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?

so that wasn't the logic at all. midwives have experience.

Isn't the whole point of a doula that they are a female birth companion?

"I don't think it's remotely true that you know what support you need."

The op did know, and considers herself retrospectively to have been right...many women on here are sure enough to spend money on their post-natal support! You didn't know - the OP did.

Having been that woman and needed my mum just hugs to you OP. I needed my mum because my DH is amazing but I needed more than he could do alone, I needed a comfort that was not husbandly, I don't feel one iota of guilt for openly admitting as a grown woman I needed my mother to help me with the coolness of one who's been there and the compassion of a mother for her daughter. DH just hurt that I was suffering in a way he couldn't relieve.

From my DH - He feels OPs Dh is a grade A @sshole. He felt pressures of new parenthood and being confined with my mum who can be a bit much but everything he did he did for me and our child. He hated every second he couldn't make it all stop, got frustrated at his mil for not 'doing something about it' but he also kept his tongue between his teeth because he realised he was tired, fraught and emotional too and was probably being a bit prickly. About 3 days after she left he said I really miss her being here. He would walk over burning coals for us and one way he showed that was doing this very important thing for me with good grace. He thinks it's appalling, controlling and selfish behaviour and said I would have walked out with babe in arms had he showed that level of disrespect for me.

On the flipside when I was better enough to sustain myself and baby I was able to fill some of his paternity leave with daddy days, some congratulatory celebration of new dadship and show my gratitude for what he did for me. Now it's an even split right down the middle. When you are in a relationship you should be leaning on each other - the one who needs it most is supported and then they feed that back into the other. I needed help and he got the person most able delivered to my door. I was able to repay that kindness with others. He has needed equal 'sacrifices' from me over the years and I'm sure we'll stay on the replensishing merry-go-round. Your Dh dropped the ball, majorly. He needs to confront his actions, recognise that (regardless or right or wrong) they hurt you significantly at a very vulnerable time and apologise for not thinking of you at all. The mother and sustainer of his child that he wants so much to be involved with. If you feel he got caught off guard and freaked out like a spoiled brat ok, he needs to man up, own up and you can move on.

I see some red flags - the introduction of a child is known to influence DV behaviours...think on it. Maybe from the safety of your mum's home.

I find it a really weird that people would consider the notion that a woman might want the support of her mother in labour and postpartum to be childish or immature in some way. The mother daughter bond is lifelong - it doesn't evaporate when daughter turns 18 or leaves home! I left home at 17 but have always been supported in my independence by my mum, and her help after baby arrived was invaluable. I guess a lot comes down to family dynamics. I'm lucky that my mum's one of the most relaxed people on earth and that my husband and her have a good relationship. She didn't make it for the birth of DD as that was earlier than expected, but afterwards she was great. She took over a lot of the domestic stuff - shopping, washing up, cooking so that DH and I could rest, catch up with ourselves and bond with DD. She encouraged DH to care for DD, to trust his instincts - and kept telling him what a great job he was doing. This is all healthy, normal stuff that families share and if my little girl wants the same when she's a new mum then I'll be there to offer whatever help she needs. If she prefers space or to go it alone with her partner then I'll respect that.

Well it sounds as if OPs mother wasn´t happy to take a backseat & do the domestic stuff & neither Op nor her husband felt able to tell her to step back.

Ops husband handled it very badly, unfortunately, but I´m not sure if he should be written off as abusive!

Mitsouko I agree it's not childish to want your mum to help out, I live in an extended family arrangement and so my mum is very much part of our lives. I think here, though, there seemed to be an odd dynamic, with the husband being criticised for being too keen on his new baby (how is this actually possible?) as well as a bit excluded by MIL getting in there first. Surely if you are going to have as many members of the family involved as possible, you have to be quite sensitive to their roles and not push anyone out.

Having said that, he was a grade-A arse as well, and I would find that hard to forgive. I found EdlessAllenPoe's words very sensible about how you can move on if your partner stuffs up big time.

Neither my DM nor my MIL breastfed. So they had no more experience or training than my DH. Just saying.

NicNoc, are you really advocating that the OP should leave her DH? And not just leave but to go to her mother? Separating the DH from his DD? After the OP has herself said that he's never given her cause for concern before and is being loving and supportive now? And knowing that the DM was the flash point in the arguments between DH and OP? Really?

I think someone who "considers her retrospectively to have been right" who is a ball of rage at her "prick" of a husband and who is talking in apocalyptic terms about the state of her marriage might want to revise that opinion.

Being "right" while you hold onto bitterness and refuse to see that anyone else might have a valid pov isn't really a great place to be.

If her DH needs to understand that she wanted her Mum, she needs to understand that fulfilling that want put him under extra pressure and made life harder for him.

Or she can keep on feeling entirely justified that everything was handled perfectly and it all would have been fine if her DH was not a bastard.

If she wants to get over this and move on with her new family, I suggest oprion 1.

EdlessAllenPoe morebeta - i'm guessing you didn't need any help breastfeeding then.

What actual help can she provide with the breastfeeding? Hold the boob?! From my experience breast feeding involves 2 people on a practical level, mum and baby. The other help a woman needs is someone to fetch glasses of water, comfy pillows etc. Jobs perfectly able to be carried out by a husband.

I had to express all my milk . . . now THAT could of done with a second person due to the amount of times the baby would wake whilst I was half done! It was a nightmare! Add in washing pumps, bottles, sterilising and sorting out the milk into storage bags, it was extremely hard.

NicNocJnr I see some red flags - the introduction of a child is known to influence DV behaviours...think on it. Maybe from the safety of your mum's home.

Yes you are right, swearing is akin to domestic violence! FFS!

The OP said that when her husband shouted and swore at her in the middle of the night as she was trying to feed their baby that she was frightened. She hasn't said that anything has happened in the mean time (i.e. that he has recognised he was out of order and at the very least apologised.) Are folks here saying it's perfectly tickity boo for a new mother to be frightened of her husband?

It comes across that the response of her husband to the situation was frightening and shocking to the degree that it's led her to re-think her feelings for him. I guess she's supposed to just suck that up and get on with things as well.

There do seem to be alot of people here of the "I wasn't a big baby who needed my mum/my mum didn't help me and I survived/I'm alright jack you should be too," persuasion who are projecting their own experiences on the situation rather than offer any genuine support to the OP.

I only hope the OP can see through this and hear the words of those who are genuinely concerned for her welfare and that of her child.

Yes they are.

And I would be willing to bet all the money in my pocket (£2.73 ) against all the money in yours that every single person on this thread has sworn in a manner that could be construed as abusive at some point in their lives under provocation and/or extreme stress.

poopoo there are all kinds of help you can render. if you have a baby who is difficult to latch, and a mother who is pained sitting/standing particularly..emotional support is particularly invaluable (i.e. soothing and saying these things usually work out, it is difficult,etc etc .. ) - doesn't sound like the ops DH was abounding with that does it?

i think also athing is right that a site such as MN can be a real help, or over the phone help - but a new mum in first week after birth may be too shell shocked to access even this.

Baby blues feelings can make you feel you aren't worthy of the help, and 'not want to be a trouble to anyone'.

The OP has said he's been fine since. None of us know whether that includes an apology or not.

my fur year old often plays fancy dress, gets her clothing tangled up tighter than a straight jacket , and then - if i offer to untangle the Gaudian tot - will shout I don't NEED help!!

asking for help is sooo childish, after all.

But I agree that whether or not a particular person wants or needs support from her mother is a red herring. Some do, some don't. Let's move on.

I know it sounds glib but when you have a small baby all problems get massively magnified.

It will improve.

NicNoc, are you really advocating that the OP should leave her DH? And not just leave but to go to her mother? Separating the DH from his DD? After the OP has herself said that he's never given her cause for concern before and is being loving and supportive now? And knowing that the DM was the flash point in the arguments between DH and OP? Really?

In response to this - No. I wasn't. At the time with the info I had seen (started typing then got called away, things progressed, more info was given) I personally would have taken the time to think on the whole scenario (which is much more than is ever written in these posts and encompasses loads more intricacies unique to the OPs relationship) and whether I was scared, if I was worried this would escalate because NEITHER of us was able to deal etc if I needed to take some time to get sorted and whether it would be appropriate to do that in neutral territory with DH coming as often as he wanted but not lving in close confines where it is really, really easy for things to go too far and get to a point of irretrievable breakdown. I never advised leaving him. If she's in a better place now this development supercedes old advice doesn't it?
By all means load up with all your rightous indignation but sometimes discretion is the better part of valour and walking away so you can meet around a neutral table to get everything sorted out is better than ripping chunks out of each other because of simmering resentment. One behaved badly and doesn't have the balls to apologise so gets defensive and justifies everything, it pisses the other off so it starts spiralling down the pan. I don't want to deal with that shit ever let alone with a new baby. I mentioned the DV because it was a pretty cunty reaction - I'm sorry but that's not right- and it's worth being vigilant so you can put on the brakes before someone gets pushed too far.

And no - I've never, ever spoken to my spouse like that, ever. Nor has he ever spoken to me with that level of vitriol and disprespect. We have had some pretty shitty times and large issues to deal with but we have never resorted to that kind of appalling behaviour. Everyone is different but I have my line in the sand - as DH does. I will not be belittled, bullied, disrespected or subjected to vileness, particularly in my own house. If I had done anything to ''deserve'' that level of repulsive conduct then I would leave permamently. If I hadn't then I would still be leaving. If you don't agree, fine, different strokes for different folks - but if I had been confronted with that he would have been heaved out into the night until he could keep decent control of himself and speak to me like an adult. After an apology of course. Everyone gets angry but not everybody feels it is ok to behave badly because of it.