Angry

[Fringe]

This is my first time posting a message on Mumsnet. Feeling sad. I think things are getting on top of me. At home alone with lovely 6 month old - he's asleep now. Usually go to work full time and think being at home a lot is a shock to my system. My partner is at work. He is lovely and fun and a little dippy. I am Miss Stress Queen. I spend my time planning the next event and manage somehow to make everything feel like a military exercise - steaming veg, buying nappies, cleaning( which I seem to have become sort of obsessed about). When Dad gets home I am wound up like a spring. And usually end up exploding somehow. He never seems to notice all of the jobs that need doing, doesn't seem to be thinking about the next stage for our little boy e.g. we're trying baby led weaning and I as usual am the one finding the info and making it happen. When I was pregnant he never really read any of the pregnancy books but did show lots of love and support. The problem is I seems to take on more and more responsibility on both in reality and inside my own head. I do this all by myself! To the point it is becoming a big battle ground. I have some crazy displays of anger (including some moments of hitting myself) and get worried this will start to be obvious to our little one. My dad always had a temper and I can't bear to pass this on. My head is spinning and sometimes my stomach actually hurts from the anxiety I generate for myself. I sometimes think my partner would do so much more if I would only give him the chance and stop criticising him when he does do stuff. I go back to work in Feb and am so sad that I may have wasted this special time and forgotten to enjoy it. I am basically feeling guilty all of the time. I feel like a crap partner and potentially a crap mum. My partner is feeling really unloved. By the way he has even been ousted to the sofa for a considerable time. My baba still wakes 5/6 times a night to BF and as partner snores so loudly I can't handle sharing a bed with him for now. I hate not being closer to him but can't see another way to do it. It's horrid for him being on sofa too!grrrrrrr. Does anyone recognise these feelings???

Oh yes I agree. Rather than appreciating that DH goes to work to pay our mortgage (at the moment, short term) I resent that he isn't here and I get irritated because he doesn't notice all of the things that I have done.

I sometimes feel angry toward him as he is so laid back. sometimes I will have spent a couple of hours tidying and cleaning and he just comes in and leaves pots out etc, drives me mad.

I have to keep forcing myself to remember that being off work is my choice.

I'm a bit like this Fringe, although dd not breast fed so I had a bit more sleep. DD is now 15 months old and I am loving motherhood. At around 6 months old, dh and I went away fr the weekend, without dd to regroup before I restarted work. I was a stresshead right up until recently, when I decided things had to change.

DH and I now have at least one night per month without dd (she goes to grandparents) and we either go away for the weekend or stay home together. I got a cleaner!! there were a few other things, with me reating dh a lot better, but I can honestly say that these two things are the two that have made the biggest difference. I now feel refreshed, revived and like myself again.

It is early days for you yet, and of course you are breastfeeding, so for now nights away is not much of an option. Having said that, could you do a few hours seperate from your ds? He will drink from a cup I'm sure (dd had huge problems with her suck reflex and getting her to take a bottle was a real faff, taking over an hour, yet when faced with people who didn't take the whole hour to feed her, she might have missed one feed but never missed the next!) and if not, it will only be a few hours and at 6 months, with some solids to munch on, he should be fine whilst you sleep/have a bath/relax

Be kind to yourself, take time out and try and relax, it does get easier I promise, oh and going back to work helped me. It has its own (organisational) problems but otherwise it was fine, and I enjoy not having to feel responsible for someone else for a few hours, and love spending time with dd when i am with her (Most of the time )

I think what I'm trying to say is it does get easier, but I have to physically tell myself to enjoy my day cos I won't get the chance again - tomorrows another day, one day older and all that

HTH.