Hello Everyone,
I hope someone can give me some advice. I am 28 years old and my husband and I have been married for over 6 years. I found out in January that I was pregnant. This wasn't planned and came as a huge shock. I don't think we every would have decided to have children. But the doctor changed my medication and took me off the pill and whammo...here we are.
My problem is that my husband is not very happy about this. He was working 3rd shift and going to school when we found out and now he's finishing school. He'll be done in July and still start back working then.
Anyway, he was adopted and didn't reunite w/ his birth mother until 4 years ago. His adoptive family was verbally and emotionally abusive. He has trouble making bonds w/ people and has no compassion for people at all. He loves animals, but people are a different story. Even me to an extent.
He is beginning to show signs of pent up anger and frustration and I don't know what to do. I am not in good health and this has become a high risk pregnancy. I haven't worked in several months and I know he feels the pressure from that. But he's starting to yell at me a lot and be very mean in his comments...even in front of other people. I don't think it's a good idea for me to get upset so easily but i don't know what to do about trying to get him to chill out. He has started blaming me for my poor health and insinuating that I'm lazy and only pretending to be sick. These comments really hurt. What should I do?

Hi Crystal,

I can relate to your situation in many ways. I was 28 years old when my husband and I found out last June that I was pregnant. At that time we had been married for almost 6 years. We had talked about having a baby but hadn't expected that wed conceive right away the first month after stopping taking the pill. We were both nervous but happy.

We are both in grad school. He's finishing up his Masters program and I just started my program last fall. He also works full time. I had been working full time as a clerk in a dental office but quit to accept a grad assistantship position last fall and to do some freelance work. The position didn't pay as much as before. We also had a high risk pregnancy. It appeared that the baby might have hydrocephalus and severe problems. We even had doctors asking if we wanted to abort! Luckily everything turned out okay and I have a perfectly healthy 3 mo old son.

Financially I needed to work the assistantship and continue with classes last semester. It was really tough! Luckily my advisor and boss let me make up some hours in the summer. The trouble now is that my assistantship was only for the school year and the payments have ended but I still owe hours. Also I haven't heard if my assistantship was renewed for next year but since I haven't heard back I assume not I'm still doing some freelance projects and busy caring for the baby. It was definitely worth it, but the pregnancy drained our savings and we're pretty much broke. I'm really busy but not bringing in much money right now and sometimes my husband makes comments that seem like he is implying that I'm being lazy or that it is my fault we are in the financial situation we are in. It really hurts! Most of the time he has been pretty supportive though.

My husband wasn't adopted but was an only child. He lets me get pretty close to him emotionally but like your husband usually is very emotionally detached from those who aren't his closest family and friends. Perhaps your husband is just reacting out of stress and pressure. He's probably concerned about your health and the major changes to come in the future. Have you let him know that his comments hurt your feelings? Good communicatioon usually helps. Hang in there! If you need to talk I'm here anytime.

Kate