I want to try and make this as fair as possible because I’d love to show DP this thread after to try and make him understand how things like this hurt me.
We’ve been together 2 years and have an 8 month dd (yep was a very big surprise and not at all planned) who I love more than anything in the entire world. I have pretty severe ppd and ppa and have just had my sertraline dose increased to 150mg as well as being referred to a psychiatrist. I also was in a very abusive relationship prior to DP, my ex also cheated a few weeks before our wedding and shortly after I miscarried. Sorry for the overshare I just feel like this may be relevant because I know I do have a ton of issues surrounding trust/sensitivity/and how I react to arguments.
Me and DP get on for the most part though I do feel that I can’t talk to him about things without being stonewalled. For example if I say I’m tired from looking after dd he will say “well I’m tired from working away all the time.” Etc.
Sorry this is getting long, I’ll get to the main reason of this post now.
Last night DP came home after shower ending the day at his mum’s. He had gone over there to collect our dog after we had been on holiday. I do appreciate this as it’s quite a trek (50mins-1hr on transport). He told me about a conversation he had with his mum which went the following way:
DP: oh I have some exciting news!
MiL: puts head in hands don’t tell me it’s another fucking child.
Ouch.
To be totally clear, I don’t rely on anyone (not even my own mum) for supper/childcare/money so it’s not like she had any reason to say that. I do majority on my own because DP travels for weeks at a time for work. MIL doesn’t often travel to our house, I make the trip with dd and dog as often as possible and we have lovely craft days making stuff for dd (which I absolutely love). Dd has never been babysat by anyone, and tbh I’ve never really been apart from her. She is 8months old now and breastfedwith solids though she’s a terrible eater with solids and mainly wants boob. She’s very clingy to me which DP says is not ‘normal’, obviously I don’t think dd is abnormal but I am very clingy to her as well due to abuse I suffered as a child and the ppd/ppa.
When i said the above to DP (about me not relying on them for childcare etc and that the comment hurt me) he took extreme offence and thought I was attacking his mum (I wasn’t) and said I’m not normal, I’m crazy and overly sensitive that other mums don’t moan as much as me, other mums don’t have any support from grandparents etc they just get on with it. Also the old classic thing that he loves to bring up is money. “Dd has cost 60000 pound so far” “we have no money because of dd, we can’t afford another child that’s why my mum said that”. I sometimes think he resents dd financially as he’s always bringing it up. Always brings up the fact he pays rent and support the house while I’m on maternity leave.
Sorry this is long so I’m going to leave it there, happy to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you for the advice x