I’m Jealous of My Husband

Blue Birds Fly Beyond the Rainbow, Why Oh Why Can’t I?

I’m jealous of my husband. This isn’t a shock to me. It’s actually something I was fully prepared for and expecting when I was pregnant but it doesn’t make it any easier. As I write this Dan is away on holiday snowboarding for a week and I am… at home with our toddler. I’m not jealous of his snowboarding holiday (couldn’t care less), I’m jealous of the fact that he is able to go away for a week to do anything at all. Because I still breastfeed Rowan to sleep and he wakes up in the night and feeds back to sleep multiple times, I cannot leave him. Let that sink in. I cannot leave. I am trapped. If I think about it too hard, it’s actually a horror story despite how much I love him and love being a mum and blah blah blah you know the usual spiel parents have to give before they complain.

Side note: these two comments on my TikTok about bedsharing with Rowan perfectly sum up the dichotomy of parenting 😅

I’m happy Dan is able to get away, he absolutely deserves a break from parenting and work. But so do I! And that’s just not something that is possible for me right now and I’m not sure when it will be. We keep talking about night weaning but it doesn’t feel urgent and it’s so much easier to keep with what works than to try and change anything at the moment. Also, I’m nervous that night weaning Rowan will mean he then goes off the boob completely and I don’t know if I’m ready to give up breastfeeding completely yet.

I don’t even know what I’d do with myself if I could go away without Rowan for a week. It’s dangerous to let myself think about it. And there’s also the danger that I will let out my frustrations on Dan. We spoke about this a lot before Rowan was born, how it was very likely if I was able to breastfeed that I would be resentful of Dan’s freedom and independence, and that was the price we were willing to pay to be able to breastfeed on demand for at least a year (now almost 2 years!). But just because I chose this doesn’t mean it stops being hard. And it’s weird being jealous of your partner. It’s such an uncomfortable (but very normal!) feeling and it being directed towards someone I love and don’t want to burden with my jealousy is tricky. I want him to know I’m jealous, communicating those feelings is important and helps to avoid a build up of resentment and anger which can be so common between new co-parents. But then I don’t want him to feel bad about the good things he’s getting. I want him to be able to fully enjoy them without feeling guilty that I don’t get the same.

All I can really do is bide my time, clock in the hours and eventually, at some point in the (probably near) future, I’ll be able to escape, even if just for a little while. And my god, will I have earned it.

If you want to hear Dan & I tell the story of how we met and got together, we did so on a recent episode of the Patreon-only HanDan Podcast, which you can listen to here!

Would love to hear your thoughts about being jealous of a partner (for whatever reason, not necessarily related to parenting) in the comments. Enjoy the rest of the newsletter!

Hannah xx

P.S. since writing this I learned that Dan has spent most of his snowboarding holiday ill in his hotel room and I am NOT jealous of that at all. In fact, I feel awful that's how he's spending his well earned holiday 😭 why does this always happen?! But at least he's not having to do any parenting whilst being ill!

📚 Doing It Book Club - that’s right, clearly I can’t make “Doing It” die - it’s the name of my book, it was the name of my podcast and now because I love the pink/blue/yellow/orange colour palette, the name and branding continues into a NEW PHASE: the book club I’ll be hosting on Patreon this year. The purpose of this book club is to read at least some of the many sex and relationships non-fiction books that had to take a back seat whilst I was too busy producing content instead of consuming it. Our first book is actually a new one that was just published and is Come Together: The Science (and Art) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connections by Emily Nagoski (affiliate link). Most of the book club activity will take place in our Patreon discord server and you can find all the info about our reading schedule and chapter check ins on this Patreon post.

I did a jigsaw puzzle! I haven’t attempted to do a jigsaw since the day I ended up going into labour with Rowan but recently it was the “reading deprivation” week of The Artist’s Way (affiliate link) and instead of reading or watching TV in the evenings, I did a 1000 piece jigsaw of the London tube map. And it was great! Only two pieces missing but not bad for a charity shop find.

I’ve actually been making some short form content! Depending on the length I’m posting them on YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels and TikTok so if you fancy following me in any of those places you can! So far it’s mostly parenting, home, fashion and food stuff but I’m having lots of fun and also feeling good about actually sticking to one of my goals this year (so far!) that I’ve always put off in the past.

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Don’t forget I do a livestream every month over on my Patreon! Come join us for a chill hour of chats, behind the scenes goss and updates, and the chance to ask me any of your questions!

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