DH is depressed in our new life

[SoCatEs]

DH and I are early 30s, we got married 2.5 years ago and a we have an 11 month old DS.
Before having DS I’d say we lived the life of many young London professionals, we lived pretty central, work drinks, days out with friends, any sports event an excuse to meet up with our friends.
A little over a year ago we left London for a small village, it seemed at the time atleast to be the logical choice. For the first few months and while DS was a newborn I’d say we were both pretty happy, obviously we missed our friends but I made a lot of new friends through baby groups and similar so quickly didn’t really miss my London friends. DH is still commuting into London 3 days a week so maintained a much closer friendship with his old friends.
DS wasn’t exactly planned, I was still on the pill and while we’d spoken about children in our future, the timeline was sped up. This has meant that we are among the first of our wider circle to have children, actually of DHs friends we are the first. DHs friends are also all a bit younger than he is at 25-29ish so probably all still a good few years off having children of their own. Obviously his friends have continued their lives as they were a year ago, work drinks, dinner parties, sports etc. DH has had to pull back from this a little, he still goes for drinks after work maybe once a fortnight but has to leave early for the train while everyone else is often out until 2-3 in the morning. A large group of his friends are going to Paris next month for the Paris masters tennis tournament and DH did want to go but considering they all went to Paris in the summer for the French Open I just didn’t feel it fair that he got a second weekend away.
DH today has told me he is depressed, that he is a social person and he finds his life really lonely right now, weekends are spent either at home or on days out with DS which he says he does enjoy but don’t fulfil his social needs. He said he just feels perpetually miserable, he works 8-5, gets home around 6:15/6:30 then it’s his job to bathe DS, we alternate putting DS down to sleep and cooking but either way by the time dinners done I just want to go to bed (DS isn’t the best sleeper and as I’m on maternity leave I do all the night time wake ups, DH does them on weekends). He said that it basically means from 9pm on he’s sat with nothing to do as I’m asleep, some nights he does go to the gym but he said he’s now lacking motivation to even do that.
I asked what it is he actually wants as the reality is we have a DS, whether we lived in Zone 2 or out in the sticks the routine would be the same. I suggested he tries to make some local friends, maybe other dads so he can take DS to the park with them on the weekend etc. but he got quite snappy and told me he didn’t need more friends, he had great friends, he just never gets to see them.
I’ve also noticed he spends a lot of time just sat on his phone, messaging his group chats, or at least that’s what he claims.
The conversation ended with him saying we should consider asking his mum to come and stay for a week and help me with DS so he can go get some space. I asked if he felt there were relationship issues too and he said “I do still love you but you go to bed so early we hardly even get to speak anymore”, I am also aware that the intimacy has declined a lot since having DS but I’m just not interested in sex really at all. He never mentioned the lack of sex and he never pushes for it but I can tell that’s bothering him too.

So I guess my question is, AIBU to think his mum coming to stay for a week so he can go get space isn’t the right solution? I hate that he is struggling but realistically this is our life now, avoiding it for a week won’t have any positive long term impact?

Has anyone else’s DH experienced this? Any advice?

Swiss kids are very well adjusted. French and Italians are quite family, community oriented, so if they can achieve that by not letting kids dictate their lives then why can’t you?

She wasn’t happy in London -
she didn’t like the husband ‘s friends and colleagues
she found London social life relentless
she had tried to shape the guy into the exact relationship / lifestyle she wants rather than creating a life with the person that he is !!

It is ridiculous. There is absolutely no reason for being joined at the hip to a child that age. It suits the OP because it allows her to dictate his life.

Some people love forums like this as they get to be gratuitously nasty with no consequence. Diminishing others makes them feel bigger and better about their incredibly unhappy lives.

Absolutely. The entire country of children are very well adjusted. 🤣

And that’s possible,

Kindly, OP, I do think you are going to need to work on this or you may lose your husband. Relocating more centrally would be an obvious and quick help with this, perhaps put some of the savings towards that and return to work a little earlier as a compromise.

My husband and I did the same thing almost exactly except now 5 hours on train from London so don't get to even be in our same environment. It was incredibly hard with a 6 week old, we still think, two years later, wtf did we do. It's hard to extricate if any low moods are from the move, from the challenges of life as a parent and how our relationship had morphed (though we adore our boy and adore being parents, but he hasn't slept through yet and we do miss the freedom at times).

It's much harder to regulate your own mood as a parent as you know, because so much depends on things outside of your control and involve another little person. Sometimes it's survival mode and tag teaming in these early days and men seem to have less patience for things going back to "normal", you getting some sleep is more important than hanging out with him. My husband and I were like ships in the night and work colleagues in the first hear with our bad sleeper kid, after 13 years of being best friends.

Unfortunately its something that has to be lived and time might help, its still early days in the larger scheme of being parents but he does actually have a better social life than most parents of babies so hopefully he realises that and his mood lifts somewhat.

Regarding it happening earlier than expected, noone is ready for what parenthood brings. My son was ivf so planned to a T, and we spent a fortune on it and wanted it with all our being, then absolutely shit ourselves when he arrived and cried for two weeks 😆

To be honest I do agree with this.

I think if the roles were reversed, many posters would find it selfish if a man didn’t allow their wife to go away with friends for one weekend. They would look dimly on a DH secretly disliking his wife’s friends and being content that she was isolated from them after moving to a village away from support.

However I do also think the consensus on this thread has come to same conclusion. OP has basically taken a man and tried to get him to fit her ideal, taking away everything he finds joy from in the process. I actually think the parenting stuff is a red herring, OP seems to have done a bait and switch and misled her husband into what their shared life would look like together. She engaged with city life to reel him in and then dropped the facade, but I think she should have been honest that she hated that life at the time.

I don't see why DH shouldn't spend perhaps one night a week in London seeing his old friends - why not ? He is a good father you say and seems to have done what you wanted but he simply isn't happy. He .should keep in touch with these people - the way things are going there will be less and less of their sort in UK soon anyway.

He's telling you that his need to be more social isn't being met. If you were able to make friends with other couples with children where you live, that would be great. Then he could have more of a social life where you live now.

It sounds like he could use some counselling to help him adjust to the changes in his life. I don't think the answer is trying to cling on so hard to his London lifestyle and friends - although there's no reason why he can't still go on those nights out occasionally.

I think the answer is for him to get much more invested in where he lives now. You might have to take the lead in forming a social life in your new area that includes couples. Maybe some of your babygroup friends have partners who your DH might have things in common with? Once you find some couples you like, or singlesof box sexes, you can have some cool and fun dinner parties, go for Sunday lunches, walks, etc.

As for you not feeling like sex, I cannot recommend enough Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski and Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel. Also look up about the difference between responsive desire (mostly what men experience) and spontaneous desire (mostly what women have). The Nagoski book touches on this regarding how many "brakes" someone has when it comes to sex.

Overall, he says he's lonely and his social needs aren't being met. At least that's fixable.

Best of luck!

Op doesn't want to leave their child, which is her decision but she isn't happy for dh to either....he wants to go for a weekend away with friends but op wants to stop this, even by all accounts, he is a good father and very involved

Also, its clear she and dh don't have any time to be themselves and not "mum and dad" ...there is issues in their relationship that having child free time to reconnect may help.

Marriage takes compromise and effort and op currently does everything on her terms

You've chosen the wrong man to recreate your childhood with. Did he not know how you were raised? Did you not realise he had a totally different take on parenting and family life?

You know a lot about her, her motives and you are definitely not projecting your own feelings about motherhood on to her situation.

All of this with bells on. All of those people saying no one will want him with his baggage. We'll that's just not true given the number of women on here who are now stepmums to 4, 5,6, 7 year olds. They met that man when the child was a lot younger. My husband had an affair with a 16 year old and left us when she was 17 ( he was 30). We didnt do 50/ 50 ( it wasn't a thing on the 90s) but he had them at weekends. They spent most of the time when they were with him ( and her) with their friends and in the pub . She spent Christmas with them. She came to school plays etc. Ten years in they had a baby. That baby wasn't related to me in any way but she was the half sister of my beautiful boys. It took me years not to be upset when they talked about ' my brother' ' my little sister". She came to graduations/ their weddings and was called granny x when grandchildren came along. That went on until they divorced. We didn't have enough money to live separately in the way we'd lived together . My house was tiny. My bank account was even smaller. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. If you are happy with your child spending 50% of their week with another woman in another house and being away from you every other Christmas then crack on. If not then please wake up

You do need to leave your son with MIL or similar and spend some quality time with your husband - life shouldn’t stop when you have a baby.
If you don’t make H a priority for at least some of the time someone else will.
I went back to work full time after 12 weeks, expressed milk, left baby (and second baby) with close family at least once or twice a week so we could have date nights/see our friends.
Importantly I never left my husband downstairs playing on his phone and he never had a week away to decompress - it wouldn’t have crossed his mind.

She's brought up one child and I'm pretty sure you could tell her the routine in five minutes.

@SoCatEs I love my kids and any decisions I make are centred around them and a lot of what I do is focused on them but never been away from me, not experiencing staying over at grandparents going out - that isn’t for them it is about you.

I have been there as I said scared to let someone else look after her but it was my issue. Our bond now as mother and daughter at 16 is strong but I let her go.

I am a feminist who believes strongly in equal division of labour etc. I think new mums deserve a lot of support and understanding. But this is a rare thread that has made me feel very sad for the husband.

I think the marriage is over and the OP is too besotted by her baby to care. OP you are at serious risk of breaking up your marriage and leaving your child without a present father. That’s the worst thing you will ever do for your son, and will certainly make you lose your mum of the year trophy. Be very careful.

Do you think having parents who are disconnected from each other and one of whom is depressed is going to have a positive impact on your child?

I have to say, while I know we are at the centre of our own normality and all that, your childhood seems very odd. You literally never spent a night away from your parents until you were 9 and your parents had no friends and no life outside of each other.
I have read all of your posts and I can tell you now that it very just sounds like you’re going to be divorced in less than 3 years. You don’t want the same things from life, you don’t have the same outlook and quite frankly it doesn’t sound like you have any fun together. Sounds quite bleak to me. He’s probably wondering where the women he married has gone. Honestly you sound like you’ve morphed into Middle Aged Middle Englander overnight; a whisper away from joining the WI and making your famous plum jam for the Christmas fete. And I think you like your life just fine and have no intention of changing anything.

The issue seems to be that he probably didn’t want children at this point. He didn’t choose it after all.

Here is your problem. You won’t leave a nearly 1 year old for a few hours to go out and socialise with him and you don’t think it’s fair he socialises with anyone else because you choose not to socialise ever. That’s your choice for that to be your life.. don’t drag him into sitting at home night after night while you barely speak to him. Unless there are some medical issues we don’t know about then grow a pair and ask your mum to babysit to save your marriage.

I think one of the main issues here. Is you want family life 100% of the time. You’ve said you don’t want to leave DS at the moment. DH is saying he doesn’t want that. He wants a life outside of family too - that’s ok. But his life like this is with his friends as you don’t want to go out without DS.

so you are going to have to compromise. It sounds like he’s pulling his weight and I think the not wanting him to go to Paris again was not needed really. He’s saying he needs some time off parenting and work, and you are saying no, but only offering more parenting. He has most weekends home it seems so one weekend wouldn’t be the end of the world for DS not to see his dad.

the problem is you are wanting him to want what you want, and he simply doesn’t feel like that and you can’t make him.

you have to compromise or this won’t last. He does sound like he is by bathing DS taking him out, weekend wake ups etc. but I’m not sure what compromise he is getting back for what he is openly saying he needs to feel happy too.

If anything, YOUR experience was not the norm and has clearly shaped how you think things should be. Which simply isn't going to be sustainable if you value your relationship. Though it kinda seems like you got the baby, you've no interest in anything else now, and he can stay, leave, whatever 🤷‍♀️

I fully committed to motherhood as well but I agree with your DHs friends, our babies slotted right into our lives from the beginning. As a family, they become a huge priority and, as is life, sometimes not every decision made has a positive impact in their eyes. It is making sure every single moment is positive for them that causes far too many issues in the end. My children have always know they are the centre of my world, but they also know they are not the centre of THE world. Life goes on without me needing to be there every second of every day.
I can't see why he couldn't have gone on his trip. It needn't have been 'not fair' because you could've had the next 'turn' . If you don't want to, that's on you and shouldn't have been a deciding factor.
I can completely understand why he's so unhappy but not sure it's fixable with you being in total control