Okay, so tonight myself F (28) and my husband M (28) (we have been married for 2 years and together for 6) were scheduled to have a friend of mine and her husband round for dinner. Our daughter 19 months had a temperature last night and seems to have a cold. She’s very sniffly and has a temperature and when our daughter is unwell she wants to be held near constantly by myself and is very whingey and upsets easily (understandably so). With this is mind my husband suggested that we should cancel dinner tonight if she is still unwell by midday. I agreed, I think it is unwise to have people around if she isn’t herself, as she needs our attention and it wouldn’t be fair to potentially let our guests catch a cold/would be unfair to our daughter to not put her first and be available 100% to care for her. However, my husband then said, within seconds of suggesting we cancel the dinner.

‘If we are postponing dinner, and obviously I’m not pushing that. Fitstop has a trivia night on that I’d like to go to instead‘

My logic is, if our daughter is unwell enough for us to cancel dinner with friends, and a handful as he knows, he shouldn’t be making other plans to go out to trivia with his fitness group and leave me home alone with a sick child?

He should be staying home with us and helping out right?

I said I would prefer if he stayed home and helped. He said he would come home early and help tidy the house clean and feed her and then go out for the evening, but I said that wasn’t the point, it was more that I would prefer he be home and help out?

He hasn’t been to one of his fitness groups socials since December last year due to his own work commitments, which I sympathise with. But he works out 2-4 nights a week and goes to a trading session most a unday mornings with them, which I understand isn’t a social but he still gets to see them there.

I’m currently 6 weeks pregnant and going through significant fatigue, I’m studying to be a nurse and the past 2 weeks I’ve been on hospital placement shift working and I’m really burnt out, I feel like if wasn’t experiencing pregnancy fatigue, or had a really hard week I would maybe be okay with it, but my husband thinks I’m being unreasonable by asking him to stay home and says I’m delusional for thinking he isn’t putting me first by going out instead of staying home.

So I’m asking reddit to provide an opinion on this situation, am I being delusional by feeling that my husband should stay home?

UPDATE

Hello everyone, I have been asked to update in the comments and I thought I would also answer a few of the FAQs here too.

Firstly though thank you to all the people who reminded me of my worth and validated my feelings I’m not surrounded by much support, so yes, although you are internet strangers, your kind words and support was very needed and very much appreciated.

FAQ’s

• No my husband wasn’t always like this. When we met/were dating/married every day with him was the best. He was my best friend, life was an adventure and it felt like together we could do anything, he always had my back and my dad even confessed to me to being envious that I had found such a perfect match/love to share life with. He didn’t know love and friendship could be like that in a relationship. It honestly felt like true love.

During my pregnancy with our daughter my husband’s business went through a severe rough patch, we were nearly bankrupted. A company we had provided services for who owed us a significant amount of money refused to pay us. This payment dispute dragged out for a long time and our cash flow really suffered, all the money we had retained in our business as well as our personal savings were spent on paying employees wages and keeping us afloat. We eventually received payment after solicitors got involved about a month before I gave birth.

During this time I worked myself silly in my home salon and my husband worked 12 hour days 7 days a week so it was an extremely stressful time and it took its toll on us. We thought we were through the worst of it once my daughter was born and we would in time recover.

However the week of my daughters birth my husbands father called saying he felt unwell, within 8 weeks he passed, it was stomach cancer and he was only 60 years old. This was sudden and shocking and our bubble of newborn bliss as first time parents evaporated within days of my daughter’s birth.

Having to watch his father wither away too nothing destroyed my husband. After his death we were still recovering financially and he threw himself into working, I couldn’t contribute financially as I was home with our daughter, this experience is when I saw the shift in my husband. This is when the gym started and all of his time away, I allowed it and didn’t complain as I wanted him to look after himself and process his grief. I don’t think he ever fully processed this stressful time or his grief and this is where we are now.

• Yes I do invoices and bookkeeping and help draft up quotes with him, this is something I have done since the beginning of the business and technically I do get paid. I am listed as an employee and I am paid a small amount of wages - this money we will get the tax back on as I am intentionally paid under the tax threshold, and we use my ‘wages’ to pay for groceries, household items, bills ect. So technically I am paid, but I don’t get to spend the money on stuff I want? If that makes sense so I don’t really see it as wages? It goes into a joint account .

• This sort of thing has happened before, our marriage has not been in a good place this year at all.

• I am from the uk and live in Australia, my husband is Australian. We sadly don’t have any family nearby. His mum lives out bush about 6 hours away, although she is moving nearer (1hr and 20 mins away) next week! So I am looking forward to having her nearer as I adore her. All of my family is in the uk.

• I am 6 weeks pregnant NOT 6 months so yes it is early, but I experience extreme fatigue in my first trimester. I did with my daughter.

• For those advising I terminate my pregnancy, it is an easy thing to suggest and on paper I can see logically why you are suggesting it. However I feel it is something else to actually action. I have nothing against women who would/have/could terminate, however personally I don’t think it’s something I could do and I don’t think I could live with myself.

I have my daughter who I adore, I couldn’t imagine my life without her, I know what it is to hold my baby in my arms and I just don’t think I could terminate a pregnancy knowing that the little pea in my stomach will grow into a wonderful little miracle just like my daughter did.

• I am in nursing school and I am not going to give up on chasing that dream!!

Finally the update

He went out.

He went out 5:30pm-9:30pm, he came home and was annoyed the baby was up (she had been asleep and woken up half an hour before he came home so I was sat up in the living room with her settling her with a bottle of milk) I explained this and he didn’t even seem to care. It’s like my presence was an inconvenience to him.

He cockily asked when I came to bed with the baby if I still wanted him in the spare room. (I had said if he went out he could sleep in the spare room when he got in, something he laughed at) To which I said no. I wanted him right next to our daughter so he could get up and settle her through the night. (When she’s sick she will sleep in bed with us for comfort)

In the morning he went to his Sunday training session and when he got in I promptly left and went on a lovely walk with my friend which was a wonderful escape. When I got home he was lovely too me, to me he was still annoyed at me for my behaviour last night (being upset he left me home alone and calling him an asshole) But he wanted to make things work, and we would work out our marriage.

I said thank you for wanting to make things work, but I want him to understand that I was upset to be left alone last night and that he took our daughter being unwell as an opportunity for him to have a night out? He said ‘if you’re going to keep bringing this up o don’t wanna do this’. So I left it, we needed to get my phone fixed in the city and he had offered to take me and I was feeling nauseous so I dropped it.

When we got home I was exhausted, I barely slept a wink last night and I have a whole week of late shifts scheduled next week. So I said ‘hey I need to go rest, I lay down and he cuddled me while I fell asleep - which I thought was weird? But maybe nice he was trying to make an effort, I didn’t care though, I was there for the nap (daughter was napping at this time). I was woken by him and my daughter an hour or so later with him saying he needed me to get up now as he needed my help.

I said no. He said ‘come on mate I need you to give me a hand cleaning up the house’ I replied ‘I needed you to help me last night and you went out 5:30-9:30 for some time for yourself, so I’m going to rest for that time this evening and have some time to myself’

He just said ‘whatever mate I won’t spend the day trying to be nice to you or driving you around all day next time’

He literally offered to take me into town?

Anyway I’m currently lying in bed resting while I listen to the sounds of chaos outside in the rest of the house writing this update. I needed this rest so so bad so thank you redditors for having my back and giving me the courage to stand up.

A bigger conversation needs to be had with my husband and it will be happening, just going to rest and nap first.

Thank you to all of you again.