Sorry for the long story, but here we go. I, a female 30, have been married to my husband, 32, for 8 years. We have two daughters together. Oldest is 7 and youngest is 2, theres a reason for the large age gap. We’ve had problems for just about as long as I can remember.
The frist really big argument we got in was when my oldest was 5 months old; she had a bad case of FOMO and wouldn’t sleep if there was light in the room. At this time we lived in a studio apartment, and my husband enjoyed playing video games, even when we got back, he didn’t cut back on the amount of time he spent playing, he would play games from the moment he got off work to the moment he went to bed.
(for context) At this time I also worked as a preschool aide for 3 YO, so you can imagine how exhausting it is coming back and doing it all on my own even when coming back home. Back to the argument, My daughter, lets call her A, was crying and wouldn’t sleep, it was way past her bed time 10 pm, her typical bedtime was 8pm, Husband (Jey) was playing and I kept telling him to turn it off that A needed to sleep, it was late.
He wouldn’t have argued that with all the crying she would just fall asleep; but if you have a baby with FOMO, you know this isn’t always the case. We argued for a bit longer and then I made the (bad) decision to text his mom for advice.. her advice? “Well, he played games before you got married, why do you expect him to change now?” Safe to say after that, I never confided in her again. Months go by of arguing over the same thing and he finally settled on cutting back.
The new schedule would be he plays every other day. Which I thought oh okay this is great that means when he isn’t playing he can be with our baby, play with her or even interact with me and her while making dinner. Boy was I wrong, on the days he didn’t play games he would sit in the room and watch tv. He didn’t help, he didn’t go to our baby when she cried and he definitely didn’t have conversations with me while I made dinner. This went on for years. In my head, I knew if we had another kid, I would be the one who bore all the responsibility.
Well, five years had passed, and he finally said that if we had another baby, things would be different, that he wasn’t getting any younger, and the time is now. I told him he needs to PROMISE things will not be the same. Call me a fool, because he fooled me. He still played video games eveyr other day, he still never got up to help me when the girls were crying, he still never asked if I needed anything or helped me with any household task. The first year of our second-born’s life was actual hell. Another piece of information about me is that I am a college student around the time my oldest turned two I went back to school, thinking to myself I can’t work at a low end job forever.
I needed more money (since money was also a factor in our multitude of issues.) Anyways, The first year my daughter was the worlds worst sleeper. She wouldn’t sleep in her bassinet, she wouldn’t sleep in our bed, she genuinley just wouldn’t sleep (and no it wasn’t colic) she just looked at me with her cute little brown eyes and was wide awake all. the. time. youd think oh this would be a great opportunity for dad to help, right? wrong. He had mentioned multiple times since he works he doesn’t need to help me. I was a mother, wife, full time college student (double major), part time employee and also for the first year of my seconds life I was also running on 2/3 hours of sleep a night at most. This catapulted me into a PPA/PPD. I was crying for sleep, begging him to watch the girls for at least one hour just so I could rest, and he would argue, he was tired too, and “you don’t see me complaining”.
I am in therapy, and after reading messages between my husband and me (because when we argue in person, he stonewalls me), she very gently told me my husband shows some narcissistic traits. She obviously can’t say he’s a full-on narcissist. It was such an eye-opening moment, it took me weeks to really digest this.
I don’t know what to do at this point. Our youngest is two going on three, and I am honestly on my way out, but I don’t know where to start. How do I leave in the safest, least argumentative way without hurting our girls?
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Backup of the post’s body: Sorry for the long story, but here we go. I, a female 30, have been married to my husband, 32, for 8 years. We have two daughters together. Oldest is 7 and youngest is 2, theres a reason for the large age gap. We’ve had problems for just about as long as I can remember.
The frist really big argument we got in was when my oldest was 5 months old; she had a bad case of FOMO and wouldn’t sleep if there was light in the room. At this time we lived in a studio apartment, and my husband enjoyed playing video games, even when we got back, he didn’t cut back on the amount of time he spent playing, he would play games from the moment he got off work to the moment he went to bed.
(for context) At this time I also worked as a preschool aide for 3 YO, so you can imagine how exhausting it is coming back and doing it all on my own even when coming back home. Back to the argument, My daughter, lets call her A, was crying and wouldn’t sleep, it was way past her bed time 10 pm, her typical bedtime was 8pm, Husband (Jey) was playing and I kept telling him to turn it off that A needed to sleep, it was late.
He wouldn’t have argued that with all the crying she would just fall asleep; but if you have a baby with FOMO, you know this isn’t always the case. We argued for a bit longer and then I made the (bad) decision to text his mom for advice.. her advice? “Well, he played games before you got married, why do you expect him to change now?” Safe to say after that, I never confided in her again. Months go by of arguing over the same thing and he finally settled on cutting back.
The new schedule would be he plays every other day. Which I thought oh okay this is great that means when he isn’t playing he can be with our baby, play with her or even interact with me and her while making dinner. Boy was I wrong, on the days he didn’t play games he would sit in the room and watch tv. He didn’t help, he didn’t go to our baby when she cried and he definitely didn’t have conversations with me while I made dinner. This went on for years. In my head, I knew if we had another kid, I would be the one who bore all the responsibility.
Well, five years had passed, and he finally said that if we had another baby, things would be different, that he wasn’t getting any younger, and the time is now. I told him he needs to PROMISE things will not be the same. Call me a fool, because he fooled me. He still played video games eveyr other day, he still never got up to help me when the girls were crying, he still never asked if I needed anything or helped me with any household task. The first year of our second-born’s life was actual hell. Another piece of information about me is that I am a college student around the time my oldest turned two I went back to school, thinking to myself I can’t work at a low end job forever.
I needed more money (since money was also a factor in our multitude of issues.) Anyways, The first year my daughter was the worlds worst sleeper. She wouldn’t sleep in her bassinet, she wouldn’t sleep in our bed, she genuinley just wouldn’t sleep (and no it wasn’t colic) she just looked at me with her cute little brown eyes and was wide awake all. the. time. youd think oh this would be a great opportunity for dad to help, right? wrong. He had mentioned multiple times since he works he doesn’t need to help me. I was a mother, wife, full time college student (double major), part time employee and also for the first year of my seconds life I was also running on 2/3 hours of sleep a night at most. This catapulted me into a PPA/PPD. I was crying for sleep, begging him to watch the girls for at least one hour just so I could rest, and he would argue, he was tired too, and “you don’t see me complaining”.
I am in therapy, and after reading messages between my husband and me (because when we argue in person, he stonewalls me), she very gently told me my husband shows some narcissistic traits. She obviously can’t say he’s a full-on narcissist. It was such an eye-opening moment, it took me weeks to really digest this.
I don’t know what to do at this point. Our youngest is two going on three, and I am honestly on my way out, but I don’t know where to start. How do I leave in the safest, least argumentative way without hurting our girls?
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