Apologies in advance, this is going to be really long as I don't want to drip feed.
This is our fourth baby, so the territory of crap sleep in the first year or two is very familiar. But so is my husband getting angry when I ask him to step in to help during the occasional bad night with our babies. It's been this way since baby number 1, I have a memory of being abit frightened at him punching a wall in anger after I asked him to step in because I was struggling tosettle the baby.
There's no violencetowards me, but door slamming is quite common, mostly it's harsh words and a bad temper about the situation. I never really know how a request for help is going to be received, so I rarely ask, and most of the time that works fine - I co-sleep with our babies and most nights I manage fine alone, it's just the occasional few where it's been a tiring / overly stressful week, or baby is just having a bad night and I'm overwhelmed. He is very involved in all other aspects of family life, he does all the cooking and cleaning, is very involved with the children, it's just the baby stage that is largely my area, as I breastfeed and find co-sleeping easier. Just trying to set the scene to explain that i don't need him to pull his weight more in general, but I do need him to not immediately go from 0 to cross words when I ask for his help at night with the baby.
Last night as an example: I gave him forewarning that this week might see a grouchier than usual me and / or baby, as school runs restarting means baby's entire day routine is going to change overnight, so this week might be a little unsettled, and I may need to ask for his help and we might need to adjust our family evening / bedtime routine accordingly. The two nights previous I had fallen asleep on the sofa in between resettling a baby who hates sleeping in their own cot without me there, before he'd finished cooking our dinner. The baby then had really unsettled sleep from the moment I got into bed. So he knew I was getting increasingly tired. We'd spoken about it, and on night 3 (last night) we had adjusted dinner to be earlier so I could go to bed earlier.
Baby had other plans as they always do, so the evening actually consisted of me spending numerous attempts settling him atbedtime, wolfing down dinner in between wake ups before deciding I might as well call it a night, bring baby into bed with me so we could both sleep. All of this is a pretty standard evening for me with a 7 month old, what was unexpected was the next bit. Baby wouldn't settle, Dh was still awake reading downstairs, so I text him to ask if he could come and try settling the baby by walking him round the room. (I wouldn't normally ask if he had already gone to sleep, as that makes him really cross, but when he's still awake it's usually OK). The light of my phone seemed to distract baby, and they stopped crying and nodded off next to me. By the time he read the text and came up, baby had fallen asleep, and I was stuck not wanting to move or put the phone away just yet in case it awoke baby again. 10 minutes later, baby was awake again, so I asked again for DH to step in so I could just try and sleep a bit (('d been attempting to go to bed for an hour at this point).
DH was immediatelyangry and accusatory, saying no wonder baby isn't sleeping when you have your phone out over theirface. (AKA I haven't tried hard enough to get baby to sleep and why am I bothering him with this?) I attempted to explain what had happened (why do I even have to try and justify my actions, I don't know), but in his eyes I was still clearly in the wrong somehow. More angry words were directed at me, and at this point I just want him to go away and not wake the other children (baby wideawake by this point) so I defeatedly say "Look, I'm sorry, I'm just really really tired". To which DH responds "Well then we shouldn't have had a baby". It ends with him saying "Fine, I'll take baby", he slams the door shut and I don't see them again until morning, but he did send a text to apologise for saying what he said about having our baby.
What could have been an amazing night's sleep ends up me unable to sleep for ages, lying there feeling crap about myself and the situation in general.
This morning I took the kids to school and really didn't want to come back to the house, but it's lockdown and it's raining and there's nowhere to go. We've rehashed the same old post-argument ground where I say I don't feel I can ask for help because I'm always bracing myself for your anger, he has said "Well, I apologisedAND I helped out all night", so now I feel I'm stuck in a position where I should supposedly feel grateful and be thanking him that he helped out all night, as if that OKs the angry behaviour and the fact I don't feel secure asking him for help at night with the baby when I need it. (For the record, he didn't apologise for his behaviour or for being angry, he apologised for saying we shouldn't have had a baby).
It's like we can't even have a rational conversation about this without him immediately getting defensive and angry. This morning, he walked away and doesn't want to discuss it further - so I'm left with no reassurances that the exact same thing won't happen again next time , or that he's willing to listen and learn from his behaviour and how it makes me feel. I am left having to forget it and move on, because he refuses to talk about it more, and even if he did, I doubt he could do it in a calm way.I'm left with more evidence and conviction that he will react the exact way I anticipate he will when these situations arise.
I am no stranger to the stresses of the early years with babies, the odd argument and saying harsh things to each other is going to happen in a moment of stress, but this is as predictable as clockwork and I don't know how to make it better. It doesn't feel like 'normal' arguing, and I'm pretty sure my friends with babies aren't experiencing this (or maybe it is more normal than I think?!) DH has this same personality trait as his mum, as they can both move from fine to very snappy and very snidey in an instant. Whereas it's not in my nature to direct anger at another person, I show my emotions, but it's never AT someone or by putting someone else down.When this happens with DH, at best it makes me feel really crap, and at worst it makes me feel a little afraid of him and afraid to ask for his help.
I don't really know why I'm writing this here other than just to vent. We have a nice time together the rest of the time, and mostly we come to some kind of resolution over it the next day, but a few occasions have left me feeling very sad and affected by it for quite a long time afterwards.
Because I know someone is going to say it, please don't say it's the baby'sroutine / co-sleeping or the number of kids we have that's the problem. As far as I'm concerned, there isn't an excuse for continual angry behaviour.