No one in the world should make you feel safer than your partner. If you’re sick in bed with a fever, they should be the one bringing you hot soup and making sure that you’re drinking enough fluids. If you’re celebrating a huge promotion at work, your spouse should be the first one congratulating you with flowers and telling you how proud they are.
But one woman realized, after 7 months of being a parent, that she’s received absolutely no support from her husband. Now, she’s reaching out for advice online and asking others what to do about her spouse’s behavior. Below, you’ll find the full story, as well as a conversation with Dr. Kathy McMahon, Sex Therapist and President and Founder of Couples Therapy Inc.
This new mom is struggling to keep her head above water while receiving no support from her husband
Image credits: freepik (not the actual photo)
And after an explosive fight, she finally decided to reach out to the internet for advice
Image credits: nanihta / envatoelements (not the actual photo)
Image credits: ellie9236
“His resentment and anger towards her speaks to the extent to which he is an utterly lost soul”
Image credits: freepik (not the actual photo)
It’s natural for a couple’s relationship to undergo changes after having a child, but it’s certainly not normal or healthy to feel unsafe around your partner.
So to learn more about this situation, we got in touch with Dr. Kathy McMahon, Sex Therapist and President and Founder of Couples Therapy Inc. Dr. McMahon was kind enough to have a chat with Bored Panda and share her thoughts on this situation.
“Sometimes people act badly. They act very badly. The most important thing is not the poor behavior but the remorse they express afterward,” the relationship expert said. “This is the difference between an abuser and a stressed out husband. I heard a lot of details about this careful woman’s life up to the assault, and then it stopped.”
“But in real life, of course, it never stopped. He either continued to rage or he woke up from his violent behavior and vowed to change,” she explained. “Everyone gets a second chance for very bad behavior when they realize it for what it is: a regrettable incident that won’t happen again.”
Dr. McMahon also noted that abusive spouses often get worse after the baby comes because there is another soul competing for “mom’s” attention. “There is often deep resentment in men like the husband she is describing. They often blame their wives for the stress they (the husbands), are living through, because of course having a baby is stressful on everyone who doesn’t live with a small tribe of helpers.”
“He wanted her to not be tired. To not need help. Have the energy to continue to cater to him instead of being a wet dish rag that is exhausted to her core,” the therapist says. “His resentment and anger towards her speaks to the extent to which he is an utterly lost soul. You can’t separate the welfare of a baby from the welfare of its mother. So when you threaten one, you threaten both.”
“Any man, including this one, who saw another man slap and throw water on his wife’s face while she was even groggy in bed after caring for his baby would bring forth strong hostile and protective action… Just like so many of the respondents,” Dr. McMahon pointed out. “It is just a human compassionate response.”
“Unless he can let go of his anger, blame and resentment, this baby, as well as his wife, will suffer”
In fact, she noted that this husband would likely protect his wife from this horrible behavior if someone else did it to her “because this is a natural instinct: to protect the ones we love.”
But in this case, the therapist says, “The dad is cut off from this deep, core issue: to preserve and protect his future. His resentment and anger go so deeply that he feels no compassion for his wife’s predicament, for her attempt to even care for herself.”
“And her reaction to her helper also speaks to internalized shame. She wants to hide her husband’s soulless behavior, as if it is somehow a reflection on her,” the expert continued. “This is what suggests that she has already been in an abusive relationship for a while, instead of a regrettable incident.”
While Dr. McMahon acknowledges that she doesn’t know this woman and is not directing her comments to her specifically, she points out that the contributor uses “we” when talking about taking care of her baby, yet she wants us to know that, other than that hour in the morning, the baby prefers her.
Sadly, the therapist says it isn’t unusual for someone living in a coercive relationship to try to control everything around them because they can’t control the hostility that surrounds her. “But they also have to ‘share’ the work they do with their abuser, even if he does little to none of it,” she noted.
“This hostility is something that the baby’s nervous system also lives with. Even if this man never touches his wife again, unless he can let go of his anger, blame and resentment, this baby, as well as his wife, will suffer. And so will he,” Dr. McMahon noted.
“[This mother] needs a plan to create her community, and if she already has one, she needs to sound the alarm that she needs them”
Image credits: freepik (not the actual photo)
“They say a family with a baby needs 7 caretakers to manage the stress of two working parents. One for every day caretaking, one for a sick child, one for weekends, another for overnights, Saturday nights, etc.,” she explained. “This woman needs at least this community of adults invested in her family. Only she can tell us if she fears him and lives with the weight of his constant hostility and resentment. It is hard for a person like her husband to function and cause the same amount of damage when there are witnesses and supports in place.”
Unfortunately, the therapist says men like this often impregnate their wives to tie them down. “They often urge them to quit their jobs to become financially dependent,” Dr. McMahon shared. “And my clinical experience is that these wives are trauma bonded to these men, accepting their negative opinions while at the same time loudly protesting (as they should) the abuse. It typically starts so early in the relationship that it becomes utterly “normal” in its abnormality.”
“The women also fight their own resentment and anger, being shaped by the very forces that they rebel against. Resentment kills us, only slowly,” she continued. If this woman is afraid, Dr. McMahon says she needs a plan. “This fear isn’t present in a regrettable incident, even a violent one between couples.”
“But couples who have had violence also experience shame and regret at their behavior,” the expert pointed out. “We call that ‘situational violence’ and, fortunately, it is 80% of the IPV out there. The other 20% is the toxic kind, and 45% of these aren’t physically violent. They are corrosive.”
Dr. McMahon says this mother needs a plan to create her community, and if she already has one, she needs to sound the alarm that she needs them. “Her baby needs them. And yes, even her husband needs them, especially if he doesn’t want them and resents their presence,” she noted.
“If it is a coercively controlling relationship, she can look this term up and understand that this is what it is,” the expert added. “These relationships are very similar. There is no compassion and the words, the contempt and hostility eat everyone in the family from the inside out. Especially the babies.”
Feel free to share your thoughts on this situation in the comments below, pandas. Then, if you’d like to check out another Bored Panda article discussing similar issues, look no further than right here.
Readers warned the mother that she’s in a dangerous situation, and many encouraged her to get out as soon as she can
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