Growing resentment towards my husband
My husband (30M) and I 29(F) have been together for 10 years, and we’ve endured a lot together. We’ve become new and improved versions of ourselves and it’s been amazing to grow up with this man and evolve into who we are today. He really is my best friend, but I feel like parenting has torn us apart. Our 2(M) toddler is extremely high needs and potentially on the spectrum (pending official diagnosis) and I feel like no matter how hard I try we’re always at odds while trying to achieve the same goal. We’re weeks away from welcoming our daughter into the world and I feel like I’m at my breaking point because how are we going to do this all over again?
He is the youngest child in his family and hasn’t had a ton of exposure to kids. I’m the eldest in my family and also grew up in a very tight knit family where my aunts/older cousins had kids when I was coming of age. Not to say I’m an expert on kids, but I’ve spent enough time with them to have some semblance of reasonable expectations of what they can do at every age.
I feel like I have whiplash daily because I don’t know which version of my child’s father I’m getting on hard days. Some days he’s cool, calm, and collected. Others everything is the end of the world. I don’t know how to handle this. And I don’t know how to stop the arguing which affects our son because he gets scared every time we even remotely raise our voices now.
I have so much resentment because I feel like I’m always the person trying to come up with solutions for how to minimize tantrums, how to make bedtime easier, and how to help progress his speech… and yet it all seems to fall on deaf ears. When push comes to shove with him it always boils back to my spouse losing his cool on me and our son.
All of this to say, this is NOT a regular occurrence, but when it does happen it’s incredibly volatile. He is a great husband and father and there’s never a moment where I fear for our safety or security.
Is there any hope that this gets better? A huge piece of me hopes that we’re just in the parenting trenches but I’m at such a loss for what to do.
This is mostly a vent into the void. But also maybe a cry for some solidarity.