Feeling unsupported by my husband after the birth of our first child

TLL8090

I've been with my husband for 11 years and had our first child three months ago. He has been very unsupportive since the start of my pregnancy, despite saying how thrilled he is and how much he loves me. He didn't not take up any additional responsibilities, such as buying baby products, saving up money or attentive to my needs. He also missed multiple Ultrasound appointments and picked fights with me throughout my pregnancy even when I'm 37 weeks pregnant.

After our son was born, both my parents and his mother were in our house for a while (my mother is still here to help me with caring for our baby). While my mother does all the cooking, clean, and supporting me with the baby when asked, his mother kept on dragging him away to have random conversations. My husband practically spent 80% of his paternity leave on keeping his mother company.

After his mother finally left, he keeps on bringing up wanting to ask her back to help with our son. But I told him, she practically helps with nothing, while distracting him from his responsibility of being a father, that's why I prefer my mother's help. He keeps on picking fights with me about this, and what's fair. I tried to explain to him, in this situation the new mother is the vulnerable person who needs the support.

I'm not normally a needy or clingy person, but not having his support in the most vulnerable time of my life hurts and I don't believe he loves me or our son. So we're heading to divorce.

I wonder if anyone else has experienced the same situation or if you're a man, what is your perspective?

white knight

Hi, welcome

Our daughter has just had a baby 13 weeks old. The father is hands on and wonderful. I do believe that new parents should have limited time when family members are present, as a family you need to establish a routine with both of you. That means both sets of parents should ring and ask if its ok to visit. These boundaries are yours and your husband should comply perhaps with some flexibility so it seems both of you are making these decisions. After all he is the father and that is a new change for him as well.

You havent mentioned there is anything wrong with you or your baby health wise so I assume the birth went ok. Therefore I also dont see why your mother is present in your house so much. With both mothers out of the house you can both work together with the operation of the duties and I do agree that he should ramp up his responsibilities. Yes he should have attended the ultrasound as that is an important step but not so much buying baby products, most guys arent wired that way. Online purchases would fix that.

Two adults and a baby, both of you dont need that much physical presence. There are amny easy to prepare meals at the supermarket now and you might benefit if you ask him to do one extra task a day- clean floors, cook a meal and so on.

A sit down discussion even in a cafe with bubs in a pram might be needed, but talk calmly and tell him that parents visits need to be limited and they should ring first. Put in place the boundaries and expect him to limit his mum from coming. Save your marriage, introduce regular communication and praise him when he responds..

Reply anytime

TonyWK

TLL8090

Hi TonyWK,

Thanks for responding. When I talk about buying baby products, he wouldn't even financially contribute. I usually make more money than him, but during maternity leave I'm on half pay. He has refused to put more of his income in our joint account and never offer to provide any additional financial support for the baby.

As for why my mother is here, baby and I are physically fine, however due to my husband's lack of support, and his Multiple Sclerosis, he basically have dinner and go to bed at 7pm every night. When I was breastfeeding, which takes 40min each time I woke up, he didn't even at least share nappy changing duty. I told him my mother doesn't have to be here if we can share the duties of taking care baby more, but he makes empty promises with no real actions.

I understand a couple can raise a baby with no outside assistance, however I do prefer that his clothes get hand washed, we have nutritious nicely prepared dinners, a clean presentable house, and having the option to get out of the house by myself occasionally. All these my mother is helping with. I don't mind his mother's presence if she really cares about me and the baby and practically helps either. However, she is an attention seeker who always talks about herself and her unless family dramas. She drags my husband away for hours on the day I got discharged from hospital to do god knows what.

therising

Hi TLL8090

Kids, especially a newborn, will definitely test a marriage. I'm going back a number of years, as my babies are now 20 and 23, but I can still recall a lot of the tests.

A newborn can test

How well you can mentally and physically function when sleep deprived
Your sense of self (aka the 'I am' factor). 'I am a good mum/dad who's struggling' vs a false sense of self, 'I am a terrible or hopeless mum/dad who should be doing better than this'
How well you're able to adapt as a couple
Your levels of patience, tolerance, open mindedness, compassion etc towards each other and your sense of feeling towards each other. Example, 'I can feel my wife's frustration', 'I can feel my husband's lack of confidence when it comes to holding or bathing the baby'

and the list goes on and on.

My MIL, a beautiful woman, stayed with us for a couple of weeks with our first child. This was based on my husband's family living interstate. I found the most frustrating part involved him being more his mother's son and less of my partner and our daughter's father. He enjoyed the easier role, which led to a lot of resentment. I relied on my mum to help me to a large degree. In hindsight, it's not that my MIL didn't help a lot, she more so didn't want to overstep by butting in. She waited to be asked. My mum, on the other hand, knew me well and knew what I needed. This is another one of those tests, how people work from a group dynamic perspective. If it takes a village to raise a child, do the villagers fully understand their roles? Have the roles been clearly delegated or volunteered for?

I found myself becoming a bit of a dictator with our first baby. I became a dictator out of desperation, as I suffered from post natal depression. 'You need to hold the baby more!' was one thing. My husband wasn't confident, yet I was so desperate for breaks from being the primary carer to the point where I gave him no choice. 'If I have no choice, then it's only fair that you have no choice at times too' became a thing I'd often say. He developed the ability to care more for our kids out of having no choice.

Given your husband's MS, I can't help but wonder whether he's adopted a 'no stress' or 'minimal stress' attitude and set of habits out of the need to manage not triggering MS episodes. Given that stressful challenges can be the very things that lead us to mentally and emotionally develop in life, could there be some mental and emotional underdevelopment involved? Could it be a matter of 'It's time to develop through these challenges while managing no MS flare ups'? Some zen-like house work could be the way to go. Meditating while vacuuming, humming or singing while washing the dishes etc etc. I agree with Tony, when it comes to not having anyone there to do a lot of the work. This creates a need to manage the work as a couple.

Btw, a sense of wonder goes a long way at times. Wondering out loud at someone can be productive. Instead of accusing a partner of not being of any great help, it may pay to approach it from the angle of 'I can't help but wonder why you can't or don't feel the need to help more with our baby. Why can't you feel it? Can you genuinely not feel it or are you more so interested in not feeling it?'.