I'm starting to wonder why he married me

[JellyNump]

Dh normally works shifts of 3 x 12 hour days and then 3 days off (recently been on a training course of 4pm - midnight, 5 days a week) He phones me in the day when he's on his break and says he misses me and dd but when he's at home, he doesn't sit in the same room as me, he's always engrossed in his laptop or on the phone or texting his work mates. If he comes home and dd is asleep, he picks her up out of her cot and its me who's left to try to get her back to sleep again. Today, while at a friends house, he sat talking to one of them about me, while I was sitting next to them as if I wasn't there and telling him that he actually wants completely different things to what I want and that basically he's going to 'put up with' whatever, so that made feel about < > this big and made me out to be a really selfish b*tch, none of which he's actually ever said to me he wanted.

seems like communication is the issue really. you really do need to do a DR phil here i think.

sit down - set out the ground rules -

this is talking, no blame.

i want you do do some things differently
i am sure you would like me to do things differently too.

i realise and appreciate you work hard
i would like that appreciation in return

when you get home we share the responsability - or this means i work 24 hours and you work 12

i don't want to be your siamese twin. i dont want you to be around me all the time. i understand you need free time. i also need free time.

i am glad you have other interests, it makes conversation more interesting. can we limit the time each of us goes on the computer?

can we switch mobiles off at 9pm?

i would like you to
wash up after a meal.
if you wake baby - to get baby to sleep
spend an hour with me during the day.

i feel like i am a burden to you. and i would like to feel that you not only love me but like me. how can we make this happen?

that kind of thing?

i find talking to dh without kids when he comes in is fab. we sit in another room - only for 10 minutes and both tell each other about our dreadful day.

he is till not here. Thankyou I will print it out
ever hopeful x x x

MIMI1UK - We have been together since July 2003, we got married after 10 months, had ds a year later, he died after 9 weeks and we had dd at beginning of MArch

JN

I am wondering if either of you ever had any bereavement counselling or was offered any such help. SANDS and CRUSE are very good to talk to and I would encourage both of you to talk to them. Men in particular find it very hard to deal with feelings surrounding bereavement particularly when the deceased is their child. Everyone else seems to focus on the Mum in the immediate days thereafter and the Dad is "forgotten". I am wondering if his behaviour is linked to the grief and pain he is feeling. He needs to open up; I feel all his behaviour is just masking the emotional pain he is feeling.

Yes we have, we have TCF literally up the road from us :S