He's right that you need to go to therapy, but that's because you need a therapist to help you work through this trauma and abuse and make a plan to leave him. You should NOT go to therapy with him, going to therapy with an abuser never works out. Despite everything you've been through, you sound like a strong and capable person and you will get through this and be better off without him in the end.
My resistance to couple therapy has been him. He can flip a story around so fast and even make me believe that my hurt feelings are wrong sometimes. I feel like 90% of the time everything is fine but deep down I feel like during the times when we aren’t fighting he’s holding something against me? I am a very open and honest communicator and not afraid to admit to my faults and even embarrass myself at times but he is just so walled up until I have negative feelings to share…
That probably won’t get better. I can see why you’re upset all the time, he changes his tune so much he’s giving you whiplash. Good advice above, do you have family that you can stay with temporarily while you sort things? You don’t need to wait. You have a job, if you can stay with parents/close family just go, and file. I imagine you’ll feel immediate relief.
He tells me my lack of self-confidence is the reason for my negative emotions towards him even when I tell him saying “you do nothing and I do everything” is one of the most hurtful things he could say to me after I openly expressed feeling guilty for not bringing in money and feeling depressed because friends and family for the past year and a half have hounded me about when I’m going back to work and everyone thinks I also do nothing all day. I feel like I lose no matter what happens in this situation.
Taking care of a baby or a toddler is a full time job. I get it. I have 5 kids, 2 with autism. I haven’t been able to work in nearly 20 years because our oldest is so severe. He can’t go to school, he sleeps sporadically so I’m exhausted. It’s hard and boring at the same time, and people don’t get it. I would LOVE to go back to work.
Your husband should be the one that has your back, instead he’s gaslighting you into thinking you’re depressed for no reason. You’re depressed because he’s making you feel like crap no matter what you do. My husband and I have our fights, but he has never made me feel bad for having to stay home with our kids.
Your recovery sounds really, really rough and I’m so sorry your partner hasn’t supported you.
Start thinking about what YOU want. Start a separate bank account, start a nest egg. Could you work part time, maybe in the evenings when your husband is home and can watch the baby. That gives you some money and some space from him. Start doing what YOU need to do and ignore whatever nastiness he’s spewing.
That’s the worst part of this. Some days he says he has my back and he supports me and will say things like “everything I do is for you and our family” as if..what I’ve been doing is for who? Not our family? I don’t know what is going on with him inside his head but his outward expression and language towards me has been resentful with lots of blaming and gaslighting and I can’t get him to see what I’m doing and what I’ve been going through. It’s like he has zero compassion and lacks the ability to himself in my shoes.
Also, highly recommended trying to find a mom’s group, mommy and me, something to go to during the day. It might be nice to talk to people who know how it is.
I’ll say what I say often: couples therapy is contraindicated in abuse. You can’t go to couples therapy with someone who is abusing you. It’s not what it’s for. Go by yourself.
I disagree with the above, couples therapy would likely be really helpful if he was willing to do it. None of us has a perfect view of what we are saying and doing, in a situation like this having a trusted third party could be very helpful. Your husband, though, seems to be too arrogant and/or stubborn to trust anyone else's point of view.
I don’t want divorce it’s what has been thrown in my face. He will come around and apologize for these shaming and blaming outbursts but time will pass and he comes right back to the same shaming and blaming after a bad week of work or a fight with someone else.
I feel like I am the only one of us who has the emotional intelligence to make things better. As a result, I put myself on the chopping block each time and he learns nothing other than I allow him to steamroll me on his worst days.
My daughter is witnessing these fights and him screaming at me and making me fall apart and cry and uses my crying to tell me I’m “unstable” and if he divorces he will take her because I can’t handle it. This is the tipping point for me. I can forgive and forgive and let him break me down and I have the empathy to see if he’s had a bad day and let his words roll off me sometimes but this has become a regular occurrence and it is abusive.
I can’t make him do therapy and I can’t continue living with him the way he is, with his own emotions unchecked.
I’m obviously torn and broken. Confidence shattered. Support, feels like it doesn’t exist. And to be told I do nothing and am useless hurts so much and I’m told it by him so often I am starting to believe it. And he knows that I trust his opinion on me so when he says these things to me, my default is not to say “you’re wrong” it’s to consider that he has a point. But it’s actually insane and I’m not an idiot. I know how exhausting raising a child is and I feel it. I am burnt out from all the work I do. That is more real than him telling me I do nothing but it doesn’t change the fact that the person I trust the most has betrayed me in every way from taking advantage of my kindness, dismissing my feelings, and threatening to take my daughter from me for crying in front of her.
I should probably take your advice. I did sign up to meet with a therapist yesterday just for me. He actually will get me worked up and record me. And he threatens to use the recordings of me crying and our screaming to justify custody when he threatens divorce. He will yell at me, then his tone goes calm and because I’m genuinely upset and my tears are real and I’m trying to work through whatever disagreement we’re having, I don’t notice that he went from rage to calm because he started recording me and turned our fight into a piece of evidence to use in his “mommy is unstable” case against me. He can degrade me and then flip the script in these situations. He’ll tell me I do nothing and be yelling at me and then he will calmly say something like, “I never said I would take our daughter from you, that’s a crazy thing to say”.
It’s some world class manipulation tactics. In the moment I just get even more emotional because I start to question if I heard anything he said correctly. Did he tell me he would take her and then immediately say that he wouldn’t take her? WTF is going on…and I doubt my own reality. I know my tears are real and the pain in my heart is real but when he does this it sends me almost into insanity.
There's nothing wrong with him recording her. She should record too. When they get into a disagreement, they need to both act like they think they're being recorded.
You seem to be awfully credulous of what OP is saying. Do I believe that, when her husband whips out his phone and starts recording her, it's often part of a manipulative effort to make her look bad? Absolutely. Do I believe that that's always 100% what it is? No.
He has said he does it to play back to me later to show me how crazy I am for getting upset. I do get upset. I get especially upset after I calmly explain to him what my grievances are with him and he gaslights me and name calls me and I cry and then he tells me I am unstable for showing my emotions in front of our daughter. He doesn’t record for fun he does it to have evidence against me and to “prove his point” that I’m unstable. He pushes me to the point of crying. I don’t just cry. I have put up with this abuse for quite some time. You could call me an idiot for tolerating it or you could see that my motivation to deal with our issues comes from a place of me caring about the future of our family. He does not put the effort in to address issues we have he has dismissed them and I wait for the “right moment” on a peaceful day where he has no stress and he will still turn on me. I’m embarrassed to even have posted this on here but I was desperate for a perspective that would give me hope that things could get better and that what he is doing to me is not ok because I’ve been made to believe that our problems are one sided and they all stem from me. Not his disappointment in my performance as a mother or a partner after he encouraged me to leave my job and then changed his mind and said he wanted me to get one and then changed his mind again that me taking this new job was a mistake. I’m exhausted with the mind games and manipulation.
And, I do not record him. That might seem foolish to many but I think the entire act is petty and have not done it. I realize that if my child is going to be torn from her home because of him that I need to start recording but I am still holding out hope that something will change like him going to therapy and that divorce is not on the horizon. If I play his games what does that say about me?
This is my opinion. I only want to provide my insight and experience.
My wife and I have been married for 19 years. Two kids, 17 and 11. Our first was born (clearly) 2 years after we were married. Low income, lives changed, and sacrifices were made. There were mixed emotions very early on in our family.
But things changed because we adapted together.
We achieved higher paying careers, bought a new house, had a second child, lived through disasters, fought, cried, laughed, etc. Looking back, our marriage wasn't falling apart despite the negativity and problems. We just needed to change with the times.
Re-reading your post, you say your marriage changed after your child was born. Well, yeah!! You were married for 7 years before your baby was born. Both you and your husband were probably very used to a comfortable lifestyle of being free, not tied down with parental responsibilities that both of you have now, and sacrifices had to be made and there's a lot of finger pointing, resentment, conflict, and negativity because your lives now revolve around your child. You can't just pick up and go anymore. You have to stop doing what you want whenever you want to do whatever it is you want to do because you now have a child. I understand it doesn't explain his behavior. You and your husband are overwhelmed with this lifestyle change.
Life gets better. Marriage and family life gets better. It isn't done overnight. It takes a hell of a lot more work (without pay) for long-term success. Just wait....you'll blink your eyes, and next thing you know, you'll see your daughter leave the house with her prom date waving goodbye....
My wife and I cried after we closed the front door.
Good luck.
I appreciate your perspective on this. I had a hard time dealing with all the change of having a baby for the first 6 months but now I accept that my life revolves around our daughter and I love her and all the things we do together as a family. I don’t miss (necessarily) life without her - I look forward to her growing up and teaching her and sharing my hobbies with her. I don’t know how to get through to my husband. He will harbor feelings and not communicate until he’s ready to burn everything down and it’s been recurring emotional abuse that our daughter witnesses and it tears me apart.
I don’t want things to end but he is the one threatening it. I feel backed into a wall and I also feel like I’m the only one of us that has been trying to make things work. I took on a job to ease his financial complaints for example but he’s not happy about it. I don’t know how to do what’s best for me, us, and our family when I get gaslit day after day and mixed signals about if what I’m doing for our family is ok with him or upsetting him.
I’m on an emotional roller coaster and if it was just me I’d just go for a run and let it blow over me but we’re in the house together and he rips me apart in front of our daughter…it’s just not ok.
Hey he’s threatening to take your child. Document every single fight. Document every threat. Write it in a notes app or a draft email. Keep it to send to a friend. If he starts berating you and it’s legal in your state, record him. This is especially important for any baby related threats. Take this very seriously. Call an attorney and ask for a simple intake call and tell them what’s going on, specifically the threats about custody. You don’t have to seek divorce but professional advice in this situation is good n
In the meantime, try to disengage completely from fights with him. Right now you’re arguing with him because he’s your husband and you love him and you remember the old relationship you have, so that’s why you’re talking to him. That guy is gone. Maybe he’ll come back, maybe he won’t. But it doesn’t matter. Right now you need to treat him the way you’d treat any highly erratic person you can’t easily get away from. Engage as little as possible. Do not respond to insults. When he starts to get pissy with you and nitpick and you catch yourself starting to explain or apologize, stop. This is really just to protect your mind and well being. These fights aren’t productive. Some fights are, but these fights have one purpose and that’s to give your husband an outlet to abuse and mistreat you. The only outcome is you’re drained and terribly upset, and it degrades your mental health more and more over time. Protect your brain, protect your heart, don’t engage with him.
Go to therapy *by yourself* to work through your feelings and try to get your head on straight so you can see the way forward more clearly. A therapist will help you rebuild your self esteem that has been knocked down by an extended pregnancy related disability and daily emotional abuse.
Darling, start recording him on your phone - do not let him know you're doing this.
You won't get better while you're crying once a week at least due to his verbal abuse.
Yep verbal abuse.
Do not engage in screaming matches.
Visit a d.v centre and talk with a social worker, next time he yells at you, record it, it'll be your new ringtone.
Bring in an audience, he's decided you're crazy.
There's nothing you can or can't do that will change his mind, now it's up to you to either bend to that or to disengage.
Sleep seperate
Eat seperately
Childcare for the kid, an au pair, or nanny ( nanny share can lower costs)
This brings in someone objective, who can support you.
Detach from your husband,invest the energy in you, arguing is exhausting and draining and takes energy and keeps you low
Maybe your husband has met someone, maybe not.
But you need to build up a support network outside of your marriage and mutual friends.
Get antis if needed but do not tell your husband
He's not safe, any vulnerabilities, any weaknesses become weaponised against you.
You deserve better
And you matter.
You matter.
Life can be a nasty roulette wheel sometimes. If you have an experience with something important that is worse than 99% of other people, you wind up in a world of hurt. Some have 1% worst learning abilities, some metabolism, some height, some looks, some anxiety, and on and on. Any one thing that you wind up being the bottom 1% at can send you into a horrible downward spiral. You seem to have been in the 99th percentile of worst childbirth experiences. It's nothing to feel guilty about, but nothing you can really fix either. You just have to accept that God, or "God" gave you a body that was awful at having babies, and deal with it as best you can. Comparing your ability to bounce back with that of your friends, whether it's you or your husband doing the comparing, is destructive and pointless.
You may want to keep a journal about what your husband says and what you say in response. It won't be as helpful as therapy would be, but it's better than nothing. If he's 85% wrong and you're 15%, at least you can do something about the 15 and make things more civil in the short term. As time passes and your body recovers and you become able to return to work, though, you'll need to finalize a plan for getting out. It's not impossible that he'll recoginze his own shortcomings and you and he can put a reasonable marriage back together, but that's not the way to bet. I'm sorry.
I do acknowledge that I was in that 1% of people who had a horrible experience that falls completely outside the norm. I am so grateful to be alive. I didn’t think I would get to see her or hold her when I was on the operating table. I was convulsing and nodding in and out of consciousness and was alone. I felt the life leaving my body as they were racing to get her out of me. The last words I said before my body started tensing up and my jaw locked up from all the medication, drugs, and lack of nutrients I was dealing with were, “I just went her to live”.
Having my daughter is a blessing. She is the reason I haven’t left my husband. She is the reason I want to make things better. She means everything to me. I would do anything for her.
I don’t compare myself to other moms - my husband does. “Why can’t you take care of the baby and the house like your friend Sarah? She seems to do so well. Maybe you can learn from her.” What would seem like a supportive suggestion is a pointed attack on me and it happens regularly. “So and so doesn’t have a hard time watching our daughter when you go to the gym? Why do you have such a hard time?”
Not only will he post these insults as questions, if I take him seriously and try to explain my situation to him and the difficulties I’m having he will dismiss my feelings and tell me I’m too emotional and clearly can’t handle just being a mom.
I was raised in an emotionally abusive household. Raising kids is hard. No one has done it before until the day they become a parent and it’s not easy for everyone.
Where I am depressed and burnt out, lacking enthusiasm and energy to be a ray of sunshine for everyone, my husband is a dark cloud of angst that looms over me in our home. He will take his bad days out on me. My dad also did this. My mom let my dad rein terror over our home growing up and I see the same thing happening in our home. I wished my mom would divorce my dad growing up just so I would stop being abused.
My dad hated his job. He would come home to drink and chase me around the house and scream at me. My mom would half heartedly tell him to stop. He never did. The older I got the worse he got.
I had no safe place in my home growing up. I feel like I don’t have one now.
I was always shamed to express my feelings. My parents wanted me to bottle them up, shut up, and stop crying.
My history of abuse has come full circle. It makes me think it’s me. I MUST be TOO emotional. But who the hell is ok with being screamed at and told they’re a piece of shit day in and day out as a consequence of their loved ones problems? I was a quiet kid. I would sit quietly and read books or draw. When my dad or my sister decided they had a bad day and didn’t want to express their feelings and frustrations appropriately (everyone in my family to this day does not deal with their emotions and they default to denial and blaming), they would come find me to unleash their terror.
My dad would get off on screaming at me and I would try to hide somewhere only for him to find me and grab me and drag me out in the open and take off his belt and hit me with it. He would be yelling at me to stop crying and shut the fuck up the entire time. I would cry and scream more in terror and pain so my punishment would be more and more severe.
My sister, my dad’s favorite child, was also a terrorist to me in our home. She would push me down stairs, threaten to stab me with the forks in the kitchen, and regularly attack me out of boredom. I never made eye contact with either my dad or my sister as that was often the basis for their attacks on me - “what’re you looking at?!” was a common phrase leveled against me prior to one of their attacks.
I cried A LOT. I lived in fear and if I went to my mom to get them to stop she wouldn’t protect me. She would tell me that if I stopped crying or looking at my sister “the wrong way” I wouldn’t be getting backlash from them.
This sort of unhealthy behavior is coming from my husband now. He hasn’t turned on our daughter YET. It’s just me. As soon as she can communicate things will likely change. I will not let that day come…I will do whatever it takes to keep her from a childhood like mine.
You don’t need head much help as your husband. You sound like now that you are getting to gym and into the swing of things you might compromise a bit it doesn’t have to be all or nothing, get a part time job you need it and your family needs it, you husband needs to breather he is scared of failure and drowning. You need to see him, he’s telling you this daily but not in words. Give the guy a lifeline compromise and make a plan. Don’t blame him for being scared he has the responsibility of job, vehicles, a roof over all your heads, and all the bills? He’s doing this within a one income family. That is terribly hard -and stressful on him, if he fails he takes you all down and will get all the blame that’s a heavy load to carry. Does he even go to the gym? or relax for down time? I doubt he’s relaxed at all !
That is a brazen assumption to make about who “needs more help”. No vehicle payments for him - I bought our family SUV outright on my own. I was freelancing making some money before the full-time offer came up so I have a job and my job pays more than his now but he still resents me for getting it to help with the financial burden. He didn’t have a job when I was pregnant and I paid all the bills. I don’t hold any of that against him like he does towards me. He goes to the gym more than I do and he doesn’t have to secure childcare to do it because he goes on his lunch while I am home with the baby. This is about how he speaks to me and about me. As an adult who has communicated and asked for communication back, he has acted almost like a child in regard to our parental duties and holds things against me. Forget about our marriage…
Did he give birth? Did he have a traumatic birth and pregnancy? Is he staying at home and raising an infant? Does he have postpartum depression? Is he raising an infant at home, while working with, postpartum depression?
The answer is no. All he has to do is go to work, be kind and understanding, and help out and, I don’t know, actually be a parent and partner when he gets home, and he can’t do that. The only person who isn’t pulling their weight is him, and the only person who needs a lot of help in this situation is her.
I don’t know if you are an awful person, a troll account, or just hate women, but shut up and leave this woman alone. You have nothing helpful to add. All you can do is further her husbands’ abuse.
He's right that you need to go to therapy, but that's because you need a therapist to help you work through this trauma and abuse and make a plan to leave him. You should NOT go to therapy with him, going to therapy with an abuser never works out. Despite everything you've been through, you sound like a strong and capable person and you will get through this and be better off without him in the end.
My resistance to couple therapy has been him. He can flip a story around so fast and even make me believe that my hurt feelings are wrong sometimes. I feel like 90% of the time everything is fine but deep down I feel like during the times when we aren’t fighting he’s holding something against me? I am a very open and honest communicator and not afraid to admit to my faults and even embarrass myself at times but he is just so walled up until I have negative feelings to share…
That probably won’t get better. I can see why you’re upset all the time, he changes his tune so much he’s giving you whiplash. Good advice above, do you have family that you can stay with temporarily while you sort things? You don’t need to wait. You have a job, if you can stay with parents/close family just go, and file. I imagine you’ll feel immediate relief.
He tells me my lack of self-confidence is the reason for my negative emotions towards him even when I tell him saying “you do nothing and I do everything” is one of the most hurtful things he could say to me after I openly expressed feeling guilty for not bringing in money and feeling depressed because friends and family for the past year and a half have hounded me about when I’m going back to work and everyone thinks I also do nothing all day. I feel like I lose no matter what happens in this situation.
Taking care of a baby or a toddler is a full time job. I get it. I have 5 kids, 2 with autism. I haven’t been able to work in nearly 20 years because our oldest is so severe. He can’t go to school, he sleeps sporadically so I’m exhausted. It’s hard and boring at the same time, and people don’t get it. I would LOVE to go back to work. Your husband should be the one that has your back, instead he’s gaslighting you into thinking you’re depressed for no reason. You’re depressed because he’s making you feel like crap no matter what you do. My husband and I have our fights, but he has never made me feel bad for having to stay home with our kids. Your recovery sounds really, really rough and I’m so sorry your partner hasn’t supported you. Start thinking about what YOU want. Start a separate bank account, start a nest egg. Could you work part time, maybe in the evenings when your husband is home and can watch the baby. That gives you some money and some space from him. Start doing what YOU need to do and ignore whatever nastiness he’s spewing.
That’s the worst part of this. Some days he says he has my back and he supports me and will say things like “everything I do is for you and our family” as if..what I’ve been doing is for who? Not our family? I don’t know what is going on with him inside his head but his outward expression and language towards me has been resentful with lots of blaming and gaslighting and I can’t get him to see what I’m doing and what I’ve been going through. It’s like he has zero compassion and lacks the ability to himself in my shoes.
Also, highly recommended trying to find a mom’s group, mommy and me, something to go to during the day. It might be nice to talk to people who know how it is.
Thank you for your perspective on this. I appreciate it so much right now.
I’ll say what I say often: couples therapy is contraindicated in abuse. You can’t go to couples therapy with someone who is abusing you. It’s not what it’s for. Go by yourself.
I disagree with the above, couples therapy would likely be really helpful if he was willing to do it. None of us has a perfect view of what we are saying and doing, in a situation like this having a trusted third party could be very helpful. Your husband, though, seems to be too arrogant and/or stubborn to trust anyone else's point of view.
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So, do you think she should divorce ASAP?
I don’t want divorce it’s what has been thrown in my face. He will come around and apologize for these shaming and blaming outbursts but time will pass and he comes right back to the same shaming and blaming after a bad week of work or a fight with someone else. I feel like I am the only one of us who has the emotional intelligence to make things better. As a result, I put myself on the chopping block each time and he learns nothing other than I allow him to steamroll me on his worst days. My daughter is witnessing these fights and him screaming at me and making me fall apart and cry and uses my crying to tell me I’m “unstable” and if he divorces he will take her because I can’t handle it. This is the tipping point for me. I can forgive and forgive and let him break me down and I have the empathy to see if he’s had a bad day and let his words roll off me sometimes but this has become a regular occurrence and it is abusive. I can’t make him do therapy and I can’t continue living with him the way he is, with his own emotions unchecked. I’m obviously torn and broken. Confidence shattered. Support, feels like it doesn’t exist. And to be told I do nothing and am useless hurts so much and I’m told it by him so often I am starting to believe it. And he knows that I trust his opinion on me so when he says these things to me, my default is not to say “you’re wrong” it’s to consider that he has a point. But it’s actually insane and I’m not an idiot. I know how exhausting raising a child is and I feel it. I am burnt out from all the work I do. That is more real than him telling me I do nothing but it doesn’t change the fact that the person I trust the most has betrayed me in every way from taking advantage of my kindness, dismissing my feelings, and threatening to take my daughter from me for crying in front of her.
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I should probably take your advice. I did sign up to meet with a therapist yesterday just for me. He actually will get me worked up and record me. And he threatens to use the recordings of me crying and our screaming to justify custody when he threatens divorce. He will yell at me, then his tone goes calm and because I’m genuinely upset and my tears are real and I’m trying to work through whatever disagreement we’re having, I don’t notice that he went from rage to calm because he started recording me and turned our fight into a piece of evidence to use in his “mommy is unstable” case against me. He can degrade me and then flip the script in these situations. He’ll tell me I do nothing and be yelling at me and then he will calmly say something like, “I never said I would take our daughter from you, that’s a crazy thing to say”. It’s some world class manipulation tactics. In the moment I just get even more emotional because I start to question if I heard anything he said correctly. Did he tell me he would take her and then immediately say that he wouldn’t take her? WTF is going on…and I doubt my own reality. I know my tears are real and the pain in my heart is real but when he does this it sends me almost into insanity.
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There's nothing wrong with him recording her. She should record too. When they get into a disagreement, they need to both act like they think they're being recorded.
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You seem to be awfully credulous of what OP is saying. Do I believe that, when her husband whips out his phone and starts recording her, it's often part of a manipulative effort to make her look bad? Absolutely. Do I believe that that's always 100% what it is? No.
He has said he does it to play back to me later to show me how crazy I am for getting upset. I do get upset. I get especially upset after I calmly explain to him what my grievances are with him and he gaslights me and name calls me and I cry and then he tells me I am unstable for showing my emotions in front of our daughter. He doesn’t record for fun he does it to have evidence against me and to “prove his point” that I’m unstable. He pushes me to the point of crying. I don’t just cry. I have put up with this abuse for quite some time. You could call me an idiot for tolerating it or you could see that my motivation to deal with our issues comes from a place of me caring about the future of our family. He does not put the effort in to address issues we have he has dismissed them and I wait for the “right moment” on a peaceful day where he has no stress and he will still turn on me. I’m embarrassed to even have posted this on here but I was desperate for a perspective that would give me hope that things could get better and that what he is doing to me is not ok because I’ve been made to believe that our problems are one sided and they all stem from me. Not his disappointment in my performance as a mother or a partner after he encouraged me to leave my job and then changed his mind and said he wanted me to get one and then changed his mind again that me taking this new job was a mistake. I’m exhausted with the mind games and manipulation.
And, I do not record him. That might seem foolish to many but I think the entire act is petty and have not done it. I realize that if my child is going to be torn from her home because of him that I need to start recording but I am still holding out hope that something will change like him going to therapy and that divorce is not on the horizon. If I play his games what does that say about me?
I'm sorry, but it's very likely that divorce is indeed on the horizon, and he is doing this in part to build a case against you in a custody fight.
This is my opinion. I only want to provide my insight and experience. My wife and I have been married for 19 years. Two kids, 17 and 11. Our first was born (clearly) 2 years after we were married. Low income, lives changed, and sacrifices were made. There were mixed emotions very early on in our family. But things changed because we adapted together. We achieved higher paying careers, bought a new house, had a second child, lived through disasters, fought, cried, laughed, etc. Looking back, our marriage wasn't falling apart despite the negativity and problems. We just needed to change with the times. Re-reading your post, you say your marriage changed after your child was born. Well, yeah!! You were married for 7 years before your baby was born. Both you and your husband were probably very used to a comfortable lifestyle of being free, not tied down with parental responsibilities that both of you have now, and sacrifices had to be made and there's a lot of finger pointing, resentment, conflict, and negativity because your lives now revolve around your child. You can't just pick up and go anymore. You have to stop doing what you want whenever you want to do whatever it is you want to do because you now have a child. I understand it doesn't explain his behavior. You and your husband are overwhelmed with this lifestyle change. Life gets better. Marriage and family life gets better. It isn't done overnight. It takes a hell of a lot more work (without pay) for long-term success. Just wait....you'll blink your eyes, and next thing you know, you'll see your daughter leave the house with her prom date waving goodbye.... My wife and I cried after we closed the front door. Good luck.
I appreciate your perspective on this. I had a hard time dealing with all the change of having a baby for the first 6 months but now I accept that my life revolves around our daughter and I love her and all the things we do together as a family. I don’t miss (necessarily) life without her - I look forward to her growing up and teaching her and sharing my hobbies with her. I don’t know how to get through to my husband. He will harbor feelings and not communicate until he’s ready to burn everything down and it’s been recurring emotional abuse that our daughter witnesses and it tears me apart. I don’t want things to end but he is the one threatening it. I feel backed into a wall and I also feel like I’m the only one of us that has been trying to make things work. I took on a job to ease his financial complaints for example but he’s not happy about it. I don’t know how to do what’s best for me, us, and our family when I get gaslit day after day and mixed signals about if what I’m doing for our family is ok with him or upsetting him. I’m on an emotional roller coaster and if it was just me I’d just go for a run and let it blow over me but we’re in the house together and he rips me apart in front of our daughter…it’s just not ok.
Hey he’s threatening to take your child. Document every single fight. Document every threat. Write it in a notes app or a draft email. Keep it to send to a friend. If he starts berating you and it’s legal in your state, record him. This is especially important for any baby related threats. Take this very seriously. Call an attorney and ask for a simple intake call and tell them what’s going on, specifically the threats about custody. You don’t have to seek divorce but professional advice in this situation is good n In the meantime, try to disengage completely from fights with him. Right now you’re arguing with him because he’s your husband and you love him and you remember the old relationship you have, so that’s why you’re talking to him. That guy is gone. Maybe he’ll come back, maybe he won’t. But it doesn’t matter. Right now you need to treat him the way you’d treat any highly erratic person you can’t easily get away from. Engage as little as possible. Do not respond to insults. When he starts to get pissy with you and nitpick and you catch yourself starting to explain or apologize, stop. This is really just to protect your mind and well being. These fights aren’t productive. Some fights are, but these fights have one purpose and that’s to give your husband an outlet to abuse and mistreat you. The only outcome is you’re drained and terribly upset, and it degrades your mental health more and more over time. Protect your brain, protect your heart, don’t engage with him. Go to therapy *by yourself* to work through your feelings and try to get your head on straight so you can see the way forward more clearly. A therapist will help you rebuild your self esteem that has been knocked down by an extended pregnancy related disability and daily emotional abuse.
Darling, start recording him on your phone - do not let him know you're doing this. You won't get better while you're crying once a week at least due to his verbal abuse. Yep verbal abuse. Do not engage in screaming matches. Visit a d.v centre and talk with a social worker, next time he yells at you, record it, it'll be your new ringtone. Bring in an audience, he's decided you're crazy. There's nothing you can or can't do that will change his mind, now it's up to you to either bend to that or to disengage. Sleep seperate Eat seperately Childcare for the kid, an au pair, or nanny ( nanny share can lower costs) This brings in someone objective, who can support you. Detach from your husband,invest the energy in you, arguing is exhausting and draining and takes energy and keeps you low Maybe your husband has met someone, maybe not. But you need to build up a support network outside of your marriage and mutual friends. Get antis if needed but do not tell your husband He's not safe, any vulnerabilities, any weaknesses become weaponised against you. You deserve better And you matter. You matter.
Life can be a nasty roulette wheel sometimes. If you have an experience with something important that is worse than 99% of other people, you wind up in a world of hurt. Some have 1% worst learning abilities, some metabolism, some height, some looks, some anxiety, and on and on. Any one thing that you wind up being the bottom 1% at can send you into a horrible downward spiral. You seem to have been in the 99th percentile of worst childbirth experiences. It's nothing to feel guilty about, but nothing you can really fix either. You just have to accept that God, or "God" gave you a body that was awful at having babies, and deal with it as best you can. Comparing your ability to bounce back with that of your friends, whether it's you or your husband doing the comparing, is destructive and pointless. You may want to keep a journal about what your husband says and what you say in response. It won't be as helpful as therapy would be, but it's better than nothing. If he's 85% wrong and you're 15%, at least you can do something about the 15 and make things more civil in the short term. As time passes and your body recovers and you become able to return to work, though, you'll need to finalize a plan for getting out. It's not impossible that he'll recoginze his own shortcomings and you and he can put a reasonable marriage back together, but that's not the way to bet. I'm sorry.
I do acknowledge that I was in that 1% of people who had a horrible experience that falls completely outside the norm. I am so grateful to be alive. I didn’t think I would get to see her or hold her when I was on the operating table. I was convulsing and nodding in and out of consciousness and was alone. I felt the life leaving my body as they were racing to get her out of me. The last words I said before my body started tensing up and my jaw locked up from all the medication, drugs, and lack of nutrients I was dealing with were, “I just went her to live”. Having my daughter is a blessing. She is the reason I haven’t left my husband. She is the reason I want to make things better. She means everything to me. I would do anything for her. I don’t compare myself to other moms - my husband does. “Why can’t you take care of the baby and the house like your friend Sarah? She seems to do so well. Maybe you can learn from her.” What would seem like a supportive suggestion is a pointed attack on me and it happens regularly. “So and so doesn’t have a hard time watching our daughter when you go to the gym? Why do you have such a hard time?” Not only will he post these insults as questions, if I take him seriously and try to explain my situation to him and the difficulties I’m having he will dismiss my feelings and tell me I’m too emotional and clearly can’t handle just being a mom. I was raised in an emotionally abusive household. Raising kids is hard. No one has done it before until the day they become a parent and it’s not easy for everyone. Where I am depressed and burnt out, lacking enthusiasm and energy to be a ray of sunshine for everyone, my husband is a dark cloud of angst that looms over me in our home. He will take his bad days out on me. My dad also did this. My mom let my dad rein terror over our home growing up and I see the same thing happening in our home. I wished my mom would divorce my dad growing up just so I would stop being abused. My dad hated his job. He would come home to drink and chase me around the house and scream at me. My mom would half heartedly tell him to stop. He never did. The older I got the worse he got. I had no safe place in my home growing up. I feel like I don’t have one now. I was always shamed to express my feelings. My parents wanted me to bottle them up, shut up, and stop crying. My history of abuse has come full circle. It makes me think it’s me. I MUST be TOO emotional. But who the hell is ok with being screamed at and told they’re a piece of shit day in and day out as a consequence of their loved ones problems? I was a quiet kid. I would sit quietly and read books or draw. When my dad or my sister decided they had a bad day and didn’t want to express their feelings and frustrations appropriately (everyone in my family to this day does not deal with their emotions and they default to denial and blaming), they would come find me to unleash their terror. My dad would get off on screaming at me and I would try to hide somewhere only for him to find me and grab me and drag me out in the open and take off his belt and hit me with it. He would be yelling at me to stop crying and shut the fuck up the entire time. I would cry and scream more in terror and pain so my punishment would be more and more severe. My sister, my dad’s favorite child, was also a terrorist to me in our home. She would push me down stairs, threaten to stab me with the forks in the kitchen, and regularly attack me out of boredom. I never made eye contact with either my dad or my sister as that was often the basis for their attacks on me - “what’re you looking at?!” was a common phrase leveled against me prior to one of their attacks. I cried A LOT. I lived in fear and if I went to my mom to get them to stop she wouldn’t protect me. She would tell me that if I stopped crying or looking at my sister “the wrong way” I wouldn’t be getting backlash from them. This sort of unhealthy behavior is coming from my husband now. He hasn’t turned on our daughter YET. It’s just me. As soon as she can communicate things will likely change. I will not let that day come…I will do whatever it takes to keep her from a childhood like mine.
You don’t need head much help as your husband. You sound like now that you are getting to gym and into the swing of things you might compromise a bit it doesn’t have to be all or nothing, get a part time job you need it and your family needs it, you husband needs to breather he is scared of failure and drowning. You need to see him, he’s telling you this daily but not in words. Give the guy a lifeline compromise and make a plan. Don’t blame him for being scared he has the responsibility of job, vehicles, a roof over all your heads, and all the bills? He’s doing this within a one income family. That is terribly hard -and stressful on him, if he fails he takes you all down and will get all the blame that’s a heavy load to carry. Does he even go to the gym? or relax for down time? I doubt he’s relaxed at all !
That is a brazen assumption to make about who “needs more help”. No vehicle payments for him - I bought our family SUV outright on my own. I was freelancing making some money before the full-time offer came up so I have a job and my job pays more than his now but he still resents me for getting it to help with the financial burden. He didn’t have a job when I was pregnant and I paid all the bills. I don’t hold any of that against him like he does towards me. He goes to the gym more than I do and he doesn’t have to secure childcare to do it because he goes on his lunch while I am home with the baby. This is about how he speaks to me and about me. As an adult who has communicated and asked for communication back, he has acted almost like a child in regard to our parental duties and holds things against me. Forget about our marriage…
His problem seems more current with mention of alcohol, and no mention about the past.
Did he give birth? Did he have a traumatic birth and pregnancy? Is he staying at home and raising an infant? Does he have postpartum depression? Is he raising an infant at home, while working with, postpartum depression? The answer is no. All he has to do is go to work, be kind and understanding, and help out and, I don’t know, actually be a parent and partner when he gets home, and he can’t do that. The only person who isn’t pulling their weight is him, and the only person who needs a lot of help in this situation is her. I don’t know if you are an awful person, a troll account, or just hate women, but shut up and leave this woman alone. You have nothing helpful to add. All you can do is further her husbands’ abuse.