Husband Wants Nothing to do with Our 8 Day Old Baby

daska

likelyfran wrote: »

Quite honestly I think OP's husband is being a *****rd.
You can be suffering from a chronic illness (I know from experience,have M.E. myself) and still have some consideration for the person you're living with and who you have an affect on.
Not to mention a person who has just given birth and has to cope with an 8 day old baby!
Sorry but men/people like this need a kick up the jaxxy to make them realise all that they are taking for granted. If wife and baby were to disappear from his life, I bet he'd soon change his attitude.
I know it's nigh on impossible for the OP to effect this in her situation though.

You see, this just emphasises how it affects people differently, I identify with how he is because I've experienced that side of it, if you haven't then maybe you've had symptoms that I don't know from personal experience.

My experience is that it can completely distort my understanding of what's happening and my reaction to it. Then, when I'm on the up, I can see what's happened and react more appropriately.

daska

mikey72 wrote: »

And she'd trade you anyday.

Having had both 'flu and meningitis I'd volunteer for another bout of if it meant the ME would go away.

sassyblue

mikey72 wrote: »

(my bold)
The predominant symptom of ME/CFS is usually

severe fatigue and malaise
Muscle symptoms
pain/myalgia

Brain and Central Nervous System symptoms include cognitive dysfunction (problems with short-term memory, concentration and maintaining attention),
clumsiness,
disequilibrium
word finding

sleep disturbances (often increased requirements at the onset followed by an inability to maintain a full night’s sleep),
alcohol intolerance (a very characteristic feature, particularly in the early period of illness)
irritable bowel symptomatology.
emotional lability or mood swings
features of clinical depression

Long version

http://www.meassociation.org.uk/?page_id=1685

some posters need to read it.

Funny, a lot of those conditions are what women who've just had babies can experience.

I don't doubt ME is awful but my sympathy lies entirely with the OP, her hubby needs to help himself at this point in time not burden her.

poet123

mikey72 wrote: »

I always think this is an over the top, but the first reaction on this board at times.
However, in this case I reckon he wouldn't mind.

How does he hold down a job if he is so seriously ill? How does he interact with colleagues as they are unlikely to be as forgiving as the OP if he is rude and insensitive.

I am sure there are degrees of ME (our gardener suffers from it but manages to do heavy gardening work and interact with his customers) so if the husband can do all of these things with others it begs the question as to why he treats his wife that way, illness or not.

mikey72

sassyblue wrote: »

Funny, a lot of those conditions are what women who've just had babies can experience.
.....

So the women should just step up and stop being wimps?
They just need a bit of self control?
A kick up the jaxxy?
You'd be brave to voice that opinion on here.

poet123

mikey72 wrote: »

So the women should just step up and stop being wimps?
They just need a bit of self control?
A kick up the jaxxy?
You'd be brave to voice that opinion on here.

What women? All the women I know who have had babies do exactly that, what other choice do they have?

Fire_Fox

poet123 wrote: »

How does he hold down a job if he is so seriously ill? How does he interact with colleagues as they are unlikely to be as forgiving as the OP if he is rude and insensitive.

I am sure there are degrees of ME (our gardener suffers from it but manages to do heavy gardening work and interact with his customers) so if the husband can do all of these things with others it begs the question as to why he treats his wife that way, illness or not.

Why don't you research instead of disbelieving anything you can't see or experience first hand? It's you who is rude and insensitive to the many people who will be reading this thread who are suffering with conditions like ME, some of whom can barely get out of bed at times.

Are your energy levels and consciousness exactly the same 24/7 365 days a year? Have you never come home from a long day at work/ an evening out/ strenuous physical activity and practically passed out? Haven't you ever been so exhausted you can't think, you burst into tears at a totally inappropriate moment, you've lost it with a loved one? Did you read the OP where it explained the events of the past couple of weeks? He was holding down a job BEFORE those events, so?

I have had two close girlfriends with ME and both started on the road to recovery with their first pregnancies. Both reported the stress and sleep deprivation of a (healthy) new baby to be nowhere near as bad as the worst of the ME, yet I was truly fearful one would not cope at all. You can't apply logic to the machinations of the human body unless you can examine each tissue, each hormone, each cytokine, each neurone.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Having a long term illness is no excuse for behaving appallingly to one person above all others. Or displaying aggression where a baby is concerned.

You will find people with cancer, with depression, with fibromyalgia, with bipolar, with CFS/ME, arthritis and liver failure secondary to alcoholism. The vast majority do not and never would dream of being such a pig to a new mum, any more than someone who isn't unwell would be.

To say 'aww, the poor love, he can't help it, you must be neglecting now you've abandoned him for the baby' is insulting to the OP and to the millions of people across the country, both ill and healthy, who wouldn't dream of throwing a paddy because the newborn baby dared make a peep.



Are all the people claiming to be misunderstood on this thread regarding their condition saying that they get angry at newborn babies? That they have threatened to abandon them? Or have they actually been reasonable human beings who have said they have problems, pain, tiredness, but that it's their problem, not their partner's or their child who has only been home 72 hours at most?


Just because someone is unwell, it doesn't absolve them of responsibility for their own behaviour. Unless, of course, they have psychosis, but that tends to be noticed. Because it isn't just throwing their teddies out of the pram because their replacement mother figure has a new baby.

mikey72

poet123 wrote: »

What women? All the women I know who have had babies do exactly that, what other choice do they have?

Are you suggesting the op does that?
If so, I don't think it's a good solution to her problem.

poet123

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Why don't you research instead of disbelieving anything you can't see or experience first hand? It's you who is rude and insensitive to the many people who will be reading this thread who are suffering with conditions like ME, some of whom can barely get out of bed at times.

Are your energy levels and consciousness exactly the same 24/7 365 days a year? Have you never come home from a long day at work/ an evening out/ strenuous physical activity and practically passed out? Haven't you ever been so exhausted you can't think, you burst into tears at a totally inappropriate moment, you've lost it with a loved one? Did you read the OP where it explained the events of the past couple of weeks? He was holding down a job BEFORE those events, so?

I have had two close girlfriends with ME and both started on the road to recovery with their first pregnancies. Both reported the stress and sleep deprivation of a (healthy) new baby to be nowhere near as bad as the worst of the ME, yet I was truly fearful one would not cope at all. You can't apply logic to the machinations of the human body unless you can examine each tissue, each hormone, each cytokine, each neurone.

My point was that if he was as bad as the people you mention he would not be able to hold down that job. I am not disbelieving the condition can be very severe, which was why I said there were
degrees of it, but don't let what I actually wrote get in the way of a rant.;)