Desperately need help to save my marriage with 9 week old baby

[simba86]

Hi everyone.

I am going through a really difficult situation at the moment and really don't know what to do.

My wife and I (married for 3 years, together for nearly 10) are in our late 20's. We are privileged to be blessed with the most beautiful baby girl who is just over 9 weeks old, and we had been trying for 2 years for a baby. We love each other and consider each other true soul mates. Our lives are very settled and we have alot to thankful for.

But we have a major issue which has come to its head now and is now looking likely to cause the break up of our marriage.

My wife has had problems with the way my mother behaves towards us and her. She feels that over the past 10 years have been numerous occasions where my mother has been manipulative and spiteful towards her. I am an only child who has a close relationship with both my parents. We have lived for the past 10 years some two hours drive away from them and slowly over time our communication and visits to them have disappeared. In fact we have only ever been twice in 10 years to my family home, in comparison to regular visits to her family each year.

The stress of my mothers behaviour has become too much for now to cope with. She doesn't want to see my parents, and wont let our daughter out of her sight. Since she has been born, my parents have spent an our in the hospital with us 2 days after she was born, 30 minutes visit to our home where they had to look at her through our dining room door because she was asleep and 5 minutes with her whilst my wife held her on another visit. Her Mum has been with us for weeks on an off.

She sent an email to my mum expressing how upset she was, to which my mum replied. My wife didnt think that she understood the cause of the problem, so allowed me to speak to my mum, who replied by email again and apologised for hers and my dads behaviour and hoped they could move forward now to a better relationship in the future. But yesterday my dad was out of order with me, which I dealt with and was resolved, but my wife is so upset that this behaviour has happened again, feels they will never change, she can not have a relationship with them, and feels I have to choose to accept they wont be in our lives as much as they should be,or for us not to be together.

I am distraught and on top of that, whilst her mother was with us recently, her mother told me that I didnt care enough for my daughter. Anyone who knows me would say that is the most ridiculous thing that could be said but now my wife tonight has said she agrees with her mum.

My parents are selling their house I grew up in for 20 years and I really wanted to take my daughter home to have a couple of photos with her there which I wont have an oppotunity to do again as the sale completes in a couple of weeks. My wife wont entertain this at all so I was going to go home myself on Saturday. When they offered to drive me back, see the new house they are buying and drop me home to see their Granddaughter, my wife took our daughter drove off and intended to stay in a hotel as she could not comprehend the idea of seeing them. I talked her back into coming home thankfully

I want to save this for the sake of my daughter and our relationship but have hit rock bottom and don't know what to do

[GarlicAugustus]

Simba did not reveal until the end of that one, that his DW is violent towards him.

That changes rather a lot, doesn't it?!

[Catzeyess]

Having read this post and some of your others I actually feel quite sorry for you, you are between and rock and hard place.

If I'm being honest I think both your wife and parents are being unreasonable. Your wife frankly sounds quite over-sensitive and into herself and her feelings, and not willing to accept her part in the break down of the relationship. And your mum comes across as though she doesn't respect your wife's position in your life and although your mum says she is sorry for her behaviour I don't think she has actually made and effort to change it to make things a little smoother, the comment about walking on eggshells suggests to me that she feels she has an intrinsic right to comment on how you and your wife conduct your affairs (and your dad suggests this too with his comments to you) and is not willing to relinquish 'control' for want of a better word. Their advice sounds like it is not requested or called for and they need to back off.

Your mother in law sounds like she is behaving dreadfully over the top if she cannot bare to be in the same room as your parents. I am struggling to see what your parents have done that is dreadful enough to warrent this behaviour.

This situation should never have been allowed to get this far, it sounds like you need to hit the reset button on all sides as 10 years of resentment has been allowed to build up.

Unless your wife and parents can try and hit the reset button and both have some grace to forgive and attempt a civil relationship I think the only thing you can do is pick between them. Either you support your wife in non-contact 100% and do things completely on her terms or you split up and in your contact time your parents can see your daughter as much as you/they like.

It's a horrible sotuati

[Catzeyess]

It's a horrible situation to be in, but ultimately you can't control either your mum or wife and need to stop trying to mediate as it's clearly not working.

[Guiltypleasures001]

Hi op

I think your mother in law needs to but out more and leave the house when you have visitors.

I think you have married your mother somewhat and are at the mercy of a domineering woman and her mother.

It's your child too and if you want to take her out them do so, your being cowed by everyone on both sides. Don't tell your dad any big decisions only after they are completed, and tell him any failures are yours to bare and not his. I think you need to grow a pair with your wife her mother and your family.

Good luck

[OnlyWantsOne]

If the op was a woman posting on here with a young baby and a violent partner... who was banning her from visiting her parents, would you be so ready to tell them to just get on with it and grow a pair ?

Relate probably won't see you if there is violence imo.

Make your wife leave. Keep the baby with you. She can have supervised access. Sort out a good relationship with your mother. Get some real life support. This is what posters would be saying if you were a woman.

[Catzeyess]

Actually I revise what I said, you basically are stuck between two strong willed women, tell them you are not getting involved in either of their dramas and concentrated on being a good dad, husband and son.

Tell your wife she can never see your parents again if she likes but she cannot prevent access to dd

Tell your mum and dad to back off with advice etc and just don't engage with them or tell your wife of the conversations just respond non-commitally to their advice and do what you want.

I feel sorry for you and I hope it works out

[Catzeyess]

Unless your wife is being violent (I didn't see that bit) then I think you need to get the hell out of there and focus on being a good dad

[Catzeyess]

Sorry for the millions of posts. Really hope you can sort out situation

[flappityfanjos]

Violence from the wife changes everything. Everything she's done as reported here could either be the actions of a terrified woman or a deeply controlling one.

Basically, someone here is behaving worse than the OP has described. Either the parents are, and the wife is trying to protect herself and her baby from abuse; or the wife is abusively attempting to isolate the OP from his parents.

OP, if you don't give us the facts, your thread isn't going to help you very much.

[HumblePieMonster]

Maybe the wife and baby need to get away from the rest of them.

[AWombWithoutARoof]

Bloody hell, what a bizarre situation.

Reading the thread, just before I got to the violence bit, I was still totally unclear as to exactly how the mother and DIL were upsetting each other.

Then I came to the conclusion that maybe both were drama queens who were loving the idea of being queen bee in the life of the manchild with a medical condition.

Now I'm wondering whether actually the mother is actually rather normal, and behaves strangely (tactless etc) around her DIL because the DIL is unhinged.

[PenguinsHatchedAnEgg]

Hang on Simba. This is just like your previous thread, with slightly changed details and the drip feed of violence and few specifics. Did you actually read the last, 1000 post iirc, thread?

[PenguinsHatchedAnEgg]

Hang on Simba. This is just like your previous thread, with slightly changed details and the drip feed of violence and few specifics. Did you actually read the last, 1000 post iirc, thread?

[BranchingOut]

I can't make head nor tail of this.

My only thoughts are:

You need to calm down on the drama - no emails, don't phone people, don't tell people the details of conversations you have had with other people.

Focus on your baby, your wife and, presumably, your job.

Put your baby's needs right at the top of the list. She is 9 weeks old and should be bonding with your wife and with you, together. It is 100% natural for your wife to not want to let her out of her sight. If you can't go somewhere together eg. your parents' house, then you have to accept that you can't go full-stop. Long journeys in the car are not the best thing for her either.

Oh and calm down, again.

[EarthWindFire]

If the op was a woman posting on here with a young baby and a violent partner... who was banning her from visiting her parents, would you be so ready to tell them to just get on with it and grow a pair ?

I agree. Everyone would be telling them to take the baby and run for the hills.

[oldgrandmama]

I am actually worried about the baby. If OP is telling the truth and his wife is violent in the way he describes, then I'd be very worried for the baby's safety. Sounds as though the wife has a very short fuse. Perhaps he should concentrate more on this that what seems to me a very involved, incoherent and - yes, as other posters have remarked - rather 'drama queens' feud between wife, her mother and OP's parents. To me, that's the lesser problem, albeit a distressing one. But the baby's safety, given the volatile nature of the mother, is another matter.

If I hadn't read about OP's wife's violence, then of course I wouldn't dream of relegating OP's wife v. ILs problems to second place.

[Twinklestein]

OP, I've just read your other thread. Posters here need to read this post of yours to understand your current situation fully:

The posts have worked almost like therapy for me thereafter in allowing me to express my concerns that I have regarding my wife’s behaviour, and particularly now that we have a baby on the way...

There have been several questioned asked asking for more specifics, so let me cover a few. I don’t really want to divulge too much for my own identity sake (I trust you can appreciate this), but appreciate why these questions have been asked.

How, why and when did she “hurt you physically” – there have been a number of occasions. All of them boil down to the fact that she has not been able to cope with a difficult situation, be that at work, personal life, things I have done that haven’t pleased her (nothing catastrophic btw, just general relationship ups and downs). But what she has learnt, and I have let her, ultimately down to me not wanting to live my life without her, is that she can take out her anger on her loved ones, without too many repercussions. I say this because whilst she has never been physically abusive to her Mum, the things she has said to her are unbelievably horrible and distasteful. But she knows that we will always be there for her, and we will be because we love her.

Hurt me physically – examples include punching, kicking, using objects to hit me with, throwing an iron at my head. The other day she knocked me over with an open car door….something she knew would happen if she reversed as she did….outside of my place of work.

Irrational driving – in addition to the above, she once decided to stop on the slip road down to a motorway. Not on the hard shoulder, on the road, because she was angry with a situation in her life at the time. It was on a complete blind spot for people driving down that road and the only reason we weren’t hit was to this day a blessing from god. More worrying though, not long ago, she again got angry and decided to drive through a red light, weave in and out of cars before pulling over and demanding I get out of the car. It was this incident which lead me to going to the doctors about her behaviour. She was 20 weeks or so pregnant at this time. It was one of the hardest choices had to make as I was unsure of what the consequences could be for all of us. The GP has supported her by arranging counselling and to help her with her very occasional suicidal thoughts...

...no I haven’t told the full details of what goes on to my parents. Only my closest friends, who I mentioned in an earlier post have been unbelievably supportive although desperately trying to see that I shouldn’t be putting up with behaviour like this. I wouldn’t tell my parents for the fear of what they would do or say, although they know she can be irrational at times they have no idea of the full extend to this

And before you say “Why on earth are you still with your wife”, or “Why do you tolerate such behaviour”…. I want you to know that if I was reading somebody else saying these things….I would be asking the same questions.

Until you walk in these shoes it’s impossible to understand. I love my wife so dearly that I cannot imagine my life without her…and now our baby. I have tolerated this behaviour because I know that she has a Jekyll & Hyde character. Our highs are unbelievable, and our lows ridiculous to anyone from the outside. I have often wondered if the grass is greener elsewhere.

But I fear now that my baby could be put in a situation I would not dream of wanting someone close to me to be in. Maybe I am worrying about something that won’t happen, but after 10 years and many milestones which I would hope would help get rid of Jekyll, or Hyde (I never know which is the bad one!) it hasn’t happened yet.

The line I have for my wife to cross before I think what she has done is unreasonable has been pretty far out of my eyesight, but now the baby is involved, I am instinctively feeling that line is hurtling towards me. And that is a really scary thought when implications of this are considered.

[Twinklestein]

OP you need to call this number for men who are victims of dv:

0808 8010327

You also need to go and speak to your GP about your wife's behaviour, because there are child protection issues.

And you need to call 101 and talk to the police about this.

I know this is scary, but you have to do this for the sake of the baby.

It's sounds as if your wife is not mentally well, and she needs help before she hurts you and the baby.

[oldgrandmama]

What Twinklestein just said ^ OP's wife sounds dangerous.

[EarthWindFire]

I agree with the above posters. You need to get yourself and your baby to safety.

[wellcoveredsparerib]

Before I read about your previous post I thought your wife sounded controlling and very self absorbed. After reading the extracts on here from your other thread, I think she sounds dangerous. Is she getting any treatment via GP yet, or just on a waiting list. There is a child protection issue given her extreme behaviour when under stress. You need to act to ensure your child is protected.

[flappityfanjos]

Christ, OP, that quoted post is scary. You are being abused. And in fact we can understand, because the way you say you feel - you love her, you can't imagine life without her - is EXACTLY what abused people say all the time here in Relationships. It's practically a script. It's what happens when someone is conditioned for years to accept the abusive partner's behaviour. It takes people time to reach the point where they can leave. But you cannot carry on living like that, not with a child. You just can't.

If she reacts with violence and dangerous driving to normal life stresses, how is she going to react when the baby screams and screams and won't stop? The calmest and most stable of us struggle with that. I am alarmed.

[PenguinsHatchedAnEgg]

I honestly would recommend people read the whole of the previous thread.

[HumblePieMonster]

who has that much life to spare, penguins? but its clear to me that he's a little boy with a problem - and the problem isn't his wife.
i read the previous thread when it happened, though, so i'm not being totally dismissive of your point, and don't want to be rude.

[EhricLovesTheBhrothers]

It's not as easy as advising him to leave and take the baby is it? This is a 9 week old baby. He will have to prove she is unfit before getting awarded sole residence and that's not likely. OP is in a real bind.