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.

Lostboy, I breastfed 4 babies, and tried to do the cot thing with teh first one only - oddly enough, because dh wanted me to.
Twas a nightmare. Co-sleeping was far, far easier. From the second baby onwards, we co-slept.
You should let your wife do what she wants in this area. She will resent it more than you realise if you don't, because she's just had a baby and is depressed and hormonal, and in the throes of a new mother-baby relationship.

My h also tried to make me give up breastfeeding - not in a nasty way, oh no, he was convinced that my milk had run out, and that our first baby was going hungry.

These are 2 examples of where he thought he was doing the right thing to fix a problem, but he wasn't.

If it's pnd, it will almost certainly pass, and cease being a factor in your relationship in time. I do hope you manage to sort things out.

Trillian, you've just said that billions of women all over the world are "very silly"

nightbynight, she is also implying that billions of women all over the world is willingly risking killing their babies...

did Lostboy come back to this thread - or was his only post the first one ?

I would like to take the opportunity to repost what Dittany very wisely posted further down:

By dittany Sun 21-Feb-10 21:4 5:55
"You have to trust your wife lost boy (you need to change your name too - you're an adult man, not a wee helpless boy). Your rule insisting that everything is equal when it comes to decision making, when it sounds like your wife does the bulk of the childcare, sounds like it could be a real problem. You can't take equal authority when you're not taking equal responsibility.

What would it have cost you to trust your wife and support her in co-sleeping? If you're looking for the reasons for your wife's anger, you could start with the fact that you were unsupportive of her with regards to that. "

Wow I am truly surprised by the amount of replies my post has generated many thanks to all of you,
My reason for posting on here was to try to get some insight in to how my wife was feeling behaving and try to understand what she is going through and what I could do to help her.
I realise of course that I am neither perfect or an expert on raising a child and that I do and have made mistakes and that yes sometimes I could have handled things differently or better.
I think some of you have taken the things I have said the wrong way as i am not looking for sympathy or playing the 'poor me' card I was just trying to explain the situation as honestly as I could from my perspective.
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.
I have been nothing but loving and supportive of her as well as being very positive and encouraging. things like telling her what a great mum she is, telling her how nice she looks, ect but I never get any thing positive from her just critisism and angry spiteful comments which has left me feeling used up and empty.
And for the record I do pull my weight around the home I do all the cooking, as well as my fair share of housework washing etc, as I have said before our relationship has always been a very equal partership.
It dissapionts me that some of you just seem to want to provoke reactions from one another and start arguments between your selves. It seems some of you have not read all my posts properly and are jumping to unfair conclusions.
I love my wife very very much and would do anything for her its just that I dont recognize her at the moment and I really dont have a clue what I should be doing or could be doing to help her.

I am so sorry that you have had such a bashing on this thread op. Had you been female, you would have had a lot of sympathy and support. Im afarid though, you are a man in a nest of vipers, and you are not going to get a balannced view

Have you asked her?
Have you let her explain to you?

Because there MUST be something, if she has changed so much.

Have you ever sat down with your wife, and asked her "how can I help you?" and listened to what she said, without giving your opinion on top? Not that I am saying your opinion doesnt matter, but just so that she is free to tell you what she wants/needs without interupption. As she seems to be suffering worse than you just now, could you perhaps concede on things you believe to be "right" (unless they are very obvioulsy wrong!) until she is feeling happier & more secure?

maduggar, I think that is a little bit unfair. Most of us have never been new dads, but we have been new mums, and we know what it is like with breastfeeding and sleep. It is THE hardest part, and it is the part where we need the most support from our partners, too.

We co-slept with both our sons. We tried the cot, or the moses basket next to the bed. But I was so knackered, and sleep deprived, having the baby in bed with me was so much easier, I got more rest, and baby would just feed when he needed to. And my husband did not need to be disturbed, so he did not have broken nights at all. He just got up once a night for a nappy change.

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.

Yes he did. After I said that trolls don't come back, he came back. This may or may not have been coincidence.

The polarisation of opinion on this thread is really astonishing. Total sympathy for the OP on one hand, cynical bitches (myself included) on the other. I don't wish for one minute to deny that psycho wives from hell exist, but there are too many clues here that it may not be the case. For example, what I don't get, if the woman has gone off her rocker and has barricaded herself in the house with a 9-month-old, is why social services aren't involved. If she really could be a danger to her baby they would surely want to have a polite word at the very least. Whether you believe they are in the least bit effective is another question.

We HAVE had fathers on here before, agonising about how their wives have changed after having a baby, and I think they've generally been given good advice and sympathy. Reasonable women want to help men understand how their wives tick, and to advise how to mend their relationships wherever possible. We've also had women wondering why they have suddenly started to hate their spouses after childbirth, and again, the majority have tried to be helpful and supportive in explaining how this can happen and what she can do about it. It usually involves hanging in there, getting treatment for depression and Relate - all of which Mrs OP seems to be doing.

Mumsnet is not a nest of evil man-haters; how do you think we became mums in the first place? I have four sons, three of them grown up - one even married. I have a dear brother and was very fond of my father. Some of my best friends are men, as they say.

Of course we do bring our own baggage to our responses. XH went around for two years telling everyone, including me, how happy we had been in our marriage. All that crying in the night etc didn't happen. I was reinventing our history together to make out that he had ever been unkind or unreasonable, to give me an excuse to meet young men on the internet. He expressed an intention to post on Mumsnet. You would no doubt have been very sorry at the horrible way I treated him when all he wanted to do was be there for me and look after our children. I've taken "everything" away from him (er, except for the 50% that I didn't), but he still says I am a lovely person, that he loves me and always will. Sometimes I think he even believes his own version. IT'S BULLSHIT, OK?

Double cross post... oh well.

But you are working full time, and she is on maternity leave?
If the baby is nine months now, she is due to return to work soon? Do you know what the plan is?

Do you feel it is working for her, being alone with the baby?

How do you think you can progress from here?

LB "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.
I have been nothing but loving and supportive of her as well as being very positive and encouraging..."

By your own admission, you were not supportive regarding co-sleeping, you did overrule her wishes because you didn't agree.

..or have I misunderstood your OP entirely?

lostboy - the only person qualified to help you work out what to do is your wife. listen to her. listen to the content of her words. try to see things from her pov. The relate counsellor should be helping both of you listen to each other.

I'm a bit intrigued by you saying you've never over-ruled her. unless there are bits missing your op implies that you did "over-rule" her re the co-sleeping. you said that despite the fact your wife wanted to co-sleep you had been putting baby in the cot.

also - looking again at your op you do say your wife is irrational and unreasonable. perhaps this is the case, perhaps you are a wonderful husband, and pnd and stress has turned her, as someone lower down delighfully put it, mad as a box of frogs. but I doubt it. I think a far more likely explanation is that there are some pretty deep issues going in with your relationship, and she is angry and frustrated. and you are dismissing this as unreasonable and irrational and the actions of someone who isn't the woman you love. I really think you need to accept that your perspective on this (that your wife is behaving irrationally and that until she started doing this everything was pretty near perfect) might be wrong.

Lostboy, I still also see no understanding of your own role in your current problems. You keep saying you are supportive, but your own descriptions of your actions say something else.

You need to think about this some more.

It is easy enough to deliver a general statement saying "I am not perfect, and of course I have made mistakes" but unless you are able to pinpoint these and offer them as examples to your wife, your words are empty. It does not bear witness of any great understanding and self insight.

I HATE 'EM I HATE 'EM I HATE... oh excuse me... no, not at all

If I had my time over again I wouldn't marry him, but it's quite likely that I would marry (if anyone was daft enough to take me). And I would have intended it for life and done my damnedest to make it work. Now, I'm a bit old and whacked and I can't envisage wanting another life partner. A bit of romance would be quite nice though. I'm past the half-century, stout and I talk too much, but there's always hope.

Annie, you are gorgeous.

I feel so sorry for Lostboy. So many people assuming he is a troll (well, how do we know we aren't all trolls?) and taking his wife's side. If he is really the husband of a Mner, trying to build up some arguments to use against his wife, she can come on here and put the record straight, no? Or do you think he has his wife tied up in a cupboard?

I did not have PND, but even I recognise some aspects of my own behaviour in the behaviour he describes in his wife: the lack of sexual desire, the desperate need to try to get as much sleep as possible hence preferring to co-sleep than try to get the baby back in the cot (yes of course co-sleeping was a backward step if you previously had the baby sleeping in its own cot as surely the ultimate goal is to have your child sleeping in their own bed? I don't disapprove of co-sleeping before anyone jumps on me, I did it myself, but of course there was always the end goal of getting the marital bed back).

Lostboy, I think you have temporarily lost your wife, hopefully it is only temporary. I imagine lack of sleep and PND is the cause. I guess the only thing you can do is give her the space she needs, but do not allow her to stop you seeing your daughter. Your relationship with her (the daughter) is very important and should be maintained.

I would suggest speaking to your GP, explaining the situation to him/her and seeing what they suggest. Or the health visitor maybe?

And don't listen to anyone here who tells you your opinion on how the baby is raised is not valid. It might be that your wife needs to take priority here if she is undertaking the day to day care, but partly this situation has only arisen because she chucked you out. If you were still at home, of course you have as much say as she does re day to day issues.

I am fairly sure my husband could have posted the OP several times. Except the moving out part as I think if I could feasibly have pushed him away or gone myself I may well have.
I suffer the angry, nasty,spiteful, lack of affection, unreasonable, intolerant type of PND/PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) (unmedicated)
My husband expressed his fears and hurt and quite frankly I was rude and said, I need to fix this, please just be there and butt the f@ck out mostly, except when I ask you and then I expect you to jump instantly or I will go off on one at you.

Bless my husband as the kindest man in the world, who let me be, never left me to flounder and in fact possibly has suffered far more than me because of PND.
The kids are 16, 7 and 3 now and things are much better.

I'n not advising but I wanted the OP to know that some of us can identify how awful we can and it can be got over.
Take care Lost boy I hope you find some support and a way to repair things, you sound sincere and confused.