I want to get my feelings about dh off my chest; bit of a long drawn out rant, sorry, feel free to ignore!

[Mossy]

I've been trying my best to get over the way dh acted towards me in the last few weeks of my pregnancy and now ds is born but I'm finding it difficult so just wanted to get it off my chest.

For the last few months of my pregnancy dh withheld sex; he later told me this was because he had found the whole huge, stretchmarked, lying on the couch exhausted in a comfy dressing gown thing a huge turnoff.

As soon as I went one day overdue he started heaping the pressure on for me to be induced. In the end I bowed to the pressure at +15 days (my decision too, as I could see my maternity leave ticking away, but if I'd had more support from him I may have stuck it out longer) and it was horrible.

When ds was born, for the first week he was the doting father, changed nappies, cuddled him, bathed him etc. but as soon as the crying started dh's interest just waned and it was all down to me; especially as this co-incided with his paternity leave ending.

When ds started wanting to bf round the clock at about three weeks (as it was the only thing that would stop him crying) dh's solution was to try and pressure me to ff him.... not so I could get a rest, oh no. So that I could "at least sweep the hall and wash the dishes" because it was the first thing he saw when he came in from work.

Dh was convinced I had pnd and this was the reason why I was in tears most of the time, nothing to do with his complete lack of support and his going on about the housework not being done, and pointing out that I should be doing exercise by now to lose the weight and stop scoffing chocolate in such copious amounts.

So I went to the Dr. and got put on 20mg Prozac a day.

It made it a lot easier for me to deal with ds' constant crying, and with me finally getting some excellent rl bf support, and with him simply getting older (11 wks) his crying has calmed down and he is much happier. So now the housework does get done.

Dh thinks that ds' increased happiness is because "happy mum = happy baby" with the implied criticism that ds was unhappy because I was.

Dh and I sleep in separate rooms, initially this was a week-day arrangement to enable dh to get enough sleep for work, and then we'd sleep in the same room at the weekend and I would feed ds but dh would settle him after a feed. But now it's every day, with the clause that at weekends, dh will take ds off me for two hours to enable me to lie in.

Initially this was bonding time; dh would take ds for a walk around the park in his baby carrier thingy; the last few weekends now ds is happier and less demanding, it has been dh lying on the couch watching telly with ds in his baby bouncer being "good" (i.e. quiet).

Dh does do all the cooking. But even this is because if I cook I might - horror of horrors - not cook everything from scratch and might for example occasionally use a jar of sauce to save time.

And now he keeps making pointed comments about money, and that my maternity leave comes to an end "really soon" (September) and I had better start looking for a job soon (I don't plan to go back to original job).

Now ds is a lot easier to look after, and I can whizz around getting the house work done. It's not difficult, and as for the nights, I just put myself to bed earlier and have learned to feed lying down. So it's not as if dh's actions are putting me out any more. But I just wanted to rant. Not particularly after advice as such; the only question I have really is, what the hell has happened to the loving, supportive dh I had for the first seven years of our marriage?

Mossy - I have seen your house and compared to mine it is pristine! (actually it is pretty pristine without having to compare it to my tip)

Send him round to mine to have a look and he will appreciate you more that you could possibly imagine!

Do you want to meet up tomorrow? Have a rant?

How are you today?

Just a quickie as ds is starting to wail, I have been in liverpool most of the day seeing my best friend who I haven't seen for - like - forever.

Spoke briefly to dh when he got in this evening, we are going to have a proper chat tomorrow afternoon as he has the day off. Not that chatting solves much. But it's a start.

It turns out mil did say a few things, I checked with dh and I don't think he is twisting it that much. I feel stabbed in the back. I know that sounds melodramatic but really I do.

Norma thanks for the compliment - I always feel the house is a mess and covered in dog hair!! Would love to meet up some point at weekend and rant!!

Thank you all for your support it is keeping me chugging along! Better go and rescue ds now!!

blimey mossy - hadnt kept up with this thread but OMG am outraged on your behalf... these tantrums of his are unbelievable

so sorry you are having to put up with him stamping his little foot like this at a time when you should be enjoying yourselves as a new family and being supplied with lots of intelligent support.

just know that you are doing brilliantly with bertie and whether your dh/mil like it or not Bertie is going to have to come first a lot of the time now... that's parenting...

stand your ground in any discussion (i'm sure you are anyway) and try to keep all the great advice you've had on this thread at the back of your mind whenever you talk to him.

Not read all the thread but Mossy, you sound like a superb mother. You've put your DS first in all of this. I think you're doing brilliantly esp. coping with the pressure you're under from DH. He sounds like the child btw, not DS.

I think you should put your foot down, get a bit indignant and lay down some ground rules about what exactly you expect from DH, not what he expects from you. You've just had a baby ffs. Nobody is up to much for months after a baby. Is the man bright?

I hope things get a lot brighter for you but do take heart that you're a super mum, attending to your son's needs and loving him lots. Don't forget to congratulate yourself!

awww - feck - I am away for the weekend (in scotland). Will phone you tomorrow

Do you think DH is trying his luck abit?MY DH has thought in the past that if he put me down enough I would do ABSOLUTELY everything in the house and he would do nothing.Is it perhaps DH who has abit of a lazy streak?Your situation sounds very familiar.
I am pleased you are tackling it head on.I think you will win through and end up stronger for it.
I had PND under very similar circumstances with my first child.11 years down the line,I am a much happier person than I have ever been-so don't give up heart and remember tham the housework will always be there,but your children won't-you are right to spend as much time as possible on your son.You will find you have an incredibly strong bond in years to come.

But please,please beware of MIL's-mine turned out to be a Trojan horse.

By the way children can create a mammoth amount of mess so he'd better get used to it.

Good Luck

Im really sad that youre on Prozac when its quite clear that you never had PND, its just that your fragile state after childbirth wasnt suitable for your husband, and so you had to go on Prozac to be more acceptable to him. Im so pleased that yUnou managed to carry on breastfeeding though. It would have got me really angry if hed convinved you to ff for no reason at all. Im sure his actions are down to jealousy. He sounds insanely jealous, but thats not a normal reaction for a father to have, so its really his problem.
Unfortunately, this is a side of him that does exist. Nothing is making him behave like this. This is a part of his personality that he has managed to keep hidden until now. But its still him.
you needed support and help after the birth of your child, and heS really slipped up. I know how you felt when you were so helpless after having your baby. WEre so vulnerable and open to suggestion. My DH was good with baby, BUT his mother was a bitch from hell and came to my house every day and tried to make it to the delivery roon (she was an hour late). DH was convinved that I had mental problems because I couldnt cope with this crazy, envious, domineering woman in my life. IT took a serious divorce threat before he took me seriously. Im def traumatised by his lack of consideration for me. We`re getting over it now (DD is 10 months), but I feel more "on my own, less of a team" than I did before.

I think it is absolutely disgusting that he thinks he is doing you a favour by having the baby for a couple of hours so you can have a lie-in. Did he not partake in making your son? And I also find it sad that your dr would prescribe prozac for pnd when you clearly have other issues there which are causing you to feel low, not a chemical imbalance.

Big hugs to you and I hope he sees some sense.

how are things now,mossy?

I'm not sure how things are. Dh and I are going to sit down at some point today and talk. I get a lot of comfort from this thread because otherwise I would really think I am a lazy cow who sits on her arse all day doing nothing, if dh - and now, by the looks of it, mil - are to be believed. Shakes your confidence.

Thing with mil is really hurtful. For seven years, since she took me in when I was kicked out by my own Mum, I have called her Mum, we have been good friends... since I had ds, she has started acting like - well, more like a Mother In Law, iyswim. But this really takes the biscuit, it really does.

I wish now she'd back off a bit. But she's full-on because I've always let her be, because I've never had a problem with it before - in fact I've always welcomed it. And of course dh won't hear a bad word about her, because she has done loads for us of course. Oh and she is his Mum.

Arrgh! Tearing my hair out a bit and to make matters worse ds has decided sleep is not for him any more and has started crying if he isn't feeding... grrr...

Hey Mossy, hope your talk goes/went well. Keep your chin up (and your metaphorical fists, if necessary).

mossy-sounds like your MIL is just being a mum to you still,there are plenty of threads on here about interfering mothers.mine was a PITA when i had my first,as i think are most mothers.and if my mums anything to go by,talking about you behind your back rather than to your face about your sub-standard parenting/housewifing is pretty normal too.(i mean sub-standard according to them btw,not saying anything you do is sub standard)

hope your chat goes well.i know having a thread on here helps to keep you sane.MNers tell it like it is

mossy, hope it goes right with your dp. he sounds like he is pushing for you to tell him to go, with wanting sep lives. I hope he was joking and not trying to bully you and make you feel you can't manage without him. you might decide to give it a go-

at least he wants to talk though, as long as you don;t feel like you are about to have an appraisal with your boss.

not sure if i would let mil look after your son- she then knows you are having a "talk" and might interfere or want to know what was said.

your mil- have you spoken to her about what she said? i would ask her direct and say you won;t be so available with your son for a bit as you feel let down. I wouldn;t worry about being straight, people don't seem to worry about being straight with you and how it might affect and upset you!

MOssy - how's it going? Fancy a coffee or something tomorrow?

Diva that is true I suppose, she is acting like a Mum in some ways, I dunno. I haven't spoken to her. I did however tell dh I thought it was out of order.

Sponge don't know what dh was on with the separate lives thing. Thankfully he was a bit better this weekend, as I managed to talk a bit of sense into him.

Norma, tomorrow afternoon would be marvellous! I have swimming at mid day so we could meet up later on?

Callie yes, fists I think!

Dh was better over the weekend, but it makes me laugh; on Saturday I was well and truely knackered so for my "lie-in" (see earlier) I gave dh one of my few bags of EBM from the freezer and said, "just take ds for a few hours will you so I can sleep?" He did agree... I heard ds kerfuffling and couldn't sleep but didn't go downstairs, I thought, "no, dh has milk now so there is nothing else I could do"... managed to get back to sleep, half eight I woke up again and dh and ds had disappeared. So, I came down stairs, got all my washing done, walked the dogs, tidied up... dh got back about mid day, and...

.... he'd been to his Mum's, where she'd taken ds, given him the bottle of EBM, put him to sleep and dh had slept on the couch.

Now in some ways I'm not complaining because I got my rest! But in another way I think, he can't even cope with ds for a few hours, even with him having milk for him. And yet, when I have ds for whole days and evenings and nights, but everything isn't pristine around here, I'm lazy!

Not sure if that makes sense, I know what I mean anyway!

(Oh and mil made him a bacon buttie for brekkie! I'd have probably got, "shouldn't you go back home while I have him then, and get the veggies chopped for tonight's tea?" )

Ah well.

mossy-he needs to grow up and stop running to mummy

Would it be terribly wrong of me to wring his neck? Or are there legal issues?

Last night he said to me, "we need to talk. What do you want to do about going back to work?"

"I want to be with ds as long as possible, as I want to breastfeed him until he's able to go onto straight cow's milk" (I'd love to feed him a bit longer actually but I think dh would keel over or explode if I told him this).

"Well, if you're going to be off longer, we need to come to some kind of fair arrangement about the housework." Meaning, Mossy, I want you to do more round the house than you are doing.

I pointed out that actually, I wanted him to do more.

"Well my Mum, who is very impartial," (yeah, like hell she is. Actually, she thinks all men are useless... and therefore women should do everything. ), "thinks the one who is off work..."

I interrupted. "I'm still working, even though I'm not being paid for it. I'll be a full-time Mum while I'm not doing paid work."

"Well, whatever, the one who is off work should shoulder the housework."

I said, "it would be bloody easy, for me to go back to work. Put ds on a bottle, give ds to mil for free, both of us work outside the home full-time, you'd have no fucking excuse for not helping at night-time and with baby care, and we'd split housework down the middle. Bloody easy. But it isn't what I want to do."

"I don't see what all the fuss is about anyway with this breastfeeding thing," (oh God we're back on that are we?), "you've fed him for nearly four months now. You're hardly going to kill him if you put him on formula now are you?"

I'm ashamed to say I burst into tears. Not because I do actually think it would kill him to ff him, but because I have fought so hard to bf him despite no support from him and minimal-barely-there-very-much-on-her-terms support from mil, that now I've finally managed to get my head round it for the most part, I'm not going to give up all of a sudden!

I said to him, "I think at least at weekends you should help out at night time with me. How am I ever going to have sex with you anyway if you're not even in the same bedroom as me?"

"So, we've started this conversation with me trying to explain why you need to do more, and now it's me who needs to do more? When I'm the one going out to work to provide the money for you to be off," (STOP SAYING "OFF" LIKE IT'S ONE FUCKING HOLIDAY YOU CAN'T EVEN COPE WITH DS FOR MORE THAN AN HOUR WITHOUT GOING ROUND TO YOUR MUM'S), "and suddenly I have to do more?" said dh.

So what do I do? I'm clearly not going to get him to do more. I don't want to leave him while I think there is something to be salvaged, and also, if I left him then I would definitely have to go back to work just to stay afloat.

The shadow of his Mum hangs over everything. I'm starting to like her less and less.

I'm at a bit of a loss. He just doesn't see that he is doing anything wrong, and thinks it is all me.

Arrgh!

Have you thought about getting a cleaner?

Mossy, eventually when you go back to work, you can still breast feed in the evenings

This stage just doesn't last and you could point out to your dh that in hindsight it will be like an instant when you were dependant on him.
But it will take a long time for you to forget how mean and miserable he is being just when you need him.

When my sister met her dh, she had just moved so all her stuff was in boxes, so he thought she was a tidy person...wrong she doesn't do tidying and her dh does all the housework but she's a mean cook. He's resigned to his fate.

Anytime dh complains that my cooking is crap or the house is a mess, I say "bog off, anyone as good in bed as I am, doesn't need to cook!"

Don't back down mossy... well done for standing up to him. I get the feeling he thinks he has you over a barrel and keeps wafting the fact that he is lord and provider over you in a bid to keep the upper hand. Good on you for not crumbling under that kind of pressure.

He needs the reality check. NOT you.

You are acting in a reasonable way.

He sounds like he has some kind of obsessional tendancies regarding cleaning and housework.

Just to give you some perspective. My dh regularly works away from home... drives hideous long distances... puts in 14 hour days and THEN drives an hour and a half home... most weeks the kids don't see him 'til the w/e...

... he STILL is MORE than happy to help out blitzing the house... hoovering... washing up etc. He wouldn't even question it.

I would be lying if i said he did the lion's share... as clearly he isn't around enough!.. but my point is that he is willing and happy to help out.

Your dh is being incredibly unreasonable... he actually sounds a bit bonkers the way he keeps obsessing about it.

Perhaps you SHOULD show him this thread.

Mossy, just say "no" simple as that. He can rant 'till blue in the face. just say ;"no". Tell him to get stuffed. Tell him you will find it hard to forgive and forget.
Stick to your guns girl

I have to say that I agree with Kitty... and that you are doing a fabulous job of sticking to your guns and providing a great start to your son by doing it how you want!!

I also wonder if Bertie doesn't sense some of the stress around you and dh and that is why he has become "laughing boy" again?

Mossy, you have worked so hard on the feeding and I am so in awe of you - after the difficulties which you had with "the latch" and the 24 hour feeding, you have showed true guts and determination to still be feeding. I think you are amazing. Rosy is right too, even when you work you can slot some feeds around your job, even if you don't express in the day.

I am furious on your behalf about DH and about your MIL who is being the worst kind of turncoat. I think you need to eradicate her from the equation. Can you have alternative childcare when you do go back to work, as she is looking like more trouble than she is worth? DH must stop running to mummy too if you are ever going to have any respect for him. He's not coming out of this well, is he?

I know he thinks you are the one with the problem, which you patently aren't - would he agree to go to counselling to help "you" sort out the problem? Doesn't really matter whose problem he thinks it is so long as he goes. The counsellor will soon set him straight . Some GPs are trained as couples counsellors (mine is for eg) so that might be a start? just a thought.

You are such a star and DS is very lucky. Big love to you both XXX

i was going to mention what bella said,re Bertie.my ds1 was a clingy,crying,unsettled baby and looking back i think it was due to the atmosphere,i was depressed,stressed and scared all the time,and he must have sensed it.

you are doing so well to stick to your guns and not be ground down by him.its a shame he doesnt have some experienced dads as mates who he can chat to,and get the real picture,rather than listening to his mum who i now imagine as a 1950's 'dinner on the table when hubby gets in,bottle feed baby every 4 hours and leave it outside screaming in the pram while i scrub the floors and bleach the net curtains' housewife.

have you mentioned to him that men can also suffer post natal depression ?and that maybe he needs to see his gp?it does sound like the way he is acting has come as a shock to you,and is out of character for him.the way he seems to think the problem is with you, and his obsession with the housework and bf,just seem like possible symptoms to me(i find with my PND,i have often got obsessed with one thing i see as being wrong in my life,and then blame that for me feeling so bad,as i cant cope with feeling crap for no apparent reason).