Crosspost "My wife [28F] accusing me [31M] of emotional blackmail over demands to improve relationship before a second baby. Am I?" from /r/relationships:

Many thanks for giving this a read. I'm not entirely sure how to get this across so it may seems a bit disjointed.

I posted some time ago (throwaway account) about difficulties I was experiencing in my marriage to my wife (link) (TL;DR for that was "Marriage great. Baby came resulting in PND. Prolonged period (>1 year) of lack of affection and effort from wife. Now I can't keep holding things together anymore. What do I do?"), which is now 4 years in length.

Subsequent to that post, I decided that maybe PND after our first child was the reason for everything and other stuff had to come forefront (primarily that our son was diagnosed with a significant chronic medical condition).

Because of the multitude of big problems, I decided to hang in there to try and work as a team to get on top of our son's medical issues, which, although chronic, have recently become quiescent.

The problems within our relationship remain however. My wife continues to make little to no effort to have a relationship with me, although she says she loves me and I try to take that at face value. However, although I still love my wife, the affection my wife once showed is gone, the teamwork that I still try to push is met by a stonewall, and I feel very much a second-class citizen within the house.

My wife now wants a second child. Although I have always wanted more children, I feel the relationship is toxic enough as is and is already having an effect on our son. I've tried several times to explain how I feel within the relationship (using the whole "I feel x" rather than "you do this"), that I don't feel validated, valued or considered within the marriage, but am met with snarky replies and denial that my feelings are a problem (further exacerbating the lack of validation). I've tried talking, writing a letter and eventually sought counselling for myself on the matter.

As a result, I have said on several occasions that I do not want another child until our relationship is in a better place. My wife is now replying that I'm emotionally blackmailing her and manipulating her by demanding changes before allowing her another child, and that if I won't have another child, she'll have to "go somewhere else".

Is this blackmail? It's certainly not intended that way, but if it does come across that way, how do I go about getting through that these issues really are a show stopper for our marriage, let alone having another baby?

tl;dr Problems in marriage, I won't have a second child until we get on top of them, wife accusing me of emotionally blackmailing her.

Posted by ForgottenDad | 4 May 2018 | Link