Please help a very sad and confused new dad

[LostBoy]

Hello all
I am writing this post out of shher desperation in the hope that someone will be able to offer me some helpful advice.
I have been with my wife for 8 years and we have had what i would consider a normal healthy loving relationship, Of course we have had ups and downs and rows and disagreements but no more so than any other couple I know.
We have recently become parents (9 months ago) to a beautiful baby girl and things at first were fine we were a very happy little family and were getting along really great working as a team learning how to be a family.
Our daughter had slept in her cot from the day we come home from the hospital and would wake on average 3 times a night for feeds.
we both shared all responsibilites and were supporting one another really well and really enjoying being parents.
However when the baby was around 6 months old she got a bad cold and was very poorly and upset and would not sleep without being cuddled so we had her in bed with us which was fine and we both discussed that we would not let her get used to this and as soon as she was better she would go back to her cot as our bed is not big enough for all three of us and both me and my wife were not sleeping as well as a result.
However when the baby was well agian my wife refused to put her back in to her cot and insisted the baby sleep in with us saying that the baby would no longer sleep in the cot which was untrue as I had been putting her down to sleep in the cot but my wife was then getting her out of the cot and bringing her in to bed with us.
I tried to explain to her that I thought this was not a good thing to be doing as it was a big step backwards for the baby and none of us were sleeping as well anymore.
She accused me of not wanting the baby in our bed so because I wanted sex which was totally not the case as I love my wife very much and would like nothing more than to be able to make love to her but she has told me that she dosent feel ready too and that is fine with me and I would never ever try to pressure her in to something she did not want and I told her this and that I was more than happy to wait as long as she needed.
ut then she started to accuse me of only doing stuff for her helping her and being nice to her so that she would have sex with me, she also began to accuse me of thinking things and would make her mind up what my intentions were and what i was going to say before I had had a chance to say anything choosing always to see the bad side of whatever I said or twst my words and actions in to something really ugly,
I love my wife with all my heart and it is deeply upsetting for me to hear the spiteful and nasty stuff she says about me and accuses me of.
It got so bad thet she would not let me even hug kiss or touch her and whenever I showed any sign of affection towards her she would get angry,
She is seeing a CBT councellor for post natal depression and we have been going to relate together but she is unwilling to try to make it work and it has now come to the stage where she is saying she dosent love me and has made me move out of our flat and I an now staying with friends.
I have continued to tell her I love her and that I will always be there for her and tried to make her feel better about herself but all i get in return is anger and spitefull comments.
She is almost unrecognosible as the woman I Love and behaves so completely irratonally and unreasonably but refuses to see this and blames me for everything and gets angry over nothing and will use anything to try to start a fight with me. I am at a total loss as to what to do now.
I love my wife so much and she has given me the most amazing thing in the world all I want is to be able to love them both care for them be there and be a family. But she has got so hostile and aggressive towards me now that I am scared for her and cannot stand to be around her and see her this way.
Our daughter is upset that I am not around and although I try to be ther as much as I can my wife is making it impossible for me to vist and refuses to let me be alone with the baby.
please please help me I have never felt so sad and desperate.

I thought mumsnet was by parents for parents and the last time I looked it took two people to make a baby and one of them had to be MALE

Mums are not the be all and end all, dads are people too

I can't believe what I have just read. Somewhere around the baby wipes bit I could not believe what I was reading - it was kafkaesque.

I hope the guy got some advice elsewhere. He sounded very sad. I hope his wife recovers and gets some perspective back as it is not normal to throw your DP out over rows about vo-sleeping and baby wipes.

Some of you should be ashamed.

HI - I had PND and a particularly unsupported partner. We subsequently split up but we share parental responsibility and her daughter is extremely happy. However this is not the point with this story - this poor man is going through the wars at the moment and all I would suggest is give her space and time.

The wipes thing was truly bizarre, he forgot to put the wipes down first so he was in the wrong and she was totally justified in screaming and lobbing them at his head from across the room.

Just read the first few pages of this, haven't read all of it, but I am gobsmacked at the attacks this guy is getting. OK, you don't know him in RL so you can't 100% know he is genuine, but why automatically assume he must be the villain just because he is male?

And mathanxiety, you do seem to be jumping to conclusions - one example being you criticise him for deciding to put the baby in a cot in another room, and the OP didn't say anything about another room.

Honestly, to those just finding the thread: this is one where it is really worth reading all of it before you make up your mind.

It changes, then changes again, and again.

and fwiw I think the "man-bashing" angle is a bit of a red herring here. surprised that so many people keep mentioning it.

What cracks me up is the fact that some people are having a go at the OP for not responding to the different accusations questions that have been asked. TBH I'm amazed he's managed to be so polite in his responses, and the reason he is probably keeping his replies short is because he probably feels a bit about all the in-fighting and wild supposition! What a bonkers thread!

Poor guy. He clearly needs support. What a horrid judgemental thread.

Mathanxiety, I agree that only able to focus on one thing at a time is quite frustrating. Would you care to respond to the comment I made to you? Just so you don't have to trawl back through the thread, I have C&P'd for you below:

By Rindercella Tue 23-Feb-10 21:22:18
Mathanxiety, I assume you refer to my earlier post when you said someone suggested legal advice with the caveat that this would not endear him to his wife, when I wrote the following:

"I think you need to continue with the Relate sessions and hope that your wife continues with her CBT too. It may be worth getting legal advice, but I worry that if you try to do anything too formally at this stage wrt to access, your wife will totally close down on you (even more than she has done already). Someone further up the thread suggested called on your ILs or friends of your wife's. I think that's an excellent suggestion."

I don't believe that paragraph is a worthy example of aggression towards women or being unsympathetic towards a new mother suffering from PND. At least I sincerly hope it was not as that was never my intention.

I don't think I claimed he had put the baby in a cot in another room. I read his post where he explained the cot was in their bedroom. If I ever did, I have been up to speed on the bedroom arrangements for at least 36 hours.

I don't know where you're getting the idea that I was citing your post as an example of aggression towards women with PND, Rindercella. And I don't think sarcasm, as in your first paragraph, is ever a positive contribution to a thread.

That post of mine went as follows:
"A good few posts before the one you mentioned, SomeGuy, a poster had suggested the OP get legal advice (with the caveat that this would probably not endear him to his wife). There has been a wide reaction to the OP, as he has acknowledged himself in his later posts. I for one sincerely hope he will avoid legal action. This would be a horrible thing for a woman suffering from PND to deal with."

Regarding the wipes, to all who think this was a silly thing to pick up on my exH claimed he did his share of baby care. He did some, and most of that needed to be redone. I'm talking about clothes put on backwards or sideways (yes, this is possible), or babies' arms in the legs of little babygros and legs in the arms, nappies on in such a way that the scratchy plastic tabs cut their little tummies or left marks on the tops of thighs (disposables). He was unable, ever, to see where any of the changing supplies were (he had similar problems finding anything in the fridge 'fridge blindness' we called it) despite the fact that they were always together in the nappy bag in the bedroom. He always needed help either from me or from one of the older children, to fetch things he had left out of reach in the bag. All of the older DCs, from the age of 3 or 4, knew more than he did about where everything was kept and how to get it all within reach before starting the changing operation; oldest DD could change a baby very efficiently at age 6, with supervision. I found it incredibly annoying that he could be so inept, even after DC5 was born, while at the same time telling me that the answer to post-natal disruption of the household was for me to 'get more organised'. Oh, and get more firm with the babies, who cried at night in order to 'manipulate' me, according to him. I didn't have PND, but his 'fair share' of baby care nearly drove me to distraction.

Your experiences with your dh might explain perhaps why you have been so confrontational at times on this thread I guess. Of course you might be right, this chap might be a useless tosser who has driven his wife into the ground. Or he might be a perfectly ordinary man trying to do his best, and finding that it's just not enough. I've known a few of the lets say deliberately useless types, but most of the fathers I know fit the latter category and that's probably why I read the OP's posts that way. In any case, I hope he has found support elsewhere (and of course that the poor wife gets well soon - depression is a horrible illness).

Re nooka's post: I know you weren't addressing me, but fwiw ... most of the fathers I know fall into the category of trying hard and doing a pretty good job (I know, lucky me and my pals). So I am not, really not at all, predisposed to regard fathers as useless; but still I felt the OP's posts did not ring true. Not that he was a useless tosser, just that something felt wrong about the way his story unfolded.

Of course that proves nothing, but I just want to point out again that skepticism towards an OP does not always have to arise from prejudice, whether against men, fathers, newbies or whatever. Sometimes it's just a gut feeling.

(Also fwiw, I don't think mathanxiety has been particularly confrontational; in fact she's offered loads of insights into PND, which is exactly what the OP requested to start with.)

But I know, just my opinion, etc etc etc. This thread could run and run ... I kind of hope it doesn't though, so I am going to endeavour to stop adding to it now, as we are never really going to know for sure.

dukeofhazard, if you do know these people in RL I hope you will pass on to the mother that if nothing else, it is probably (I hope) safe to say most people here will be hoping that she is OK, and getting the support she needs. (Opinions about the father are clearly more divided but it doesn't sound like you'll be planning a cosy chat with him anytime soon in any case.)

Yes but Mathanxiety you are projecting the failings of your ex onto this man just because he is a man. He has not said he is incapable of performing simple baby-related tasks. He has said he forgot to have baby wipes to hand on one occasion.

This thread is completely insane and I think a couple of you need to sort out your own issues before presuming to give relationship advice to anyone else. This man=villain thing makes me feel completely embarrassed for you.

Mathanxiety, my point was you used the comment I had made very early on in this thread as an example of where the thread had turned nasty. I think you used what I had written, which was hardly confrontational and in fact advocated that the OP would be better off turning to his wife's family & friends rather than doing anything formal. In a thread such as this, which runs to 100s of posts, it is very easy for original comments to be taken out of context.

I personally think you have transferred far too much from your own circumstances with your ex onto this thread. Changing a baby's nappy and forgetting the baby wipes cannot possibly, by any reasonable person, be cited as an example of being an abusive, controlling husband, or even just a useless one.

I too hope the OP and his wife manage to find the support and help they need to raise their baby.

Fair point Rindercella. Your advice was tempered and didn't advocate confrontation.

I didn't cite the example of the baby wipes incident as any kind of proof the OP was controlling or abusive, or useless. My intention was to suggest he may not have been doing as much of the baby care as he claimed if he hadn't lined up the supplies first. I also remarked in the 'wipes' post that he used this incident to portray himself as Mr Nice Guy Doing His Fair Share and getting wipes thrown at him for his pains, in contrast to his wife, who comes across in his description of the incident as unhinged. The wipes incident came across to me as an exercise in case-building, and despite his protestations, there was a lot of 'poor me' in his account of the incident.

Regarding my observations of my ex's 'help'; they are no more or no less relevant to the thread than any other contributors' observations that were based on their own personal experiences of living through the post natal period. Many have described living through PND, either suffering from it themselves, or living in a home where a mum had it. While I didn't have PND, I have observed well-intentioned efforts going awry, and felt occasionally that no help at all might be better than the kind of help/involvement I experienced. Some of it was pretty funny, but the joke wore thin at times too. The gist of my last paragraph was how annoying it was, and PND surely magnifies a lot of little irritations. The OP should not have described the wipes incident the way he did while at the same time claiming to have taken on board what so many posters had said about PND (clearly the reality of PND had not sunk in for him at all) and how it affects feelings and behaviour, and all the while claiming to have no anti-wife agenda.

LostBoy/LostDog has posted a few long posts after his OP that demonstrate a defensive attitude, and no acknowledgment of suggestions that PND may be at the bottom of his wife's changed demeanour or insights into PND that he may have gleaned from his own research. There has been no effort to respond to pertinent questions about the amount of support his wife has in RL -- a lot of posters have expressed concern about this aspect of her life, and have suggested this might in fact be a great way to be helpful to her, and he has made no comment about it. "I have never forced my will on my wife of daughter and would never overrule any of her descisions on the basis that I didnt agree." Directly contradicting yourself doesn't help either. There's no examination of his perspective here, nor is there even a clear idea of what he may have done and how it may have been experienced by his wife. If he's invested in the Relate counselling, and if he wants it to get somewhere, he needs to do better than that. "Yes 2010 of course I have tried talking to her and asking her if there is anything I could do to help That is one of the reasons I am not staying at our flat at the moment because she asked me to move out for a while to give her space." That sounds really clueless. Maybe it's the best he could do, but the mental image I get here is two ships passing in the night.

I have lived with someone who had undiagnosed depression for many years (he didn't think he had a problem, everything was my fault) it didn't happen suddenly as PND tends to, but rather it was part of the wallpaper of the relationship, maybe right from the start, I don't know it's hard, and at this stage pointless, to untangle the puzzle. Depression was only one part of it; there were other issues too. It colours everything in a relationship. The level of hostility that was often directed at me was breathtaking. There were long stretches where I felt I could not win for losing. LostDog is no doubt feeling bewildered by the turn of events, and hurt too. It's hard to sort out what's a relationship issue and what's the illness, but a lot of people have tried on this thread to point LostBoy/Dog in the right direction. So why does he thank posters who have "stuck up for me"? Some posters have asked early in the thread what the Relate counsellor may have said about the PND, if the issue has been raised in the sessions. It seems pointless to me to have someone who has PND going to Relate in the first place. A case of putting the cart before the horse, imo.

Want to add, there is no 'fixing' of someone who has depression, PND or any other kind.

It seems to me that mathanxiety has a awful lot to say that says awfully little!

For someone who says awfully little, I seem to have attracted a lot of ire on the thread

Verbous repetition of a dubious point of view does not make it more valid. Rather the reverse.

I think it's unfair to criticise the op for becoming defensive when experiencing the levels of aggression he was getting from some posters on this thread.

I particularly dislike the argument that getting defensive/upset when someone is being forthright/ critical of you us somehow 'proof' that you are a bad person.

There was alot of passive aggressive behaviour on this thread.

FWIW I spent a great deal of time wandering around my flat looking fir baby wipes while DD3 rolls about half changed. Maybe DP would be justified in lobbing them at my head next time.

I don't think it's proof of being a bad person in any way. However, I think what it does show is that you don't deal well with criticism delivered in a forthright manner, and I think the OP may have had a lot of forthright criticism from his wife, perhaps mainly due to PND, perhaps for other reasons. There's no justification for throwing things at other people, but PND blurs the picture the OP painted. I have one DC who can never find anything, even things that are in front of her nose, and the temptation to throw 'lost' items at her has been huge on occasion. Not justifiable, but maybe understandable?