u/Bitter-Cod-9536

Ever since having a child, I feel like I don’t know my husband anymore. It honestly feels like he randomly decided to change his entire personality, while simultaneously becoming more and more critical of me.

My husband and I are both Jewish, but we’re Russian Jews and neither of us grew up particularly religious. We both grew up very culturally Russian and religion was never a major part of our lives.

Now suddenly my husband is encouraging us to go to synagogue, wants us to be more religious, talks about how we should “smile more” and be “happy Jews” wants us to do Bible readings together etc. I honestly want NO part of it. It feels incredibly performative to me and I cringe every time he brings up doing Bible readings together because this is just so far removed from the relationship and life we had before.

He also wants me to register with the local synagogue. I said absolutely not, and apparently the rabbi now wants to meet with me to talk about why I don’t want to register. I genuinely don’t know what I’m supposed to say other than “My husband seems to be having some kind of identity crisis and I don’t want to participate in it”

But religion is honestly only one part of a much bigger problem

My husband constantly disagrees with my parenting and complains about how I clean and maintain the house. He also seems incapable of understanding that being a SAHM is exhausting and that I need time away from our child too.

I’ve barely had any time alone for the past couple of weeks. Today he was taking our child for a walk to the park and I told him I didn’t want to come because “I need a break too.”

He became incredibly offended by the word “too.” Apparently saying I need a break “too” implied that he doesn’t have anything stressful going on. He started explaining how he has so many things on his mind that he never gets a break from and that I don’t even think about.

He does this CONSTANTLY. He picks apart the exact words I use and takes everything ridiculously literally. I can’t just say, “I’m exhausted.” Suddenly we need to have a whole conversation about how exhausted he is too. Everything turns into a debate or lecture.

Meanwhile I do 99.99% of the household stuff.

I recently told him that I don’t feel appreciated for everything I do. His response? That I don’t appreciate the fact that he pays the bills. And honestly no I don’t, I don’t appreciate him paying the bills, because I believe he should pay he a symbolic amount of money every month for being a SAHM so I don’t end up in a bad and vulnerable situation in case something happens in our marriage or with him.

Our child is also extremely high needs. She always has been. She’s very fussy, cries a lot, is incredibly intense and needs almost constant attention. I love her more than anything, but I’m also exhausted and overstimulated by her. Apparently I’m not allowed to say that either.

Instead of helping me when I’m reaching my limit, my husband lectures me about how I shouldn’t “show” how exhausted or frustrated I am around her.

Yesterday she was having one of those days where absolutely everything resulted in crying. At one point she simply fell down onto her butt and started crying. My husband heard her from another room, immediately came into the living room and started accusing me of not watching her properly.

I tried explaining what happened, but I was so overwhelmed and fed up that I ended up crying and locking myself in the bathroom.

And then there’s the constant criticism about the house.

I’ve heard SO MANY TIMES that I’m not tidy enough. I don’t make the bed every day. Things aren’t always put away immediately. The apartment isn’t always perfectly organized.

What he doesn’t seem to understand is how demoralizing it is to spend your entire day taking care of a demanding toddler who sometimes barely lets you accomplish basic tasks, while constantly having this voice in the back of your head reminding you that your husband thinks you’re not doing enough.

I’m caring for someone who can start crying because I walked three feet away from her, and simultaneously I’m supposed to be thinking, “Oh, I should probably make sure the bed is made before my husband notices”

I don’t need another person supervising me.

That’s what is getting to me more than anything. When I’m overwhelmed, I don’t get help. I get commentary. When I’m exhausted, I get a comparison about how exhausted he is. When our toddler is difficult, I get criticism about how I handled it. When the house isn’t perfect, I hear about that too.

I’m currently so angry and unhappy that part of me genuinely wants to tell him our marriage is over. I cannot imagine living like this indefinitely.

The terrifying part is that I’m a SAHM and I basically have no money of my own anymore. So even tho I’m reaching the point where I’m questioning whether I want to stay married, I also feel completely financially trapped. I have no money for rent, no money for lawyer and no money to put my kid in kindergarten while I try to get a job. If I leave this marriage it’s going to be awhile for me to see any child support and any financial support at all.

I don’t even know what I’m looking for here. Maybe perspective from other SAHMs who have been through something similar. Did your relationship change this drastically after having a child? And how do you even begin figuring out your options when you’ve become financially dependent on your spouse?

Now I know Landon is far from perfect and he’s an absolute idiot himself, but can I just say I’m kind of impressed that he managed to take care of his kid on his own for as long as he did? I don’t care if he had some help here and there. As someone who had a child around the same time and eventually ended up doing most of it on my own I know how much work it is to take care of a child without a coparent.

And yes obviously this applies to single mothers too it’s hard work regardless. I’m just impressed that a man like Landon actually figured it out and kept everything going, because taking care of a baby by yourself can be incredibly overwhelming. And generally speaking men aren’t socialized or prepared for childcare in the same way women often are so I’ll give him some credit for figuring it out.

Also, based on that video someone posted of Landon GOOD that he got that baby a proper stroller. Pushing him around in a Doona carseat stroller the way Liz did is really not something you should be doing fulltime especially once the baby is getting bigger.

I’m a SAHM with a 14 month old daughter. Since becoming parents, I’ve started seeing my husband differently and I’m often left feeling like I’m somehow the one in the wrong.

Our daughter is currently going through a phase where she absolutely refuses to sit in the stroller. The second I put her down, she starts crying hysterically. I also have chronic back problems so I can’t comfortably babywear her for long periods.

Because of this I feel trapped in our apartment most days. I also developed prediabetes after having gestational diabetes so getting out to walk and being active is really important for my health. My husband works from home, and I usually ask him to watch our daughter for about an hour between 12-2 pm so I can go for a walk. I almost feel guilty asking but otherwise I rarely get out.

I’m with our daughter from the time she wakes up around 8:30 until around 4-6 pm. every day. Yes most weekends too.

Every evening we go for a walk and lately my husband has been carrying her because she refuses the stroller.

Last night he decided he was going to let her cry it out in the stroller while we kept walking. She screamed for around 10 minutes, and people kept turning around to look at us. One woman looked back several times with a concerned expression.

I said, “I think it’s embarrassing when people are turning around while she’s crying like that.”

He immediately took that to mean I think our daughter is embarrassing which is not what I meant at all. I meant the situation was uncomfortable, not that our child is embarrassing.

After a while I asked him to just pick her up. He ignored me and kept walking. I then said, “Fine, I’ll carry her,” apparently in a tone he thought was aggressive.

This turned into a huge argument. He kept insisting I think our daughter is embarrassing and putting words in my mouth.

He eventually carried her for about 30 minutes. I knew I’d end up listening to him complain about carrying her so I put on the carrier despite my back pain and walked for another hour and a half carrying our 99th percentile 14 month old while wearing flip flops.

He barely spoke to me the entire time.

Later he told me I need to be nicer to him because he provides for us and he’s under a lot of stress at work. The thing is, he never even told me about these work problems beforehand. In my opinion, a lot of his work issues are self created because he tends to blame everyone else rather than take responsibility.

I told him that work stress shouldn’t spill over into how he treats his family and that I shouldn’t have to act like some submissive stay at home wife just because he’s always stressed at work.

We barely spoke for the rest of the evening. He went to sleep with our daughter (we sleep separately).

This morning around 8 I woke up to our daughter hysterically crying. My husband got up to make her a bottle. I’ve been trying to move her away from morning bottles and onto solids so I didn’t get involved. He knows I don’t like when he gets her bottles in the morning.

Then I heard him slam the bedroom door while she was still crying.

A few seconds later I heard him throw something against the wall.

I immediately went into the bedroom, took our daughter, and told him that throwing things like that isn’t okay. He stayed in the bedroom watching Netflix or something on his phone while I took care of our daughter. My back was hurting so badly that I ended up putting the TV on just so I could lay down.

So am I wrong for telling my husband that he needs to separate his work life from family life?

And was I really wrong for saying it was embarrassing that people were staring because our daughter was crying so hard in the stroller? I genuinely wasn’t calling my daughter embarrassing I was talking about the situation, not her.