Toxic atmosphere - up with baby and so tired

[Ineedacupofteadesperately]

I'm just hoping for a hand hold really. Have been solely doing nights with baby since about 4 weeks (bf)- so about 10bweeks now totally exhausted. MIL visiting soon so H wants house tidied (i am sahm). Constantly criticising my housekeeping. Yes I'm not perfect and I prioritise time with DC over tidying but keep dc clean and in clean clothes do all the shopping cooking etc. I prioritise cleanliness over tidiness, he's most interested in tidiness. He's even suggested maybe I dont need to sterilise bottles for expressed milk and am just creating work (i'm not mad right, this is important?!). He's gone on an OTT rampage of cleaning/tidying today, including rearranging shelves, but doesn't seem to care that older DD has dirty hair. Didn’t push to give her a bath as I know he'd see that as obstructive. Normally he doesn't even pick up his clothes where they drop. He wants things to be tidy but he wants me to do it and doesn't want the day to day bother of picking up after himself. Anyway am so tired but can't sleep after last baby feeding because I feel so miserable and going over in my head the things he's said to me. I keep on justifying myself but really it's not about each event is it? For example, last night i chucked a wet nappy on top of a full (small) bin in the middle of the night and it fell off onto the carpet - today he noticed and was going on about how gross it was and couldn't i even manage to put it in the bin. It was the middle of the night, I'm exhausted, i hadn't noticed. I immediately emptied that bin (and I can't even remember when he last emptied that bin and I do empty it regularly but I don't care about that, I care that he's so horrible to me over something so small). I just want someone to be nice to me and to not be going over this in my head so i can sleep before the baby wakes again.....oh here we go, too late....

Don't stand for this. I know it's hard to have the energy to deal with these things when you are not getting much sleep, but you need to draw a line in the sand here. Your priority at the moment is your tiny baby, (and your dd). This is enough to be worrying about on hardly any sleep; if he wants extra housework doing, then he does it, and he does his best to support you at this very tiring time.

This is what normal, considerate, kind men do.

Tell him your current job is 24/7 and he's welcome to change rolls

Then - bigger off on Saturday so he can clean and look after the kids - see how far he gets!

If he wants tidy then he has to pitch in - either kids or house work or both

He'd have been wearing that bloody bin, if he had spoken to me like that.

Buy him a book that explains how much the effect of pregnancy and childbirth and breast feeding does to a woman. You've grown a human and expelled it from your body. You are now feeding it, you need sleep, food and water to enable you to continue to feed your baby.
Most of all you need cherishing and he needs to shut his whinging gob and pull his weight.

What Clemfandangi said. What an arse he is.

My XH was like this. I always came last and I didn't even see that as wrong. I propelled myself through years of sleepless nights with anger at the unfairness of it all: that was literally the only thing that gave me strength to get out of bed in the end!

There's a red flag in your OP that you should think about: his suggestion that you risk the health of your baby (his baby too, right?) to save you time so that you have more time to follow his priorities. Two red flags in one, there!

Making himself more important than he is and his partner and children less important than they are is a fundamental mindset of abusive people. Prioritising his wishes over other people's safety is one reason people get hurt in abusive relationships.

Just something to keep in the back of your mind. Everyone around me told me it wasn't that bad. What I really could have done with hearing was: actually, it's worse!

You prioritise yourself and your baby, please do this, he needs to grow up, baby's aren't a show off item for in laws etc, they are hard work and if he wants it tidier, he does it!!

Thank you for your messages - the support means such a lot. Seems like H and I aren't talking today. Have to take baby to doctor now (nothing serious) but will come back and reply properly later (hopefully when baby's napping!). And yes, everything takes longer on broken sleep - feel like I'm wading through treacle some days.

Do a flow chart for 24 hours.
From the moment you get up chart every household and child related thing you do. Include what time he gets up, if you have to pick up after him or he tries to give you extra jobs to do write that down as well. If/when you get time for a quick sit down write the length of time down.
Then roll it up and shove it up his arse sit him down and go through it with a fine tooth comb. Be calm and firm. You will not be risking your health anymore in order to pander to his unreasonable whims. Either he starts to help or his precious mummy will show up to a less than perfect house with a shattered and upset wife and she'll want to know why won't she?

Unfortunately, he'll probably just point out the things she could have been doing instead of creating the flow chart...

It's a set of deep-seated beliefs that he probably isn't aware he has: that he is more important, that he should make decisions, that she should keep the house tidy, that looking after babies easy and not tiring and so on. You can't teach that out of him. Especially not if you're that wife who he believes should defer to her husband...

He sounds like he actively dislikes you and has no respect for you. He sounds like an entitled arsehole and your life would probably be easier and would definitely be much happier without him in it.

How is your relationship with your MIL? Could you ask her for help in persuading her son to help you out more? If her opinion is that important to him...

After all, she was a new mum once too and must know how tiring it can be.

How are you today, op?

Sorry you are going through this. The lack of sleep is a killer. Can your health visitor or midwife have a word in his ear. I remember my midwife telling me off when my house was tidy and telling me to sleep when your baby sleeps. You could write him a letter telling him how u feel. That might get through to him. Good luck and take it easy.xx

What is he currently bringing to the relationship OP? Only you can know if this is a temporary thing or if this is who he really is. If it's the latter I would tell him to leave. You can earn as much as him and you do all of the housework and childcare anyway.

tell him to stop acting like a martyr and a prick.
who is he to judge you when he can't even be arsed picking up or cleaning after himself?

you're a sahm - not an employed housekeeper/cleaner/cook/nanny etc.
Unless he helps out on a daily basis then he can pay for someone else to give you a hand if he wants things done to his standard.

Considering you are the one whose having to deal with all the physiological changes and need energy for that - you will prioritise that over housework.

When his mum gets here, and he starts making a big fuss out of anything, i'd just look at mil and roll my eyes . call him out on his dickishness. he can always go live elsewhere if he isn't happy at home.

Thinking of you OP and hoping you're getting at least some sleep.

Was he like this when your DD was born?

Reading your post reminds of my own situation when my DS was born. It took me a while and a lot of great advice on MN
to clearly see he was an abusive arse and I could never forgive how he treated me on mat leave and beyond. I left when DS was almost 3 and the relief was and is immense.

I hope he gets his head out his arse and sees what an entitled prick he's being, and turns it around big time. You deserve no less. But if he doesn't then please don't waste your life and precious time with your DS on this horrible man.

I will never forget when my ex-'D'H didn't strap our DS in his car seat because he was in such a hurry to get home. I didn't realise until we got home and I went to get DS out of the seat and he wasn't strapped in! He denied it and said there must be a fault. Hideous liar. That was a low point and I couldn't come back from that.

I hope your situation works out OP for the best. But don't wait too long if it doesn't

Hello everyone. Thank you so much for taking the time to help me out - your messages of support mean so much, and the messages telling me what an idiot my (D)H is are great too - I think I've been believing everything he's said about me for a while and you're helping me to regain a sense of self & self-respect.

Sorry it's taken a while to post. I wrote a really long post while bf and then baby moved, swiped the screen and deleted it - that was super annoying and sort of sums up my last few days. One step forward and two back....

Anyway, the good news is that (D)H has apologised and told me he doesn't expect me to do all the housework (I managed to remain an adult and didn't say "That's big of you"!). I asked him to phone MIL and tell him how stressed he's feeling about her visit - he did and lovely MIL told him not to do any more cleaning.

I also said to (D)H that I think we need to go to couples counselling. His initial response was that it was too expensive (we also can't really afford a cleaner for those who suggested that, we're just making ends meet barely as I wasn't working when fell pg with DC2 so no mat pay) but I said it might be too costly in other ways not to. He's agreed in principle - so if anyone's had any good experiences with online / skype / telephone couples counselling (preferably cheap!) let me know. Will also look into face to face but DH prefers the anonymity of online / telephone and I get why he feels that way (will also be easier with the baby and hopefully avoid childcare costs).

Tiny - he wasn't this bad when DD was born but looking back that's when things started going wrong. He felt ignored then and I think his resentment has slowly been building since then. For a long time I felt guilty and bought into his theory of how things (and I / maybe all sahm?) should be, but now I'm beginning to realise if I do this he'll never respect me and I'll never 'win' I'll just be giving him the power to act like my boss not my H and decide how I'm allowed to spend my time.

Coldcanary - I was tempted by your suggestion at first but then realised it's a can of worms and treats him like my boss not my H (but thank you for the suggestion, it was sort of the way I was thinking but you and other posters - Clem, Charlotte, everyone has helped me to understand why it wouldn't work). If I did a flowchart that's inviting him to judge what is acceptable use of my time and what counts as leisure time - is sitting bf baby leisure (he acts like it is)? If he did that I'd like to similarly be able to comment on how much time he spends having leisurely lunches or chatting about football with colleagues but honestly I don't want a relationship like that - I want one of mutual trust where we both accept the other needs some downtime but trusts we'll balance our needs with the desire to help each other doing the boring drudgery bits of marriage and parenting.

To be honest I don't give a fig how much time he spends on netflix as long as I feel he participates in family life and parenting and supports me. I've recently found myself getting into tit for tat giving him evidence of what I do and evidence of what he doesn't do and I hate it and I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle as whatever 'evidence' I present it's not enough. I just want to feel like he cares, and recently I've not felt that so often (there's been the occasional lovely day). I remembered how with DD he'd be rushing to make me a cup of tea when bf - this time this just hasn't happened at all. I feel like he just minimises all I've been through with the pregnancy and birth too.

Still, I know - sleep deprived as I am - that I am sometimes super sensitive and have been known to get very upset at perceived slights.

To those who've said I can get back into work, I hope so. I'd been trying before DC2 and finding it hard. When I bring this up with DH he just says 'but you've had all that quality time with DD' and 'you wanted to do it'. Well, yes, but if I end up left in the lurch with no job and no marriage and two DC then I'm a bit stuffed aren't I? It seems the choices I (WE!) made (for me to sah) being the best all round relied heavily on our marriage being and remaining a partnership of equals. To think I used to call myself a feminist......

Thank you all again & sorry this post is so long. Too tired to be concise!

Sounds like you are thinking things through in a very rational way - not easy to do when you are sleep deprived, so well done for that!

Things may improve as the dc get older, but I think you are right to seriously consider going back to work when you can. He doesn't - sadly - sound like a man you can rely on to show empathy and understand your feelings, or to really want a truly equal partnership. I hope I'm wrong on this.

Look after yourself.

Thanks Naice. I hope you're wrong (in the nicest possible way!) too, but we'll see I suppose....

Ineed there's always the option to roll the flow chart up and shove it up his arse if he goes back to bad old ways...
However - being serious, one thing did make me wary - your MIL told HIM not to do anymore cleaning? I hope she's not under the impression that's he's been doing it all & she also told him to get off your back?

Good luck OP. Sounds like your DH is at least listening to you. I'm amazed at the number of men who sulk when a baby that they were only too happy to create comes along and knocks them off their perch, at least for a while! Let's hope he has the insight to grow up and be the DH and DF you all deserve.

Wishing all the best OP, I really hope you can turn it around and be happy!

Is there any way you could express a load and make your DH look after your kids while you go out for the day? I think this man needs a reality check to say the very least. And suggesting that you don't sterilise the bottles is not on.

Working will help you with your confidence and will help to reestablish an equilibrium in your relationship. Or if that doesn't work then you'll be in a much better position if your marriage doesn't work out.

I wish you strength to get through this.

I like your thinking about what you want from a marriage. I hope this is just a temporary blip.

Cold, like your suggestion about the flowchart - i didn't hear the conversation with MIL. DH is much nicer to me generally when other people around (i kniw this is not great) but I'm sure MIL knows I do plenty of housework but honestly don't really care if she doesn't. She's not the interfering type (the closest she ever got was she once told me "I don't agree with everything you do but I do think you're a good mother" ). I suspect she does think I do babies all wrong because apparently all hers slept though from about 8 weeks whereas neither of mine sleep well (though it's a bit soon to judge with baby). Still, I like to tell myself it's because she formula fed hers (nothing wrong with that at all I'd just rather think that than think I am somehow missing some key thing that would get them to sleep - have enough mummy guilt that I'm getting
things wrong without adding to it!) and mine both bf.

Hungry - yes, expressing is tough but yes, good idea and need to work towards that. I do think one day doesn't really give the full picture though. When DH is in full charge of DD she tends to eat sugar all day, not eat anything vaguely resembling fruit and veg and miss mealtimes. Her days with DH are treat days, and it doesn't hurt her but obviously wouldn't be great as a regular thing. DH sometimes does let me lie in on the weekend when baby sleeping - DD is rarely fed when I get up (usually around 9.30am) and has often been watching tv for hours by then. Again, that's fine but wouldn’t work on a weekday. I do feel guilty when I get up and DD not fed though.....Glad you agree about the bottles - I'm not unreasonable and neurotic to insist on sterilisation , right?!

Yes, am really trying to think and plan ways to get back to work asap. I do think fondly of my work days and going to the bathroom in peace