New baby, DH being a prick

[Bigwoop]

Hi there, I'm just wondering if the wise mumsnetters can give me some perspective..

I have a 3 week old baby. She is our first. The birth was tough going and ended with an emergency c.

I had a bad time in hospital what with the tears and baby not feeding/sleeping. My mum, who flew down to London from scotland, stayed with us for a week. I found the emotional support very valuable.

But my (D)H has been awful about her. When she was here he would come into the bedroom, Losing his rag and shouting 'when is your fucking mother going home?'

My mum can be a bit of a fusspot and in his opinion she was lifting the baby without asking him, and he felt she was critical of his parenting. I asked him to put up with it as I needed her. I had post op and baby blues and was/is very vulnerable.

He's all consumed by our child. He would love to grow some tits and feed her too. I think he is resentful that she wants me more than him at the moment.

He doesn't like anyone else holding her.

One night when she was crying and wouldn't settle, he had such a go at me. He told me how much my 'fucking mother' got on his nerves and how she wouldn't be back. He stomped around and made me sob while I tried to latch an angry baby at 3am.

I have made it clear that he cannot interfere with mine or DD's relationship with her grandmother.

But I'm so upset that for that one fucking week, when I was postnatal and sobbing for most of the time, he couldn't put his needs last.

I appreciate that it's a massive upheaval for him too.

I feel so utterly sad and depressed. I love my baby but I feel I never really knew DH and now I'm trapped. I still love him and he can be incredibly loving and affectionate but feel he let me down when I was most in need.

I love my DM. She is all the family I have and I just can't get past how horrible he was and a significant part of my love for him has gone.

What should I do?

Is he usually controlling? The issues around people needing his permission to pick a baby up would drive me to distraction, or not allowing anyone else to hold her.

If it's a one off, fair enough, he was stressed and behaving badly. If he's regularly that controlling then counselling, even if just for you?

I should also add that I think we all put too much emphasis on the first few days and that early bond.
I think bonds are formed through those months and years of child rearing. You never stop developing bonds with your children and husband and these always evolve.
Adopted parents and children have unbreakable bonds and these were not forged in the first few days so dont focus too much on that

A thing Where was 'idiot' used. I must have missed that

Oh hang on the baby is only three weeks old? You might feel a lot better in 3 weeks time OP, but if you don't or if you still resent your dh's behaviour (and I can understand why you would) it might be worth seeking some help.

Are people missing the fact tha this has been posted in Relationships by an exhausted woman three weeks after a traumatic birth? Because a lot of you are treating this like a ranty AIBU thread to get on your soapbox, and you are coming across as insensitive wankers, frankly.

Maybe putting the world to rights is for another thread if you feel that strongly.

Loony you are right. It IS sexist to shove men out of the way because babies are "a womans thing". I read enough tales on here about women being enraged about others assuming childcare is their responsibility and not to be shared...that starts RIGHT at the begining in my opinion and the Father has just as many rights as the Mother in terms of his environment and the early days of baby care.

If my DH didn't want my Mum around at that time then no way would have her there...I never as it happens but then my DH was very hands on and I was GLAD he was. He did all the lifting and bathing and was up with us both in the night....sharing the stress.

It's not controlling to not want your partner's mum to pick the baby up before you do! If my mil had done that, I would have been going spare. And yes, of course she was allowed to hold her.

Op, I would talk to your husband and say that you really felt that you needed your mum there, but that you also appreciate that this made him feel pushed out. And suggest that in future, you will ask your mother for help with practical stuff if needed, but ask her (tactfully!) to leave the parenting to him.

I think you let it go by recognising that he didn't behave in a monstrous fashion divorced from the stress he was feeling and the pressure he was under.

Try to understand how those days felt to him without playing "order of importance" bingo.

You love him, so think about how it was for him.

And be open to the fact that you didn't do everything right yourself. None of us do, so it's not a major concession. :)

You say you needed your mother there, but I don't think you can really justify her behaviour around the baby. You could and should have asked her to let him care for his daughter, particularly once you knew it was upsetting him.

Try to remember who he is, you know him. Instead of making bitchy comments about how he wants to grow a pair of boobs, appreciate his willingness to be involved.

It's hard to look ahead now, but try to stay in the moment and don't focus on the past.

You've all come a really long way in 3 weeks. It's the steepest learning curve I know.

OMG!! You mean I am not alone?! I envy those of you who forgave DH and have moved on. Our relationships have never truly recovered. Also in my experience he will never change. DH is a wonderful father, an absent minded husband and consistently a dick with DM.

I completely agree with snapysnapy. Regardless of how you baby was delivered you need to be surrounded by women, why is it considered completely normal to learn how to look after a baby from books rather than from somebody who did it before?

At 3 am with a screaming baby and sleep deprived and not knowing what to do - who isn't clinging to the edge of sanity and who has not been there?

Mix that with a MIL poking her nose in being helpful it is not a good situation. Don't dwell on that.

I didn't need to be surrounded by women. In fact, it would have been my worst nightmare to have people telling me how they parented. I wanted dh and I to work it out for ourselves.

LeBOF - that's what I was trying to say.

Snappysnappy had given some really helpful practical advice of what helped her in the same situation .

So you did, Cinnabar- I think my eyes were so busy rolling at some of what I was reading that I missed your post entirely

As has AThingInYourLife.

That's OK - I'm dead easy to overlook at the best of times!

That's OK - I'm dead easy to overlook at the best of times!

Very well put by athinginyourlife.

Hi OP, sorry you are having a hard time. 3 weeks after a CS is no fun (had one myself). I hope that in time you will be able to see that maybe your DM seems more than a "bit of a fusspot" to your DH. I would have been beside myself with rage if DMIL had tried to pick up DD before me when she was upset. However, I also understand your need for support. Hopefully all the crazy emotional stuff will fade away and just leave a supportive DM, a loving DF for your baby and a recovered and happy you. It sounds like everyone was trying and failing to be there for your new baby.

Only you know if this is entirely out of character for DH. I personally would forgive him a "your fucking mother" as I hope DH forgives me when his family drive me insane. They decided to turn up before the birth of DD when I explicitly told them not to. I was not nice about them in various conversations so I hope DH is nice and has forgiven me.

"I feel like I've stepped back 60 years with all this talk of "females needing female support"

erm, if my husband wanted help with...golfing, id tell him to go to his brother. because i've never played golf.
if he wanted help with computers, i'd recommend asking my Mum, because i know jeff all about them.
where women need support after giving birth, particularly with BF ..why should they be criticized if they ask someone with some experience in it?

i see a different mysogyny here: "stuff like BF is a piece of piss, a woman with experience in it is not better than a man who just uses common sense..."

some women hire doulas for this kind of support - it is a proper job - but a woman who has been there and done that is going to make a better stand in for the role (if they have a good enough relationship with the mother) than a bloke who hasn't.

gender equality isn't about expecting men to deal with things they don't have any experience in.
good relationships aren't made by expecting your DH to be everything for you.

So by that same logic, all midwives must be mothers? Sack all the male ones, or ones that haven't started their own families?

ok, in terms of leaving those arguments..what worked for me. Practical advice!
Obviously i did marry my then-DP despite him having been an abject prick when DD1 was born ...and am still married. Happy at the moment too...

1. i told him how i felt about it.

this resulted in him telling me felt very ashamed. good.

2. i set a time frame in which i would decide whether to lump or dump.

at the end of it i realized we had too much together to let go, and i was beginning to forgive him. He also did not behave like a prick in this time. he made an effort at avoiding doing/ saying those particular things that concerned me.

3. he made a real effort to be a smashing Daddy and treat my judgment as babies mother as The Last Word.

4. the next time i gave birth, he didn't make any of the same mistakes, and was a good birth partner, and good support in the first weeks. a healing event.

i'm not saying it was easy to get over - because some of what happened destroyed my trust in him - but it happened. He was willing to learn and genuinely sorry - i think that's important.

cinnabar that wouldn't be a man relying on common sense, but n training and experience. also, ididn't specify female doula.

My mother was hopeless at breastfeeding support.

Her experience of feeding 3 children 25 years ago wasn't remotely helpful, partly because it was so long ago, partly because of her fabled perfect breastfeeding nipples :o It was always easy for her.

I got the help I needed getting DD1 to latch on from my aunt who struggled and who had also had a section. She spoke to me on the phone. As did two other aunts and some friends who had done it more recently.

Also MN breastfeeding boards were invaluable.

Despite being at home with my husband and baby and far away from most people I knew, I didn't want for female support.

I don't think it's remotely true that you know what support you need. The first days after your first baby are not about certainty of any kind, but about figuring things out as best you can.

I think it was Amber earlier who said that wanting your mother around was a childish impulse, and I think she had something there. I think it's something you need to do as an adult, independently, not as a child with your own mother in the adult role.