This is not a current issue but as my name suggests, I'm processing things to improve my sense of what is acceptable in relationships and work on my boundaries. Something has triggered this for some reason and I just need to get it out and get some perspective.
My fiancé and I had a baby 6 months before we got married. The baby was ebf and would feed every 2-4 hours during the day. If I was lucky she might go 3-4 hours at night.
I had PND but this went undiagnosed as I was just "unreasonable, controlling and manipulative" rather than really fucking struggling with the stress of a new baby, a wedding to organise, and a chronic health condition made worse by stress as they usually are.
DF like to go out with his mates drinking. We lived a few miles away and relied on public transport. The last bus was around midnight. I freely admit his mates were not people I liked. They were all smokers, weed smokers, heavy drinkers living the single life out of their mum and dad's. Some had jobs, some were lost to life outside their bedroom and the Xbox. I saw them as a bad influence I think. DF was a different person after he spent time with them and I think he envied their responsibility free lives.
DF always seemed to choose to go out when the baby was particularly unsettled or I was unwell. I relied on opiates for pain relief that contributed to the tiredness from all the breastfeeding 24/7. Every time he'd go out he'd stay out all night saying it was unreasonable to have to be home for midnight or thereabouts. That if he wanted to stay out til 3am with his mates then he was quite entitled too and would sleep at his parents' house (they lived 10 mins walk from his mates). He accused me of faking being unwell to prevent him going out. It's a chronic illness ffs.
The thing that really pissed me off the most was that the baby would just know he wasn't there and would wake EVERY BLOODY HOUR through the night after cluster feeding all evening and then would be up at 6 for the 2-4 hourly to start again. He'd swan in around lunch then go to work. Naps were only a thing if I walked her for miles and she'd wake up the moment I pushed the pram over the threshold. I was exhausted and had terrible anxiety about going back to work.
DF was supposed to help during the nights by doing nappies as I was feeding and this is what we agreed to as a couple when she was born. This soon became resented abs he would shout and swear at me in the night about how lazy I was and how I hadn't winded her properly and that's why she was crying again. He was fucking knackered he said and it was my job to sort her out. He worked shifts and got to sleep in when he was working later. I was always up at 6 with the baby.
I did express to try and get a break but she'd just cluster feed later so seemed pointless.
Obviously he was quite nasty at times but was I unreasonable to expect him not to stay out all night? Was it controlling? Or do things change when you have a family and their needs come first? He continued to do this after we got married and had another child. I was always "controlling and unreasonable and a psychotic bitch." If we've er had an argument he'd go home to his parents' overnight and come crawling back around midday.
Is this normal engaged/married life with kids?