So resentful of DH & not sure its fair..

[Sassypants82]

We have 3 children, youngest is just 10 wks & I'm currently on mat leave, aftet which I'll take holidays and parental leave taking me up to my baby being 14 mnts old when I go back to work. Our eldest is at school, our toddler does half days in nursery and the baby is with me, so all four of us have the afternoons together.

He has a fairly full on and stressful job (recently promoted) but manages a nice balance by generally being home in time for dinner most evenings. When he's home, he's very hands on, it's more or less 50/50 & we have time together once they've all gone to sleep (by 8pm max).

We have a cleaner weekly, a good sized house with lots of room, live in a nice community and have lots of family support on both sides.
While we aren't wealthy, we have everything we need, some savings and no money worries whatsoever. Our children are very happy, healthy and so far no issues at all.

I know I'm very lucky but I can't help feeling so detached and resentful of DH. He irritates me in so many ways and I feel largely ignored and sort of invisible. Like I'd only be noticed if a dinner wasn't being produced every evening. He uses me to offload his (long and so boring!) work rants but I feel he barley listens to me in return and I've had to call him out over reading his phone while I'm talking to him.

My days are so repetitive, predictable and boring and while I know that's not his fault, I wish I could feel like we're a team, when we're together - i don't.. For some reason I don't feel like he really has my back.

He is very close to his siblings (parents have passed on) and i have always felt that they have out ranked me in terms of his priorities (i.e, meet ups with them, or Christmas Dinner with them would be the priority over my side, or even the children & I - yes, we've only has Christmas Dinner together twice, together 12yrs).

I get on great with his family, but don't like how much he shares with them, to do woth me. Feels like nothing is off limits. (e.g we all knew when his nephew became sexually active cos his mother told us all how she found out - so inappropriate to me).

I suspect he's smoking weed when we're all in bed, staying up late and then not getting enough sleep. Although this isn't really effecting me, he's still doing everything he needs to do, it just makes me feel so resentful, angry and makes him so unattractive to me. It annoys the shit out of me that he spends our money on weed & cigarettes.

We have not had sex since the baby was born and not much at all through the pregnancy which seems like a theme for us. I imagine he's not especially attracted to me and I feel very disconnected from him. I no longer seek affection and when he offers the routine goodbye kiss, I resent it.

I feel myself withdrawing and this sort of feels like I'm cutting off my nose to spite my face. I fantasise about separating but in my heart of hearts I'm not sure i really want this, not to mention the impact on the kids etc.

The kids are absolutely stuck to me 24/7 it feels like, he seems to find essential things to do at the weekend which take him off by himself and I feel so bitter that he can't even make a huge effort to be a team when we're both home.

I am breastfeeding the baby so not so easy to take time away although I plan to start pumping and getting her used to a bottle this week.

I definitely feel overwhelmed at the moment but don't think I am postnatally depressed although I do have intrusive thoughts which I know are due to anxiety which I've suffered from, on & off since i was a child, but mildly and usually due to stressful events.

We had one marriage counselling session late in mu pregnancy due to a situation where he went out for a night out and ended up with a few friends back in our house, with me & the children asleep in bed. Was the night (morning!! 5am) before the eldest's birthday party and his refusing to see any wrong doing or my point of view motivated a counselling session to improve our communication. It helped but timing was bad and we've not been back. Incidentally, despite expressing regret about this situation to his sister (who unhelpfully said it back to me) he has never apologised for this and rather, after the counselling session, berated me on the way home saying he needed to blow off steam with his friends and I ruined that for him. Can't appreciate how embarrassing it was for me, in the latter stages of my pregnancy (32wks), wearing pyjamas, having to break up his party before my children got up. Not yo mention he was useless for the birthday party and the house was upside down after I'd cleaned it the day before.

Hes super touchy about his family and takes any comments about them or our relationship with them very defensively and thinks (incorrectly) that i have an issue with them, it's more the lack of privacy and frequency we see them etc.

Also should add, he lost his parent this year and obviously that was very hard.

I don't want to feel like this, I realise I've so much to be grateful for, but feel so ignored, unappreciated and disconnected.

I vaguely remember feeling like this for a period after each baby but not to this degree.

Is this normal or are we doomed? Anything i can do to improve things and feel more fulfilled? Id love to feel connected and in love again

I suppose you could walk a mile in his shoes. Does he enjoy his job? Is he feeling pressured to provide for the five of you, nice house etc, if it’s a stressy job he probably does need to have some kind of outlet.
Families can be uncomfortable when they have different standards. I have 5 siblings, we share everything, including a sense of humour. My ex found the fact that my brother would pop in if he was passing (once a week) difficult. I would have been hurt if he hadn’t.
I wouldn’t be keen on weed either, but he should be able to spend shared money just the same as you do.
Can you leave the baby with your mum and have a couple of mornings a week just for you. Do something new. You say money isn’t a problem so have a couple of flying lessons or take up clay pigeon shooting or try piano lessons. You need to concentrate on you a little. Stop waiting for him to make you happy and do it for yourself.
You’ll feel stimulated, you’ll have more to talk about, it will boost your confidence.
It has to be worth a try.

Thanks for your response. I definitely need to do something for me, it is something I should prioritise and once I get the baby onto bottles, i will do. Im sure it will help and I could leave the baby with my SIL.

While DH does find his work frustrating, busy and stressful, he earns only marginally more than me so don't imagine he's feeling the weight of all of the financial pressure.

Re families.. Yes, we're just used to different things I suppose although there are definitely some double standards existing with his side always benefitting. At least it seems that way from my POV.

I think I probably expect him to 'just know' to support me in things, for example, not taking himself off to do stuff, taking the car and leaving me with the kids, when I need to explicitly say, maybe.

Its also hurtful that hw didn't take the opportunity to spend some time with me, while the older kids were out, recently. He preferred do some non essential manual labour in the garden of an unoccupied house belonging to a relative

I told him it would have been nice but off he went anyway.

I dont think you are doomed yet! I agree with previous poster you need to take some time
for yourself, do something that makes you feel like you are not mummy.
I felt alot better when i went back to work when my son was 6 months old. I felt a bit of me again. And with that it made it easier to go off and do things by myself without any guilt (he was my first).

You say your husband is 50/50 so he shouldnt mind you taking time to yourself. You need to sit down (if you havent already) and have a good talk. Explain how you feel and that you are happy for him to have his time but you need yours. Any decent husband doesnt want to see their wife unhappy if they can help change it.

If he wont talk or help then you know where you stand.

The years with very young children were the hardest years for me too. It took me awhile to realize that my feelings were not due to anything wrong with my relationship with my husband, but the fact that young children create an environment of constant repetition that can grind both parents down. You clean to find instead of it staying clean for several days BC (before children), that you are very lucky if the room remains clean for a few hours! Sticky handprints, muddy foot prints, toys strewn, skippy cups leaking, diaper poo blowouts....it is constant.
For the working parent, instead of coming home and putting your feet up you are diving right in to do 50/50 with the parent already at home and worn down by the children.
So, all I am saying is your feelings are perfectly valid and your DH is probably having similar feelings (hence his escapist behavior going to relatives homes). You don’t necessarily need counselling to talk to each other about this but, I think you should. I think you both need to give each other set breaks every week. My DH and I would call it tag teaming like in wrestling...lol. So one of us would take kids by ourself for a couple hours every weekend so the other could have a break to do anything....exercise, visit a shop, have coffee with a friend, etc. Then one evening a week we’d get a baby sitter and do something together as ourselves not as mummy and daddy...just a couple again.

Op - I am sorry you are feeling down.
To me - it doesn’t sound like you are doomed. More like you are in the hardest phase of childbearing.
Three kids is a lot, and it’s the hardest when last one is a baby. And possibly you are also a little post-natal. So - it’s a mixture of reasons and no clear solution other than wait it out.

As to his relationship with his family and how close they are/their boundaries... There is no one right way of sibling relationship, it’s a scale. You and your H are different on that. It’s not fair to use your measuring stick on someone else’s family dynamic.

I don’t have any advice other than - just getting through the year and seeing how things go once kids are a bit easier.
Also - if you can get a bit of counselling for yourself just to make sure you don’t have PND, or get help with it if you do - may help you sort your feelings out.

For what it's worth, I think you are at the most difficult stage of your relationship in some ways. Having very young children is a slog, frankly, and it's made worse by the feeling that you "should" be loving every minute at home with your kids...

Talk to him about how you feel. Really talk. If he won't listen, write it down and put it in an email/letter. Things don't sound beyond hope, but they will eventually be if you don't really communicate your feelings. For example, he absolutely does not get to just go off in the car leaving you stuck with the kids, unless it's something you have discussed and agreed on.

It probably seems easier to just let these things go, but actually - looking back at my own experience - it's really the time to draw a very firm line in the sand.

I could have written your post myself (far less eloquently mind). I have 2 children and my youngest is 2. This morning he got up at 4.30 and refused to go back to sleep, this has happened a lot over the last month. My dh has had 1 day off in 3 weeks and is finally off work today. I wanted to give him a lie in but by 8.15 this morning I went into him in tears. I desperately need some down time from the children, I have no idea who i am anymore and our relationship is hanging by a thread purely because we have zero time for each other (i hope). I have left the house for a few hours to calm down as I was ready to explode.

I completely understand how you feel xxx

There is a light at the end of the tunnel too. Once they are all in FT school, it gets much easier. You’re breaking up fights but 8/10 times they are playing with each other and you can catch a breather for up to a half hour. I was also well back to work and work is way more mentally stimulating than picking up after kids. DH and I could match each other with OMG guess what happened at the office today anecdotes.
Thats a very fun age too. Everyone is toilet trained. Everyone eats regular food. Everyone can put on shoes and coats. They can tell you if they are sick or angry. We had lots of fun &adventures during the pre-teen years. Teen years it gets hard again but in a different way, you have so much time to yourself that you worry constantly. There have been nights where at 3am I am getting a text from my 17yr old asking to be picked up from a party because their ride is drunk or left them and wishing they were 2yrs old again and the 3am wake up was just for a nightmare. But I am in the home stretch now! And it has gone fast.

The fact one of his parents died recently gets a tiny one line cliff note at the end of your long list of complaints about him. Doesn't come across as very empathetic.
If you suspect he is smoking weed have you considered asking him?
Sounds like you're tired and hormonal and all the rest and as most do, you're directing it at your partner. He's done a couple of things that are a bit crap but on the whole he sounds alright to me, especially for someone who has recently lost a parent.

Thank you all for your responses and insights. Its comforting to know that this situation isn't unique to us.

A talk needs to be had and I personally need to think about what I need to do for my own mental health.

For the poster who said that i shouldn't rely on him to make me happy, I think I probably do, to a large degree and realise this is both unfair and unrealistic. Lots to think about.

Thank you all

Also @Bentlybelly, hope you'll feel recharged after some time to yourself ❤️

@Sassypants82 Thank you, home now and still feeling weird but better. Sorry to hijack and write about me.

I think the happiness thing is a big deal. It's so hard to make time for ourselves when you have a young family, it kind of gets pushed aside as everyone else happiness is a priority. Work helps with maintaining a sense of self too, and I personally find it easier than a day with the kids

Do you have a friend you can offload on a bit too?