DH is wearing me down, what can I do?

[Howcanihandlethisone]

Name changer here. I have a 6 month old DS with DH, he is a great Dad but I think he has psychological issues. This is a long one so sorry I want to give you as much info as I can.
Firstly he has this massive fear of our son not loving him and doting on him and loving other people more than him. He makes snide comments to me about how much time he spends with my parents which I can tell you is for about an hour maybe twice a week. He says things like, "he spends more time with his Nan and Grandad than with me" which is bollocks. He works 9-5 Mon-Fri a normal working week and so sees him just as much if not more than other Dads see their kids. When he gives him his food at the weekends he gets pissed off with me if DS plays up (which he does with me too) and says it's cos he is never there and DS wants me to feed him.
I go back to work in a couple of months and I am hoping to drop my hours from 37 to 30 a week so I can have a day off to spend with DS. My salary will obviously decrease by 20% and so I won't have as much cash as before. We used to earn the same (give or take £20 per week) but now he has a better job and will be getting paid around 7 grand more than me. We are putting DS in nursery for a few days a week and poss may ask my Mum to look after DS which we have reservations about for one reason or another, one main reason being that DH already makes nasty comments about how much time he sees his GP so if my Mum has him for a day or two in the week, jesus he would make my life hell. Money will be tight, although I think he thinks it will all be fine without actually having sat down and worked it out properly. I will not be left with any money at the end of the month after all the bills are paid. He says he likes being the bread winner and he wants to treat us but from the impression I got from a conversation we had this morning he now thinks that cos he will be earning more money that he will call the shots with how it is spent, ie. I will have to come cap in hand everytime I need something.
It is now making me reconsider my work plans and I feel like I need to go back full time to earn more money cos I don't like the idea of him having the final say in what we do with our money. He has already organised our summer holiday with his parents at their caravan on the south coast without asking me, whats more he has told them we are going for a week at the beginning and a week at the end of summer, 2 weeks all my summer hoildays with his parents. His excuse is cos we never see them as they live over 100 miles away from us. We will be staying with them for free but even so. I am now concerned that this will be the thing we will do every year cos I won't be earning enough money to maybe go abroad with DS.
He has a problem with grandparents, mainly my Mum and Dad cos they live close by, his GP interfered with his upbringing and his Dad had his nose pushed out and it almost split their family up. I can kind of see how he feels but at the same time I don't think my parents are that bad, they haven't done anything wrong yet. They do have potential to butt in sometimes but I like to think I will keep them in check if it gets too much.
He doesn't want my Mum looking after DS in case he ends up preferring her to him, he even has a problem if they babysit for a few hours while we go to our friends. They looked after DS one night and we fed him and put him to bed when they got to our house, he was fussing which he often does when I put him down and I said to Mum just let him fuss for a while and he will go to sleep in a few minutes. We left to go out and when we got back Mum said "oh he was breaking his heart and he was hysterical so I went up and picked him up and gave him a cuddle I couldn't have left him." When they left my DH said "I bet he wasn't that upset she was just dying to go up there and mess about with him, she probably flew up the stairs the minute the door shut." I can understand what he means I can imagine her doing that but his attitude towards it is always the same. He is ok with her to her face but then I get this when they have left.
He thinks my Mum acts like she is above him in DS life and undermines him and ignores him. I have seen that when he has a conversation with them they interrupt him half way through to coo and make faces at DS, which is quite rude really. My parents love my DH and looked after him for 12 months when he didn't have anywhere to live before we got our house.
I just feel so worn down and I am upset alot of the time at home during the day, how can I deal with this I have tried to reassure him and tell him that our DS loves him because he is his Dad and that he cannot stop other people being involved in his life. I have mentioned counselling to him but he doesn't think he has a problem.

Do you want to live like this?
What do you want to happen?
You have to make him see that just because he thinks there is no problem, that doesn't mean there isn't one, if he can't see that would you be willing to live and be with someone that self obsessed?

He sounds very very controlling. Are you sure it isnt your relationship with your parents he ahs the problem with. He is dictating your holiday, you are losing all the time with your son for no money, which i am sorry is just a waste of time, he is resentful of anyone else in your lives who offers to help. He sounds very spoilt and a bit precious to be honest. It isnt rude of your parents to interrupt him to coo at he baby - it is what grandparents with a doted on baby do. A reasonable man would understand this.

Can i ask, what sort of life you have. Do you do things as a family, do you socialise, together or apart, have you retained any independence or are you now in that "unit" where there is very little else except your family.

T - self obsessed is the right word - verging on narcissistic.

I love him so much and he adores our son, he says I should be glad that he loves us so much cos there are alot of deadbeat Dads who don't give a shit about their kids. I just want him to see that just cos our son has a relationship with someone else doesn't mean he will be he will love his Dad less.

Can you not organise more activities for your dh ands, why can't they go swimming at weekend on their own, I think your dh maybe feels he hasn't bonded yet with ds and is afraid if ds is pending quality time with gps he will bond with them better.

But you need to sort out the money issue, sit down with him and go through all the options make it clear you don't want tobeg for your own money, don't have his/hers

Plum, he does everything with him at the weekends, feeds him plays with him etc, it's not like I don't let him have a look in. He makes DS laugh more than anyone else can, I just can't get through to him. What can I say or do to help solve this and my sanity, answers besides "leave the bastard please".

Prettyfly we do everything together, we socialise with our friends together he is my best friend and we have a great relationship. It just seems to have changed once DS came along and it all centres around my DS relationship with my parents.

He seems to think that my parents being "too involved in our family" will spell trouble, which I can understand why he feels this way given what happened when he was young but his Mum didn't stand up and tell her parents to butt out and his Mum and Dad obviously didn't communicate with each other.

He needs to understand that one of the most important relationship a child will ever has is with their grandparents. Grandparents are special to their grandkidskids, and although one of mine has sadly passed away now and the other is developing altzheimers i remember the fun i had with being spoiled and loved by them very dearly. My parents had no money and no time as they worked all the time and it was the only time as a kid my sisters and i really got that. It didnt change the love and respect i hold for my parents. And now my son has an awesome relationship with my dad, which is brilliant. His dad also gets a bit jealous of it but its tough. Kids have an infinite amount of love, it is the best thing about them. Is he the same with his parents.

His love for you should not come at a price to your happiness. I'm not sure what you can do apart from try and persuade him to talk through these issues with someone. Does he have any other dad friends? It is unreasonable of him to expect your parents not to have a relationship with their grandchild. The things that he criticises them for are normal GP behaviour.

I'm sorry I can't think of much helpful to say. I'd worry too where this will end up. Your son will grow up feeling that he has to choose between his GP and his dad.

and also, In your first post you talked about him trying to make you beg him for money so he feels in charge, booking holidays without asking you, and being mean to your parents whom by all accounts sound lovely. At the very least he is a good man with some serious underlying issues that need some work.

Your ds is still really young so maybe your dp is still getting used to being a parent & is a bit insecure about how well he's doing? GPs can be a bit 'I've done it all before & you haven't' at times.

Perhaps your dh could cut down on his hours & spend a bit more time your ds? I know this depends on so many things like money, employer, ... but now that we're all equal (ha!) there must be men who would rather be at home just like there are women who prefer to go back to work.

That said, the money thing is a bit of a worry but again it might just be him learning to deal with a new situation & a good discussion might sort it out.

Prettyfly, our DS having a close relationship with my parents like the one you describe would drive him insane, it is his idea of hell. He thinks that he is his Dad and that it is his job to spoil him and do nice things with him. I must admit I didn't have a relationship with my GP as they all died when I was really young apart from my Nan who wasn't the most loving caring Nan but I still liked going to see her.
He isn't the same about his parents cos they live far away "too far to interfere", but we spend long weekends with them at their house. His Mum has said stuff to me in the past about DS and nap times and the fact I didn't breastfeed that has pissed me off but I bit my tongue. When I spoke to DH about it he just said it doesn't matter as much cos we never see them and he feels sorry for them.

Earth, you sound very sensible and I hope to god you are right. He isn't a bad person he is just very insecure, he worries alot about peoples opinions of him and thinks everyone hates him. He is actually really polite and well mannered, he is quiet and inoffensive and has a great SOH when people meet him they always tell me how nice he is. Our friends use GP for child care when they are at work and their DS doesn't love his Dad any less, he adores his parents and he is really soft around them.

Rivalry between a maternal grandmother and a father about which one of them is Person No 2 (Mother being Person No 1) in a child's life is something I have experienced - my mother and my DP went through this in the first year of DD's life.

However, it wasn't in circumstances similar to yours and I do think your DH sounds as if he has a real issue with it. Your DH sounds very controlling and for both your sakes you should see a counsellor. Try talking to him about that again.

Anna what did you do?

He sounds like a paranoid bully TBH. He seems to think that love is a finite thing and that if you or your DS care about someone there will be less love around for him. He needs to get some help for that. I can see this becoming more of a problem as your DS gets older.

"he says I should be glad that he loves us so much cos there are alot of deadbeat Dads who don't give a shit about their kids"

I really dislike that comment for some reason and i can't put my finger on why.

There are two ways this will go IMO either it will all blow over and he will get over himself

or

You will end up cut off from your parents for the greater good

He is your sons dad but stopping him from having a loving relationship with anyone else is no good at all.

I am just so gutted that this is his attitude now. He had his fears before DS was born but it manifested itself from me being in hospital after DS was born, my parents came to visit and DS was crying in his cot. My DH had been rubbing his back and comforting him all afternoon before they arrived and when my Mum got there she kind of barged in and moved DH out of the way to rub DS and kept saying "he's got wind can you see that means his got wind". My Dad had to keep her from getting up all time everytime DS cried. This pissed me off too cos I thought she should leave DH to it as he had been managing fine to comfort him all afternoon.
He now has it in his head that my Mum thinks she knows better all the time and interferes, which she did at first be she is alot better now that I have told her to bugger off a few times LOL.

I did talk to both of them about it, separately - I got plenty of opportunity because they would both "confide" in me (both of them were absolutely confident they were Person no 2 and wanted to ridicule the other for daring believe that he/she was .

Gradually it has calmed down, though when we stay with my mother or she stays with us DP still feels a bit left out - but it is only because DD finds it such a novely to be with her grandmother.

My Mum has never said anything to me about it, I don't believe she would be trying to compete with DH, although he is convinced she is.
I hope it gets better with time, I am so stressed out cos of this.

My DH was like this when we had our first except I didn't go back to work and this made the money thing an even bigger issue. All I can say is that it is their insecurity and it will take time to get things to a normal level. Like some other posters I think he is struggling to re-adjust and is threatened by the other relationships that your son has. Alternatively he is threatened by YOUR relationship with your son, is embarrassed by it and is transferring his anger to those who are next in line eg GPs.

The only thing that you can do is to ride it out giving lots of reassurance. Unfortunately I didn't have the wisdom of MN when my DD was small and I biult up a huge amount of resentment at the position that I felt I was being put in. It took the birth of our second child and me doing some more for myself (WAH) to feel that there was a more 'normal' situation. Like your DH I felt that my DH had 'ishoos' and he needed to sort them out and feel more secure in our family before he would calm down. Part of that though was me examining how I interacted with my parents and I realised that I did seem to defend them and take their side without realising it. Could you be doing this without knowing?

Sorry but I think he is trying to isolate you from everyone you know and love and might have 'influence' over you. Now he may or may not realise he is doing this but now you have recognised this behaviour and as it is wrong I think you (both of you) need to see someone to talk it out because it is not normal and he does need help.
Sorry for being an alarmist but the sooner you sort this the better as the relationship with the whole family will benefit.

Shoot I don't defend them, I agree with him most of the time, they do get on my nerves at times but they are my parents and I love them and they love us both and would move the earth to do anything for us. I just want him to chill out a bit and stop thinking everyone is out to piss him off. He thinks my Mum will automatically not listen to what we say when she looks after him and will do it her way cos she thinks she knows better. She did make mistakes when raising me and my brother and we do have different ideas about parenting but I don't think you can cut people out of DS life cos they think differently and I think if I sat Mum down and explained our fears to her she would be really reasonable cos all she wants is to spend time with DS. DH thinks she wants to be with him and will spoil him rotten to make him like her better.

They have had a slip of the tongue around DH and accidently called themselves Mummy and Daddy towards DS. Now DH is convinced that they think he is their child.