue or when he is very stressed or feeling left-out, DH will occasionally say although he loves DS dearly it has seriously damaged our marriage (but although our lives are harder, i think DH is being dramatic).

I think things and people don't always go the way you think they will.

Good Luck

flowerbee-if my dh spoke about any of our children like that he would be out on his fecking ear

op-sorry but your dh sounds like an immature twunt. He is basically having a hissy fit because poor didums he wont be able to do what he wants anymore-eh tough. It called parenthood and it entails putting someone else-your child-first

How convenient that he has just told/threatened you with the story of the ex who "stopped him" doing what he wanted-implying you too may be an ex if you try the same?.
I would be having short,sharp,loud words with him to get the feck over himself asap.

My DH was very down and negative when we were expecting our 3rd DC, who was an accident. He felt that although a new baby would be loved and lovely, we were too old to have another baby, it would affect us seriously financially, might have a bad affect on the older DCs etc. Neither of us would have even considered an abortion in our situation so to me it was pointless moaning. He also said that he had no one else he could talk to so I got it all. I ended up having mild antenatal depression, which I mainly put down to his attitude, combined with the hormones and my natural anxiety of course.

Everything is fine now. He adores DC3 every bit as much as he does the other two. Although he still does what I call "Mournful Maths" - 'When DC3 is 18, I'll be . . . ' Oh so fucking WHAT??

The thing is, I have a theory. I think that when some men (some, ok, not all) feel like this, it's because they actually are being realistic and understand very well what having a baby entails:- staying at home, being responsible, no intrepid holidays, a people carrier instead of a soft-top sports car etc. And I think that these men often end up being the best dads because they always knew what fatherhood would be like. My late BIL was awful when my sister was pg, for much the same reasons, but was a wonderful father.

IMO, the ones you've got to watch are the: "Yayyyy! I'm gonna be the coolest Dad ever, gonna buy him a season ticket to Old Trafford for a Christening present, soon as he can walk we're gonna do the Inca trail like we always said we would - cos there's no reason why having a baby means we can't do everything we want!" type because they can turn out to be the ones who can't take the shock of night feeds and sleepless nights and end up in the pub bleating about how the wife doesn't understand them any more when reality hits.

hi all. after all your helpful advise and sharing your stories i thought i'd give you the good news that the 20-week scan seems to have been a very positive turning point for dp - the fear seems to have gone mostly, and it's no longer all negative only all the time. I am making a huge effort not to obsessively talk about the baby and all the changes all the time as well, which I think has helped. Ballonslayer - I think you may be onto something there! Thanks all. :)

Good to hear it's worked itself out. I had a strange reaction when I was pregnant with my first DS. Despite him being completely planned, I panicked when I became pregnant and it took some weeks for me to come to terms with it. By 12 weeks, things turned around. He's now 4 and I'm completely besotted with him!

Hi Basse I'm glad your dp feels better, and I think you will both probably find that having a baby will not stop you having a life, it will just be a different one.

In my marriage I was the one fretting that we would not be able to do stuff once we had DD, DH was fine with it all, and I was wrong - for example, we went on our first archery shoot when DD was 2 months old, DH carried her in the sling, I shot, the next shoot it was his turn. I was back fencing when she was 6 weeks, competing when she as 3 months - all whilst EBF. Once you're a parent you just tend to get organised and really practical about stuff. OK, so you can't go out for a meal when you want to and you can't see a film when you want to, but those things tend to feel a bit less important. Ditto the state of your house - you just let standards slip, as long as you are all reasonable clean, fed and warm it's OK. Having a baby means your old life goes away, but it ends up being replaced with a new one which is just as good.