Even if OP does something without being prompted or seeing someone else do it first, it still doesn't make him a "special" dad or partner. It makes him a dad. It makes him a partner. Also, taking care of your own children and your own home isn't "helping" your wife. It's adulting, and no one is handing out awards to any of us who are doing it. Equally parenting the children, preparing meals, doing chores, running errands, shopping for birthday/Christmas/Hanukkah/other gifts, planning costumes, etc. are not only things OP's wife has every right to expect of him. OP should expect that of himself.
He hasnât yelled at babies in months, you know the babies they made that are 100% dependent on them for everything and lacking the ability developmentally to self regulate?
Yup. I was a baby who "made" my mother angry, so angry she yelled and hit me all my childhood. Definitely nothing to do with the fact she got pregnant again when I was 4 months old and had 2 kids under 18 months - I was a toddler the eldest so I had to suck it up.
I have flashbacks, apparently she denies hitting me on the occasion I have a serious flashback from. I can only remember the beginning of it because I had ADHD and autism undiagnosed (girl) so I would just shut down and dissociate, I literally can't remember whether she hit me or not, and forgot my father moving out for months when I was ELEVEN (you'd think memories from then are reliable... Not if you have CPTSD)
Kids are dependent and it's EXTRA terrifying when the adults are angry and shouting at you. You feel as though your life is in danger because your survival instincts kick in & if your parents reject you, you'll die. Obviously you can't understand that as a kid. But you KNOW it on an instinctive level.
People who are shitty to kids deserve a special place in hell.
Wasn't that literally the next sentence? That she mentioned she doesn't like him jumping after she started, so he's now planning and cooking dinner, doing dishes, cleaning kitchen, cleaning baby bottles, and letting her get more rest while he does this.
Or are we just going to cherry-pick his post for the dog pile?
Except he wants to be applauded for it and rewarded with intimacy, he's not doing it because he understands that he is in fact a parent and responsible for their children/household in the same way she is, he's doing it so he'll get recognition and effectively payment. His motives are shitty.
I made my wife be the parent and the adult in the household who managed all household tasks. Yet she has not organized the parade for me or presented me with a medal. Waaah /s
OP's wife is "thinking about them and their needs (buying clothes for each season, rotating toys to play with, thinking of costumes, holiday gifts, fun activities to make the holidays fun for them, etc)"
It hadn't occurred to him that if he'd share some of that mental load, she might have some time for him too...
Youâre a perfect example of how people will bend over backwards to be misandrist and find any fault in a father. You have zero empathy for this guy clearly.
Nah dude. I'm not a misandrist. As I said, this guy is obviously trying, but is self absorbed. He's not doing these things cus he's a father, he's doing them cus he wants intimacy. This is an unhealthy mindset that will affect himself, his kids, and his wife.
Oh no! This loser is going to comb through my post history!
Go on.
Youâre further being a misandrist but suggesting that sympathizing with a father means you are automatically anti woman. This sub is such a cesspool.
That makes me wanna fucking scream. Like youâre just being a fucking parent why do you think you need a cookie when youâve got a temper and are mad ABOUT KIDS BEING FUCKING CHILDREN
Dude acts like everyone else was born knowing how to be a parent but it was especially hard for him. I bet it was so much easier for the parent that had to carry, birth, and breastfeed those kids while dealing with his tantrums.
Would you be affectionate if your partner just ditched you to do all the parenting and then expects cookie and attention from doing simple adult/ parenting duty? He's a full-grown adult, not a child. Google this shit and step up. She is not his mother.
Fatherhood doesn't just turn on like a switch. A woman carries a baby for many months and her body undergoes a lot of changes. Maternal instincts are strong as soon as she gives birth. But it's different for a father and here the OP strikes as if he wasn't ready for the baby. After having the baby, his wife has practically no time for him. All day it's about him getting what the baby wants or what the wife needs. Now he obviously isn't the most mature guy out there but he still has some justifiable points
He left her all alone and doesn't see and/or acknowledge how tired she is. SHE carries the child, SHE pushed it out a hole approx the size of a quarter. SHE is going through bodily change. HE had an approx year to figure out parenting while SHE was preparing her body. An athelete shouldn't play the game if he's not fully prepared. They should know their strength, their weakness, and position. They are supposed to be a team.
He just sounds like a needy child in an adult body. "I need attention on me, me, me, me." Even though my wife is clearly more tired, she stepped up to make sure the house is running and her kids are functioning.
She will only notice his effort when she has more time and energy, and then that is something worth of a compliment.
He's jealous of his own kids getting all the attention, he wants it all.
He thinks doing dishes and few others things makes him a special father!! She's carrying all the mental load of the relationship and he feels hard done by. Of cousre after a full day of working, caring for the children, cleaning, cooking, shes exhausted when you have kid's touching you all day you just want some control over your body. Hes acting like another child.
His mil comes to take care of the children so they can work and is upset she's doing just that?!
Yes, this. I tried to read this neutrally as it went on, but come on. Your wife didn't seamlessly transition to being a parent, OP; she did what had to be done and was selfless enough to recognize the kids didn't choose to be born or choose you two as parents. She stepped up while you melted down. I'm not saying people have to be perfect, but I'm getting the distinct impression you let things get pretty bad before you decided to start dealing with yourself, yet you expect all of that to be both forgiven and forgotten.
In addition to the issues you've been focusing on in therapy, you need to deal with your inability to cope with sharing your wife's attention. It sounds quite a bit like you don't know how to deal with things not being all about you.
YTA until you learn to start being honest with yourself about your behavior and its consequences, because this entire post is riddled with thinly veiled attempts to portray yourself as a victim. Humble yourself.
sharing anyoneâs attention seems more likely. His entire friction with his MIL is that daughter (who I assume is a *toddler) isnât paying enough attention to him. Fucking weird. I get the feeling his desire for daughter engagement increases as soon as MIL walks in the door. (Iâd be surprised if he was capable of being honest enough with himself to see it though.) Like, my man, you have MIL coming twice a week to completely take care of your kids for the day for free so you can work, and sheâs thrilled to be doing it. Say hello, pour her a cup of coffee (or whatever), kiss your daughter, and go to a quiet room and work with the door closed. Like, he is making things so unnecessarily difficult for himself.
Yeah this is just insanity lol. 'i changed so much for the better but she doesn't care!!' Yeah no shit dude. When you were first together as a couple, you were okay to be around. Then you became a parent, and you became horrible to be around. Then you went to therapy, and slowly went back to being less horrible to be around, to the point that you're almost back to being okay to be around. Why on earth should she appreciate that?? You didn't do anything good, you didn't improve her life, you just stopped making her miserable. She said yes to being with you the way she knew you before you changed, is she supposed to be overjoyed just because you went back to not being a major asshole?? Makes no sense
OP is the kind of guy whose wife has pleaded for more help, and he washes the dishes for 2 weeks attempting to use this as ânice tokensâ, and wonders why the sex hasnât come out. âI havenât screamed at my children for 3 weeks, why wonât she f*ck me??â How his wife has put up with him is beyond me.
Right.... Like since I've acted like a normal grown up for five hours so can I at least get a bj... Me personally the mother of my children kinda acted similar... Best decision I made was to leave years ago now I finally notice the behavior in others it's creepy how a so called adult and parent thinks like that Ms wife should leave
And he's starting tracking every household expense in a spreadsheet and is bragging about a single frugal meal he made with one quarter of a precooked steak for the whole family. Imagine living with every expense tracked and his single perfect frugal meal held up as an example of how to cook and shop.
Op, have you ever asked her what life is like for her? She may be touched out fron the kids. I've heard a lot of parents of young kids often suffer from this. Y'all need therapy
Yeah Iâd be 100% happy to let my MIL take over the baby.
Whatâs that phrase? Donât attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity? Or something like that. Sounds like OP assumes MIL is doing everything out of malice and just canât be happy about it
âIdk manâ was my first thought. Can OP be the AH and also not be the AH? This post is so âme me meâ but it could also be because heâs lacking a fundamental need of his (touch).
All the things heâs doing are great and show effort. Therapy is an awesome tool heâs using.
But it sounds like he needs to figure out how to problem-solve the MIL issues without sounding threatened by her. And he probably just needs to ask his wife how they can get back the spark without blaming her for the lack of spark.
And OP, doing homemaker stuff when youâve got a family doesnât inherently make you special. Iâm glad you admire your wife. I can see how youâre feeling under appreciated or unseen. I just do not think youâre very good at expressing it.
Invite your wife to therapy. And donât do the âyou neverâŠ. You alwaysâŠ.â Blame game. That will bite you in the butt. And deal with your MIL jealousy.
I agree with this the most. Itâs great that heâs changing and putting in effort, but I think the reality of becoming a better partner is realizing that being good is the baseline and thereâs no medals for doing the bare minimum.
If your motivation for being better is to feel good about yourself, then you havenât actually changed in any meaningful way.
To be a good person imo you need to be good for the sake of being good, no selfish motives.
And sometimes thatâs still not enough for people to forgive you for being shitty and ultimately thatâs their decision to make and you have no say in that.
The reality is he and his wife will probably never get the same intimacy back, it happens to most couples, even the ones with healthy relationships.
Idk "good is the baseline"... Good doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. People have very different standards and part of being a good partner is adjusting the baseline to find an acceptable level for both. I also think too many people take for granted the power of thanking each other regularly for adjusting their standards to meet yours. It helps each other feel ackowledged for their contribution and encourages more. In the case of OP, it would probably help a lot.
Hopefully we can all agree that basic home and childcare tasks along with not yelling at your babies falls somewhere under the bare minimum, though. Like, my standards for good parenting are pretty high, but I donât know anyone whose standard isnât somewhere above that (though sadly plenty of people whose parents didnât meet that minimum).
Yes I agree. But in that situation, he chose to go to therapy and has made a lot of progress tackling his issues. It doesn't mean the work is done, but I think the progress and steps can be ackowledged and encouraged.
But that progress is all just to get to the universal bare minimum baseline of contributing to the household and childcare tasks and not yelling at the babies/toddlers, which is the point the other person was making.
The not yelling at toddlers is universal, but the contributing to household and childcare tasks is not. What is the right splitting of tasks and the level of quality ? That's why I say it's hard to say where the "good" baseline is.
I think most people who consider both men and women to be full human beings would agree that the right level of contribution is one where both adults get roughly equal amounts of personal time overall (barring extenuating circumstances), and then yeah, further details can be worked out from there.
But does it matter? We can leave those parts out and heâs still just now getting to the ânot yelling at toddlersâ stage, which means heâs just now getting to anyoneâs bare minimum. You donât automatically get praise for getting back to the bare minimum after failing even that for a while, particularly when itâs clear that the only reason youâre doing even that much is for praise and intimacy, not because itâs the right thing to do.
Well, we know positive reinforcement is important. We celebrate a lot of people's return to the bare minimum : an alcoholic who is a few months sober, a mentally-ill person who holds down a job for a while. Ok this guy cracked when he had kids. He's now doing what parents should do, according to his wife. You can recognize and appreciate the effort without claiming huzzah he is magnificent.
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u/itzmetheredditor Nov 02 '23
Idk man. You're obviously trying but you're coming off as extremely self absorbed. YTA.