My Husband Tells Me I Should Be Grateful He’s Helping With Our Newborn, but I’ve Had Enough

When a couple welcomes a newborn, the joy is often matched with sleepless nights, endless diapers, and a mountain of chores. But what happens when one partner, in this case the husband, starts pulling away from his share of responsibilities? A study published in the Journal of Marriage & Family in 2024 found that mothers handle 71% of household mental load tasks, which include planning, scheduling, and organizing, while fathers manage just 45%.

My husband threatens me that he will not keep helping me with the baby anymore.

I’m losing my mind and need to write this down. I have a 12-week-old baby. In the early days, DH was brilliant. He did every nappy change, night wakes, he was down in the trenches with me, supporting me with breastfeeding, did everything all the books say he should do. He was great, super patient, I fell in love with him all over again.

But that’s slowly tailed off. He still does loads with baby but very little around the house (he does cook dinner but cleaning up the mess takes twice as long). And I’m struggling. Every single time we have an argument (over really minor stuff), he says, “Well, if you think I’m so bad, I’ll just stop doing anything.” Earlier today he said this in response to me asking him to do something, not even arguing, actually.

He came back a few times from work and socials with stories about other men he knows who do nothing. How X and Y also have babies, and they never wake up at night and never change any nappies. Like he’s some hero for watching his own son.

The whole undertone is about how I should be grateful for anything he does. He also told friends at the weekend that last Friday he had his first night out since DS was born. Total lie. He’s been out once a week, every week, since week 2.

I was too stunned to pull him up on it. It’s just making me feel so bad. I feel totally alone and worthless and like I’ve made the worst mistake of my life.

Note I make 2x his salary (and my mat leave is fully paid) and he has an easy office job, he’s home at 4 pm on the dot every day. He even has time to train for a marathon right now. He’s not some emergency worker doing 80-hour weeks swept off his feet, with the entire financial burden on him.

People came to the woman’s defense.

• Sorry to hear OP, it must be especially confusing considering your DH was so good in the beginning! No advice, but want to reassure you that you are not wrong. Giving birth does not make it so that you should be the default to do 100% of everything, particularly during the difficult early days. © BecuaseIWantItThatWay / Mumsnet
• Is he easily influenced? Sounds like his mates or the guys at work have been whispering in his ear, “Oh your missus is on maternity leave, doing nothing all day but still expects you to do chores after a hard day of work.” Is he gullible enough to go along with that?
  If he was good in the beginning, was he making them look bad, were their partners giving them grief saying why weren’t they more like your partner? If so he needs to get different friends, if he’s just bored after making an effort for a few weeks you have a different problem. © Theonlywayisuptoyou / Mumsnet
• OP, give him this thread to read! That way, he will see in your own words how unhappy he’s making you, and also that all of the responses on here support you. He will realize how happy you were with his behavior when the baby first arrived, and how far down he’s slipped. Then have a conversation.
  If he doesn’t see how wrong he is, then take the baby, and go and stay with your parents or a good friend until he realizes that he stands to lose you, and his child, if he doesn’t sort himself out. © MadnessIsMyMiddleName / Mumsnet
• He sounds inconsiderate and rather immature. Punishing you for asking him to do stuff, lying to big himself up, working on himself (marathon) when you’ve recently given birth and have a young baby. Plus chaotic perhaps if he’s not even doing a basic tidy up as he goes along in the kitchen. © Mummyoflittledragon / Mumsnet

Feeling betrayed by your partner is not an easy emotion. Unfortunately, this woman felt crushed when she found out that her husband found a job at the one place she told him she wouldn’t want to go back to.