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?

Thanks everyone I feel better just for unloading a little. It is just so hard keeping it all under wraps. Most days I just feel like I'm suffocating with it all x

Bereavement, moving house, childbirth, unemployment - all in the space of a couple of years? That's a LOT to deal with, and would have made your OP a totally different proposition. Your DH has seen what a toll it's taken on everyone and just wants to protect his family from another 'unplanned but very much wanted' baby, now you're getting back on your feet. You know you're being illogical deep down - if he was planning to have more babies with someone else, why on earth would he have risked the vasectomy?

Go to your GP but find a local counsellor, even if you have to pay for it. Relate is pretty good, and they have branches all over the country. You really need to unload some of this pain onto someone outside your family, so they can unpick exactly where it's coming from.

And then I cry some more for being such a shitty person
This was me when I was depressed, too. At the time I really believed I was crap. Took anti-depressants and I didn't believe it any more. The "reality" you see when you are depressed is not the reality that everyone else sees.

Sometimes people are controlling because they are awful individuals. But more often it comes from fear and anxiety. Sadly, sometimes it leads to a situation where the very people who could comfort that fear are actually pushed away by it.

Counselling would help you a lot. You sound like your self worth is through the floor and you need some space and some positive regard that will let you come to terms with this. Sometimes we get stuck at a point where we can't let something go without help.

Dear Bear,
I know your grieving for the child you might have had, but you need to see that your using this to punish your husband.

Together you agreed to make a wonderful life with the two children you had, it's no small deal for a man to end his own chances of ever having another child yet he was willing to do this, FOR YOU, so you wouldn't have to have a much greater op, or fill your body full of chemicals.
You need to be grateful he loves you this much, that he is there for you, and your babies, you admit to the last year being so hard emotionally, and I expect he just doesn't know how to cope.
Find something that makes you happy, and focus on that, your way forward is too take joy in your new baby, and it's first steps, share the moments with your husband.
You must have PND to be crying all the time and your covering it with anger at your DH, do you wonder he just turns over and sleeps, how would you feel to be blamed all the time.

What exactly do you think he can do now to change things, as if I were him and a man I would be at a total loss as to how to react.
I really do think you need to go speak to the Doctor.

OP I'll echo pp and say I think this is a manifest if depression.

I moved house when my dcs were 2.5yrs and 6 months. We moved into a renovation project. After 6 months of living in a building site I found that I was crying for hours everyday. Everything looked black and hopeless.
I remembered the last time I was happy was in my old house. I announced to DH it was all a huge mistake and we were moving back ASAP! Dh listened, then calmly said we would move as soon as the new house was in good nick.

In the meantime a friend of mine noticed that perhaps my feelings of hopelessness and sheer bleakness about the future might be depression. I eventually went to the GP. I had anti-depressants. Within a few months I found I felt 'normal'.

Whether I had pnd or depression from the stress of moving I have no idea.

10 years on, we're still in our beautifully renovated house and I thank my lucky stars we didn't move anywhere!

I tell you this OP to maybe help you see that perhaps your focus and despair about your DH's vasectomy is misdirected and you think it's about that but really it's depression playing tricks with your head. Your head is in a fog.

Good luck. I really hope you start to feel better soon.

God you have really had a hugely tough time (as has your husband). You need to see your GP and get some counselling if you can.

Reading your last post, you have had a really difficult few years. Maybe you can try to be kind to yourself (and your husband) and really understand that you have both had a really tough time and your babies are still really young and it is very hard work and tiring which doesn't help your emotional health.

I think all those things combined are what are making you feel so bad and maybe you are focusing on the vasectomy because of all stressful years you have had.

I hope things get a lot better for you now. Do you think you could try to enjoy your little ones and having a new house? Try and take things day by day. Could you possibly do something for yourself each week, give yourself something to look forward to? Maybe your mum could look after the DC for a couple of hours on a weekend morning for a little while so you and your DH could spend a little time alone together.

for you, I hope that you start feeling better soon.

Your DH has made a decision about his body and it was absolutely his right to do so. You now need to decide if it's a deal breaker for you or if it's something you can come to accept. But you do have to deal with it OP. Continuing like you are won't be an option for long.

I agree with PP that there may be more at play here than him going ahead with the vasectomy. Could you be suffering with PND? Would you consider anti depressants in the interim while you wait for counselling?

I feel for you OP I really do but for your families sake you need to deal with this.

OP, I have the utmost sympathy for the grief you are feeling, but a few things are abundantly clear to me:

1. your H may not have 'obeyed your command' but he has every right to control his reproductive capacity. You discussed it, you changed you mind, he didn't.
2. your reaction to this is OTT in the extreme. Not a day goes by that you don't cry? Really? I was not surprised to go on to read that you have had a breakdown. It does not seem that you are out of the woods yet in terms of your mental health.
3. you seem paranoid about your DH leaving you and having children with somebody else. where on earth is this coming form?

You really need to persevere in getting some proper help with your mental health Op, especially if you don't want your paranoid fantasies to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I think the OP's responses where she's upset by pp are because she's just poured out her private feelings and had people say 'wow, that's not normal'. While the intention is to advise her to get counselling, it's not nice or helpful to basically say, 'you're weird'. Imagine if counsellors did that as their introduction. 'Yep, you're all here because your feelings are not normal.'
All feelings are valid OP. Some of them aren't helpful or conducive to living a happy life so you have to work them out of your system or at least dull them down.
Sorry counselling is so slow where you are and your DH isn't good at talking. I do think it's pathetic when men are like this. They are adults. They speak the same language we do. But anyway, I can understand how upsetting it is to discover the person you love the most doesn't experience their love in the same way as you do or as you expect them to ie. wanting more children with each other. It might feel like he's rejecting YOU when he doesn't see it that way at all and doesn't understand why you DO see it that way.

No-one is saying that her feelings are weird. We're saying that she is not very well. The same way that a broken leg is "not normal".

Thanks everybody.
It reallying does resonate that maybe the vasectomy is just a scapegoat for all the other feelings of hurt and anxiety caused by the events over the last few years.
To the poster who advised apologising to my dh- This is something that I have done continually on and off because I realise in my moments of clarity what a shit I've been to him. I tell him how much I love him (because I really do) but then somebody gets pregnant/has a baby and I'm right back to square one. I just find comments from people so hard too... when are we trying for the next one? Are you keeping all your baby clothes for next time? Etc
I really do want to speak to dh about it each time I feel hurt but I don't because I'm wary of it being manipulative or hurting him.
I think because of our ages (early 30s) we are at the point where everyone seems to be having a baby!!

I do realise everyone has tried to give the best advice I am sorry if I came across badly at first- as I said earlier my emotions are quite raw x

Oh darling, please please please go and see your GP. Mental health issues are so common and they can be addressed. I had baby blues really badly with DS1 but after DD was born I suffered from serious PND - really bad stuff. I was put on ads and improved a great deal. A few years later the depression returned and I have been on ads since then. Now my life is so good most of the time. I came to realise that I had been suffering from anxiety and depression for most of my adult life - in fact from my late teens. The treatment enabled me to function and then to find things to make me happier and healthier. They allowed me to take charge of my own mental health.

I could weep for you because I know those feelings so well. Good luck x

Could you write all your feelings down in a letter to your DH - where you can be honest and not breakdown and get upset. Tell him you are going to seek help.

I think it can be hard not to compare to other people. It requires strength and self-confidence not to do it, and it sounds like those are two things in short supply with you right now, because you've been worn down. This is why sessions with someone who gives you unconditional positive regard would be helpful. I think you would find that you would get clarity and see improvement really fast because you're a pretty self-reflective and emotionally intelligent person. You've just had the stuffing kicked out of you, and you need space to regroup.

I think I probably have to some degree suffered with depression most of my life. I really struggle at times of stress and seem to immediately feel down. I recall having a really hard time with my emotions at uni and doing my professional exams. I would cry for days then too.
In the past I have always clawed myself out but I'm really struggling to do that this time.
Just finding time for myself is a major struggle and I put massive pressure on to be a good mother, do a good job at work, keeping the house immaculate. I have no time at all for dh on our own. I'm sure most of you know this feeling!
I will ring around some more private councellers today- I might have to travel further afield

I had a similar experience to Irian, though with a different initial trigger.

Barking, by avoiding the GP you are just not being very kind to yourself. Give yourself a break and stop expecting to be able to deal with all these huge blows all by yourself. You don't have to bear all these problems on your shoulders; there are professionals out there whose job it is to help take some of the weight off. You'll be keeping them in employment and giving them something to do! Be nice to yourself.

I think you may also have depression and possibly slight anxiety. But only because I have severe anxiety and depression and other things and that would be how I fell with tough stuff. I’m getting better at it all though and counselling and just learning to let some things go, has really helped with that.

Sweetheart I don't think your very well at the moment. I think the feelings about your husband having a vasectomy are actually just another sign of your feeling low overall. Your not a bad mum and you haven't ruined the baby years, you just need a bit of help.

Can I suggest you make an appointment with the gp who can help you access the right support, also maybe have a chat with your mum/husband so they can help support you and get you along to appointments

"Are you keeping the baby clothes..?"
--> "That's a really sensitive subject for me at the moment, sorry."

You might even find that your acquaintances will help you too, if you open up to them a tiny bit (as much as you can for now) and let them know that such questions are a problem for you.

I think you need to find something, your thing, that you can focus on.
Right now it reads as if the only thought in your head is the baby you might at sometime in the future tried for. When in reality it sounds like you would never have had a 3rd unless you tricked your husband into it.
Try the elastic band trick.
Put a band round your wrist, any time you start baby thoughts flick your band on your wrist, to warn your brain your starting to get morbid, and the little hurt conditions you not to think this way, it's a well known way to train your brain, I have been doing it to stop me doing something this year, and I have not given in once this year.

Please go and see your GP. Mental Health issues aren’t something to be ashamed of and you sound as if you are suffering deeply with depression. You had a breakdown yet no further care for your mental health, Anti Depressants could be the thing to lift you out of the fog and the way of thinking you are stuck in, so you are in a place to address if the vasectomy is really what you are unable to cope with. Unless your DH has previous form for being utterly heartless I can only imagine he’s feeling hellish about all this as well. You say he won’t talk to you or address it... even the closest family member can’t help someone out of a deep clinical depression. What is it you think he could do/say to make it better? He’s probably frozen and blocking it as he can’t make it better. Please try and think that if you go to a GP tomorrow you could get something that means in a few weeks this misery could be lifted from you. Counselling in the future will hopefully help but there is nothing wrong with turning to medication initially. You aren’t going to move forward at all without doing something and you DESERVE to be happier than this. It may be hard but it’s got to get better than crying every day. It sounds as if you love your children and your husband very much, you don’t want to tear your life with them apart for a fictional life with a third child that doesn’t exist. You are suffering too deeply to see that yet, I really wish you all the best and hope you can find a way back to yourself and happiness x x