Anyone else feel like they shouldn’t be here?

[wadercl]

Just reaching out to see if anyone else feels like me. Cue long rambling self pitying background paragraph!

So I’m a bit of a life ruiner and shouldn’t have got married as now both me and my husband are very isolated - we don’t get to see our friends anymore, both of our families hate us and regularly attack us (last string of abusive messages from brother in law last night while he was drunk), and because I’m looking after a little baby and a preschooler I don’t exercise as much and so I’m much fatter and uglier than I was. I feel totally repulsive and haven’t been intimate with my husband since we conceived our baby (he’s now 5weeks old) and have no desire to do so ever again. I feel terrible that my husband doesn’t have a happy life anymore and is so isolated from his family and friends and has an unhappy wife who isn’t even attractive anymore. Particularly because the person he was with before me was very slim and blonde and beautiful and he seemed happy. Plus his family loved her and still have her pictures. They split because she wanted marriage but he wasn’t ready. I feel like he made a huge mistake not marrying her. My dad emotionally abused me as a child by calling me horrible names (shouting them out down the aisle at the supermarket), rejecting me outright, laughing telling people that no one would ever want to marry me, ridiculing my body as I went through puberty and telling me I’d never be able to do things I said I wanted to do, to name a few. So I know I’ve carried a lot of shame and negative self image with my through life but felt like I could manage it in my own way by doing positive things for myself. Then I met my husband and things were good. But now I can’t do those positive things for myself my self esteem has plummeted and our relationship suffers. I want to be alone - I don’t feel comfortable in social situations, I don’t have any friends anymore or family (my mum cut me off because she wasn’t first to see my first child when he was a baby because she lives far away but she won’t let my brother have a relationship with me and my children either), I don’t want to host people at our house because I would rather just hide away. So that makes my husbands family relationships suffer. And now they all hate us. And I fantasise about going under a bus or a train as the only way out of it all but wouldn’t because I love my boys and don’t want to mess them up. I’ve explained all of this to my husband and he kind of tries to reassure but I don’t think he even believes it himself really. Then he just went to bed saying he was sorry he upset me ( I have no idea why he apologised and not sure he does either tbh).

But I guess I just want to know if I’m alone? Seems like most normal people have normal families and relationships? I feel totally alien and like I was never meant to be here. I’m not looking for sympathy or the whole ‘U O.K. hun?’- I genuinely would just like to know if anyone else has the same thoughts? And what did you do? I told my husband he should strike up something with someone else - maybe start going out after work l etc. Anyone else resorted to something similar? Does a purely functional relationship for the kids work?

thanks all!

Oh, OP. I hope this is just a localised low in your life. Please remember that no one (at least no one sane, and certainly not me) feels either interested in sex or attractive when they have a newborn! As for the rest of it, if you are avoiding the likes of the family you describe, then so far from being a bad person you must be braver and more sensible than the rest of us. I still feel all the time like I can't cope, and I have no excuse.

It's hard for your husband to help you in this situation, because as you say, just having people say it's not true that you're worthless doesn't really work if you won't believe it. But at the very least, please hang on till your life settles down before imagining that this is it. There will be years of mummy-friends and work-friends and postman-friends ahead, and half of them you won't like even years down the line, but I hope and believe some of them you will like. Meanwhile please try not to put too much pressure on yourself. It sounds like you're in a tough stage of life.

I mean this nicely but I think you need to talk over your feelings with your HV or GP you sound very depressed. I think talking to your husband is a cry for help. You know it’s not normal to feel this way.

I do understand though I had twins and was so painfully and horribly sleep deprived I used to fantasise about being taken to prison. I felt the world would be a much better place without me and if I could blinked myself out of existence without consequences for my children I would of done it in a heartbeat.

Life gets better though. I did get divorced as we never managed to find a connection again and became really resentful of each other. I never sought help though and just muddled through. Maybe you’d like to do it differently?

You're not alone. You've been dealt a shit hand from the off with your abusive father. Just over a month PP is a difficult time emotionally and I think your husband was being respectful of that by apologising when he thought he'd upset you. The real question is, is do you want a relationship with your husband, or have you fallen out of love with him?

Agree with allswellthatends that you will make years of mum friends down the line. My DP just lost his Mum and the amount of people she'd secretly fallen out with, but they still held her in high regard was surprising. I even found myself shedding a few tears, as I would love to think I will have that many people think highly of me in 30 years time when I'm gone. As it is, I just turned 39 and realised I no longer have any close friends at this stage in life and it is lonely. I guess the onus is on me to do something about that. But you're right when you feel like the odd one out and perceive that everyone around you has lots of functioning friendships and relationships, it certainly is not easy.