Adjusting to life after having a baby can take work, but as long as you are willing to do what it takes, it can be a real blessing.

What would you do if the father of the child hardly helped at all and was constantly making excuses and not being a good partner?

That is the situation that the new mom in this story is in, so she wants to end the relationship, but she wants to wait for six months until her maternity leave is over, so that she doesn’t have to go to work yet.

AITAH for just waiting out my maternity leave to leave my partner so I don’t have to go back to work early and leave my baby too soon

I have a 4month old with my partner, he has turned out to be the absolute biggest disappointment.

It is unfortunate when relationships don’t go the way you wanted, especially when there are kids.

He’s always been up and down in the relationship, we both work but he owns the house we have, so I pay rent which covers utilities but he pays his own mortgage which is double the cost of the bills because I have no financial share in the home and he always reminds me it’s “HIS HOUSE” in arguments.

He constantly tells me I need to pay towards his mortgage which I don’t think I should as with or without me he’d have to pay the mortgage anyways. Side note he has this house before I came along.

Hopefully, he can get treatment for these issues.

Anyways he’s got some issues with mental health, anxiety which he says stops him from sleeping most nights and he shows massive signs of bipolar as he flips his mood at the drop of a hat and tells me he can’t help it.

He’s always expected me to do all of the housework despite me also working full time. So, now I pay a cleaner to do it because I just don’t have the time these days with a high needs baby.

Anyway, I now am on maternity leave, I’ve got two more months paid, and then 6unpaid.

Well, the bills do still have to be paid while on leave.

Now he still believes I should be paying him rent in those six months out of my savings and he’s not contributed anything towards my maternity leave fund so it’s all coming out of my pocket but I’ve put my foot down and said I won’t be paying rent as I’m off with OUR child.

And he suggested I should go back to work instead then, which doesn’t make sense because then there will be nursery fees to cover.

Adjusting to life with a child can take some time.

So, our home life is bad, she’s not a bottle-fed baby, so I do all night every night, just coming out the other side of a sleep regression with 8 or so wakes a night.

And now given it’s cold and flu season she’s ill every other week, which again causes a huge amount of wake ups, which I do alone, but I don’t complain and get on with it.

He needs to step up as a father.

Now where my issue is, I only ask him to have her without me once a week for roughly 3 hours and that’s such a massive issue because “he’s so tired” due to his anxiety preventing him from sleeping (I wouldn’t know I stay in a room with my daughter and he’s in a different room).

He tells me how mean I am for not understanding and he says depending on his night before means he either takes her late or brings her back to me early.

Time to grow up, sir.

He insists on taking a long nap in the afternoon everyday because he doesn’t sleep well and is exhausted, so, I can’t have a guarenteed morning off, no afternoons off and he tells me “he doesn’t do well in the evenings because that’s when the anxiety starts” so I can’t count on him then.

For the first 2/3 months of if I left her for an hour or two he’d be calling me back to the house because things weren’t going well.

This guy is being ridiculous.

And it got to a point she wouldn’t even let him hold her for a while. She’s perfectly happy to hang out with my family without me but he insisted she just needed to be with me 24/7.

Not the fact they hadn’t bonded with each other. Now she’s a lot more manageable but even now he doesn’t seem to respond to her needs.

He really is not being a good partner here.

He takes her upstairs to play every now and then, not for me to get a break but for me to do laundry or eat or do some other house job with my time.

In those times he takes her he won’t change her nappy unless prompted he’s never bathed her and a lot of the time he tries to put her down so he can play on his phone and I find her fussing looking at him and he’s just not responding.

What a loser.

So with his up and down moods, he yells stamps and swears and when I ask him to stop he just tells me that I have “no clue” what it’s like to be in his shoes.

He tells in front of our daughter too. And sometimes when he’s in a bad mood he will just ignore her completely when she’s in the room and it breaks my heart.

Why should she care about his situation? He needs to grow up.

I’ve told him these things will affect her as she gets older and again he just tells me I’m being unsympathetic to his situation.

To which I tell him HER well being comes above everyone else’s. I have sleepless nights have her all day everyday whilst juggling housework where I can but I always greet her with chats and smiles.

Well, this is something, I guess.

I must note: he isn’t violent and has never yelled at her. He just yells with her in earshot. It sends my heart rate through the roof I can only imagine what’s happening in her little mind.

It’s not bad everyday some days he’s bubbly with her.

He really doesn’t want to help at all.

But it’s one of those classic situations where I am trying to eat with her bucking on my lap eating something with a knife and fork, and he could be eating a packet of crisps and I have to be the one holding her as default.

I have to ask for a shower. All that nonsense I swore I’d never put up with but if I always put my foot down then I’d be constantly arguing in front of the baby, which I REFUSE to do.

She needs to end the relationship and find a way to work. This isn’t fair to anyone.

Now I know this relationship can’t continue, but for the next 6months my leave is effectively unpaid.

So, realistically I can’t afford to leave until I go back to work. And I believe we should keep our babies close for as long as we possibly can.

Move out and do what needs to be done.

I’m just at a loss as to what to do anymore.

AITA?

While the dad is clearly not a good partner here, it isn’t fair what she is doing either. Essentially, she is just using him for free rent for six more months, even though she knows she won’t stay with him. This is being dishonest.

Let’s see what the people in the comments say about it.

Here is someone who says leave now if she can.

This is good advice.

Start looking for a place to live now.

She should do what is best for her daughter, which means leave.

I agree, move out ASAP.

She needs to get out as soon as it is safe.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.