I felt angry at your first reply to my being upset with H. I felt you were picking on me.<p>But I took you all wrong. I didnt need to get upset. Iwanted to send an angry reply but I didnt have the guts to.<p>It wasnt till I read your next posts that I understood you.<p>Youre basically right and I feel rather foolish about my behaviour, but I'll take it as a learning experience and get some wisdom from it. I'm sorry us women tend to put you guys down so much. Why do we do it? Lots of reasons I guess. You know I always had in my mind to build my H up infront of others as he has such a low image of himself, yet, thats not what happened as he accuses me of pulling him down. Same thing with being a Dad, I want everyone to know what A great Dad he is but somehow the message gets distorted and i fail to do what i set out to achieve.<p>I think every wife desires to have a H who is a fantastic Dad but when he is we seem to resent it...<p>I just wanted to say sorry. I am a new Mum, went through the pregnancy etc and after alone so I react a bit too sensitively to people suggesting I'm not up to par.<p>Thanks for patiently replying.<p>Dancer

Thanks for writing, Dancer! It's perfectly all right, I wasn't offended; but I appreciate it anyway.<p>I don't see anything too mysterious about why resentment of a good Dad can exist. It's a matter of competing gender roles. We all tend to think we should be especially good at certain things we feel are appropriate to our sex, and we can feel put out if the other sex seems to be better. So sure, you'd like your H to be a great Dad--but at the same time, it's Mom who's supposed to be the special parent, right? [img]images/icons/wink.gif" border="0[/img] So you'd like him to be a good parent--but not too good... It works the other way round as well. Men for instance are supposed to be the mechanically-minded sex. At the same time, it's a good thing to have a smart wife who can take care of mechanical problems when necessary. But she mustn't be too good at it... [img]images/icons/wink.gif" border="0[/img] <p>I don't think anyone would suggest you're "not up to par" as a first-time mother. I'm sure it's natural to feel extra conscientious about the job the first time around. That is tricky though if your H started off with a low image of himself. It sounds as though he could benefit from doing a bit of work on himself. I hope you have good luck getting through to him. Take care! [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img]