Is he showing more passive aggression after your baby is born?
Perhaps you have noticed that when there is more excitement but also a lot more things to be done around baby and household, your husband's resistance is greater, his absence more obvious, and your general sense of isolation deeper.
You can be hurt, puzzled, or distressed by this observation...just when help is needed the most, nobody is there! like if you were a single mother...because he runs away at the least sign of complications or demands.
Even when you can feel isolated and lonely, the rewards of having your child are so great, that experiencing motherhood prevails over the rewards from your relationship.
His situation is a bit different: he also may feel left out and isolated, from you...Because the baby is demanding all your attention and love, so now he is confronted with a new demand: to develop his paternity skills while at the same time feeling left out of the bonding. He may even see the new baby as a sort of competition for your attention.
Perhaps you just began to see this tangent and are thinking: just when his help is needed the most, he has to be competing with the baby for my attention? This is a moment of collision between different needs...Your need to feel supported and his needs to feel included. Men can feel extraordinarily betrayed if they feel rejected both physically and emotionally by their too busy wives. It is a painful experience that can be mostly avoided if women know how to get the husband involved.
I hear you because I do remember my own reaction: "What? besides the baby, I need to take care of his feelings? It's so unfair..."
Perhaps you don't feel like biting this bullet and going along with the program...but one consideration is key. If he is feeling left out, any situation of no inclusion will reactivate his original feeling of childhood abandonment. Perhaps the only thing he needs now is to feel included, and so to stop acting passive-aggressively...It's worth the try. If you decide to involve your husband in sharing the care of the infant, you can do simple actions:
a) Take advantage of his offers to spend one-on-one time with the baby. Your partner may do things differently from you, but try to look past that. He needs to do things in his own way, and he will behave just fine.
b) Find the opportunity of spending time with each other, even if a few minutes in the middle of the baby's schedule. Show your intention of including him, and talk about having some time for both of you alone, even if you are planning for a future moment when the baby gets older.
Probably you can say that this post is burdening new mothers with raising two kids at the same time....and it is a partial truth. But, considering the long-term benefits of doing some active inclusion of your husband in the process. it's worth the try. Anyhow, we can continue this conversation with your comments...Thanks!
