This group feels like a safe place for me. The rest of the app, I don’t think I could ever post about this without it being anonymous, but this group has been with me since the very beginning.

I knew having a baby would change our relationship. I am a therapist. I have seen it. I have read about it. I did my best to prepare us, but it didn’t work.

There’s so much happening. Since we found out we were pregnant last July, my SO has been working nonstop on home renovations. He also has a stressful full-time job for the federal government, and is in the reserves. When baby arrived, he took a break from projects for like a week, but dedicates all his spare time to them now. It’s sad, because I want him to be more involved, but I understand he is stressed with the unfinished work.

I exclusively breastfeed and baby doesn’t take a bottle. She I eats every 1.5 hours. I am now a SAHM, and have been for about two weeks. I spend all day with my daughter. I get a break for about 30 minutes a day to shower and get ready for bed.

My SO has really high expectations for how the house should be managed. We are very different people. I am not very organized, very emotional, very social, very calm. He is very logical, analytical, introverted, and has a temper. Lately, he has been unhappy with the house situation. He says he could pay someone to clean the house in 3 hours, and I can’t even manage to keep it clean. He says it’s easy to take care of our daughter. Mind you, when he watches her, he lays her on the couch next to him and they watch baseball. This is for 30 minutes or so a day. She requires more than that all day. I wear her and such, but it is still difficult to get everything done around the house, run errands, and take care of a baby. I don’t like depending on her to play alone all the time, and I feel like that is what he expects me to do. I like to interact with her, read to her, play with her.

I do my best. When I tell him that, he says it’s BS and he could do better. Lately, he has been stressed out because he has an upcoming trip (that’s another thing completely), and he needs to finish projects before he goes. When he is stressed he gets very hateful and picks at everything. He has been saying very mean things to me. That I am incompetent, pointless, selfish, controlling, etc. Everything is a fight. I told myself I would just do whatever I could to make him happy until his projects are done, since that is easier than fighting. But still he finds things to be upset about.

He only sleeps in our room on the weekends, because he says our daughter keeps him up at night. This has created a lot of distance between us. I hate that he sleeps in a guest room. We also haven’t had sex. I know, it’s been over a year. We both were uncomfortable with it during pregnancy, and then I had to heal for 6 weeks, then I had two mole biopsies and a mole removal (in the perineal area of all places). I realize I could probably do things to satisfy him, but it’s so hard to find time. My daughter won’t go to sleep unless I am with her, and he goes to sleep before she does anyway. He is always working on projects. I never know when to initiate anything. Plus, I have very little libido since I breastfeed, and it’s hard to feel sexy when someone says such demeaning things to you. He says he isn’t sexually attracted to me anymore, but that maybe we can get back there some day.

He says he is unhappy and he is frustrated. Says that I don’t carry my weight in the relationship. He labels all my reasoning and rationale as excuses. I asked him yesterday to name one thing that is good about me. He said I am a good mother. He always says that. But, I pointed out I haven’t always been a mother and asked him to name another trait. He said I am caring and kind. I asked him if he valued those traits. He told me yes and no. He thinks I am too nice and not assertive enough. He thinks I feel too much.

I know this all sounds terrible. Trust me, I do. Please don’t give me the “leave that jerk” response. I love him so dearly. He isn’t always like this but he handles stress terribly, and this transition between the baby and leaving my job has been tough. He loves me, and he tells me frequently. Sometimes I just don’t feel it. We have gone through a phase like this before, and after the projects were done, we were fine.

Does anyone have any advice or encouragement? Has your relationship struggled since having a child? We communicate, so please don’t tell me to communicate. I can’t do much more to help him communicate more positively or effectively right now. How do I give our relationship a boost? Our nonexistent sex life? I just feel so incredibly sad.