'AITA for being upset that my husband prioritizes his disabled sibling over our daughter?'

"AITA for complaining about my (25f) husband’s (31m) lack of responsibility for our daughter because of his disabled sibling?"

My husband and I welcomed our first child this year, a little girl that he had dreamt of since we were dating. I am aware my emotions are at an all time high for being post partum and new to this whole motherhood thing, so I keep pushing these issues to the side, thinking I’m being dramatic, but it has come to a point where I don’t think it’s me anymore.

For context, my husband grew up in a toxic household, one where manipulation and control towered over him at a young age. His mother had him at 16 and he was basically raised by his grandmother until his mother grew up and got married.

She later went onto have more kids, one of which has a severe disability (spina bifida) where everything from the waist down is paralyzed and he sufferers from seizures and other neurological difficulties. From a young age, his mother and step dad put all the responsibility on my husband, to care for his three younger siblings, especially the disabled one.

This included, cleaning up infant to basically adult diapers, cleaning and swapping feeding ports, removing and replacing urinary catheters, etc. His mother made every excuse in the book not to care for it herself until my husband ran away at 15 and has not had a relationship with his mother or siblings, since.

So now we are here. Our daughter is almost 4 months old and although he absolutely adores her, their relationship isn’t like the father-daughter relationship i had expected. He gets her for all the good stuff, the smiles, the giggles and all the cuddles, but as soon as something is wrong, he gives her to me and refuses to figure her out.

He has only changed her diaper twice, has yet to figure out how to put her to sleep, and on a multitude of occasions, will fall asleep when I ask him to feed her so I can care for myself. Or when I do shower, I almost always come out to her crying and as I’m still naked, he will pass her off to me.

I have begged him to help me with everything mentioned above, and he has repeatedly said “I cared for my brother for 10 years, I’ve already done all that, it’s your turn,” “I had to change a middle schoolers diaper, you can change a babies diaper” or “I work all day, this is your responsibility”

I am basically a stay at home mom at the moment and am on short term disability due to the damage caused by the traumatic birth. In the beginning he cared for me and made sure I had everything I needed as my c-section incision healed, but now that he is back to work, I get no help even though I really need it

I have tried to show him the proper way to bottle feed her, or how she likes to be held and put to sleep, but he tells me to back off and that he has it, yet it will only make her more upset. I can’t trust him enough to be able to go out with friends or leave her alone with him, because has not proven to me that he will care for her properly.

I don’t think he would purposefully mistreat her or neglect her, but he uses his childhood as an excuse to not help or accept my advice. I have tried to be understanding and haven’t complained for a while, but now I’m at my breaking point.

So, AITA for not taking his childhood into consideration, is this normal new dad behavior or is there a certain way to approach him with my concerns without him blowing me off? Anything would help, especially before I go back to work!

(I have attempted to talk to him about this in a calm manner but will get stone walled, I’m not just refusing to have communication with him about this, but I think I need to go about it a different way)

This is what people had to say to OP:

ThisWeekInTheRegency said:

He needs therapy. Right now. 'It's your turn now'????? That's a ridiculous thing to say to the mother of your child who wasn't even there when his parentification happened. He's casting you as his mother, and pushing you to take the responsibility she wouldn't. That's not acceptable.

You need to talk to him from that point of view - that he's acting out of trauma, and that he needs help to deal with it, or he'll tank his relationship with both you and the baby. Good luck. NTA.

ConcentrateLoud3176 said:

Your husband needs help

OP responded:

I’ve asked him to seek therapy but he doesn’t believe in it 😂

i_was_a_person_once said:

Umm. How was this not addressed before yall had a baby -like did he never tell you he was never going to participate in child rearing

OP responded:

We had many talks before thinking about kids. For the most part he seemed to have gotten over his childhood trauma, but I feel like he more so just buried it and now it’s coming back to the surface.

I regretfully like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and i kept myself hopeful for him, especially when he would tell me that he would want to care for his child completely differently than how he was raised. But now that she’s here, he is completely differently than how he has ever been, and it’s confusing and frustrating

AgonistPhD said:

Why the HELL did he want a child he had no intention of ever parenting? Oh, this makes me LIVID. Absolutely you are NTA, and he is lucky if you don't divorce him and take him for all he's worth.

justheretosnark24 said:

So what would he do if something happened to you and you were left permanently disabled and couldn’t take care of yourself? Would he just up and leave, because he already dealt with someone who had a disability for ten years? What if (god forbid) something happened and you died—would he leave your daughter to deal with it herself, or hand her off to another relative?

Pardon my language but his logic is fucked up and wildly irresponsible, regardless of trauma. Trauma can explain the behavior, but doesn’t justify it. NTA, but you’re certainly married to one. I’m sorry you’re being abandoned when you need support, despite the vows your husband made.

And OP responded:

In the past I had a bad vaccine reaction which left me immobile for months and he nursed me back to health. In that instance he used his knowledge with his brother as a benefit, saying that because of his childhood, he knew how to care for me and he did amazing.

But for some reason it’s different with his daughter… like she needs him more than I did when I went through that, especially since it’s both her and I that need additional support.

Is it knowing that it’s more than just me that needs him that maybe freaks him out? Like knowing that there is a being that could be traumatized by his parental control, freak him out enough to just step down a bit?