DH doesn't understand sacrifices

[Leslieknope123]

Me and my husband have had a lovely marriage of 3 years (together 5). We have a 5 month old little baby and obviously it has shaken things up! I'm very lucky to not have to work at the moment as we can afford rent from my DH salary. But before the baby was born i was extremely career driven, working abroad and long hours self employed .

I love my baby and im very aware i can no longer do a job with such crazy hours/travel (especially as our baby has needed to go to the hospital often and exclusive breastfed / trying to bottle expressed milk). I know eventually I csn go back to something resembling my job but it was such a big part of me that i know i must give up ... I also havent seem anyone friend wise in months because hospital baby means I cannot go too far from home (many friends are too far for baby to go) and my body (can't go to the gym because he won't be on his own with her see bellow )

My problem at the moment is that my husband just doesn't understand how much of me as a person I'm giving up for the baby. He works hard at work to provide for us but the minute I ask him to do something for the baby that means he gives up something he gets really pissed off. I am very understanding that he's tired and Greatful for how hard he works but he's the same.with even the tiniest things.

For example: he gets really huffy about holding her if I want a 3 minute shower in the evening after her screaming all day. Because he wants to relax and have a quiet evening
Bigger example: he refuses to spend time on his own with her because he want s to relax in his spare time. Hs fine when I'm. Around but I have to be there...

Any advice on how to approach him about this how I'm feeling without sounding like I'm. Constantly nagging or that I don't appreciate him? XxxX

He sounds like a thug. He = man, woman = baby. It's not his job to look after a baby! He's a man, men don't do that stuff. According to him

The thing is you either have the (wrong) perspective that looking after the baby is downtime and therefore he can look after her or he is basically saying you don’t deserve downtime

You need at least some time off

Have you asked him when you get your down time??

Not defending him, but I think it is very difficult for dads when a breastfed baby refuses a bottle. It's easy to fall in to the trap of assuming that the only solution to any problem is to apply a boob. I.e. no matter how much they want to help, they just don't have the tools for the job.

Obviously, that's bollocks. But it's true often enough that it's hard to change the assumption.

You are nearly at the weaning stage. My advice would be to make sure you heavily involve him, so that he is as comfortable feeding the baby as you are.

Does a lot more than 'most dads' oh god it's my exh but this buffoon actually sounds worse.

I love my DH dearly and in many ways he's wonderful but we've had a lot of arguments about things like this in the first year of our twins' life.

Our boys were prem - one was only in for 17 days then came home, but the other has a rare illness and was in for two months. Within a week of coming home he became ill again and ended up in HDU with whooping cough. I had to stay with him for almost 2 weeks while my husband had to stay at home with the other - the whole incident was horrendous but it meant he knew from the outset how hard it was to look after a baby alone.

You probably didn't know what you were doing at first and probably weren't comfortable but you didn't have the option to make sure someone else was always around. You had to figure it out. He has to do the same. He also has to learn that you both work hard all day, and you both need time to wind down.

Most of the arguments we've had have been around the fact that he says if I need help I should ask which makes everything my responsibility. I've told him i need him to be more proactive and that I'm no more aware of what needs to be done than he is, so he should just do it.

Don't let yours get away with it - he can't have the same life he had before, you don't either.

He's shown you his true colours and you can argue with him till you're blue in the face, but if his position now is that he needs his downtime, he doesn't sound to me like a man who could even come close to seeing reason.

Honestly. he won't listen and he won't change his mind. You'll go from constant nagging resentment to pathetic gratefulness for the things he does do.

I think every solution to this problem will be suboptimal - nagging him, not nagging him, leaving him. All have their up and down side.

There was a point after the birth of dc2 where i said to my DP

1. you're an adult, you don't need me to explain this to you

2. I have 2 children, I don't want 3. If you insist on being treated like a child you can go and do it somewhere else

3. please be aware that as things stand separating and sharing residence would make my life a lot easier and yours a lot harder

He thought it over and stepped up. Now I don't have to nag, his relationships with all 3 of us are much better and he is much happier for it. It's a gamble, but for me either outcome would have been an improvement on being consistently exploited by someone who was supposed to love me

Op have a read of the ‘successful dp becoming an insufferable arse’ thread to see where this ends up. Put your career first, no one else will.