DH and I have been married for 7 years and we have 3 DC, the youngest is a week old! The relationship has always been quite hard work, with lots of effort needed for us to stay emotionally connected, but the "pay-off" has been worth it and we have made a really good life together (although at the moment I find it quite hard to remember the good times!). About 2 years ago, DH developed an agitated depression - mostly in response to tough situation at work, but also because we had 2 under 2 and were living in quite challenging accommodation, not getting any privacy or much sleep. I had very little energy for supporting him because the children were so young and I was also caring for a terminally ill relative. When my relative died and my husband was to wrapped up in work to make time to come to the funeral, we came to a bit of a crisis point until he finally accepted that he needed to see his GP and started ADs and seeing a counselor. Despite having had several episodes of reactive depression myself, I was very shaken by and, if I m honest, rather resentful of the terrible impact that DHs depression had on our family. Things gradually improved and we decided to go ahead with our long term plan of another child - I wanted DH to come off ADs before conceiving and we argued over this he did not think it necessary and I strongly preferred neither of us to be on medication if possible - I then did get PG with him on low dose ADs and miscarried. He came off ADs and I got PG again shortly afterwards and thankfully all has gone smoothly and we have a lovely DC3. But we seem to have drifted further and further apart to the extent where I was not really sure I wanted this semi-stranger in the delivery room with me. I have welcomed the chance to send him to sleep in the spare room whilst I co-sleep with the baby. He ended up back on ADs earlier this year and still goes to counseling. In fact he went to a session when DC3 was 2 days old, leaving me to take the baby and DC2 to an essential appointment on my own. When he come back from this counseling I have no idea what he has been talking about and I am not encouraged to ask -as he is rather snappy and short-tempered - I often barely recognize the man I married. It seems he can always manage to make every small conversation into a confrontation, and blames me for being "confrontational" - he is certainly cutting me no slack at all with my behavior in the last few weeks of PG and first few weeks of DC3 and I am rather tired and could do with some cherishing rather than feeling sad and anxious about our marriage.
Having said all this. he is a wonderful wonderful father and a good man and I would love to find my way back to him. I see the baby asleep in the moses basket and know that I have to do everything I can to try and sort this out, but it feels like I might not ave the energy to do it.
Has anyone had similar experiences? How can we start to find our way back together - or is it too late?