My wife hates me, struggling with our 4 month old
My wife and I had our first child 4 months ago. She has been a brilliant baby, sleeps solidly for 6-7 hours each night, no health issues and a great temperament. We are extremely blessed and happy with her. Despite this, my wife's mood and attitude towards me is becoming unbearable and made this one of the worst periods of my life.
My wife has a year off work, while I've only had a total of 3 weeks off. My wife has taken the lead on all things baby. She is a very type A person and has a strict set of systems in place. Over time my wife's resentment towards me has been building and building. She is extremely rude and criticises everything I do. She says she is tired and overwhelmed, but won't let me or our nearby family help her. She currently sleeps in a separate room with the baby and won't let me do nights. She creates very strict rules, e.g. feeding, changing, cleaning, and then gets frustrated when I ask her to clarify how she would like things done.
My work is fairly demanding and occasionally means I need to travel (only 2 nights away each month as I've refused a lot of it since she was born). Whenever I return there is a huge sense of anger and frustration towards me. I genuinely try to help out when I can, of course I could do more but sometimes I feel overwhelmed and like I'll do things wrong.
I go out of my way to be nice to her, bite my tongue when she's being unreasonable, yet I am always in the wrong. I'm really struggling to understand what she needs, she said I should know intuitively what's needed. I have recently gotten through to her and she has started therapy, but nothing has changed.
I guess I just want to vent, but also know if anyone has any advice or has been through something similar.
Posted Sep 25, 2026, 10:50 PM UTC