'AITA for sleeping in a separate room with our baby after my husband lied to me?'
"AITA for sleeping in a separate room with our baby after my husband lied to me?"
My husband and I have a 5 mo daughter and he was the one who unfortunately got slammed with postpartum symptoms. He has severe PPA and he's in therapy for it. But it's been a bit of an adjustment for me. Nothing went as planned.
I realize you can hardly "plan" most things and have them work out exactly as you planned when you become a parent but some things... I don't know. I DIYed a absolutely gorgeous nursery, has EVERYTHING color coordinated, bought a really expensive baby monitor, etc, and my husband refuses to even let the baby sleep in there because of his anxiety. Not even for naps.
He will 100% wake her up and bring her out to where we are if I put her for a nap in her crib. If she's not in the room with us, he absolutely loses his mind. Hence, why me sleeping in another room with the baby AWAY from him is an issue.
Anyways, he absolutely knows that I hate long vehicle rides with the baby. Anything over 40 minutes is far too long. She hates the car and screams the entire time unless I'm sitting right beside her and frankly, I don't want to sit in the backseat.
I get car sick, irritated, I feel unsafe (accident trauma and trapping because you can't open the back door without opening the front door so I can't get out of that vehicle without him letting me out), you name it. I just don't like it and he knows that. Everything we need is within 20 minutes driving distance.
All our family lives within 30 minutes. So we have absolutely zero reason to venture outside of this length of time but he often tries pushing me to. Like last week he tried getting me to go to some restaurant he wanted to try and tried convincing me that the 3.5 hr round trip ride "isn't even that bad." No thanks.
Well, yesterday he asked me if I wanted to get out of the house and go for a drive with him because he was going to look at a truck. I asked where it was and he said "just on the other side of Albany."
Albany is 40ish minutes from us. So I said sure. Well, we get past Albany and it's been like 20 minutes at this point (so an hr total) and I'm getting irritated with being in the back seat so I ask when we will get there. He checks the GPS and says "43 minutes." I was PISSED.
I asked him why tf he lied and told me it was right on the other side of Albany and he gave some sad a%$ed "I thought it was" answer (which I do not buy for a single second). It was an hr and 58 minute car ride there, 40 minutes easily that he spent talking to the guy with the truck (just to decide he didn't want it) and then the 2.5hr drive home (traffic).
When we got back home I immediately grabbed the baby and went to our guest room and locked the door and just went to sleep. It was 8pm. I hadn't eaten yet but I was too pissed to eat. The baby screamed the entire car ride home. Once he realized the door was locked, he started doing his panicked/anxiety pacing, saying that I'm overreacting.
Saying "don't do this to me," Texted me a bunch of times. When I woke up in the morning I almost tripped over him because he fell asleep leaning against the door. He called me names" for doing that knowing how bad his anxiety is and over-dramatic as hell to do so over an "uncomfortable car ride."
Later, OP edited the post to include:
ETA: for the record, he knew if he had told me how far away it was I would have said no and not gone. He has anxiety about going that long without checking on the baby himself so it was a him issue. He even moved to remote work just so he didn't have to leave the baby.
As I said, he's in therapy but no, he refuses medications and doesn't follow the pointers the therapist has suggested to help his anxiety because he "can't". Whenever I tell him how much his anxiety is affecting me AND the babies peace, he says "in sickness and health, remember? It won't be like this forever."
Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:
UnPracticed_Pagan said:
NTA but you need some tougher love with your husband and therapist. He either NEEDS medication, or you need to find yourself a support system away from your husband to get some peace while taking care of your infant until he gets his life together.
annebonnell said:
NTA considering everything you wrote, this would be a deal breaker for me. You have enough to do taking care of a baby. You do not need another one. If he won't follow his therapist instructions and take his medication, then I would leave him.
He is harming you and the baby he is supposedly so concerned about. In my opinion, when a man has postpartum and pre-partum symptoms, he is just looking to be the center of attention.
Sisucasa said:
The best thing you could do for your husband's anxiety is to prevent him from acting on it. Take the baby on a long weekend and turn off your phone. Honestly it's the best thing you could do for him. Every time he acts on that dysfunctional neurological pathway, it is reinforced and strengthens. The more he checks on the baby, the worse he will get.
EuphoricEmu1088 said:
I wouldn't want to take a 4 hour drive for a dinner even without a young baby. Your hubs may have anxiety, but he mostly just sounds like an ahole. NTA.
Ardara said:
NTA in sickness & health doesn't mean roll over to his mental episode. You have an infant to care for. His anxiety hurt you and the baby. If he's not having mental health issues he's controlling to the point of harm.
destiny_kane48 said:
NTA, he didn't give a damn about you or the baby's comfort. Why should care about his. He can get a blow up mattress and sleep outside the door.