My Husband Hates Being a Father

I’m not sure what to do.

We had our first child earlier this year, a beautiful boy who is now 6 months old.

We struggled for years with infertility and had to do multiple rounds of IVF. I thought we were on the same page, and I thought we both really wanted this.

Obviously, being a parent is hard, and I find it incredibly challenging sometimes, but I genuinely love being a mom. We always said we’d have lots of kids, and that’s something I still want.

When our son was only a few weeks old, my husband let slip that he no longer wants any more children. I admit I brushed this off a little as it was in the early days, and I thought he might need to adjust.

I’ve noticed him getting crankier these past weeks, his temper getting shorter, and the other day, he told our son to ‘just shut up’ when he was crying. Today we sat down, and I asked him to be honest with me. He said he doesn’t like being a father, it’s too hard, and he doesn’t enjoy it. I couldn’t get anything more out of him; he shut the conversation down after that.

I’ve tried to take the pressure off him. I try to give him as much baby-free time as possible. He doesn’t like changing diapers, so I do them all now. He doesn’t like bath time, so I’ve taken it on, etc., but there’s only so much I can take on board myself.

I’m crushed, and I’m so sad for our son who’s father regrets him. Now it feels like our whole future is warped. When we were going through IVF, it seemed he wanted it even more than I did now. He’s totally changed. How do we spend the rest of our lives like this? If he’s unhappy now, surely, that’s only going to get worse as the years go by, and he’ll end up resenting us?

Has anyone else gone through this?