How do we (I) move forward from this huge mistake?

[Barkingbear]

Hi everyone!
I'm a long time lurker but first time poster who's feeling a bit emotional so please be really gentle with me. I feel like I've hit rock bottom emotionally.
Just for a bit of back story- I have 2 wonderful dc with my husband. I love them all to bits abd I love being a mum. I also have a fairly demanding career so not much spare time.
After the birth of DC2 my husband decided he was done having any more babies, and I thought I was too, so he booked to have a vasectomy. To cut a long story short- after me changing my mind at the 11th hour, lots of crying, pleading and explaining that I really wasn't ready to close that door- my husband had the vasectomy anyway.
That was 12 months ago this week.
Since the op I have cried EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. some times for just a few minutes, sometimes for hours on end (never ever in front of the children).
My husband is completely aware of the upset and hurt that he has caused but remains unrepentant and still says he did the right thing. He can't even bring himself to comfort me when im upset because we have drifted so far apart and obviously want different things for our family. It has shaken our relationship to the core.
My dh is a normally a really kind and loving man and is a fantastic dad and husband in all other respects, but he really struggles to talk about feelings and tends to just distance himself if something is difficult to talk about.
I feel as though I mean nothing to him.
It also has me doubting myself as a good mummy too- I obviously made such a mess of the baby years with my dc that he would never even consider another child with me.
Our first dc was a pretty challenging baby- he literally cried constantly from birth until he was about 2 and barely slept- but both our children are fantastic and loving now but dh says he never wants to go through that again. I honestly think now in retrospect he didn't want to try for a second although he loves both our babies immensely.
I have nightmares that we will seperate and he will find somebody else worthy of having another baby with and have his vasectomy reversed.
I think all of these feelings are made 10x worse because my best friend has just had a baby. Of course I am so so happy for her and her dh but it makes me feel so down. I'm such an awful person.
Things got so bad a few months back that I had a breakdown. Luckily my mum could have the dc for a few days as mummy wasn't feeling very well and it was before I returned to work from maternity leave so nobody other than my gp, mum and dh really know. This is the first time I have admitted to anybody else (even if it is anonymously!)
From the outside we have the perfect life. A beautiful family, a nice house, good jobs, nice cars. But I just feel totally empty and betrayed.
How can the one person who is supposed to love you and care for you the most cause so so much pain. How can he sleep at night when I lie crying, how can he see my tear stained face for a whole fucking year and say nothing???
I have suggested couples councelling but dh doesn't want to go because he thinks it marks the end. And so we continue to ignore the state of things.
I have nobody in RL to talk to this about. I spend most of my time at work or with my beautiful babies so I don't talk about it. I don't want them to know mummy is sad. So I bury it deep down and cry when nobody is around/in bed.
How do we/I move past this before I lose everything?

Please consider the effect this will have on your DC and your H if you don’t seek help.

You may think your DC don’t notice but that is incredibly unlikely.

I think deep down you know that your reactions are nothing to do with the vasectomy, that's just what your brains chosen to focus on. You need to talk to a GP about your mental health issues as you sound very anxious/depressed.

Hi

I can completely understand where you are at.

However you have 2 fantastic dc and a great career.

The feelings you have are natural because you have had the choice of more children taken away from you.

I 'encouraged' my husband to have 2 more children than he ideally wanted. The youngest is almost School age and when I look back now I could have been a better mum and life would have been so much easier with 1 or 2 less kids. I certainly feel I had 1 too many and you only know that afterwards. A close relative also said the same to me about her last child.

I no longer buy the line ' you only regret the kids you don't have'.

Biologically you are craving another child - but you have a busy life and even without the vasectomy it may not have been the best thing to do.

IMO you need to find a way to come to terms with having 2 kids and then enjoy your kids and make sure they have a wonderful start to their life.

Unfortunately this will be something that you will need to face up to, like previous posters have said there is no shame in getting help and GPs are there for that exact reason.

If you hide your head in the sand this could have the potential in ruining what you currently have and it will be down to your choices not your husbands.

Op I really understand the grief and frankly, desperation you are feeling, about not being able to have another child (we have an only and couldn't have any more for medical reasons). It does take a long time time to accept - and harder for you I suppose when it was a deliberate act by your DH - not something that had to happen.

It sounds to me like you are almost as hurt by the fact that your DH went ahead and didn't delay when you changed your mind, and that he has refused to acknowledge your grief since (as it is a kind of grief), almost as much as not being able to have a third child.

Bluntly though, your DH was entitled to make his decision and to stick to it. It is his choice. Yes it would have been ideal if he had delayed to discuss it more with you, but if you think now that he probably didn't want a second child, it sounds like he had already compromised a lot in his own mind, and probably would have made the same decision again.

So now fwiw I think you have to make a choice. Accept what has happened and move on, or jeopardise your marriage and the lovely home you have created for your existing DC.

Your DH sounds very much like mine. A very decent bloke but utterly hopeless when it comes to dealing with strong emotion. I know it sometimes feels like rejection, but it is probably just something that is beyond his capability to handle.

Good luck op. I hope it works out for you.

OMG. You are shocked at the reponses? What did you want to hear? The responses are fine. You need to see your GP. This is not normal.

You do need to see your gp. It's going to kill your marriage to continue like this if nothing else. Crying for a year because uou cant have a third child is so out with the parameters of normal and it must be terrible for your husband to live with and it must be awful for you to go through, no one needs to live like this, your children will know there is something wrong, even if you don't cry in front of them.

So make the appt, for all your sakes.

I think I don't want to admit I have mental health problems.

Do you want to feel like this forever though? You need to admit it and you need to get well again - your children deserve that as much s you deserve to be well.

I do think you need to sort out your feelings/mental health before you consider any kind of couples counselling. Once yo uae in a good place you will be able to talk to your DH about how you felt and what you thought it meant. Until then, I don’t think there is any point of couples counselling as the main problem is not a couples one right now.

You need to take care of yourself.

Oh Barkingbear you poor thing, I feel for you.

A similar (but different) thing happened to my best friend. She only had one child but decided that she didn't want anymore, so she went and had herself sterilized with her husbands support. A couple of days after the operation she had a breakdown, because she realised that she now could never have anymore children, (which was what she had wanted).

I think that the idea of not having anymore children seems okay, sometimes when it becomes a reality it can tip people over the edge even if it was what they wanted.

My friend had counselling and has come to terms with it now and is still happy she made the right decision for herself and her family but it was a long hard journey, made more difficult by the fact that everyone just kept reminding her that it was what she wanted.

As everyone else has said, I think you need to speak to your GP and try to arrange some counselling.

I also agree with previous posters that your husband probably doesn't know what to say anymore and doesn't think that you are a bad mother, he just didn't want anymore children and now in your eyes he is the bad guy because he is still happy with his choice but you aren't. He probably feels very guilty that you are so sad about it but doesn't know how to help you.

I'm really not saying my 2dc are not enough in anyway. I love them so much. They are 3 and 21m
I think you are all right I'm sorry if I came across sarcastic or unpleasant I'm just really emotional and I got defensive.
We did have a really rough time over the last few years. When dc1 was born dh lost his job (no fault of his own) when baby was 2 weeks old combined with a baby who never stopped crying. Then dc2 was unplanned but very much wanted. We lost a close family member, sold our house and moved in with my parents for 9m when dc2 was newborn. It was when we moved in our new house, lost another family member, had my car broken into, returned to a stressful job and finally had my purse stolen from my bag that I had my breakdown.
I haven't felt myself since then really

This is going to sound really critical but it is not meant to be so. I can hear your pain and I don't want you to read it as an attack.

You sound like you are being very controlling. Your husband clearly doesn't want more children, and he is within his rights to state that. It doesn't mean that the doesn't love you or that he is ignoring your wishes. It means you have a difference of opinion that cannot be simply resolved. Instead of seeing this,though, you are choosing to take this personally as a judgement on your worth as a person, which is why you're feeling that someone "better" might reverse your husband's decision. That's just not true. I suspect the factors that have led your husband to this decision are very different and perhaps quite practical- feeling overwhelmed financially and practically for instance.

You sound as though you need to take a step back and look at what you DO have. And to give your husband a bit of space to be a subject in his own right.

It sounds like you have had a tough time and that this is what is probably behind your feelings TBH.

It’s just being projected onto your h and his vasectomy.

And dh had the vasectomy when all this was happening. I see your point about there being something else to it

Hi @barkingbear

You’re obviously feeling really distressed by this and putting huge pressure on yourself to keep it from your children. Please don’t feel too ashamed or embarrassed to see your GP.

If you can, it may be worth doing some conscious positive reinforcement / CBT based actions to try and manage on a day to day until you feel strong enough to see your GP. You could try actively looking for positive things about your life and taking time to appreciate them, particularly positive things your husband does for you or the children and mentally taking time to acknowledge them. It’s also worth taking a short time - half a minute - in the morning or evening (or both) to look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself that you are a good mum, that you are a good person and you deserve to be happy with the family that you have.

Anyone who has been through a break up will know that soon as someone removes your choice about something, the thing you’ve lost increases in value to you. I’m not saying that you would have been indifferent to having another baby but I think it’s worth reflecting on whether this might be an issue here. It sounds as though your anguish about not having another baby is causing you to see your husband in a different way, and, potentially to push him away to punish him. Please don’t do this unconsciously as you clearly don’t want to lose him. I know it’s hard to hear but I think you need some support with this. I hope you find the strength to get it.

Sounds like you've had a really bad time due to things that are completely beyond your control, and now your focusing all your pain and sadness onto something you feel (consciously or unconsciously) that you can control.

Maybe he don't fully understandwhere you are coming from.
Could I suggest you either show your husband this post or write him a letter.
It shows him you have camly thought about how you feel and it's not what he is seeing ie. A crying hormonal woman. (As men always put tears down to hormones. I doubt he will realise you are genuinlty hurt.)

You could write a few letter back and forth privately. And you Will genuinlty be heard.
I would also recommend seeing your gp to help yourself get emotionally well also.
I really hope you feel better. I know what it is like to be so low and hurt

That's what I worry about too..that I am being controlling. And then I cry some more for being such a shitty person

Hi Op, I know what it's like to want a fantasy situation: one or more babies as it's the fantasy rather than the blur of reality that having a baby entails that can preoccupy your waking thoughts despite how many dc you have.

The more inwardly you look the worse it gets. The more self absorbed you are the bigger the problem comes.

You have mental health issues and you are brave to acknowledge that and I would say it is a chemical imbalance in your brain which is making all this so all consuming for you, affecting your relationships with those dearest to you.

May be you can't do this without help, may be you can. I am going to give you an online wake up call.

You need to go up to your dh and give him a hug and tell him you are sorry you have reacted so badly, that you might need outside help to overcome his decision and may need to seek counselling but you respect his decision and that you are not going to keep blaming him unfairly.

That you are grateful for the life you have created together, the dc you have and that you want to work together as a team again for the benefit of your lovely family.

Good luck op

OP I think you've had a tough time here, especially with some of the earlier posters. In my mind the choice to have/not have children is one a couple makes together. Your DH getting a vasectomy when you didn't want one was just as wrong as if you had gotten pregnant when he didn't want. I can see why you feel so robbed of a chance for more children.

However, as other PP have said I think that you would absolutely benefit from some counselling and mental health support. If you had a broken leg that caused you daily pain and impacted your family life you would go to the doctors to get it sorted. Your mental health is no different. Good luck OP

Barking bear you are obviously in enormous amounts of pain but I think the reason people are being blunt with you is because we are reading the words you have written and seeing a very different scenario to the one you are obsessing on.

Ok. Deep breath.

1. You both agreed to the vasectomy because you felt your family was complete. That means you were on the same page for a very difficult decision.

1. You changed your mind but he didn’t. His body, his choice. If you changed your mind once, you could have changed your mind back or regretted it if you fell pregnant. He wasn’t to know. Why did you both originally decide on this? Was it about your mothering?? I doubt it. Was it about finances and health and security and house and holidays and car and all the things that inform these choices for so many of us? If it’s the latter, then has anything changed in your circumstances to dismiss those worries?

1. Fixating on his decision being a direct consequence of your mothering skills is a giant and bizarre mental leap. Either he has directly criticised your mothering or you are feeling you could have done better (welcome to parenthood) or your depression is convincing you of something you can latch on to.

1. Grieving for the children you won’t have is absolutely normal, especially if you aren’t convinced you were done yet. Grieving to the point of breakdown when you have two healthy children and were happy to say no more at one point indicates that you need some mental health support - counselling, medication or CBT. Focusing on his reaction is exhausting. Focusing on yourself might be healing.

1. Are you punishing yourself because you were also at a point of saying no more and now feel guilty? Are you bored with life or wanting to be the centre of that pregnancy/newborn glow again?

1. What exactly do you want from your husband? I’m sure he hasn’t ignored every single tear for a whole year. What is he supposed to do? Self- flagellate, say he’s going for a reversal, impregnate you several times? I think you have dug yourself in to such a hole that you have totally lost sight of how to be a partnership. You say his action has wrecked you, do you think your reaction has wrecked him?

1. How can you move forward and how can you make peace with the last? Only you can choose to start that journey.

I wish you well but you need support and you need to somehow break this cycle of despair and hatred.

That's what I worry about too..that I am being controlling. And then I cry some more for being such a shitty person

I don't want to diagnose over the internet, but I call that depression. At least that's how I feel when mine is bad.

I see things a little differently than some posters. It's not about whether your husband doesn't want a child- it's that at the height of your distress and upset when you had not come to terms with it, he went ahead and did something irreversible. This tipped you into depression (for sure you are depressed), not only about not having another child, but the devastating blow this caused you from the one who is supposed to love you (he could have delayed/spent more time discussing/waited til it was more of a family decision).

It might be justified in his mind, but it does take a certain type of a person to go ahead with a sterilization or a vasectomy knowing their partner is against it at that time point.

This has then led you into a deep depression. It's not your fault, any more than it is his 'fault' that he chose to exercise bodily autonomy in a way that devastated you (similar to someone choosing to have an abortion against their partner's wishes, it's their body but you can't stop others being devastated by your choices and how they interpret them).

You do need to get help though, as everyone says, really because you are affecting the lives of your existing children through this depression.

I think what he did was justified in his head, but he didn't carry you with him emotionally, and that is the consequence of his choice to go ahead with a life-changing operation at that time point.

It would be a shame to collapse the marriage over this, but I also see that the manner in which it was done has devastated your emotional connection- I hope you can rebuild it over time with counselling and time passing.

Dont ruin your marriage for the sake of longing for another baby, enjoy the ones you have, and respect your husbands wishes,
Its not as if you have no children at all you agreed in the first place didnt you, not to have any more
Please get some counselling

Wow OP - that's an awful lot to deal with in such a short amount of time.
It's hardly surprising you are still struggling now.
All these things mount up and mount up until you just can't cope anymore.
You may have PND as well that has gone undiagnosed.
Please do see your GP asap.
You need some help to get through this.
No shame in admitting it.
Anyone would after all that!

That moment when you realise there will be no more babies can be awful. It's a mourning for the babies that could have been.

However, the vasectomy was a decision that you were a part of. I don't know if the same now, but when my ex had his I had to sign giving my consent.

Your husband was not wrong to have it done, you need to come to terms with it. What is the biggest issue here? Is it the vasectomy or is it that he had it done when you had changed your mind, so you feel betrayed?

You ask how your husband could have put you through this but look at it from his perspective too.

You need counselling, if he doesn't want to go then go alone. Your reaction isn't normal, go back to uour GP and be completely honest.