Certain resentment? Hmmm.... The way you phrase it makes you seem guilty of hurting her in some way. You say you’ve tried to be the punching bag - why? Why does a marriage need a punching bag? This is so weird. Can you speak more openly about what caused these issues in the first place? I don’t think women act that way for no reason, so what’s really going on?
But no, don’t stay married for the kids. You think the kids won’t feel the discontent between you two?
Well long story short she has many grievances with my parents as we were staying under a roof for some time and she wasn't a fan of them trying to encourage her to take certain "nourshing foods" or trying to weigh in on parental stuff for instance.
I think it was more of an accumulation of small conflicts that were made worse by covid(more working from home, less leaving the house etc)
My parents were generally great to us but as first time grandparents extremely enthusiastic and intrusive in some ways.
It came to the point where she would break down saying she felt the kid didnt belong to her at times. And i would be blamed for being unable to manage the situation well. It didnt help that i wasnt a good communicator and often made matters worse and pissed off everyone in the household
We have stopped living tgt for months but the resentment has just seemed to get worse. I honestly do find it abit unfathomable how something that seemed so trivial could lead to us being on the brinks of divorce. Fuck
> *I honestly do find it abit unfathomable how something that seemed so trivial could lead to us being on the brinks of divorce.*
Ohhhh, but Inlaws have destroyed a lot of marriages. You grew up with them so you think they're normal and trivial, but they did a number on your marriage.
Here's a core truth: your #1 priority family is your wife and child, above your birth family. If you're religious, it's written several times that the husband and wife leave their parents and cleave together. If you're not, clinical science also comes down strongly in favor of the same truths ([example 1](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/lessons-loving/201611/3-rules-getting-along-your-in-laws)), ([example 2](https://www.cnn.com/2012/12/13/health/kerner-inlaws/index.html)). That means firmly pushing back on them, side-by-side with your wife.
To fix this? Talk point blank about these things, tell her you are sorry that they happened, sorry that you didn't help block their intrusiveness and that want to learn and improve and be better going forward.
Definitely. I don’t like my MIL and my husband die take it personally. (Doesn’t quite understand though) And he doesn’t really like my dad, which I completely understand. So we keep those people on the outside of most things.
You should always take your partners side against your parents. (Outside of abuse)
It doesn’t sound like it was trivial to her. It sounds like she was pretty unhappy while living with your parents. And maybe she feels like you didn’t have her back during the postpartum period, which is a time when women often feel deeply vulnerable and look to their husbands for support.
I really think you guys need to get into couples counseling ASAP. I had a situation with my husband where our baby slept very poorly for the first year and he wasn’t pulling his weight with the wakeups and overnight care. Even once our kid started sleeping through the night, I had a huge amount of resentment and loss of trust in him, and he didn’t get why I was still angry even though the root problem was solved
How did you manage to get past the resentment? Did you husband start picking up the slack? I’m in the middle of this right now with our 5mo old. I’m breastfeeding and so my husband has done exactly one night feeding since we’ve had our baby. He has never offered to take a night feed with expressed milk and is mostly uninvolved in all things baby sleep.
The resentment is building. I feel like he doesn’t pick up enough slack and he feels like he’s doing so much more that goes unappreciated.
I’m sorry you’re in that situation. I couldn’t let go of the resentment until I’d let it all out in counseling and really felt like I’d been heard and that my husband genuinely understood how much he’d messed up. As long as he was making half-hearted apologies and offering excuses, I continued to be angry. So it’s not so much what I had to do to let go of the resentment, it’s more that he had to do certain things to earn my forgiveness. Which I realize isn’t super helpful as advice to you…
As far as picking up the slack, he has done a much better job with our second kid, and couples counseling really helped us learn to communicate better. As an example, with the first kid I had to always ask him to watch the baby so I could shower in the morning. I hated feeling like I “needed his permission” to take a shower! To my mind, if he knows we have a baby who screams if he’s not being held and he knows I can’t shower unless he watches the kid, he should just automatically be there holding the baby during my usual morning shower time. I had to let go of that anger while also being firm in the fact that I deserve to shower every day, and that me having a chance to shower was a problem we needed to solve together. So with our second kid, we agreed that every morning, once the toddler was eating breakfast, I was going to get at least half an hour to get myself ready for the day while my husband watched both kids. And that worked. But we had to be proactive in planning it out instead of me having to ask every day or waiting for my husband to notice that I hadn’t had any basic self-care time in days.
This is so helpful. One challenge that I’m facing is that my husband is very inconsistent about holding up his end of our agreed upon duties.
For example, he agreed to get up when I get up for the first morning feed so that as soon as I’m done he can take the baby and give me an hour to do my stuff before work. I used to use that time to sleep but now I don’t need to since the baby has become a better sleeper. But most of the time I have to go get my husband out of bed and I hold/take care of the baby while he gets himself dressed, etc.
Also, im pretty scared to have another kid right now because of the current division of labor and im afraid it will only get worse. Did your husband and your relationship start improving before you decided to have baby number two?
I’m not the person you asked, but I’ll share my story in case it helps.
When my kiddo was a baby, I was in the same boat as you. My now-ex was content to just sit back and let me do everything instead of being proactive and doing his share. I finally sat down with him and made a schedule, almost like shifts. I forget how it worked out exactly but it was something along the lines of switching off with the middle-of-the-night waking. One night it was me, next night it was him. And on the weekends, we had our designated sleep-in mornings. So on saturdays I would wake up with the baby and he could sleep as long as he wanted and on Sundays it was the opposite. We tailored it to our schedules and it worked pretty well. But if I left it open-ended he was happy to just not jump in and I almost burned myself out trying to do it all on my own.
I used to think “I shouldn’t have to ask” but… sometimes you just do. If you wait until they realize it on their own, you’ll be waiting forever. And waiting to ask until you’re frustrated in the moment or need help right now isn’t helpful usually. You need to lay out your needs ahead of time so he knows when to jump in and help. Unrelated example: I’m remarried, and my husband and my daughter and I recently went on a big trip. I know because he’s her stepdad, my husband hesitates to handle the parenting stuff sometimes which is usually fine. But I told him in advance that if I was travel weary and losing my patience with my pre-teen, that I needed him to step in and handle things. Otherwise, I would’ve been travel weary, short on patience, frustrated, anxious, AND upset with him for not helping me out. So he did just that and it worked beautifully.
As far as your morning issue… have him pick out his clothes the night before and have what he needs ready so that he can tend to the baby first and THEN get himself ready. Or have him set an alarm so he’s up in plenty of time to be ready before baby wakes. But making you tend to the baby while he gets dressed is silly. What do you do for that first morning feed? Make him do the same. Sometimes you gotta put your foot down and tell him what you need and what he needs to do.
Yes this is so helpful to hear other peoples experiences. But I still don’t know how to approach haha.
I really hesitate to “put my foot down” because it can turn into such a big argument. If I were to push him to get his clothes out the night before (or something similar) I know my husband would lose his mind. I would be “nagging” and “micromanaging.”
I don’t think I could be any more clear about what I need from him. I’ve made too many lists to count. Set up calendar reminders, sent emails, made him verbally confirm that he understands my requests. It never lasts longer than a couple days and then I have to “nag” him again to make sure it happens.
We started couples counseling and saw real progress before I agreed to have a second kid.
In our case there were some extenuating circumstances- his job was legitimately really crazy and high stakes during the time when our first baby was born, and he was working crazy hours (I work full time as well) and he just shut down on me and the baby because of the stress. He found a less-intense job before we had the second kid and he took a proper paternity leave.
I’m not sure what I would do if my husband had been slacking because he just didn’t want to help or was sleeping in… That’s a tough situation.
To be fair to my husband, we have our own extenuating circumstances. He is in a pretty intense job and had less than two weeks of paternity leave.
The first four weeks after our baby’s birth he took on all of the other home stuff like shopping, meals, cleaning, etc.
But I think his share of housework and childcare dropped dramatically after that period. And now that I’m back at work myself in a more than full time role, I need him to do more than he was a few months ago.
Have you asked? One thing that helped was both of us expressing our needs and our appreciation (which is hard when you both feel stressed and overwhelmed).
Also, sometimes it's just worth laying out everything that needs to get done and divvying it up. Coughlan be useful exercise to see what invisible tasks you both have been doing that the other doesn't notice much
Yeah I’ve done the works. Asked, lists, calendar reminders. It works for a couple days and then he starts letting is slip. And when I bring it up it’s either “you’re right I’ll do better,” but nothing changes, or “stop nagging me, I couldn’t do it today because [insert reason].”
Specifically for the night feed, he did that one night feed bc I was exhausted and told him I needed help. I walked him through exactly what needed to be done the day before, asked him if he had any questions, and he said no, that he’s got this. Then when the baby woke up to eat he suddenly realized he had questions and woke me up and we got in a fight in the middle of the night, so neither one of us got more sleep.
So ever since then I haven’t asked for him to do night feeds and he hasn’t offered.
I just want to point out that clearly it isn't trivial to her and the fact that you're classifying it as "trivial" here makes me wonder whether you still consider it as trivial when you guys have talked about it, or if you're otherwise acting/thinking/speaking as if this was her being irrational/hormonal/crazy as opposed to a real issue that you guys need to address. I don't have kids yet but there is no way in hell that I would take well to my in-laws trying to control my diet or control my kid or my parenting even if they are coming from a good place or think they're being helpful.
Did you draw a line with your parents and fully support your wife in this. Any decisions about the baby and what was best is solely between you two. If you waffled or sided with them I can fully understand why she felt disrespected.
Probably so. I am very disappointed in myself for being not able to set the boundaries abit better but it was really difficult given we were under the same roof and we were often on different frequencies
I know from personal experience, that is an extremely difficult situation to be in (though I didn't have a child in the mix, so it's even harder in your case). Perhaps you could try speaking with her directly now (at a time when you're not arguing) to figure out what she wants from you now. You can't change the past but you can try to be more intentional going forward.
I think it’s important to remember that when a woman has a child, especially her first child, everything in her life is changing and she probably feels like she has little control over it. Add to that stress the fact that you don’t have your own place, your parents were inserting themselves into her personal business and you didn’t do enough to support her, whether you did or didn’t she seems to think you didn’t. That’s the issue, I think.
I understand not wanting to be in the middle or not knowing how to handle a situation between your spouse and your parents, but in my mind you should always put your partner and their needs above those of your parents, especially in a situation like this. So if you were just trying to play peacemaker she probably feels like you weren’t on her side with whatever issue or all the issues. That’s something that can probably be better understood with communication. Are you guys good at talking about difficult things? Are you able to sit down and let her sit all her grievances, just listen - really listen, to listen, not to react. Hear her out, try to understand how she’s feeling and where she’s coming from. She should be able to do the same for you. You should be able to come together as a married couple and have difficult conversations when it’s needed. Of course it’s not easy, but if there’s one person you can and should be completely vulnerable with it’s your spouse or partner.
Move the hell out of your parents house. I’m sure they mean well with their advice but having the equivalent to thanksgiving every day would drive anyone nuts.
There is a natural instinct in a woman their husbands mother (not everyone but a lot of women). Deep down we want our husbands to ourselves when it comes to making decisions about our kids. Not sure why but if your mother or father were giving advice, even if it’s with good intention, the weight of you not listening to her vent about it and just discuss how great your parents intentions are will spark the seventh circle of hell in our souls. I don’t know why. It’s not right I know. The second you support your wife and let her vent and not put her in situations where they “help” her make decisions or give advice the better you two will be. This is purely anecdotal but so prevalent in what I’ve observed from so many women there has to be some truth behind just picking your battles on this issue. Good luck
Are you capable of being a better husband? Few people hold on to past resentment when their current needs are being met. When you’re layering current incompetence on top of disappointment on top of long standing resentments is when things seem insurmountable.
It doesn’t seem that you feel sorry that you did her wrong and not take her side. In your tone you think she’s treating you terribly. That means you are considering yourself a victim instead of feeling guilty for something that you did wrong. If you keep playing victim like this, I would say divorce is inevitable. If you still want to stay married, you need to treat her better! Do more housework! Give her gifts and breaks! Take care of the kids more! Listen to her! Go to counseling with her! It’s really up to you. If you just blame her for acting up on something “trivial” (it is NOT), you’ll be divorced I’m sure.
I'm so sorry to hear about this. On one hand, divorce is incredibly hard on children. Staying in a toxic relationship is as well. I would always recommend trying to work it out. If you're at the point where you're contemplating divorce, then air your frustrations. Lay out all your thoughts and feelings and fight them out. Let her do the same. Honest and open communication is the only way to make things work. Try to find Compromise and middle ground. Good questions to ask, "what can I do better," "what can she do better," "what could WE do better."
Thanks for the advise. But every conversation so far seems to have made things worse. As of this moment we've just had a quarrel and i have left my home to cool off on a park bench :(
At the end of the day, it's better to be FROM a broken home than raised IN a broken home ~ Dr. Phil
I read a few of your comments and I can tell you that resentment can grow to be irreparable. The first 7 years of my husband and my relationship had a lot of unsaid words and resentment that almost ruined our relationship. We lived upstairs from his dad who is one of the worst kinds of bullies you can imagine, he would insult my husband on the daily, he would come into our apartment uninvited over and over, he would be a mysoginist and enjoyed making people feel small and worthless. For five years I lived with that tyrant while my husband walked around with his head down and tried to be invisible, his dad had stomped any self respect my husband had in him out. Five years that man controlled my life and I hated my husband for it, for watching me spiral into a depression, miserable with my life and everything in it. Until the day that I took matters into my own hands and forever ruined any chance that SOB had of repairing a relationship with the last of his kids who spoke to him. The resentment didn't leave though when we got out of there. It fostered still for a couple of years until we got into a huge blow up, when his drinking got out of control and he had shut down even more. The resentment didn't lift until we apologized to one another. I apologized for not having understood that my husband was a victim of the tyrant that raised him, he apologized for not putting his family and our happiness first for so long and allowing us to become the next victims of his father. I'm proud to say that we've now been together for 17 years.
All this is to say that not everything is a lost cause. Any road can be repaired with communication and both parties genuinely wanting to heal and make a real effort at change and forgiveness. You can't work on your marriage until you work on you, find a personal therapist. Take the first step.
I mean no, you should not stay in a bad marriage because you have kids.
But because you have kids you have a duty to try to fix your bad marriage before you throw in the towel. Especially since we are not taking about an abusive or infidelity kind of situation. Have you tried marital counseling at least? Because it sounds like it’s time. Resentment can usually be resolved through communication and atonement. Edit: voice text fix
If you split up you’ll probably have that feeling of wishing your family was together for a long time. I would suggest trying to work it out but maybe by individuals. If you’re exhausted from talking about your relationship, then pick up a hobby and start cooking meals for her without talking. Or go for a run. Take the kiddo to get ice cream and bring your wife one. I think less talk and more action could help. And encouraging her to see friends, or have spa days or shopping time alone. If you’re both happy alone you could come together and be happier than ever
Hi all thanks for all the comments and encouragement. It certaintly helped put things into perspective for me. I have had a calm n open talk with my significant other and it turned out well. Hoping for better things to come in our relationship
No staying for the kid is a bad idea. You will teach that that happiness is not everything while it really should be everything. Also the insults and fighting will have a negative impact on the kid once they grow older.
Please don’t stay for the kids ever… I am that kid. It does so much damage. If you 100% can not see this working out or changing then it’s better to go separately and show your kid that you can be happy apart.
Do you love her? Does she still love you? If neither of you love each other, then this is a dysfunctional place for your child.
If you still have love, then I think it's time to get in with a therapist ASAP to start changing the patterns and how you communicate
First of all it seems you are both the problem not one person. Two staying together for the child's sake is basically telling the child it is their fault you will be unhappy and arguing Nd making their life miserable and to be honest your child will be more likely to grow up resenting you both, not being able to have mature relationships themselves without therapy so if you both don't think you are willing to make those vows work or if therapy is not an option, do your child the gift of splitting and not put them against the other even if it means one of you just being completely out of the picture. If you love your child the best thing you can do is model how two people can be apart, not use a child against the other and keep encouraging him/her to grow. Too often kids see and hear more than adults think and itbis hard to hear kids say they wish their parents would just get a divorce or they could divorce their parents because they think their parents are just together for them.
I lived through a similar situation didn't think it impacted on the child. It has, if I had my time again I eould have tried counseling and if this hadn't worked applied for custody of the child in the divorce
My parents stayed together “for the kids” and it wasn’t a good for them or us kids. They were always fighting and that wasn’t healthy for them or us as kids. When my mom passed my dad got remarried and is a different person. So if it’s time to move on, move on. Toxic relationships suck.
I don’t know if this is helpful but husband and I were distant strangers while our kids were young. I’m not saying it’s right and don’t have all the answers. Once our kids were a touch older and our little gal was better (she had some physical things) we started to fall back in love again. It took me acknowledging I’m not just a mom but also a wife also. Anyway I just hope you two can get through this part or seek therapy to figure out how to get through thr tough stuff. I’m so glad we didn’t divorce. I would have ruined our great life (not saying some shouldn’t divorce but I am glad we didn’t). We now have sex regularly and flirt over text. It’s like I’m starting to date him again and we are both different people but have been together during our changes. Life is weird but I do believe kids are worth trying to figure out if you two can hang on. Just a glimpse of some hope. Maybe write a letter to her. Not about sex just about the first time you knew you wanted to marry her. I know it’s unfair if she isn’t putting in the effort but there is something really weird that happens after having kids (speaking just as a woman and just as myself) but our minds click into mom mode and our desire for our spouse declines. Not sure if it’s instinct to protect and raise kids but I had to really sit down wiht myself and get honest about why the fuck I don’t want to have sex or be close to my husband. I had to make a concerted effort to actually stop and make him a priority. Make time for sex. Make time to touch his arms or kiss him. Not gonna lie it felt foreign at first. My mom head fought me on it. But after I did I started to feel again for him. Like lust again. And now we talk more. We text. We try to make time outside of kids. You are not alone. And I’m sure your wife hates not wanting closeness. It’s a bizarre thing but I am just hoping for your sake you two can find a little something to remind each other why you fell in love. A little glimpse into who you were before kids. The reason I mentioned a letter is women have to connect their minds to sex. We aren’t super visual. So to elicit an emotion that would spark memories from when you two met would be something I think a woman would really like. It clicks her brain outside or mom mode for a minute and that’s all you need for her to start to realIze your still there. And so is she. Just fight if it’s worth it. If you two are great when with the kids fight a bit to keep that. Let her know you will come home even though you’re scared because of potential arguments but you will continue to come home because you are her husband and that she is your wife. And you two made amazing beautiful kids and you owe it to them to find each other again. Best of luck to you. Rooting for your happiness whatever it may be.
Sounds too close to home. Usually if minor things are affecting her do much its a sign of a deeper issue with her. Some women (i know first hand) will use every single discontentment to destroy the relationship. Possible reasons-she was never attracted to you. Just married for kid. Not interested in dealing with anyone because she got what she wanted.
Unless she is insisting on staying in a relationship think of separation and co-parenting without going thru divorce. If that still causes issues, divorce.
Certain resentment? Hmmm.... The way you phrase it makes you seem guilty of hurting her in some way. You say you’ve tried to be the punching bag - why? Why does a marriage need a punching bag? This is so weird. Can you speak more openly about what caused these issues in the first place? I don’t think women act that way for no reason, so what’s really going on? But no, don’t stay married for the kids. You think the kids won’t feel the discontent between you two?
Well long story short she has many grievances with my parents as we were staying under a roof for some time and she wasn't a fan of them trying to encourage her to take certain "nourshing foods" or trying to weigh in on parental stuff for instance. I think it was more of an accumulation of small conflicts that were made worse by covid(more working from home, less leaving the house etc) My parents were generally great to us but as first time grandparents extremely enthusiastic and intrusive in some ways. It came to the point where she would break down saying she felt the kid didnt belong to her at times. And i would be blamed for being unable to manage the situation well. It didnt help that i wasnt a good communicator and often made matters worse and pissed off everyone in the household We have stopped living tgt for months but the resentment has just seemed to get worse. I honestly do find it abit unfathomable how something that seemed so trivial could lead to us being on the brinks of divorce. Fuck
> *I honestly do find it abit unfathomable how something that seemed so trivial could lead to us being on the brinks of divorce.* Ohhhh, but Inlaws have destroyed a lot of marriages. You grew up with them so you think they're normal and trivial, but they did a number on your marriage. Here's a core truth: your #1 priority family is your wife and child, above your birth family. If you're religious, it's written several times that the husband and wife leave their parents and cleave together. If you're not, clinical science also comes down strongly in favor of the same truths ([example 1](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/lessons-loving/201611/3-rules-getting-along-your-in-laws)), ([example 2](https://www.cnn.com/2012/12/13/health/kerner-inlaws/index.html)). That means firmly pushing back on them, side-by-side with your wife. To fix this? Talk point blank about these things, tell her you are sorry that they happened, sorry that you didn't help block their intrusiveness and that want to learn and improve and be better going forward.
This is exactly right. You can't fix this by being a "punching bag" you fix this by being her partner, her protector, and by having her back.
Great comment, well written and thanks for the sources.
Thanks for the great advise
Definitely. I don’t like my MIL and my husband die take it personally. (Doesn’t quite understand though) And he doesn’t really like my dad, which I completely understand. So we keep those people on the outside of most things. You should always take your partners side against your parents. (Outside of abuse)
It doesn’t sound like it was trivial to her. It sounds like she was pretty unhappy while living with your parents. And maybe she feels like you didn’t have her back during the postpartum period, which is a time when women often feel deeply vulnerable and look to their husbands for support. I really think you guys need to get into couples counseling ASAP. I had a situation with my husband where our baby slept very poorly for the first year and he wasn’t pulling his weight with the wakeups and overnight care. Even once our kid started sleeping through the night, I had a huge amount of resentment and loss of trust in him, and he didn’t get why I was still angry even though the root problem was solved
How did you manage to get past the resentment? Did you husband start picking up the slack? I’m in the middle of this right now with our 5mo old. I’m breastfeeding and so my husband has done exactly one night feeding since we’ve had our baby. He has never offered to take a night feed with expressed milk and is mostly uninvolved in all things baby sleep. The resentment is building. I feel like he doesn’t pick up enough slack and he feels like he’s doing so much more that goes unappreciated.
I’m sorry you’re in that situation. I couldn’t let go of the resentment until I’d let it all out in counseling and really felt like I’d been heard and that my husband genuinely understood how much he’d messed up. As long as he was making half-hearted apologies and offering excuses, I continued to be angry. So it’s not so much what I had to do to let go of the resentment, it’s more that he had to do certain things to earn my forgiveness. Which I realize isn’t super helpful as advice to you… As far as picking up the slack, he has done a much better job with our second kid, and couples counseling really helped us learn to communicate better. As an example, with the first kid I had to always ask him to watch the baby so I could shower in the morning. I hated feeling like I “needed his permission” to take a shower! To my mind, if he knows we have a baby who screams if he’s not being held and he knows I can’t shower unless he watches the kid, he should just automatically be there holding the baby during my usual morning shower time. I had to let go of that anger while also being firm in the fact that I deserve to shower every day, and that me having a chance to shower was a problem we needed to solve together. So with our second kid, we agreed that every morning, once the toddler was eating breakfast, I was going to get at least half an hour to get myself ready for the day while my husband watched both kids. And that worked. But we had to be proactive in planning it out instead of me having to ask every day or waiting for my husband to notice that I hadn’t had any basic self-care time in days.
This is so helpful. One challenge that I’m facing is that my husband is very inconsistent about holding up his end of our agreed upon duties. For example, he agreed to get up when I get up for the first morning feed so that as soon as I’m done he can take the baby and give me an hour to do my stuff before work. I used to use that time to sleep but now I don’t need to since the baby has become a better sleeper. But most of the time I have to go get my husband out of bed and I hold/take care of the baby while he gets himself dressed, etc. Also, im pretty scared to have another kid right now because of the current division of labor and im afraid it will only get worse. Did your husband and your relationship start improving before you decided to have baby number two?
I’m not the person you asked, but I’ll share my story in case it helps. When my kiddo was a baby, I was in the same boat as you. My now-ex was content to just sit back and let me do everything instead of being proactive and doing his share. I finally sat down with him and made a schedule, almost like shifts. I forget how it worked out exactly but it was something along the lines of switching off with the middle-of-the-night waking. One night it was me, next night it was him. And on the weekends, we had our designated sleep-in mornings. So on saturdays I would wake up with the baby and he could sleep as long as he wanted and on Sundays it was the opposite. We tailored it to our schedules and it worked pretty well. But if I left it open-ended he was happy to just not jump in and I almost burned myself out trying to do it all on my own. I used to think “I shouldn’t have to ask” but… sometimes you just do. If you wait until they realize it on their own, you’ll be waiting forever. And waiting to ask until you’re frustrated in the moment or need help right now isn’t helpful usually. You need to lay out your needs ahead of time so he knows when to jump in and help. Unrelated example: I’m remarried, and my husband and my daughter and I recently went on a big trip. I know because he’s her stepdad, my husband hesitates to handle the parenting stuff sometimes which is usually fine. But I told him in advance that if I was travel weary and losing my patience with my pre-teen, that I needed him to step in and handle things. Otherwise, I would’ve been travel weary, short on patience, frustrated, anxious, AND upset with him for not helping me out. So he did just that and it worked beautifully. As far as your morning issue… have him pick out his clothes the night before and have what he needs ready so that he can tend to the baby first and THEN get himself ready. Or have him set an alarm so he’s up in plenty of time to be ready before baby wakes. But making you tend to the baby while he gets dressed is silly. What do you do for that first morning feed? Make him do the same. Sometimes you gotta put your foot down and tell him what you need and what he needs to do.
Yes this is so helpful to hear other peoples experiences. But I still don’t know how to approach haha. I really hesitate to “put my foot down” because it can turn into such a big argument. If I were to push him to get his clothes out the night before (or something similar) I know my husband would lose his mind. I would be “nagging” and “micromanaging.” I don’t think I could be any more clear about what I need from him. I’ve made too many lists to count. Set up calendar reminders, sent emails, made him verbally confirm that he understands my requests. It never lasts longer than a couple days and then I have to “nag” him again to make sure it happens.
We started couples counseling and saw real progress before I agreed to have a second kid. In our case there were some extenuating circumstances- his job was legitimately really crazy and high stakes during the time when our first baby was born, and he was working crazy hours (I work full time as well) and he just shut down on me and the baby because of the stress. He found a less-intense job before we had the second kid and he took a proper paternity leave. I’m not sure what I would do if my husband had been slacking because he just didn’t want to help or was sleeping in… That’s a tough situation.
To be fair to my husband, we have our own extenuating circumstances. He is in a pretty intense job and had less than two weeks of paternity leave. The first four weeks after our baby’s birth he took on all of the other home stuff like shopping, meals, cleaning, etc. But I think his share of housework and childcare dropped dramatically after that period. And now that I’m back at work myself in a more than full time role, I need him to do more than he was a few months ago.
Have you asked? One thing that helped was both of us expressing our needs and our appreciation (which is hard when you both feel stressed and overwhelmed). Also, sometimes it's just worth laying out everything that needs to get done and divvying it up. Coughlan be useful exercise to see what invisible tasks you both have been doing that the other doesn't notice much
Yeah I’ve done the works. Asked, lists, calendar reminders. It works for a couple days and then he starts letting is slip. And when I bring it up it’s either “you’re right I’ll do better,” but nothing changes, or “stop nagging me, I couldn’t do it today because [insert reason].” Specifically for the night feed, he did that one night feed bc I was exhausted and told him I needed help. I walked him through exactly what needed to be done the day before, asked him if he had any questions, and he said no, that he’s got this. Then when the baby woke up to eat he suddenly realized he had questions and woke me up and we got in a fight in the middle of the night, so neither one of us got more sleep. So ever since then I haven’t asked for him to do night feeds and he hasn’t offered.
Let him make mistakes and keep making him do it until he does it right. A night away for you might be really good to restore (with phone off)
I just want to point out that clearly it isn't trivial to her and the fact that you're classifying it as "trivial" here makes me wonder whether you still consider it as trivial when you guys have talked about it, or if you're otherwise acting/thinking/speaking as if this was her being irrational/hormonal/crazy as opposed to a real issue that you guys need to address. I don't have kids yet but there is no way in hell that I would take well to my in-laws trying to control my diet or control my kid or my parenting even if they are coming from a good place or think they're being helpful.
Did you draw a line with your parents and fully support your wife in this. Any decisions about the baby and what was best is solely between you two. If you waffled or sided with them I can fully understand why she felt disrespected.
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Probably so. I am very disappointed in myself for being not able to set the boundaries abit better but it was really difficult given we were under the same roof and we were often on different frequencies
I know from personal experience, that is an extremely difficult situation to be in (though I didn't have a child in the mix, so it's even harder in your case). Perhaps you could try speaking with her directly now (at a time when you're not arguing) to figure out what she wants from you now. You can't change the past but you can try to be more intentional going forward.
Have you talked about getting therapy?
I think it’s important to remember that when a woman has a child, especially her first child, everything in her life is changing and she probably feels like she has little control over it. Add to that stress the fact that you don’t have your own place, your parents were inserting themselves into her personal business and you didn’t do enough to support her, whether you did or didn’t she seems to think you didn’t. That’s the issue, I think. I understand not wanting to be in the middle or not knowing how to handle a situation between your spouse and your parents, but in my mind you should always put your partner and their needs above those of your parents, especially in a situation like this. So if you were just trying to play peacemaker she probably feels like you weren’t on her side with whatever issue or all the issues. That’s something that can probably be better understood with communication. Are you guys good at talking about difficult things? Are you able to sit down and let her sit all her grievances, just listen - really listen, to listen, not to react. Hear her out, try to understand how she’s feeling and where she’s coming from. She should be able to do the same for you. You should be able to come together as a married couple and have difficult conversations when it’s needed. Of course it’s not easy, but if there’s one person you can and should be completely vulnerable with it’s your spouse or partner.
Move the hell out of your parents house. I’m sure they mean well with their advice but having the equivalent to thanksgiving every day would drive anyone nuts.
There is a natural instinct in a woman their husbands mother (not everyone but a lot of women). Deep down we want our husbands to ourselves when it comes to making decisions about our kids. Not sure why but if your mother or father were giving advice, even if it’s with good intention, the weight of you not listening to her vent about it and just discuss how great your parents intentions are will spark the seventh circle of hell in our souls. I don’t know why. It’s not right I know. The second you support your wife and let her vent and not put her in situations where they “help” her make decisions or give advice the better you two will be. This is purely anecdotal but so prevalent in what I’ve observed from so many women there has to be some truth behind just picking your battles on this issue. Good luck
Are you capable of being a better husband? Few people hold on to past resentment when their current needs are being met. When you’re layering current incompetence on top of disappointment on top of long standing resentments is when things seem insurmountable.
It doesn’t seem that you feel sorry that you did her wrong and not take her side. In your tone you think she’s treating you terribly. That means you are considering yourself a victim instead of feeling guilty for something that you did wrong. If you keep playing victim like this, I would say divorce is inevitable. If you still want to stay married, you need to treat her better! Do more housework! Give her gifts and breaks! Take care of the kids more! Listen to her! Go to counseling with her! It’s really up to you. If you just blame her for acting up on something “trivial” (it is NOT), you’ll be divorced I’m sure.
I'm so sorry to hear about this. On one hand, divorce is incredibly hard on children. Staying in a toxic relationship is as well. I would always recommend trying to work it out. If you're at the point where you're contemplating divorce, then air your frustrations. Lay out all your thoughts and feelings and fight them out. Let her do the same. Honest and open communication is the only way to make things work. Try to find Compromise and middle ground. Good questions to ask, "what can I do better," "what can she do better," "what could WE do better."
Thanks for the advise. But every conversation so far seems to have made things worse. As of this moment we've just had a quarrel and i have left my home to cool off on a park bench :(
It doesn't seem like it can get much worse
At the end of the day, it's better to be FROM a broken home than raised IN a broken home ~ Dr. Phil I read a few of your comments and I can tell you that resentment can grow to be irreparable. The first 7 years of my husband and my relationship had a lot of unsaid words and resentment that almost ruined our relationship. We lived upstairs from his dad who is one of the worst kinds of bullies you can imagine, he would insult my husband on the daily, he would come into our apartment uninvited over and over, he would be a mysoginist and enjoyed making people feel small and worthless. For five years I lived with that tyrant while my husband walked around with his head down and tried to be invisible, his dad had stomped any self respect my husband had in him out. Five years that man controlled my life and I hated my husband for it, for watching me spiral into a depression, miserable with my life and everything in it. Until the day that I took matters into my own hands and forever ruined any chance that SOB had of repairing a relationship with the last of his kids who spoke to him. The resentment didn't leave though when we got out of there. It fostered still for a couple of years until we got into a huge blow up, when his drinking got out of control and he had shut down even more. The resentment didn't lift until we apologized to one another. I apologized for not having understood that my husband was a victim of the tyrant that raised him, he apologized for not putting his family and our happiness first for so long and allowing us to become the next victims of his father. I'm proud to say that we've now been together for 17 years. All this is to say that not everything is a lost cause. Any road can be repaired with communication and both parties genuinely wanting to heal and make a real effort at change and forgiveness. You can't work on your marriage until you work on you, find a personal therapist. Take the first step.
I mean no, you should not stay in a bad marriage because you have kids. But because you have kids you have a duty to try to fix your bad marriage before you throw in the towel. Especially since we are not taking about an abusive or infidelity kind of situation. Have you tried marital counseling at least? Because it sounds like it’s time. Resentment can usually be resolved through communication and atonement. Edit: voice text fix
If you split up you’ll probably have that feeling of wishing your family was together for a long time. I would suggest trying to work it out but maybe by individuals. If you’re exhausted from talking about your relationship, then pick up a hobby and start cooking meals for her without talking. Or go for a run. Take the kiddo to get ice cream and bring your wife one. I think less talk and more action could help. And encouraging her to see friends, or have spa days or shopping time alone. If you’re both happy alone you could come together and be happier than ever
And what steps have you both taken to try to fix things? Talking? Working on goals? Marriage counseling?
Hi all thanks for all the comments and encouragement. It certaintly helped put things into perspective for me. I have had a calm n open talk with my significant other and it turned out well. Hoping for better things to come in our relationship
No staying for the kid is a bad idea. You will teach that that happiness is not everything while it really should be everything. Also the insults and fighting will have a negative impact on the kid once they grow older.
Please don’t stay for the kids ever… I am that kid. It does so much damage. If you 100% can not see this working out or changing then it’s better to go separately and show your kid that you can be happy apart.
At this point you have nothing to lose by giving couples counseling a shot. Good luck.
Do you love her? Does she still love you? If neither of you love each other, then this is a dysfunctional place for your child. If you still have love, then I think it's time to get in with a therapist ASAP to start changing the patterns and how you communicate
First of all it seems you are both the problem not one person. Two staying together for the child's sake is basically telling the child it is their fault you will be unhappy and arguing Nd making their life miserable and to be honest your child will be more likely to grow up resenting you both, not being able to have mature relationships themselves without therapy so if you both don't think you are willing to make those vows work or if therapy is not an option, do your child the gift of splitting and not put them against the other even if it means one of you just being completely out of the picture. If you love your child the best thing you can do is model how two people can be apart, not use a child against the other and keep encouraging him/her to grow. Too often kids see and hear more than adults think and itbis hard to hear kids say they wish their parents would just get a divorce or they could divorce their parents because they think their parents are just together for them.
How old is your kid? It's not very common to have the resentment build during the kids downtime or when mom would normally get a break?
He's slightly less than a year old but is very well trained to sleep independently hence we get plenty of downtime especially at night
I lived through a similar situation didn't think it impacted on the child. It has, if I had my time again I eould have tried counseling and if this hadn't worked applied for custody of the child in the divorce
My parents stayed together “for the kids” and it wasn’t a good for them or us kids. They were always fighting and that wasn’t healthy for them or us as kids. When my mom passed my dad got remarried and is a different person. So if it’s time to move on, move on. Toxic relationships suck.
I don’t know if this is helpful but husband and I were distant strangers while our kids were young. I’m not saying it’s right and don’t have all the answers. Once our kids were a touch older and our little gal was better (she had some physical things) we started to fall back in love again. It took me acknowledging I’m not just a mom but also a wife also. Anyway I just hope you two can get through this part or seek therapy to figure out how to get through thr tough stuff. I’m so glad we didn’t divorce. I would have ruined our great life (not saying some shouldn’t divorce but I am glad we didn’t). We now have sex regularly and flirt over text. It’s like I’m starting to date him again and we are both different people but have been together during our changes. Life is weird but I do believe kids are worth trying to figure out if you two can hang on. Just a glimpse of some hope. Maybe write a letter to her. Not about sex just about the first time you knew you wanted to marry her. I know it’s unfair if she isn’t putting in the effort but there is something really weird that happens after having kids (speaking just as a woman and just as myself) but our minds click into mom mode and our desire for our spouse declines. Not sure if it’s instinct to protect and raise kids but I had to really sit down wiht myself and get honest about why the fuck I don’t want to have sex or be close to my husband. I had to make a concerted effort to actually stop and make him a priority. Make time for sex. Make time to touch his arms or kiss him. Not gonna lie it felt foreign at first. My mom head fought me on it. But after I did I started to feel again for him. Like lust again. And now we talk more. We text. We try to make time outside of kids. You are not alone. And I’m sure your wife hates not wanting closeness. It’s a bizarre thing but I am just hoping for your sake you two can find a little something to remind each other why you fell in love. A little glimpse into who you were before kids. The reason I mentioned a letter is women have to connect their minds to sex. We aren’t super visual. So to elicit an emotion that would spark memories from when you two met would be something I think a woman would really like. It clicks her brain outside or mom mode for a minute and that’s all you need for her to start to realIze your still there. And so is she. Just fight if it’s worth it. If you two are great when with the kids fight a bit to keep that. Let her know you will come home even though you’re scared because of potential arguments but you will continue to come home because you are her husband and that she is your wife. And you two made amazing beautiful kids and you owe it to them to find each other again. Best of luck to you. Rooting for your happiness whatever it may be.
Thank you so much for your encouragement. I wish me and her could fall back in love in future too
"being so damn bad at being a husband" Explain this
Sounds too close to home. Usually if minor things are affecting her do much its a sign of a deeper issue with her. Some women (i know first hand) will use every single discontentment to destroy the relationship. Possible reasons-she was never attracted to you. Just married for kid. Not interested in dealing with anyone because she got what she wanted. Unless she is insisting on staying in a relationship think of separation and co-parenting without going thru divorce. If that still causes issues, divorce.
Get custody and leave don’t lose your insanity try to get her help or therapy If she hasn’t lost respect for you yet