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'd like to hear some indication of the DW's situation apart from how she is in relation to the H here, and how he has ended up staying with friends. And some concern for the baby's welfare apart from how she misses her father. There is more involved in this situation than Lostboy's sleeping on a friend's couch. There is not a lot of concern for the welfare of the wife and baby evident in the OP.

I suspect Lostboy would not have posted with concern about his wife's PND unless he had ended up leaving the flat. He mentions the PND almost as an afterthought, and only in the context of Relate and how it's affecting his position in the family.

I think she is feeling pressure from him -- it's worth noting that they are in Relate at this time, something that is surely best left for after the PND has been tackled and overcome. Why the rush into relationship issues while this woman is undergoing treatment for a horrible illness? One thing at a time, Lostboy? First things first?

Agree Tanga

The mother is unstable and aggressive, and is preventing the father from building his own relationship with his child. If this were the other way around and the woman had been thrown out of her own home by a mentally ill husband, we'd be seeing some very different responses.

I'll just give it a few hours longer before using the T-word, shall I?

I'd be curious as to what the Relate counsellor has said. If PND is this serious, is the counsellor aware? Are both H and W being seen at the same time?

This is just one side of the story after all.

Twouldn't be the first time, Reality. Anyone remember Mark Hadley? Or whatever his name was?

Henley?

Do we know that this woman is mentally unstable and aggressive? Has the OP actually told us in so many words that starting a fight doesn't simply mean disagreeing with him?

I was never keen on making my babies go back to the cot when they were unsettled; in fact, I am still happy for the 9yo to crash in with us if he feels the need. This does not mean that I suffer, or ever have suffered, from PND. It's just that dh wasn't that fussed about having things his way, so we never got to the level of disagreement that this family seem to be going through.

Of course it could be that the OP's wife genuinely is aggressive and unwell and has real issues. But he seems very convinced that his way is the right way. I'd need to hear more about what his wife actually says and does before I made my mind up.

I'd need to hear from him more than once on a thread, and preferably once half term was over...

I'm with annie and mathanxiety I thought the same thing too.

I hope not though.

Reality's suggestion had crossed my mind too.

Tanga, apology accepted.

I think people are being harsh and out of order here. I freely admit I have no troll-sense. But surely, even if you're convinced it's 90% likely OP is a troll, you shouldn't react like this? If there's a 10% chance the OP is a distraught father trying to help a mum with PND and a newborn child, then surely everyone should be rallying round with support and advice?

For my money (lack of troll sensor notwithstanding), I think he sounds perfectly genuine.

She sounds very mentally unwell.
Do you have other family who could talk to her? I think you need to be in contact with the health visitor and Drs as much as you can.

I hope your wife is able to get the help she needs and get better soon and then you can be a family again.

Please know none of this is your fault, so do not let her make you think it is.

Lostboy if you're still there, in case you don't know, we have had some threads started by men who sounded very much like the victim but turned out to be abusive and who knew their wife was a regular here.

I think you do need to ask yourself if you have been laying the law down about the baby's sleeping arrangements or anything else, and also if you have been pulling your weight - for example have you been taking on housework, shopping, cooking, dealing with visitors etc through all this? Do you have a habit of thinking you're right and not giving your wife an equal say? I'm not accusing you, but it's something to think about as things like this may have contributed to your wife's problems.

However all that aside, yes this does sound like bad pnd to me too. If you still have communication with her can you ask why she won't let you be alone with he baby? Ask yourself honestly, is there a reason for that? - or does she really seem to be being irrational? What did they say about all this at relate?

But MarineIguana, why assume OP is like the troll threads? Why should he have to justify his behaviour just because some other idiots have taken advantage?

I'm sorry, but I've read lots of responses to people (eg. Washwithcare) who've been widely denigrated as trolls, but the attitude on this thread is horrible even so. Sure, OP needs to think how he could make it easier for his wife, but putting it the way you did just sounds judgmental, whatever you say about not accusing him.

I think he sounds about 14 years old (and my 13-year-old agrees). Our man Mark was far smoother. I really hope it isn't one of those. He'd just love all the "your wife is clearly unstable" replies, he'd be stuffing them under her nose and trying to get her committed.

On the 10% assumption, though, he's already had several pages of very good advice - which he hasn't come back to thank anyone for. The usual modus operandi of trolls is to post something about how desperate they are, then wander off humming to themselves while everyone ties themselves in knots answering.

Op,
Your wife needs some support. Does it really matter if she and the baby co-sleep?

You sound very sorry for yourself.

Lostboy may be a distraught father, but there's no indication at all that he is trying to help his wife with her PND or to cope with the baby (who is not a newborn). His concern is with his own access to the baby and whether he can get back to his own flat. He doesn't mention any effort on his part to understand where he might have gone wrong or what his wife's pov might be. Everything his wife has said and done in the recent past seems to have come as a complete surprise to him. (Shades of MH here)

I don't think the wife would have been quite so adamant about co-sleeping (as the OP reported freely) unless she had had to contend with a lot of preachy negativity from Lostboy on the subject, nor would she have been so insistent in her allegations about feeling pressurised to have sex without some justification (many instances of her allegations and the circumstances thereof were reported by the OP himself).

I also don't think that the relationship would have ended up with him staying with a friend just because of the unreasonableness associated with PND. I think Lostboy has done a fine job of portraying his wife as a woman unhinged, whereas he comes off as reasonable, meek, absolutely not a caveman. I think there's a lot of the story left out in the OP. I think there's more left out than put in, in fact.

He seems to think that going to Relate might have made his wife change, but she has instead become more insistent that the relationship is over. Relate, and all relationship counselling, is about listening just as much as about talking, it's about learning and being open-minded and trying to see things from your partner's pov. None of which Lostboy has mentioned regarding the Relate meetings. I think she has spent 8 years and 9 months with someone who doesn't listen very well.

Thank you all for all your replies I never expected to get so many so quickly I really appreciate all the different view points you have given me and feel i should try to answer some of your questions and fill in a bit more detail.
The situation as it stands now is that my wife asked me to leave the flat and go stay somewhere else to give her some time and space as the flat we live in is fairly small and only has one bedroom I was very reluctant to do this but did not want to stay in a hostile environment and make things worse for both of us and the baby.
I understand very well that co sleeping can be beneficail to both mother and baby but in this case the baby has gone from waking 2 or 3 times a night to 7 or 8 and so all our sleep has become disturbed especially my wife.
Also i would like to say that I was not enforcing a strict regime on my wife and baby by putting the baby in the cot its just the way it went and the way both our daughter and us slept the best.
The babys cot is in our bedroom less than two feet from our bed.
Up untill this disagreement over the co sleeping arrangement we had made all the descisions regarding the baby together and were working really well as an equal partnership.
I am not suggesting that the co sleeping issue is the cause of all our problems but i feel the lack of proper sleep it is causing my wife is certainly a contributing factor.
As for the people who suggested I have no concern for the welfare of my wife and baby I deeply resent those comments and the only reason I posted on here was through concern for both of them I love them both so much and can think of nothing else but them.
All I want to be allowed to do is to love and look after them and be there for both of them.
As for the unreasonable behaviour I will let you decide who is being unreasonable by starting arguments this being the case of what happened a few days ago: I received a call from my wife whilst I was at work asking me to go round to the flat after to see our daughter when I got there she needed changing so I began to change her nappy on a changing mat on the floor in the bedroom I couldent se the wipes so asked my wife if she knew whre they were she replied on the side I turned around to look and saw they were next to where she was standing on the bedroom cabinet so i asked her if she could pass them to me to which she replied "get them yourself you've got legs How dare you order me around in my home get out of my flat" to which I was dumbstruck then she threw the wipes at me and stormed out of the room I finished changing the baby and left the flat not wanting to have yet another pointless argument and end up apologising yet again for her temper.
I hate seeing her like this and it breaks my heart as somtimes she can be so spiteful and hurtful that I barely recognise her as the woman I love.
I have posted on here after a suggestion from a freind who found this site usefull in the hope that I might gain more insight in to what is happening to my wife in the hope that I will be able to understand it more and be able to help her.
I was hoping that someone who may have been through a similar situation and come through it could give me some advice and help me to see it from a womans perspective.
Thank you to all the people who have left posts so far i hope this answers some of your questions.

How is it actually, that it is assumed that the person in favour of co-sleeping is always right?

And what's wrong with a father wanting access to their child?

The situation described in the OP sounds very much like PND to me, but that's not an excuse and it doesn't mean that the mother should be left to behave the way she does. Depression is not a carte blanche.

And I don't think it matters whether she reads and posts on here, too, either.

Did she ask you to change the baby? Did you mention the baby needed changing? Did this sound like some sort of reproach to her?

When you go about changing a baby, the first thing you should do is make sure you have the clean nappy, the bottom ointment if any is to be used, and the wipes all right there next to you. If you had been changing nappies for 9 months, you would know that, and you wouldn't have needed an assistant to find the wipes and then pass them to you. If you had been changing nappies for 9 days you would know that you would need everything to hand first, and not after the baby changing starts.

On the issue of co-sleeping vs. sleeping in the cot -- the baby's cot is in the room only a few feet from the bed, so if the baby wakes in the night you're both going to be woken. You say you know the benefits of co-sleeping, but you seem to be assuming that it is contributing to the baby's wakefulness, which may or may not be the case. Babies' sleeping patterns are never static. Your baby may have slept like a dream baby from day one, and now for reasons of her own has decided to wake 8 times a night, a fact that may be completely unrelated to the co-sleeping. Also, your ideas about co-sleeping come across as 'book-knowledge' rather than an understanding of what it may have meant to your wife, emotionally, to have the baby cuddled up next to her. And you are still coming across as 'the person who knows best' here.

OK, if what you report of the exchange is true, and she really did throw the wipes at you and order you out of the flat, why do you characterise it as 'unreasonableness'? This is what might be expected in a case of PND, which is not 'unreasonable' but a mental illness. You are falling over yourself trying to portray her as unresonable here, Lostboy. You sound like someone who is building a case against someone, not a man who loves his wife.

In reply to Mathanxiety I found your comments to be somewhat harsh and I think you have jumped to too many conclusions regading our relationship
I have tried to be as honest as I could and am in no way looking for sympathy or for people to feel sorry for me.
I agree with you that you only have my version of events and my side of the story but that is partly my reason for posting on here to try to get the insight in to what my wife is going through.
You also accused me of lecturing her and imposing my will on her and acting like a expert on babys this could not be further from the truth i would never presume to know more about what is best for our child as i strongly beleive that parenting is a totally equal partnership and both our opinions and feelings count equally.
I would also like to say that of course I dont think that I am perfect I have faults and make mistakes the same as anyone else and I would definatly not descride my self as meek.
This is not an excersize in points scoring or a way to make me feel better about myself
it is a genuine plea for help and advice to help me to understand waht my wife is going through.

Marthanxiety - I have been changing ds2's nappies for 6 months, changed ds1's for 4 years and dd's for 2 and a half years. And I from time to time forgot to get the wipes/nappy to hand before I started. Made for interesting contortions particularly when they were rolling/crawling.

I wouldn't say that that alone is indicative of lack of hands-on experience or cause for particular criticism. I'm quite often in position of calling for wipes/nappy/cream/change of clothes. But then lack of sleep has made me more forgetful than ever.