Marriage ruined by my twins. Does it get any better?

[nuckyscarnation]

We have 13 month old b/g twins. They are ivf babies so took a lot of time (and all my savings!) to conceive.

I love them more than life itself. They are the best thing that has ever happened to me and I couldn’t imagine life without them. However my marriage is in absolute tatters and I don’t know how to salvage it. We’re due to start at Relate but I’m honestly not sure it will be enough. I’m just so worn out all the time and I feel like I have nothing spare to give to my DH😪

I’m just so sad that I have my dream but at the expense of my relationship. Does it get better? Did anyone else out there manage to turn things around? Feeling very very desperate today.

For people saying you NEED to night wean. It might make it better. In my experience if often makes it worse. Babies/toddlers still wake and once you wean you lose your easy way of getting them back to sleep. Tiredness and frustration increases.

This is true in the short term but in the longer term if you can teach DC to sleep without using your body as a sleep aid you will both get better sleep. ( this doesn't include small babies btw but these DC are over a year old) The transition is hard work but once you are all sleeping through it is a game changer.

scienceofmom.com/2013/04/22/breastfeeding-a-toddler-should-you-be-concerned-about-iron-deficiency/

This article is worth a read. Note that the blogger nursed her own child into toddlerhood (as did I) and is not against extended nursing--just makes the reasonable point that toddlers should not be nursing so much that it stops them eating enough nutritious solid food as well.

Hi OP

Not read the whole thread but has anyone talked about night weaning and sleep training?

My relationship with DH definitely improved once DD was having a regular nap during the day and was sleeping through the night. He sleep trained her (I was useless) and it helped him feel like he was being useful.

Another thing that helped us was giving DH his own time. Me my own time and then setting aside time together and time as family. Do you have anyone who could babysit for a few hours so you can be alone together? Can DH put them to bed a few nights so you can go to the gym or a class or just out for a walk?

Parental mental health is very important. I hear so often that the sacrifices mums make are the most important thing to child well being. That is bollocks. The most important thing for your children is that their parents are happy and healthy.

I have a friend with a disabled child whose needs put an unbearable strain on their marriage.

They made a pact that they would stay together and ride out the storm.
She said that they were both aware that neither of them alone could cope with their child’s needs so committed to raise him together however much strain it out on them.

As the years went by they survived, their child’s needs became less overwhelming and they survived and are happy together.

It sounds like exhaustion is your enemy here. Your dh somehow needs to be helped to understand that until he steps up a helps more you simply don’t have the energy to invest in a relationship.

Can he not do the nights on a Friday and Saturday? Maybe if you are doing 5 nights not 7 this will least help?

Can he not do the nights on a Friday and Saturday? Maybe if you are doing 5 nights not 7 this will least help?

This is a good suggestion. DH does bedtime on the nights he’s off work. It’s really helped him to develop a relationship with DD. He also takes her swimming on a Sunday morning. The more his does with them the more rewarding the relationship will be for him.

You need a routine with built in breaks and I'm guessing you need to let him figure out how to parent. If he won't move high chairs us it because he feels you're fairly controlling about what can and cannot be done with the children? You need to leave them with him for a few hours and just let him get on with it every week.

While breastfeeding is wonderful for children a whole family and a mother who isn't coming apart is better. If they are past 1 and still up 3 times a night you need to sort it or your mental health and marriage has no chance. I'd get DH on board and night wean them to start. It won't be pretty but it needs to be done.

Honestly once they go to nursery your life will be entirely different. 💐

Only on MN could I be accused of creating my own problems and hurting my poor DHs feelings by daring to keep breastfeeding my babies.

"Daring to breastfeed". Oh OP stop it. You're being a drama queen.

I really feel for you. You sound exhausted, snappy, really resentful to DH, and like you can't cope. I'm currently 22 weeks pregnant with twins and this thread fills me with dread. Not you necessarily, the other posters saying how hard it is in unison.

With regards to your situation, you can't ignore something that contributes to you all being up all hours, causes the exhaustion that's going to be the major factor in the problems with you and DH, and then snap "well I like it and I want too, so I'll carry on" in this "how very dare you" manner.

People are giving you advice on one thing to hugely improve your situation. They are trying to help you from their own personal experience. If you don't want listen to it, which is totally your perogative, it's not cool to snap at them like you're professionally offended by anything that's not in line with what you want to do.

That's the big thing that's going to improve your situation. You don't want to try it. So you've kind of got no choice but to look at lesser things that will perhaps make a little difference.

From reading your posts, the one thing I notice is your anger, irritability, snappiness, resentfulness, and lack of open mindedness. Taking those things at face value, this strongly suggests to me you're beyond knackered, although in agreement with PP, you're choosing not to make it easier, and as that's your personal choice, it's very difficult to advise someone who won't help themselves but still complains about the issue.

May I recommend the book "French Children don't throw food" which has some excellent strategies. I employed this with DS who slept through from 5 weeks 2 days. I fully intend to use this with Thing 1 and 2 when they arrive.

Listen to some relaxation/meditation/calming podcasts on YouTube. Headspace is a good place to start. Just get yourself less angry, for you.

To what extent these will make a difference I can't say. You're asking for help, as long as it's not pointing out the one major thing that's actually going to help you. Sticking plaster, broken leg and all that.

I hope you find a way through xx

@nuckyscarnation how are you getting on?

It’s nuckyscarnation under my new user name

Not brilliantly. DH moved out before Christmas. Relate has been a spectacular failure. Not really sure what’s going to happen next...

Sending @noneedtoberudedear. I'm sorry things are so hard for you at the moment, but hope they improve soon x

I BF until 14 months and non-sleeping DD didn't sleep through until 2 years. She didn't get the memo that all the mean buggers on here got that it would magically make her sleep.

I got that kind of 'helpful' advice about weaning and crying it out. It annoyed me then and it annoys me now.

X posted. Sorry to hear that.

Thank you @RubySlippers77

Sorry you had the same ‘helpful’ advice @MrsTerryPratchett It is incredibly annoying. I very much doubt stopping breastfeeding my babies would have been the cure for my DH and our issues. In fact I can say it for certain given that he no longer lives here and is still just as short tempered and miserable. Imagine if I’d stopped feeding before I was ready to try and fix things? I’d be even more resentful and furious than I already am!

I never BF so can't comment on that. But yes, it would have been very annoying if you'd stopped only for your DH to still be a miserable git!

Sorry to hear that Relate didn't work for you either. Was it joint counselling and/ or just for you? I've thought about going on my own but no idea when I'd get chance. DTS1 is off school sick again, means I don't get any time at all on my own at the moment

Does your husband not understand that this time is very short and things will be back to normal in a couple of years or does he want instant gratification Now?

I'm sorry you were driven off your thread op. It's certainly not your fault for bfing. I've got twins and they're now 3 years old - and life is a lot easier. Id say that the period where they can crawl and walk, you still have to use a pram and you can't take your eyes off them for a second and they don't understand anything was hands down the hardest bit so far. But it does pass. Encourage them to do everything they can for themselves as theyre growing up. If they're capable of it, get them to do it. Putting their rubbish in the bin, taking their plate to the sink, putting their dirty clothes in the washing basket, putting on and taking off their own hats/boots. Even collecting their own wipes and nappies when they need a nappy change. It helps massively. Unfortunately it sounds like your dh just wasnt motivated to change. The key thing is, with twins, you have to keep communicating with your partner. I suspect that maybe yours quite liked being hands off.

In your op you seemed to be struggling with anxiety. Have you got any help for that? Once i figured out i was struggling I had cbt and am on citalopram for my anxiety and god it helps so much just to be able to function and not feel that dread feeling in the pit of your stomach all the time.

Please see your GP

I think @ChewChewIsMySpiritAnimal has it, OP; your partner has to want to help. Mine certainly didn't much preferred being a lazy git and four years down the line, our relationship still hasn't recovered.

Looking back, I wish I'd had something to help me with my PND instead of trying to struggle through it. Please do go to your GP if you think it might help, @noneedtoberudedear, because it probably would have helped me no end.

@RubySlippers77 it was initially joint counselling. Now solo as the therapist agrees with me that DH isn’t in a place where he’s willing to be receptive to joint therapy. Ironically he accused me last night of being the one who isn’t giving it a chance Please do try and access some help yourself. It sounds like you really need it

@madcatladyforever I’ve tried explaining that to him. It’s like banging my head off a brick wall. He just fixates on the times in arguments where I’ve told him to leave. I’ve trued explaining a million times that it was said in anger/frustration because he seems so miserable with me/the babies. Again he doesn’t listen.

@ChewChewIsMySpiritAnimal They’re already getting pretty good at doing things for themselves My little girl helped load the washing machine today and my little boy helped tidy the toys. They understand loads of what I say to them. Baby geniuses clearly

I’m already on 10mg of citalopram but my GP won’t increase the dose because I’m breastfeeding!

Also got told by DH yesterday that I “need to get into the real world”

By the man who has fucked off and left me caring for his children with minimal/help input from him. A man who sits up until 2am every morning on his PlayStation. A man who wouldn’t know reality if it jumped up and bit him on his rapidly expanding arse

rapidly expanding arse

I'd love to have some counselling @noneedtoberudedear, I just don't get the chance with no childcare and the DC only at school in the mornings at the moment. Hopefully September will bring me more chances for job hunting/ training/ more qualifications/ some actual free time to do other things I'd like to do

TBH if your DH is going to keep being so unhelpful/ annoying/ generally insufferable, can you keep dialogue between you to an absolute minimum, and only about the bare essentials? My friend had similar with her ex DP and gave up speaking directly to him, would only text. Maybe a bit extreme but worked for her in the short term till he realised he wasn't going to get any response from her about anything that wasn't relevant!

Ask yourself how you’d feel if he wasn’t around?
Would it be easier without him?

Forgot to say @noneedtoberudedear, I hope your counselling is useful, and that (at some point) things can improve between you and your DH - even if only to the place where things are amicable and he's being a bit more helpful!

But telling you to "get into the real world"? By someone who deliberately had DC and is now walking away from them and doing no childcare whatsoever? My blood is boiling on your behalf, especially knowing how much work DTs are

Stopping the breastfeeding (particularly at night) is the key to solving all this. It really is. You will feel less exhausted, your DH can help with the sleep training (and it's time, it really is), and you can move on with creating independent little people. You're babying them and martyring yourself. Telling it straight here, sorry if it's not what you want to hear.

At 13 months they are not babies, they're toddlers and they get bugger all benefit from breast milk that they'd not get from a varied diet of solid foods and a bit of cows/goats/formula milk. Tying them to drinking from you isn't actually helping them. It's just creating behavioural patterns in them that are harming your family's quality of life in a major way.