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Yes. Leave. For you and your child.

mrsconn23mrsconn23 member
Knottie Warrior 10000 Comments 500 Love Its First Answer
in Wedding Woes

Dear Prudence,

I am on maternity leave. I am not a stay-at-home spouse. I am getting paid in full right now and I make more than my husband. This is not to justify anything but to provide context. My husband is refusing to help postpartum. He works 40 hours a week, but he won’t help with the baby even on the weekends. I think I should leave. Clearly, he does not respect me as a person or care that I am suffering. I don’t think the Fair Play book will help because he knows how much I am doing and knows he is contributing nothing. My family says I should go to counseling with him, but I think he’s just showing his true colors and I don’t want to set a bad doormat example for my child and get stuck in a bad marriage for years. Counseling won’t change anything. How can it when he clearly doesn’t see me as an equal? I don’t think he will improve. It is not like I had some innate sense of being able to take care of a child. I stepped up and he did not. I am tired of this. Should I get out earlier than later? I don’t want to be a bangmaid.

—How Was I So Blind?

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Re: Yes. Leave. For you and your child.

  • banana468banana468 member
    Knottie Warrior 25000 Comments 500 Love Its 5 Answers
    Yup.  Counseling is great when the answer is that you're both working toward a common goal and you need the assistance of an unbiased 3rd party.  In this case, he has no desire to work for the goal.  So be clear, "Dude if you aren't going to step up here and help then I do not see a path for us forward.  This is YOUR kid as much as mine and your failure to do anything to assist in the care of the child or our home means that I can either do this all with you or I can cut the inhabitants of my domicile by a third and do it without you." 
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  • short+sassyshort+sassy member
    Knottie Warrior 10000 Comments 500 Love Its 5 Answers
    Parenthood just started and the LW is already this unhappy.  Since she truly doesn't think there is any hope and already knows she doesn't want a life like this, she should just rip the bandaid off and leave.

    An acquaintance had an awful story like this, with a major side of chauvinism.  She and her husband had a child later in life.  They'd already been married for over 10 years when they decided to have a baby.  They were happy and had an idyllic marriage.  He was an attentive and loving husband.  They were both over the moon when she got pregnant.  They lived on his family farm and he was already envisioning his "son" learning the business and taking it over one day.

    Then they found out they were expecting a daughter and she said her husband turned into a totally different person.  He became distant with her and that never changed.  He wasn't interested in his daughter at all, even after she was born.  She hung in there for a few years hoping things would change, but then she divorced him and wished she'd done it sooner.  They still live near each other.  She has kept the door open for him to see his daughter whenever he wants, but he chooses to only see her a few times a year. 
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  • MyNameIsNotMyNameIsNot member
    Knottie Warrior 10000 Comments 500 Love Its 5 Answers
    Just go now. You're not getting any help and you're never going to have a partner. 

    My H's parents split while he was still in diapers. It's interesting when people talk about being a child of divorce, because he has no memories of his parents together. Maybe it will be easier for the kid if you go ahead and make the adjustment before they start to form memories or really establish a normal.
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  • charlotte989875charlotte989875 member
    Knottie Warrior 10000 Comments 500 Love Its 5 Answers
    Thinking you should leave is all the confirmation you need that you should leave. Get out now before your kid is old enough to understand that their dad doesn’t care to be their parent. 
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  • CharmedPamCharmedPam member
    Tenth Anniversary 5000 Comments 500 Love Its First Answer
    You have to both want to change and it doesn’t sound like counseling will benefit him.  Start the process sis

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