How bad is my relationship?

[Caradel]

I'm realising that I'm not in a healthy relationship and I can't see a way of it working.

The more I think about it the more I realise some things might be unacceptable. It's hard when you're in the relationship to see it for what it is.

How bad are these things? Are they terrible and I've not realised. Or are they normal issues couples can have?

Ignoring me in bed when I've said not to put a cushion next the the cot.

Refusing to hug me when I'm crying my eyes out saying i feel unloved.

Telling me I'm offending him and his family because I don't want his sister to look after our child on her own.

Demanding I reply to a question via text not a phone call.

Coming home from work and picking up out daughter and kissing her and totally ignoring me.

Telling me I'm upsetting him when I tell him how to do things, to do with our daughter.

Never saying sorry.

Having a child together is a deal breaker in many relationships
Why do you have to tell him how to do things?
Does he have learning disabilities, or is it your way or the highway?

Other things...

Jealous I am on maternity leave. Thinks it's a holiday.

Angry I made the effort to sort out our spare room for my brother to come and stay one night last week but I didn't sort it out for his mum to stay for a month when our baby was 2 months old.

Makes sarcastic comments all the time about things I do or say.

Dismisses or challenges everything I say.

Pays 70% of shared costs while I'm on mat leave. Says he's happy with that but then makes comments all the time about being the only one working and how he has to work (playing the victim) because he has to support us.

Expects me to help him run his business. I have no stake in the business.

Sits in the middle of the living room and turns the playstation on everytime my parents come over.

Wants a bigger share of our house because he did the majority of the renovations while I was pregnant.

Partly my anxiety and partly his lack of knowledge about babies.
For example, don't put cushions leaning on the cot...this is my anxiety about SIDS

Other example, you can't pour water down her throat she's choking...his lack of knowledge/commonsense about how to give a baby water.

In the gentlest way possible you sound completely worked up. Yes it sounds like you could do with some extra attention but it also sounds like you might be being a bit martyr about the baby which may well be exacerbating his feelings a bit. How old is the baby? Are you ok in yourself, any signs of PND at all?

You both need to learn to be kind to each other to find your new baby normal. So many couples never find that and resent each other for their grass-is-always-greener views. It's a lose lose situation.

There sounds like there's a huge back story with your PIL and parents too.

I think this man doesn't sound very nice.

Have things always been like this?

Is this the first child together or are there others?

At the end of the day, you do have a right to be happy and his behavior sounds bad.

Why don't you want his sister to look after your child? Just so you know, no one looked after my baby until they were several months old and then only for a few minutes! I was very protective, and that's OK.

Also, you should not have to work for his business, but maybe you can work out some of these things by talking about it?

No, I think you have woken up to how bad things are, maybe one or two of these things would be normal blips couples go through but you have said some things that really stand out that just aren’t acceptable.

You feel unloved
You aren’t listened to
He actively dismisses you and is sarcastic putting you down
He is jealous of your mat leave

It sounds like he does not appreciate what you have gone through with pregnancy, childbirth and being a new mum, he doesn’t value your contribution. If he did he would not be expecting a bigger share of the home he worked on whilst you were pregnant. I would be asking why is he even thinking like that about your home? Is he thinking forward to splitting up?

Hmmm it’s hard to tell as you are clearly feeling shit about it just now so possibly picking out all the negatives, do you have any positives? Could it be how you’re feeling just now and it’s exacerbating all these things?
Having a baby is hard and drastically changes a relationship. I remember feeling sad and unloved a few times in the early stages but I know it was me. DH was working long hours, we were both busy and tired, life had changed. More so though I felt I had grown up and he hadn’t. Sometimes when you are tired and teary and sniping at each other you can feel a distance between you it doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed. As well my DH was very nervous about certain things always worried he would hurt DD or do something wrong. I was a nightmare for the first few weeks he was only allowed to walk her outside the house where I could still see them 🙈 not great for his confidence that I wasn’t trusting. It was often hard not to correct him and probably I was a bit of a cow. Possibly why I felt that distance a few times. DD is 7 now, DH is an amazing dad and we are really happy, have been for a good while. I could probably have listed like you back then and now looking back it all seems so trivial. Not belittling how you feel but just that when you are in amongst it it can be hard to see the woods for the trees.

I think that you are both very tired and adapting to a huge change in the dynamic of your relationship
I also had the comment about maternity leave, it was a huge shock and probably the first nail in the coffin of our relationship for me.
We were partners before and then I was a bind after?
Try first to talk, be reasonable, be kind, and do what feels best for you after

And also what macaroni above said
having a baby is hard work

It's so hard when you are exhausted from looking after a young baby.

It certainly sounds as if the two of you have difficulty communicating which is going to make a healthy relationship impossible. Perhaps that could be changed with couples counseling (though don't try that if your relationship is abusive).

Do you have anyone you could talk to IRL? Could you get some individual counseling for yourself? Do you ever get a break and time to yourself?

Agree with PP - he sounds a bit thoughtless but it’s hard to tell really whether this is just the normal strung-out exhaustion which generally effects first-time parents or something more.

Can you have a talk when you’re both feeling calmer?

Someone said that having a baby throws a total hand grenade into a relationship
it certainly did mine

I’d take some time to think and assess

is this fixable through dialogue
or not
dont rush into have a second x

You have to understand that there is no set scale for how bad things are. Your feelings are the guage of what's right and wrong for you.

Other than laws, there are no rules. You are looking for validation: someone to tell you that what you feel is 'right'. But there is no 'right'. For example, if you loved mice and your partner bought some pet mice for your home, that would be lovely for you. But if you were phobic about mice, the exact same action from your partner could be classed as disrespectful or even abusive. So, your feelings would be what made the action kind or abusive; not the action.

So in your current situation, what are your feelings telling you? Do you feel loved? Respected? Listened to? Important? Prioritised? Or do you feel minimised, unimportant, disrespected, disregarded?

I think the comments above are all helpful. I also think you have to remove your emotions when interacting with him for a while and deal in facts. It sounds like he’s thinking and behaving like a child and being very emotional in a childish way.

Are you married to someone of a different culture?

I’m looking at your sentence about “Telling me I'm offending him and his family because I don't want his sister to look after our child on her own.”

Sometimes cultures clash and the mother (ie his mother) ends up pretty much running his life/your life and he has no say and it’s all about what things look like to the outside world, as she must be obeyed in that culture. Not about you and him being a family unit. He’s still ‘hers’ and you’re just an appendage of him. With very little thought given to your wishes.

The wife just ends up having to go along with the mother in laws wishes or he gets told to stand up to you by his mother as he can’t be seen to be weak.

I imagine the wife has enough of that treatment and leaves fairly often in such cultural mixes if the husband still wants to obey his mother and she’s not been brought up like that.

What do you mean by "I have no stake in the business"?

I mean we're not married, I don't own part of the business, all the profits are his. We keep our finances separate which has worked fine for the last 9 years until having a baby.
I'm a person who likes to help people so in the past I've helped him out with things here and there...social media, accounting, etc....but now I have a baby to look after I don't have the time. I also have my own career which I will be going back to 5 days a week in a few months time.

He is from a different culture but not that drastically different to mine. All his family except his sister live abroad. His mother doesn't interfere. I have noticed that he makes comments about how I do things one way with my family and a different way with his. But they are just that MY family and HIS family. I like them and I'm kind and polite to his family but I'm not going to have the same relationship with his family as I do with mine. Right?!?!

He sounds awful and I think you know it.

Have you family that you can go to?

If so do.

Get the house valued and sell it.

He is not a good man.

You have a job, you have no business working for free.

Protect yourself.

This is a good idea thanks. I thought a few days ago I'm not going to react to anything that's said for a week and see what happens. But it's actually really hard to do that in practice. I am a very emotional person.

This is incredibly interesting and I had never thought about it that way. I am always looking around at other couples and listening to what friends say is ok or things they won't stand for as a gauge of what is going on in my relationship.

I think I am exhausted at the moment. I've really suffered with post natal anxiety and I have almost lost faith in my own ability to see things as they are and trust my own judgement. So although I agree there is no right I can't even work out how I feel.

He sounds like a complete bastard who treats you with contempt.

@Watchkeys advice is very wise, as normal.

Because of my upbringing I cannot be with a partner who shouts and I'm with someone who never does even if he's frustrated or cross. He's calm and kind and can be firm with his boundaries without losing his temper.

Other people are completely fine with people having the odd shout and losing their temper, and do so themselves sometimes.

Neither is necessarily wrong, it's just about compatibility and boundaries.

I wouldn't be happy with the way your partner is but because I'm conscious I am sensitive and lots of other people on the thread don't have my initial reaction (which was that he doesn't sound very nice or kind) I know that he probably isn't as unkind as my kneejerk reaction tells me.

It's ok if you aren't ok with how he is. It's all about individual thresholds, not what other people would be ok with.

lost faith in my own ability to see things as they are and trust my own judgement

There is no 'as they are'. There's no objective way of judging anything. I might think a person's behaviour is fine... similar to what I'd do, even. You might find it totally unacceptable, amoral, mean, unkind, etc. The question to think about is who gets to decide, for you, whether you are right, or whether I'm right?

Can you answer that question?

So although I agree there is no right I can't even work out how I feel

Would you not say that you feel confused, then? That's a feeling.