Worried about fiancé's attitude to pregnancy

[Brouhaha9]

Hi all, I've been with my fiancé for 4.5 years. He is very kind, sweet, and honest and we both always knew we wanted kids when we were married and have talked about it. We're due to get married in September and over the past number of months I've noticed a really horrible attitude towards how I will be when I get pregnant. I feel that he wants the child when it comes out at the end but is dreading having to deal with a crazy hormonal lady in between. It's a side I've never seen in him and I am genuinely worried I won't get the support I need from him when I need it most. Examples:

We talked about when we would start trying for a baby. I wanted to start as soon as we were married - I am excited to start our family and we're in a good position financially and have just bought a house. He said "not until a year after we're married, I want to enjoy being married for a while without having to deal with you being all hormonal for 9 months". Obviously I found this hurtful and told him so but he didn't seem to see what he said wrong. If he'd said he wanted to enjoy our married life together before the stress of having a newborn I'd understand but he put the emphasis on me being hormonal as the thing he wanted to avoid. I'm also 31 and while I still have plenty of time I don't know why we need to wait as we will have been together almost 5 years by the wedding.

Our neighbours in our new street have the cutest dog. I've always wanted a dog and suggested getting a puppy at some stage. He said "No way. When you're pregnant I'll have to do all the work". What is that supposed to mean? Is he going to resent having to do the odd extra chore when I'm 9 months pregnant and struggling to get up?

Here's the big one. We went to my best friend's house for dinner on Saturday night. We were talking about the wedding and babies came up. My friend asked about baby names and if we would use Irish names (I'm Irish and he's Scottish - all my family have very Irish names). I said I would love to, he said no way. I said we'd have to discuss it, and my friend commented that she thought it was sweet that her dad let her mum choose all of the names because of all she'd gone through with the pregnancy. My other half's response "yea but what about the man who's had to put up with the c*nt for 9 months" and gestured to me. Everyone at the table fell silent and my friend's boyfriend said "That's not on". I was humiliated.

What do I do? I've been really shocked at this behaviour and when I confronted him he brushed me off as though I was exaggerating. We're due to get married and start a family but I'm really genuinely worried.

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

What do you want to achieve from such a conversation with him and what do you think his reaction will be?. My guess is that he will go completely on the defensive or even accuse you of exaggerating (again). What then for you if he does that?.

He's already humiliated you in front of your friends, there is nothing to rescue and or save here now. You are seeing the real him. Look at his familial background OP, what are his parents like?. What sort of example did they set him?.

[DrMorbius]

Brouhaha9,
Not wishing to be picky on Meerkat's post but actually he is only sorry that other people have called him out on his actions towards you, he wasn't even sorry then as you said when I confronted him he brushed me off as though I was exaggerating. So clearly he still doesn't grasp the situation.

I am not a LTB type like some on here, but I do think you need to take a break (from him) step back and have some time to assess your relationship, and your compatibility.

[theDudesmummy]

I would second the concern about the sterotyping of pregnant women as some kind of "hormonal" mess. This is mysogynistic trash and should really be knocked on the head. Unfortunately it is perpetrated by both men and women it seems. I am sure many women have health or emotional problems in pregnancy, for all kinds of reasons, and need extra care and help, but this "raging hormonal" myth is not in any way inevitable. I had nothing of the sort, neither did a great many women I know. Everyone will get a bit more tired near the end of pregnancy of course, and everyone appreciates some extra love and care (and food!) when they are busy growing a new life inside them, that goes without saying. But it is a normal and natural part of life and most people just get on with it.

Stereotyping women in this way is unhelpful. The OP's boyfriend sounds like a prize dick, but I don't think it is useful to perpetrate this myth in any way. He should be out of the pictre becase he is an abusive arsehole, not because the OP is inevitably going to have some "hormonal" probem, who knows whether she will or not?

[EhricLovesTheBhrothers]

Indeed. I still managed to maintain my relationship like a normal person and hold down my responsible job whilst pregnant, and both my XH and my good friends still seemed to want to spend time with me so I musts have been ok. I remember feeling a bit weepy occasionally at soppy programmes and I was definitely uncomfortable and a bit moany at times but I was basically still just me.

[trackrBird]

The earlier comments would have made me uneasy, as they did you, Brou.

But Saturday night dinner would have been the last minute I spent with him.

Whatever he's been before - or whatever he seemed to be before - the man who gestured to you, and spoke so sneeringly, is the man you have now. It's time to move on.

[Sigmunda]

It's not about the word cunt or about whether 99% of the time he is a really nice bloke and has had a really nice normal upbringing.

It's the fact that these hints about his feelings about you being pregnant are just indicitive of his deep rooted attitude towards women. While you're living together, planning a wedding, and both working and on an equal footing, it's really easy for this to not come to light, he probably doesn't even know he's a mysoginist himself, but pregnancy changes all that.

My XH used to call himself a feminist! Ha! But a few counselling sessions in and his lack of respect towards women came to the forefront. Not for any reason in particular, just that he grew up in a family of men and his mum ran around after them all and he was actually an entitled twat who was very, very afraid of anything that might change his comfortable life or displace his position at the centre of the universe.

This might not be your DP, but I promise you OP, it's not uncommon. Please look after yourself because when the chips are down, a man like this won't.

[Sigmunda]

And to say you might need looking after when you are pregnant, is not perpetrating a myth about helpless, hormonal pregnant women.

Yes, pregnant women crack on with life all the time and if you are lucky enough not to have any complications or negative side effects, you will do just that. But the fact is having a child can be daunting, it changes your body and puts you in a weaker position in terms of finances and independence. But how will you ever express these fears or be supported through them if you are just the "hormonal cunt" in the corner?

I'm really sorry if I'm ranting, I don't usually, but your DP has made me a little cross!

[Mide7]

OP to give you another side of the argument, rightly or wrongly.

I tried my hardest to be supportive while my partner was pregnant and hopefully I was. I never behaved like your partner but it never really seemed real to me and perhaps I could have tried to learn more about pregnancy and things to support in that way. I was ridiculously scared tho, for my partner, for my unborn child and selfishly for myself. I've always known i wanted kids but didn't feel ready at the time.

My daughter is almost 18 months now and it's the best thing to have ever happened to me. I feel all the things I'm supposed to feel I do and have never known anything like it. As soon as she was born, i changed. I even gave up playing Xbox online!!!

I'm not trying to persuade you to stay with him, all I am saying is. Talk to him, he could be behaving like this through fear and while that doesn't excuse his behaviour, it could go some way to explaining it.

[expatinscotland]

Yes, talk to this person who has already shown you huge disrespect and is already dictating your life to you. From a guy who calls his partner a cunt.

[Joysmum]

There is a big difference between living through a difficult pregnancy and expecting one.

[Mide7]

Lol so that makes my point of view invalid expat and you wouldn't want an explanation of his behaviour because he's a misogynist?

[MrsHenryCrawford]

If he thinks coping with a pregnant woman is going to be difficult, I'm not sure how he is going to find life with a newborn!

Apart from him using the c word which is vile, I would be concerned about him being over influenced by his friends. Does he listen to you at all?

[expatinscotland]

I wouldn't want an explanation for a person who treated me like this, no, regardless of gender. Because I wouldn't want to procreate with anyone like this. I wanted a man, not a teenager. My h was 24 when DD1 was born and really wanted a family and was mature enough to speak up about what he was feeling, like, you know, an adult. I do the same for him, because we respect each other and to us, adult love is respect.

I'd expect someone I was married to to talk to me, not say, 'Well, next year at least' or 'No way you are giving her/him an Irish name' or make out like he didn't want to have kids because I'd be a hormonal cunt.

[Mide7]

Fair enough expat and I don't want to derail the thread again but people mature at different rates. It's great your H was ready and willing at 24 but doesn't mean that's the way it has to be.

I'm not defending the OP's partner but if it was me I'd want an explanation.

[expatinscotland]

'but people mature at different rates. It's great your H was ready and willing at 24 but doesn't mean that's the way it has to be.'

It's optimal, IMO, to procreate with someone who doesn't see all pregnant women as hormonal cunts or behave like teenagers. But hey, we all make mistakes.

[motherofstudents]

"so my message to you is that we only get one crack at this life thing, Brou, so make it with someone who deserves the child the pair of you created"

OP, if you only remember one thing that has been said on this thread, I suggest it's that. No one knows how life will turn out or how long or short it will be. Don't settle for second best for your baby even before its life starts.

[Vivacia]

I don't think it's helpful to make this thread all about Mide and his views on what it's like to be pregnant or to have a husband who humiliates you in front of friends because he's just maturing a little slower and therefore you should just put up with it.

[DPotter]

Brouhaha
You know it's not just that he called you a 'cunt' but that he called you 'the cunt'. So it wasn't just a throw away remark but it sounds like it's his name for you which frankly I find chilling.

Please don't describe your thinking about the incident as festering as that denigrates your feelings. It is absolutely appropriate that you give this relationship serious thought. And if you do decide to leave (and if I were you, I would leave) there will be grieving and this too will be appropriate. As you will be grieving to the man you thought you knew and the life you thought you would have.

You have been given the gift of seeing what this man is capable of before you marry & have a child together - use it wisely. Think of yourself first and last, not who you may upset by calling things off.

[SelfLoathing]

My other half's response "yea but what about the man who's had to put up with the c*nt for 9 months" and gestured to me.

This is the problem not the pregnancy issue.

You are with someone who called you A CUNT and GESTURED AT YOU like a piece of meat as if you were not even there as he said it. Not said in the fire of an argument; not said as a lashing out response to hurt to him but in a calm moment at a dinner party.

He is showing you what he thinks of you and how he is prepared to speak about you in front of friends. This is your future. Good luck.

What did you do?

If ANYONE spoke to me like that, I would have stood up and looked them directly in the eye and said "I am not prepared to be spoken to like that by anyone and if you think that is an appropriate way to speak to me, you can have until the end of time to work out why it isn't because I have nothing else to say to you". And then I would have left.

If we lived together, I would have gone home, collected stuff and stayed with a friend or in a hotel and the following day, started the process to terminate that living arrangement.

And I'm not joking. No discussion. It's abusive and publicly humiliating and I'll put up with a hell of a lot, but public abuse is not one of them.

[SelfLoathing]

In a lot of ways, humiliating someone like that verbally is actually not that dissimilar to hitting them - in terms of intended emotional effect, actual emotional effect and emotional outcome.

[NameChange30]

OP I read this thread before and have been wondering how you're doing. Hope you can talk to him soon, please do let us know how it goes.

I agree with most people that his comment at the dinner was completely unacceptable, and is a very worrying sign of possible future abuse. But I also realise it must be hard to leave someone over something you hope is a one-off, isolated incident. I don't think it will be, sadly, but hopefully you will be able to get a good indication when you talk things over with him.
I think I would want a sincere apology and a complete change of attitude. Even then I don't think I would ever be able to trust him again - the possibility of him still being an abusive misogynist would be too terrifying.

[creativevoid]

OP your post reminded me of the moment, shortly before I got married, when my fiancé called me a bitch for the first time. I was shocked. I said to him, "you can't talk to me that way!" But I didn't leave, because I loved him, because we had just bought a house, because we were getting married, because, because, because. Of course, he could speak to me that way and he did. And everything pps have written about abuse escalating during pregnancy is true. Fast forward 8 years later and he left the house in a police car after making my life a misery. And I too am a strong, successful woman. Do I regret not leaving then? No, but only because then I wouldn't have my two lovely boys. But I always look back on that moment and think, I should have known then. This man has told you what you need to know. Please listen.

[Bogeyface]

OP your post reminded me of the moment, shortly before I got married, when my fiancé called me a bitch for the first time. I was shocked. I said to him, "you can't talk to me that way!" But I didn't leave, because I loved him, because we had just bought a house, because we were getting married, because, because, because. Of course, he could speak to me that way and he did. And everything pps have written about abuse escalating during pregnancy is true. Fast forward 8 years later and he left the house in a police car after making my life a misery. And I too am a strong, successful woman. Do I regret not leaving then? No, but only because then I wouldn't have my two lovely boys. But I always look back on that moment and think, I should have known then. This man has told you what you need to know. Please listen.

A very powerful post that deserves to be highlighted.

[Coyoacan]

OP, I fear what people are saying here is right and I'm so sorry that all your dreams are turning to dust.
As for pregnant women being hormonal, I wasn't and I don't remember knowing any. But, back in the day, they always said that by upsetting a pregnant woman you are seriously upsetting the baby, so pregnant women do need more kindness.

[NameChange30]

Hi OP, how are you doing? Have you had chance to discuss it with him get? Hope you're ok