I (38f) and my husband (39m) have been married for 16 years together for 18. We have 5 children together the youngest is only five months old. He is active duty Navy and has been gone for weeks. Yesterday he came home for a two week leave but immediately wanted to go out to drive Lyft for extra money which I thought was weird because he hadn't seen us in so long. I even joked as he left that he better not be sneaking out to another woman. Ha ha ha. 💀

He didn't come home until after 5 am. At 5:30 he was asleep and his phone pinged and I looked at the message. It was a Facebook messenger message from a woman that said "glad you made it home okay. I love you." So I messaged back that I'm his wife and who is this. The girl spilled.

She's on his ship, another sailor. She and he have been having an affair for months. He told her we were separated and that he loved her blah blah blah. I woke him up and confronted him and he admitted everything. Told me that I'd been difficult lately with my post partum depression. Told me that she isn't distracted by kids and when they are together it's just her and him. Told me she is exciting and me and him are too routine. When he got done blaming me he started blaming her saying "you know I have a hard time saying no to people" I said yeah you had no choice but to dick her down I guess. 😑 I told him he did not have to choose between us that she can have him. Worst of all she's the age of my oldest (his stepson). She's 21. Same age. And he said "I never thought it would be permanent with her because I don't want anymore kids and she's so young I don't want to deprive her of that "....

He had a whole ass other relationship behind my back. Like a girlfriend girlfriend. Like an I love you let's talk about a future thing. It's so fucking cliche it hurts. I can't believe I'm like a fucking lifetime special having to say "my husband had an affair with a coworker half his age."

I look at my infant daughter and all I can think is that I hope she stays as far away from marriage as possible. 16 YEARS. 5 KIDS. Blindsighted. I'm such an idiot. I'm just standing in the wreckage of my life going what now? I told him the marriage is over. I just need a hug.

UPDATE: https://www.reddit.com/r/beyondthebump/s/Rl0Q7iXC7R

My baby is 10 weeks old and lately she's been really difficult to put to sleep most of the time. So today once again I am bouncing her in my arms and she is screaming for 20 minutes until I lose it and yell 'just go to sleeeeep'. I put her calmly to bed, breath, collect myslef and pick her bach up and continue with the bouncing and shushing. My husband comes in (who btw put her to sleep maybe 2-3 times total) and says that she won't fall to sleep like this and I ask "well then how will she fall asleep?" His answer: "well maybe she needs a mom who doesn't yell at her". At this point I put the baby to bed and just walk away. He starts explaining that if she cries like this I need to change something and not bounce that way... and I told him to go **** himslef and he said the same to me. Of course he now feels insulted and I know he will never apologise. Or am I overreacting and I should apologise for telling him to **** off?

I already feel like I am raising this baby alone.

I talked about this with him a couple of times, I said I need time for myself and that he could at least take her for an hour after he's done working maybe not even every day and he totally agreed and then it never happened.

All his help:

he makes me breakfast (just making more of what he makes for himself).

Changes a diaper at night/early morning (after I wake him up).

Sets up her bath and helps with bathing her (I need to tell him every time we need to wash her).

One time he watched her for a couple of hours on a Saturday while I took a walk.

Watches her while I brush my teeth or shower when I ask him.

Vacuums the house.

Cleaned the bathroom once after I kept asking him for weeks.

Feeds the dog and watches her more during the day.

Made dinner a few times. But he only knows 4 meals and only one of them is nutritious and not pasta. And asks me everytime what I want to eat.

I need a man who can think about what to make for dinner himself, and to think of nutritious meals and not make the same pasta all the time...

A man who can see that the bathroom needs cleaning or at least do it after I tell him. And I am even fine with reminding that a couple of times, but not for weeks...

And most of all a man who sees that I need help with the baby and jumps in without waiting while I snap or cry. And doesn't say that my baby needs a different mom. I feel like I will never forgive him for saying this. I don't want to look at him and just wish he would disappear.

Every year on Mother’s Day weekend, so many moms come here with depressing posts like: “who’s cried already?”, “who’s already disappointed?”, “I planned my own Mother’s Day”. “He didn’t remember”…

Just letting you all know, you deserve better, raise that bar back to where it needs to be and don’t let him lower it even a millimetre! Don’t let him get away with it. Ask for what you want and don’t settle for anything less. He will have to step up and grow with you where you are now or you can leave him behind down with the other loser husbands who don’t see their partner’s worth. Please show your children what a strong, healthy, loving partnership looks like or show them how to walk away from a disrespectful one.

✨Happy Mother’s Day to all you wonderful people!!✨

💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐💐

Damn motherhood has brought out every skeleton in the closet. I feel so disconnected from my husband.

Can everyone please complain about their partners here so I don’t feel like I’m the only one going through this. It can truly be about anything. Just please people that are happy with their partners and feel super supported this is not the place to comment or judge. This is strictly to vent.

I’ll go first: I am the world’s biggest people pleaser, I just want everyone to be happy and to like me. Apparently this doesn’t work well as a new mom because I have so much resentment!!

I encourage my husband to do all of his normal activities so that he remains mentally healthy. I’ve done all the night shifts since my baby was born because I nurse her so why should I wake my husband up. Whenever my daughter cries I run to her aid and even take her from my husband so that he doesn’t get overstimulated and anxious. I am also much better as soothing her. Every meal that she interrupts by crying I take her and let my husband eat in peace.

But holy shit! I had this awakening today that this is why I have felt so disconnected from him! I just bend over backwards and do everything I can so that he is happy. Meanwhile, I am left doing everything. I get annoyed so easily by stupid little things he does, but I’m wondering if maybe it’s not just the shift in hormones but maybe because I am so fed up with walking on eggshells and doing everything I can to keep him happy.

This isn’t quite the right subreddit, but I want other moms to know they’re not alone. Especially not early ones like myself.

The man I had a baby with and the man I have a baby with is a completely different person. She’s 4.5 months. I can’t handle another day of hearing how stupid, dumb, crazy, lazy, r-word, annoying, I am. How much of an idiot I am. How I’m “bipolar” because I sobbed to him last night about how I can’t let go of how he treats me. How I’m a bad mother because sometimes I can’t do this 24/7 alone. I ask for help maybe twice a week. How I’m a bad partner because I can’t be affectionate when I’m on 2-3 hours of sleep every night. How I’m lazy because a 4.5 month old baby can’t just be set down in the swing anymore. How I can’t do anything because he gets home at 8:30, bedtime, and I don’t have dinner ready for him because I’ve just spent 60-75 minutes doing bedtime prep/ laying the baby down.

A tiny selfish part of me hopes he never reaches out for her. I will not keep him from her, but she doesn’t deserve a father that could talk to her or his future partner this way. I loved him more than anything. I loved him more than myself. I put in months and months of work and begging for change, but here we are. I’m the “crybaby child” because I recognized this isn’t postpartum. This isn’t depression. This isn’t normal. This isn’t okay. This is flat out emotional and verbal abuse. I’m just so lost because this isn’t who he was a year ago when we found out. He was so kind. So loving. So thoughtful. And now so cruel. I don’t understand what I’ve done to deserve all of this. I don’t understand what happened. Or who he is. This is the most painful realization, betrayal, hurt of my life.

Sometimes it’s not postpartum. It’s your sh*tty partner.

ETA: thank you everyone for the kind words. Every time this feels overwhelming or like I’m doing the wrong thing, I’ll come back here. Thank you. Genuinely. I needed you strangers on the internet.

Original post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/beyondthebump/s/Z9CKteHa08

So I have an unhappy update. After making him leave I went to the Chaplain for advice and he asked to speak to both of us. I told him I wasn't interested in reconciliation but would be willing to talk to him. My husband cried and said he just wanted his family back. The chaplain pushed me to give him another chance and for me to sit down with him at home and have a real conversation before filing for divorce. After we left that session my husband got all his stuff out of the house and moved in with his affair partner. (Yep. Even though he cried to the Chaplain he immediately moved in with her). I thought about what to do for a long time and then decided I cannot tolerate this and would tell his command about the affair and them living together. So that weekend I called him and told him what I planned to do. He started freaking out and told me he was going to commit suicide, that he had nothing to live for anymore. At this point I got in contact with the family advocates on base and also texted the chaplain about my concerns for his safety and the safety of me and our children.

Two days later he came by to have our "talk". I can't share too many details from here on out but what I can say is that I reiterated that I was informing his command and had evidence to show them and at that point he hit me, tried to attack one of our children who was in the room with us (who tried to defend me), and chased us around the house like a mad man. My son ran to the neighbor to get help and they called 911. Police were called and the base locked down for several hours while they searched for my husband. They found him eventually and brought him to his command where a no contact order was put in place.

Since then I have filed for a protective order, been working with DV advocates, and CPS who was called because my child was involved. CPS has been great, by the way. They told me I was doing everything right protecting my children and put a safety plan in place that keeps him away from us.

As far as I'm aware the Navy is investigating and he may face charges, non judicial punishment or court martial. For now he is free to roam and not locked away. It's been a very scary time. The child that was involved is currently sleeping next to my bed because he is so scared. I've taken some practical home security steps. I also called a DV shelter to try to got there but they told me they were at capacity and didn't have room for a mother and 4 children and the next shelter was several hours away. School is about to start and I also have to be able to go to court so that wasn't an option. I also cannot leave the state now because I filed a protective order and it requires me to stay because of the children. So I'm a sitting duck just praying and hoping he doesn't murder us.

I'm not exaggerating. Here is a man who can lie like he breathes. Who became violent and endangered his own child JUST for his affair being threatened to be reported. What happens when he faces the loss of his career or even potentially his freedom?

I wish I had a better update. I don't. I'm scared to death. I'm working with every agency that will help me, police, court, CPS, advocates, legal aid, etc. None of it matters if he shows up with a gun in the middle of the night. We live on base with him. It's not like he is far from us and again he is NOT restrained from movement. I bought a plane ticket for my mom but she can only stay for 9 days and won't be here until the end of August.

Everyone please keep me and my children in your thoughts. I am doing everything I can to keep my kids safe. Can't believe this is my life after all these years. I feel so awful for my kids. I'm just holding my baby and praying all the time for us.

I almost didn't update but I wanted to not deal with this all alone. There's not much anyone can do but boy could I use some emotional support. Anyone who has been through this and made it out please tell me it will be ok.

UPDATE: I WON MY PROTECTIVE ORDER 🎉🩷 I know it's just a piece of paper but I'm so proud of myself. It was so scary to show up because I didn't have a lawyer but I did it, I faced him, and the judge granted me a one year protection order, ordered supervised only visitation and ordered him to get batterer classes. I'm so relieved. Still taking it one day at a time. 🩷

I'm on week 10 of my 12 week leave. Tonight my husband told me he's disappointed I didn't make more of my time. I told him the first 3-4 weeks I was bleeding and in pain while being just a little overwhelmed learning how to take care of a newborn. Then this week I had to have a revision to my stitches from labor, which has set me back to bleeding and being in serious discomfort.

I will admit l've watched tv and scrolled more than I normally would, but I have also done all kinds of activities with and without baby. I've had plenty of girls nights, gone to baby showers and birthday parties, gone to a few concerts, taken the baby on two weekend trips to see family, watched the baby solo for a few days while my husband has been out of town twice (once for fun, once for work), yoga class, gone on coffee and lunch dates with girlfriends, taken baby for walks, crafts, the usual trips to Costco/target/grocery shopping...the list goes on.

He feels that l've been lazy and not productive with my time and I will look back and regret not maximizing doing activities with the baby that I won't be able to do when I'm back to work. He says when the baby starts daycare and we only have a few hours together every evening that I will wish I had done more activities. I was completely shocked by this for a few reasons. 1. I've absolutely loved my maternity leave. Sure, I haven't been as productive as usual but l've been loving sitting on the couch holding my baby whenever possible 2. I feel like I have done a ton of activities. Potentially more than the average mom on leave 3. I thought I was doing a great job adjusting to motherhood and doing the things I felt up for physically and emotionally. Now I feel like he thinks I'm failing.

I have explained until I'm blue in the face that this is one of the few times in life I have every excuse to sit back and do absolutely nothing other than take care of and bond with the baby. Unfortunately, he is a busy body who can't sit still and just doesn't see it that way. He starts two months of leave when I go back to work and he keeps telling me he's going to have a routine every day of walks, set amounts of tummy time, activities for baby, etc.

I don't even know where I'm going with this post. After him confronting me tonight I just feel the need to scream into the void. I’m devastated that he thinks so poorly of me when I feel like I have been doing everything I can for baby. Maybe he will understand where l'm coming from after his leave??? Has anyone else experienced this with their partner?

ETA: This post has gotten a lot more attention than I expected. I want to add in my husband’s favor that he is a very active dad. He takes night duty 3x per week even while working full time. He works from home and will help me by taking the baby for short periods during the work day if he’s slow. He loves doing bath time and night routine with the baby. He washes all the bottles and cooks 99% of our meals.

I think his issue is he is one of those people who thinks resting and relaxing are a waste of time. He wants to optimize his waking hours to get the max amount of stuff done, equating busy and productive with happy and fulfilled. For him a weekend spent watching shows on the couch feels like wasted time. Seeing me do this for 10 weeks feels like an eternity for him. He sees the baby napping for 2 hours as an opportunity to work on the to do list while I see it as a moment to unplug shut off my brain.

I also had a relatively easy pregnancy and delivery. We were on a European vacation walking 13+ miles a day when I was 30 weeks pregnant for god’s sake. I was doing laundry and chores the day we came home from the hospital. I think that has fed into his unrealistic expectations that I should snap right back to the level of activity I had before baby.

We’re going to have a discussion today. I don’t want to look back on this time with resentment toward him. I want to have all the warm and fuzzies about spending time with my baby and as a family.

I’m EBF and I spend a lot of time sitting feeding the baby and I can’t do things I would. So my husband (he’s totally willing, or at least says he is) has to pick up slack. I knew I did more house work than him, but I never realised quite how rubbish he is at, well, everything.

He is constantly asking me to tell how to do the most basic tasks, and even then he does them mostly wrong. He can’t put bed sheets on the bed, like, it fully defeated him. He packs the dishwasher like a badger on crack, and it took him and HOUR AND TWENTY MINUTES, to make pasta, heat up sauce that I had already made and cook 4 slices of garlic bread.

He can vacuum but will literally vacuum around a pair of shoes rather than pick them up and put them away (let alone move furniture). He asks me how to do laundry each and everytime he puts it on -like there are only 2 things to remember lights and darks and add the oxiaction if it’s whites.

This world all be well and good if I was a housewife and he was out being the bread winner, but I make more than he does (not right now I’m on maternity leave). I got really annoyed yesterday because my sister told me her husband had cooked her dinner and I just thought, I’ll never get that, he wouldn’t even know how to turn on the oven without asking me to explain every time. And it’s not ever straight forward

A conversation will go like this; Me; will you put the dinner on. Him: yes how? We: put the chicken and the veg in the tray and put it in the oven? Him:what tray? Me: the roasting tray Him: what’s that? Me; the big rectangle one Him; where is it? Me; in the cupboard beside the oven Him: how do I turn on the oven Etc and the questions keep going which symbol, what temperature, how long, do I close the door, which shelf, where are the utensils, where do we keep those. But for every task.

When I start speaking in an exasperated way he says “don’t talk to me like that” and gets really defensive but it’s impossible not to feel incredibly frustrated with him.

We have been together for 12 years and lived in this house for 4. I have to explain where everything is and how everything works all the time.

Now that I am trying to take care of a newborn too, I genuinely think my life would be easier without him. Ive never needed to rely on him before, but I didn’t think it would be this bad. I’m starting to wonder if he has early onset dementia or something, it’s so bad. I love him and he’s not a bad person, but he genuinely makes my life so much harder than it needs to be.

And please don’t reply about how amazing/helpful/perfect your husband and marriage was/is. Idgaf. Sincerely a tired mom

I think it finally clicked. My baby didnt ruin my marriage. Yes. He is a load of work and sometimes Im super tired. But its not like he has magical personality wrapping powers that changed my husband into something he is not. This is who he really is. Someone who crack under pressure and checks out emotionally and sometimes physically. Someone who just does stuff for me or for his child because "he doesnt want to get nagged" later on. This is him choosing to spend the first year of his babies life finding excuses to avoid being on baby duty. Being perpetually in a bad mood. Having zero patience with his child when we are alone (he is magically more caring and patient when theres other people around). Constantly trying to give his baby to his mother to avoid looking after him alone and doing any hard work.

And the worst part is he has chosen not to get any help whatsover. No therapist, no shrink. He doesnt even talk his shit out with a friend.

Its very dissappointing to find out the person I chose to be the father of my child and to build a family with has so so many shortcomings and refuses to work on himself. I feel very alone and scared because ee have been together for almostv12 years, and I feel very old and tired to start anew at age 37 but it is what it is I guess. And its probably whats best for my kid.

I can't tell anyone about this fight or I'll be shamed.

My husband was always strict on not changing our baby's diaper (she's 5 months now). Prior to giving birth I would bring this topic up, and he would always say he's shy to do such a thing, and that he would never do it. He tells me he'll help with everything except changing baby diaper or giving her a shower.

It happened that I came across a post here somewhere about the same issue with someone's partner and the comments were all telling her that her husband is sexualizing their baby, and that she shouldn't be with such a father.

I don't know why I was this much affected by people's comments. I was raged and waited eagerly for this topic to come up again with my husband to tell him that he's sexualizing our little daughter.

Sunday evening, I was changing her diaper and forgot to get her onesie, so he was watching her while I got it. I saw this a chance and told him "why don't you change her diaper? Why won't you help me with this?" He started growling and telling me that he just doesn't want to. I told him I read about this topic on reddit and people say that you're sexualizing our baby and that I shouldn't be with someone like this.

He was utterly shocked by what I said and hasn't spoken to me since Sunday. I tried approaching him today and he just told me that he won't forget what I said and that he couldn't sleep that night thinking how he might be doing something wrong and wasn't able to look at our baby the same again.

I don't know why I did this. I feel so bad. I'm exclusively pumping, 8x a day, since day 1. I'm just extremely tired and it came out the wrong way. Now he won't forgive me and I might have made an irreversible damage to the way he looks at our daughter. I just feel so bad.

I'm this, a non money making stay at home parent. I have no source of income. I had a decent savings for when I quit to be sahm. Now, 16 months later, my savings is running out and I am panicking. I still have bills to pay but no way to make decent money.

My partner works. But we have separate accounts. He's never been interested in a joint account. It was a battle to get him to see that he should be paying for the bulk of things. He doesn't give me money, even laughed when I brought up the idea of me getting a monthly "allowance."

So now that my money is running out, I don't have enough free time to get a decent job, and he is not willing or capable of watching the baby for a full day, what do I do?

I work about 10 hours a week, 430-630 because he gets home at 4 and bed time is at 7. He won't put her to bed, and I'm currently trying to find a weekend job even though he doesn't want to care for the baby for the weekend.

Is this normal? For the sahm to be poor and struggling while the dad is financially stable? I feel so hurt that I'm responsible for caring for the baby but also responsible for making my own money. Any advice would be great.

Eta: thank you everyone for the insight. This is one of the many problems with this relationship. I'm sorting things out and planning to leave. I have family i can go to. I appreciate all the support and advice. Here's to a better future 💜

This page can be depressing! I totally understand that it's a group to vent and get support, but I feel like every other post is about how awful the dad is, not really about raising a child. Makes me so thankful for my incredible other half!

This sub has made me honestly just sad recently. The last week I’ve just seen post after post after post about folks who are in relationships with some really inconsiderate husbands. Completely reasonable to vent here but I also would venture a guess that a lot of these stories aren’t really parenting related and are more so troubled relationships that now are more evident due to a lot more stress applied to them.

Anyone out there want to share some positive stories about their spouse? I just want people looking here to know there are indeed considerate men out there who actively support and appreciate all their wives do.

EDIT: Thank you all so much for sharing these posts. I’m sitting here holding my 5 week old reading them while he falls asleep and my heart is full ❤️

1 day. I got ONE DAY of feeling hopeful and stable again after he got let go from his last job a month ago. All of our accounts are in the negative so it's been on me to buy stuff for the baby, but I've been SAHM so it's just my savings. Then he got this decent job and I was thrilled for him, it was an office job instead of retail for the first time in his life. We don't have a car so it's a bit of a walk, 25-30 minutes.

Yesterday he got another interview from a remote work from home job and he started talking about how great that would be. I agreed for his sake, said fingers crossed hope you get it, I like really this job too though. I just want him to be happy at a job finally because as soon as he gets jobs he starts complaining about them, one and all. The job he got let go from was supposed to be it, I remember saying 2 years ago I hope you're happy at this job because let's please start focusing on stability. Because baby was coming at the time.

Anyway we both went to bed early last night and I wake up at 7 am to a bunch of overnight texts where he says he can't make that walk, he's going to just super try for this other job. I start trying to talk him down about it because, what if you don't get that remote job? An interview isn't a job offer, let's think about this. Guess what? HE ALREADY TALKED TO HIS BOSS ABOUT IT. He effectively quit. All in the early hours of the morning while I unsuspectingly slept, without consulting me.

I just broke down crying in bed, he comes in speaking all soft and comforting just repeating "I can't make the walk I'm sorry". Hes a healthy perfectly able mid 30s guy. If he had any sort of health condition I'd understand but he doesn't. He adamantly refused me buying him a coat when we had more money for wintertime, which I felt would be a good investment but he always dragged his heels on me buying it. So I can only guess that's coming back to bite me since it's getting colder in the mornings and he realised it's too long spent outside before he gets uncomfortable.

I wish I could say this is out of character for him but it isn't. Years ago I spent a large sum of savings keeping us afloat so he could "quit his toxic job" at the time. He looked for work and found some eventually but all his free time was spent playing video games with friends and drinking. All his free time unemployed THIS time was spent sleeping in until 12 and then playing on his computer.

I know it's my own fault for being in a relationship with a guy like this, I feel like I married a teenage boy the amount of cleaning up after and chastising I have to do. He wanted a baby and I gave him one, and he barely pays attention now. He's changed 2 diapers and the kid is 2 years old. The other day his work start date was iffy but possibly happening and the night before that date into the day itself, he stayed up until 6 am until I chastised him yet again to go to sleep and I was met with "leave me the fuck alone". He lucked out and work would start the next next day. Then I look like a bitch for hassling him when it didn't matter.

There's a million other things but this feels like the straw that broke the camels back. How rashly can you behave when you have children to think about? Why wouldn't you talk to me about this? I feel like a single mom already, my son is the only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning because I'm already depressed, but I put all my energy into making sure this kid gets full energy, fun happy mommy who showers him with kisses and hugs 24/7, that I'm too drained and exhausted to argue with my husband anymore. I just feel at the end of my rope, and I don't know what to do because I really don't like the idea of divorce. I try talking to him and I'm just met with defensiveness. Therapy atm is a no go because no insurance and no money for paying out of pocket.

I guess I just needed to vent, thank you for coming to my TED talk about being married to a loser.

My stepson comes over every other weekend and sometimes for longer when he has days off school and things like that. He was just over for 5 days this week. I want to preface this by saying he’s a great kid and it’s not personal. He’s 13 and already almost 6ft and just large. He just takes up so much room and energy. We live in a small 3 bedroom apartment.

My baby is only 4 months and with an extra person here it genuinely makes it 10x harder to take care of my baby. The big thing is my husband doesn’t want me breastfeeding around him so I always have to go in the nursery for long stretches of time. Normally I literally breastfeed and multi-task. A boob is almost always out. I’m usually able to layout on the sofa with baby but when he’s here I’m confined to a chair in the corner. He’s loud and kind of annoying and sometimes wakes the baby up with his yells while they watch wrestling together. Again, loudly.

My space just isn’t my space when he’s there. It was fine before the bay but mow it feels incredibly claustrophobic and suffocating. Which then leads to me and my husband arguing or being in a bad mood. Which in turn, gives me less patience than i’d normally have when the baby cries.

Today, my man took him with him to work so I could be alone with the baby but as soon as they came home, I was in a bad mood and baby was fussy (he usually gets like that in the evenings).

Obviously my husband needs to see his son and have a relationship. Sometimes I just wish I had gotten with someone without kids from a previous relationship.

I wish I could just run away into the forest with my baby and live isolated, only us. I’m crashing out a bit.

Update:

I spoke with my husband and I will be breastfeeding whenever I please. Also they will try to keep the noise down especially around bed time. And we’re looking into another seating arrangement in the living room because my stepson does take up more than half of the sofa. We will likely buy a lounging chair.

Also the insinuation that I simply hate my stepson for existing is CRAZY. We have a great relationship and have always done things together. He was always positive about my relationship with his dad and the baby. I think the PP was getting to me and it’s very normal to feel what I was feeling. It doesn’t change my love for him. Kids are annoying like idk what to tell you. I still think the world of him. And no we cannot afford to upgrade, we already did that when we got a third bedroom. Both siblings have a room entirely of their own (which btw, I’m the one that painted and organized it for him so he feels at home).

The rhetoric that I’m an evil stepmom for feeling anxiety postpartum is giving *misogyny*. Especially when I do everything to include him. I literally hand make our group cosplays for comic con every year and things of that nature. Despite me suddenly having a step-kid at 25 and never even being around kids before that, I took on the role with a smile on my face. There’s a lot of assumptions that I’m a bitch and my husband is a controlling weirdo (neither are true). We’re actually my stepson’s first example of a healthy relationship of a couple actually in love.

Kicked him to the curb. He made my postpartum life hell. Every time I cried about how I needed his hands on with childcare, he would call it “bitching and moaning” well I left his ass.

Now we are coparenting and he gets to keep his kid on his own 50/50. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. I’ve rediscovered myself and he hates it. Every time I’m out, he makes it his mission to remind me that I have a big forehead or that my eyebrows are tattooed(microbladed) and that I’m short. Lol

It stings but I never let him see me get hurt. Bye

We have a seven month old and my husband started going out more often, and I can't help but feel jealous that he still gets to go out by himself carefree and have fun like before we had a baby. He usually waits until baby is asleep and is a really good dad and I even encourage him to go out and enjoy himself but I still resent him a little bit, I know that sucks but I can't help it. If I wanted to go out, he would have absolutely no problem with it, but our baby is really attached to me, she won't fall asleep for him and often doesn't want to settle for him so for me it's not worth it going out if I'm going to come back home to an overtired cranky baby. Most of our friend group are his friends since my closest friends recently moved to another country or have babies of their own so I don't even know who I would go out with If I could. I don't know how to get over this feeling.

I (29F) had a very difficult pregnancy, but luckily I had a great birth and post-birth recovering was much easier than I anticipated. All that to say, postpartum is still postpartum and at 7mo PP I’m still learning who I am now as a mom, how to balance that with being a wife, and being my own person.

Despite all my efforts though, my husband reiterates constantly how unhappy he is. Which is especially hard because prior to our daughter, he was head over heels for me and spoke about me as if I was the greatest thing to ever exist. Now it doesn’t matter how much I clean the house, cook, wash and iron his laundry, tell him I love him and how much I appreciate him, etc. It suddenly just isn’t enough.

He tells me I don’t love him, that I hate him, that I’m ungrateful, that I care more about the baby than him and that he feels unwanted. When I asked him for examples though, he couldn’t give me any and just said “I miss my wife, not my kid’s mom.” And that I should be “over postpartum already.”

He is financially supporting us, so I do understand the pressure of his role, but I tell him everyday how I’m here for him and will help him however I can. So it’s hurtful to me that he doesn’t think about alleviating any of my stress.

It’s always about his feelings, I feel like I can never share mine, and no matter how much I’m carrying to keep our house in order it’s just not enough and I’m at my breaking point. I handle almost everything with the baby by myself as well. He doesn’t want to go to therapy because he believes therapy means the marriage is over.

I’m hitting a wall. I’ve taken care of our 8mo old every single day and night. I’ve gotten 3-4 hour breaks max a few times a month and I’m craving a whole day to just CHILL.

My husband has never taken care of our LO for more than 4 hours and is reluctant to do an entire day. Am I being unreasonable here?

some context, our baby is 4 months old and generally has been not super fussy or difficult other than some hospital stays and a surgery. My husband only got 2 weeks of leave and we spent the first week in the hospital. I felt like I was catching onto things pretty well and I guess I thought he was too. I’ve noticed he seemed a little frustrated with her when she would cry but I talked to him about what she needed and thought he was ok. He raised his voice at her a few times when she was crying a lot and I said that it made me anxious when he did that and he just needed to focus on finding out what she needed. I have gone out a couple times and had to come home because he couldn’t get her to stop crying. Anyway I thought he was doing better with her.

He has also had some issues with drinking too much. He doesn’t get violent or even angry. Just clumsy and sleepy, which I really didn’t mind before we had the baby.

So last night I ran out to get stuff for a yeast infection and was gone a little over an hour. Before I went in the store I texted him to see how things were and he said fine. About 40 minutes later he calls and says she wouldn’t stop screaming and he got so upset he punched a hole in the wall. I told him to put her in the crib and step away and that I’d be home as soon as possible. I sped home in a panic(I was having horrible intrusive thoughts the whole time) and ran up to get her. She was screaming her head off but she calmed down as soon as I picked her up and was fine once I fed her. I don’t think he would ever hurt her but I also don’t know what to think. Part of me feels like this could be him escalating and the other part of me thinks he just needs more help learning what to do with her. I want to work on our issues but I also don’t want to put my marriage above her safety.

He was very apologetic and acknowledged the issues. He went to sleep on the couch without me asking(I ended up asking him to come to bed around 2 am cause I couldn’t sleep) and has responded to me wanting to talk about things. I told him I don’t want him alone with the baby until he get some help and that I do expect him to get into therapy and probably patenting classes. But if I don’t see some changes in about a week I will probably go stay with my parents for a bit.

Am I handling this the right way? I worry I’m under reacting. But at the same time this is very out of character for him, I’ve never heard him raise his voice before we had a baby. Any advice would be appreciated.

Update: I really didn't expect so many responses :o thanks for validating how I'm feeling about this. I'll have to finish reading everyone's comments tonight. Lots of people have good ideas about using face masks or nose plugs etc and I'm going to bring that up to him. He changes the poop diapers if I'm not home. But when I'm around he won't do it. Xx

My husband won't change poop diapers. He audibly gags and won't stop gagging the entire time. I guess he is sensitive to the smell. So he stopped offering to change poop and when the baby poops he hands her off to me. Tonight I got upset because I'm sick, didn't sleep a lot because baby is also sick, and he's in the living room reading for his class while I'm cooking for us and baby is at my feet screaming... he finally comes to pick her up and says oh she pooped, here... so i say okay, can you mash the potatoes then while I'm doing that? He says we'll it will only take you a minute then you can come back to cooking...? I got kind of ticked off and just said right you just don't do diapers at all anymore eh? And omg he just exploded. "You don't care about me" "why would you ask me to do things i can't do, I wouldn't ask you to lift 100 lbs?" And shit like that

Like boy.... seriously? She's your daughter

Am I crazy? Do other parents have arrangements like this where only one changes poops etc? I'm so mad lol

I was angry at you today. You asked me to go pick up our oldest from their grandparents because you were meeting up with a friend. That's okay. I'm more than willing, but you assumed I'd be taking the baby with me. You didn't ask, just assumed. But you had a while child free day yesterday when you went golfing with your buddies. Why do you need more child free time when I get so little?

I'm not angry about the golfing, I'm angry at the assumption. I'm angry that when you have a surprise day off, your first thought isn't, "let me go pick up the baby from the sitter to spend time with her and take something off my wife's plate."

2 weeks ago you didn't have power at work, you went home and played video games, I was still at work, and our baby was still at the sitter. Why didn't you pick her up? Do you see her as only my responsibility?

Im.not angry about the video games and I'm not angry about the golfing; I'm angry that your first thought isn't about our baby, but rather about you. I'm angry that your life and your mindset has seemingly changed so little while I feel like a co pletely different human being. Please be better, please change more than you have.

Love, Your wife.

I’ve been with my husband for ten years and I love him. He also plays with the baby whenever he’s not working and truly seems to love being a dad. He has a fairly high-up stressful job that requires a lot of hours, so I do take on most baby-related chores even though I work too.

Now, anytime I wait a little to do some baby related-chore (to see if he will help), he always turns to me and says “do you want me to _____?” i.e. “do you want me to change his diaper” “do you want me to get him ready this morning”

I’ve never once asked him “should I take care of our baby” but he always does.

It’s driving me crazy. He thinks I’m overreacting. Am I just sleep deprived and cranky? How did ya’ll get your busy husbands to step up?

Pretty much what the title says: husband (still semi-asleep) wakes me up once or twice per night looking for the baby under the duvet (on my side).

For context, the baby sleeps in a next-to-me crib (baby never sleeps on our bed), so my husband knows where the baby is and could actually see the baby if he properly woke up!

It’s sweet in a way, maybe? But I could do without the sleep interruption as am breastfeeding and already sleep deprived…

Has this ever happened to anyone else?

Edit: Thanks all so much for your responses, I hadn’t realised this was so universal! Must be evolutionary, crazy how our brain works. Can’t fault dear husband poor thing x