what did you say

My wife was mostly reasonable* and that didn’t change post-babies, I know I would be pretty hurt but mostly very concerned if she changed as you and a couple of others have experienced OP.

Seriously, I don’t see this as normal – I would say there is a deeper issue – maybe PND or something else? I believe that for some people that having children can trigger the return of previous problems.

If you have a good relationship with her patents or she with yours, it might be a good idea to get them to talk to her. If not, maybe she has an understanding friend who could?

Take care guys.

*Not meant as an insult – we all have our moments.

Sounds like emotional abuse to me which is quite rightly illegal in this day and age..
Try to get to the bottom of what’s causing it and get it sorted..

I feel your pain unknown… The wife and I are 13mths in, and are in a similar situation… I’m pretty good at letting water run off my back, so the regular jibes and criticisms are generally overcome by the positive moments, but there is (and certainly has been) a negative trend since the kid dropped. I’d be very interested to know how many marriages are crippled by child birth. Actually, that’s pretty depressing, so i’d rather not!
We had been happily married for three years before the (planned) pee stick discovery, and it’s been really really tough ever since.
I’m not really sure I can give much advice until I myself get through this funk, but I’ll give you these two nuggets that I remind myself of daily…

1: You are going to experience the most wonderful moments you could have ever imagined, and though they may be fleeting, you will cherish them forever.

2: Your OH is having a harder time than you are, so please don’t take it out on her…

Stick with it bud, and one day you’ll notice it’s going good, and you will wonder what you were fretting about (hopefully)

We decided not to have kids so I can’t speak from first hand experience but all relationships need patience and understanding. Patience can eventually run out but understanding means being able to discuss the issues at hand with the other person. If this can’t be done between you then I would strongly advise that you use some help from friends, family or better still, a relationship expert.
Most things that are crap in life are better dealt with once they are discussed, especially with your other half.

Sorry not read all the comments.

Babies are hard, really hard! And put a big strain on relationships.

Do you take you share of chores in the house? Are you letting other half have time to sleep?

Could it be post natal depression?

Don’t be a doormat, it’s perfectly acceptable to tell the mother of your child to f*** off occasionally.

But pull your weight.

(We have 2 boys, age 6 and nearly 7)

OP, your feelings definitely need to be considered. After all, when your partner talks to you, she is talking to the father of your children. It does not bode well for the future for children to see their parent treated like a doormat. Same to everyone else advising he batten down the hatches.

Part of being a parent is setting an example for your kids. This has to start with speaking to your partner about how her treatment of you makes you feel. Before that, reflect on your own behaviour first. Do you let things go when you know she’s lashing out because she’s tired? Are you genuinely doing all you can to help around the house? Are you making an effort to still have some couples time? Sometimes a little ritual like a cuddle before bed, or when you wake up goes a long way. Same for being the person who tidies up unasked, taking care of things like the shopping and making dinner etc.

My relationship with my partner was quite severely tested once our little one arrived. What kept it going was being honest about how we were feeling and being prepared to listen. This means you’re going to hear some uncomfortable truths about both yourselves.

Good luck to you both. Keep working at it and you’ll get there, but it won’t happen overnight. It takes time for people to recognise their behavioural patterns and to remedy them. Whatever you do, don’t suffer in silence, because that breeds resentment.

Mrs unknown and I have a beautiful 8 month old, it was a hard road to get where we are and we both love her to pieces. However

motherhood isn’t quite what your wife expected.
Sounds like she’s finding it very hard to adapt to her new role in life and thinks you’re carrying on the same as before. Mmm tricky you don’t want to be the door mat always being picked at that will be a hard habit to break.
Did she have any hobbies that used to get her out if the house? If so has she carried on with them? I think she needs an outlet other than having a pop at you.

I suggest getting her to go to the docs to see if she is suffering from post natal depression. and no your life does not go back to normal, you have a child now (father of an 11, 6 and 1 year old)

My other half is just coming through some PND after our fourth (and last!!) But she has never blamed me for everything that goes wrong and like mentioned above you need to take a step back and make sure you’re squeaky clean before you say anything. Kids are a realy hard going and you have to remember that there are good times and bad.
I’d be trying to sit her down and talk about it if she doesn’t know how you feel she’ll maybe never get through the other side.
One bit of advice is to ignore other new mums who say their wee darlings sleep for 12 hours, nap and eat as usually they are full of shit and for some reason like to tell little white lies so their offspring sound like they are joys.
New mums can be competitive about that for some reason!
All I can say is best of luck.

One bit of advice is to ignore other new mums who say their wee darlings sleep for 12 hours, nap and eat as usually they are full of shit and for some reason like to tell little white lies so their offspring sound like they are joys.

This +100

My wife was suffering quite a bit with this. One friend in particular had a baby similar time to us but still somehow managed wonderful holidays etc. Wife was getting down that our life was so hard etc and we couldn’t manage to do “normal” stuff. I spoke to her husband when I met him in the street and he informed me their holiday was the worst week of his life and taking a tiny baby to BnB with cardboard walls was no fun at all.

I am not a dad, but… My dad basically did everything he could to coddle my mum. When my little brother came along, that time it didn’t work and she finally actually got diagnosed with PND and treated. Final verdict was, if my dad was less sound, she’d have done this first time and probably been a lot happier.

(or possibly had less sprogs)

So… Sometimes helping doesn’t help, it just makes things barely tolerable, is the point I think.

I’m a ‘survivor’ of a Wife with PND and a few pretty rough years. My Wife, like many other mothers I feel, thought that the whole experience would be skipping through meadows in flowery dresses. As we both discovered it was considerably harder than this and it took her a while to admit that this was making her (wrongly) feel inadequate. It also helped me when the Padre at work (I’m Armed Forces) took me aside and explained that a new mother’s body is absolutely flooded with hormones/chemicals that can drastically change the way they deal with any situation.
In short my Wife reached out and sought help and I gradually came to appreciate what she was really going through.
Solution? There isn’t really one, but giving her some time away from the little’un helped us and when it really got bad I just reminded myself that I’d vowed to look after her through sickness and health.
Now? Kids 8 and 10 are just brilliant and the two of us even got a weekend away together last month (and I’ve had the chop).

Our little man was 4 years in the making and is now 14 months old. There were a few low points early on when sleep was hard to get but we spoke about it openly and tried to work it out together. She took a year off work but made a lot of effort to regularly see other mums from our birthing group, coffee and lunches each fortnight, a craft group once a month in the evening, weekend dog walks without the baby at the weekend, dropped in to school to keep in touch once a month or so etc etc We saw a lot of family in the first 12 months, travelled a bit and looking back it was wonderful to have the family support.
I’ve tried my best to be a “modern dad” cooking dinner after work, did bed time routines every evening after work, took him swimming at the weekends and had him whenever she was out. We’ve switched roles this year I’m home full time with him and she’s back teaching.
Could you wife take more time off work? Have you got family you can see regularly, friends to visit, a regular swimming class at the weekend you can do with the baby?

Sleeping is a difficult one, and as daviek says, everyone you see will say their baby is sleeping like a dream. It’s bollocks and best ignored.

Hope you get through it together.

Lazgoat – Member

Our little man was 4 years in the making

You are an alpine salamander?

Lazgoat – Member
Our little man was 4 years in the making

You are an alpine salamander

Not yet… Years of unexplained fertility problems and 4 rounds of IVF.

A lot of sound advice already but the thing that sticks out for me is that having a little one if exceptionally tough, especially if they are your first and you are the main child carer. Absolutely do not underestimate this!

Even with a great relationship, people around, little one that is good as gold…. it is flippin draining, exhausting and takes a toll. Even more so if your partner is feeding etc and there are things that can not be shared (easily at least). No doubt you know that and see it but IME you can not begin to properly understand it until the roles are reversed. I say this as someone who works mostly at home and do as much as I can around the house and considered myself as quite “modern”. Unfortunately my wife was ill and I had 3 months of being promoted to full time honorary mum which I can tell you was one hell of a wake up call despite thinking before that I was doing almost everything at home before. I’d be careful to give it too many labels or blame hormones/ gender as there were times where I was absolutely on the edge of coping and that was just from the childcare side and is exceptional for me to struggle with anything in that way. As I said, looking after even an angel can do funny things to a person!

When it all passes you’ll both wonder what the fuss was about but in the mean time it makes a huge difference to be supportive rather than ignore the issues and try to identify what you can be doing to give Mrs Unknown a bit of a breather and feel a bit more *normal* from time to time. The advice above about having an outlet was huge for us. For me at least it was the relentlessness but I imagine you have to talk it through and see what is trickiest in your house. I guess what I’m getting at is don’t just ignore it.

The other thing I’d say it that getting routine in to the little one’s day (and night!) is massive and gives some structure you can all work around to keep on top of things. We got on really well with Tracey Hogg’s EASY routine but everyone and every child is different. It is incredibly hard work at the start (we shut ourselves away for two weeks) but once it gets rolling makes one heck of a difference. Good luck to you all

As others have said, lots of sound advice on here – hopefully it helps to know you’re (absolutely) not alone. Your experience sounds a carbon copy of mine – seemingly endless (verbal) aggression and behaviour that on any view no-one would suggest a wife should tolerate if the roles were reversed. Yes it’s absolutely true that pregnancy is draining on your other half – often brutally so – but you are supposed to be a team and if you’re doing your best to help, then consistently treating you as a punchbag isn’t acceptable. Everyone snaps from time to time, but regular episodes if you have explained (in a quiet, calm moment) how this is affecting you is not on. It’s really hard to find the right balance (IME) – do you “man up”, work harder around the house to give her less excuse for an outburst, or try to confront unreasonable behaviour as you would do with your child, or you would expect someone to do with you if you were being a knob?

Ideas:

1) Exercise (I run rather than cycle, but it has kept me sane / allowed a partial sense of perspective)

2) Get PND ruled out if this isn’t the cause – easier said than done, I realise, if the mere suggestion that “things aren’t right” is enough to produce Armageddon!

3) Enlist the help of her family / your family if that’s a practical solution – needs to be done carefully so no-one feels ganged up on, but may help?

4) Get support for YOU – I ended up seeing a Relate counsellor alone because my wife refused to see it as anything other than me being horrible to her, and this helped me a lot – if only to hear someone outside the situation tell me that we all have a right to be respected just as much as we have a duty to respect others.

5) Hang in there (if that’s the right thing for you) – you will always be the father to your child and you owe it to your child to be the best father you can be – however that works. I’d avoid making hasty decisions – while you clearly can’t “man up” for ever, you may find that once the little monster gets a little older/ a bit bigger / a fraction less terrifyingly vulnerable / sleeps a bit better, then peace will be restored by degrees.

I feel for you – good luck.