Why does it feel like we're the only ones finding it so hard?

[Sunshines89]

DD is nearly 16mo. She's had a complicated medical history but asides from that is a little beaut, her medical issues haven't affected her developmentally at all asides from having to eat mushy food rather than "normal" textures for this age. The dreaded nursery bugs take their hold and she constantly has a bad cough which always teeters on the edge of a chest infection, as a result of her medical history.

The worry DH and I have over her is intense. We can't bear seeing her struggle with her coughing - even when she's happy in herself, we can't help but feel strained because her cough sounds so bad.

DH's anxiety makes him go essentially silent. He goes into himself and nothing I say or do can bring him out of it. To compensate, I take over doing everything with DD and the house, to try to take the mental load off of him. But I'm working too, in a high pressure stressful job, so am feeling the strain of that alongside general worries and guilt over DD. And DH doesn't have the mental capacity to even ask how my day was because he's so in his own head, which makes me feel very lonely.

I try to get DH to open up but nothing works, I just have to wait it out until he pulls himself out of his funk. In the meantime, I have so much fun with DD, she finds everything hilarious and is so much fun to interact with. She's known at nursery as "the happy one" and is so full of love for life. I absolutely adore her. I know DH does as well. But when he gets like this, he withdraws from her as well - plays on his phone to distract himself from his mindset and then misses her trying to interact with him.

I see so many people with so many kids (i.e. more than one!) And I just don't know how they are able to comfortably have more than one kid when here we are, in a loving relationship, stable finances, a lovely home and family and friends around us, and it feels like we're crumbling under it all. And asides from the medical stuff, DD is just so lovely. So why does it all feel so hard? Little things like we can't get her to drink cows milk, so she's still breastfed, and she barely drinks water, so she gets constipated - I never thought these would be the stressful parts of parenting given everything else we've gone through with DD, but it takes up so much headspace and adds to the "what are we doing wrong" feelings.

I'm rambling, I know. I just need to vent. I love DH and DD so much, I want them (and as a result, me) to be happy all the time, but it just isn't happening and I can't fix it.

I hear you. We have similar challenges. From reading your post it sounds like the main difficulty is your husbands mental health. Is he aware of the difficulties he has, and has he tried addressing them? Have you spoken about it? Anxiety can be absolutely crippling and his behaviours are very typical. It also links strongly with depression. If he hasn't already, it would be worth seeking help. I think all the other small bits eg cows milk, constipation, sickness etc will be much easier to manage once his mental health is better. Unfortunately hard ball doesn't work with anxiety/depression, he can't just switch it off and pretend he's fine, so he is going to need help to work through his issues. It's great he has someone like you who is so supportive, it can get better so I would really encourage him to reach out for help.

@SErunner thanks for your reply. I have tried speaking to him about it and suggesting he gets some other help - he said he doesn't want to speak to anyone about it but he'll try to cheer up so it doesn't affect me. I said I want him to be honest with me about how he's feeling and work together to make things better but the walls have gone up it seems. My main problem is that I don't feel like I am very supportive, I get so worried when he's like this that I can't say anything of any use and just try to be helpful in other ways like with the housework etc. Whereas when I am feeling overwhelmed he's brilliant at bringing me out of my mood, and I can't return the favour. We tried for so long to have our DD and it hurts that things feel like this when I am so glad we've got her, despite the challenges it's presented us with. I want to enjoy every moment with her especially now I lose half the week to nursery but in the background my husband's misery is there. I keep telling myself it'll get better but when we're in the thick of it it's very hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel 😔

as PP said, the issue here is the toll that your husband’s mental health is having on the family as a whole. It’s not right that you have to hold the majority of the mental load because your husband won’t get help. It’s also going to have an impact on your daughter who sees a father who is unable to engage with her.

I am in a similar situation. DH’s mental health took a downturn when DD (now 3) was born and became an worse when DS was born (7 months). He is depressed and can withdraw himself, taking himself off cycling, stress cleaning and going on extremely long walks. He can’t cope with meltdowns and struggles to engage in play. I have therefore taken on the vast majority of childcare (although I am a SAHM so this is a factor). I therefore do understand how hard your situation is. I had to nag and nag my husband to seek help. In the end, I spoke with our health visitor about him who then came and spoke to my husband (I admitted to him that I’d sought her help) and he surprisingly was very open and willing to get help after a discussion with her. She referred him to the Healthy Minds and he received CBT (this hasn’t made any difference so they have referred him on to a postnatal mental health team but you don’t need all the details). I urge you to insist that your husband seek help. I made it clear to DH that I can cope with his struggles if he seeks help but I will not be okay if he refuses help. You can feel love and sympathy for your husband whilst also acknowledging that his mental health is having a detrimental impact on you and on his child.

I hope that your husband seeks the help he needs.