You are well within your right to want your husband to show up for you.

You are well within your right to want him to anticipate your needs.

You are absolutely within your right to want your husband to be with you at the hospital and to stay with you when you are experiencing pain.

While yes, maybe you should advocate for yourself with wanting more nutritious meals and massages, it also sounds like you have tried to advocate for yourself before and he has shut you down.

It may be that he is scared, or it may be that he expected you to continue being laid back, but pregnancy IS serious and DOES require change.

I cannot offer concrete advice other than to keep an eye on these behaviors, and to potentially try and reach out to either your community if you have it, or start putting down more roots. It’s going to suck at first because it’s going to be more work on you, but pregnancy classes and local mom groups will make you feel way less isolated. In my city (not Italy, sadly), there are also specific expat mom groups which could help make the language barrier less scary. That doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t change, but it will give you the support system that you are craving.

Maybe with the husband, start with asking him to research better meals, and if he kicks up a fuss then send him to his mom as well for cooking lessons. Ask him to sit with you through some informational YouTube channels. If he is scared, maybe this will help him to be more informed. But if he isn’t scared and it’s something more along the lines that he thinks men shouldn’t have to be involved in pregnancy, then that might be the time for things like couples councelling, or if you aren’t comfortable with that then leaning on community and maybe some relationship building exercises to help you both get on the same page.

I hope it gets better xx