Marriage failing after PND - please help

[VanillaRex]

Please be gentle, I'm not in a great place right now.

I’m thinking about separating from my DH. We have a 1 year old DS and since he was born, our relationship has been a struggle.

We were perfectly happy before becoming parents. We had our arguments like any normal couple but on the whole, we were good and things were easy. Baby was planned and we were both very excited to become parents.

I suffered with PND after our son was born & I received therapy for it. I feel a lot better now on that front but it obviously put a huge strain on my DH as I was really struggling and needed a lot of support. We don’t have any family to help so it really was very difficult.

In the midst of my PND, my DH workload increased substantially and he had very little time to be there for me, both physically and emotionally and the truth is that I resent him for this. I know that my feelings are unfair as he worked to support his family and he was under a considerable amount of pressure but I was crying out for help & it hurt a lot to be told that he didn’t have time to talk to me or to be with me. I spent a lot of time on my own whilst he was working all day & night (he WFH so he was home but in another room) and I think it was at that point that I probably checked out of the relationship. He has since admitted that he resented me for being so needy because it put him in an impossible situation.

Fast forward to today, it’s like we’re both walking on eggshells around one another. He tells me that he feels like I hate him and that I act like I don’t care about our relationship anymore but I also don’t feel particularly loved or cared for. Almost every interaction we have ends up in a petty argument and it’s incredibly draining. I’m not sure that mentally I can take much more as it’s causing a lot of old emotions to surface and I’m terrified that my PND will return. I can’t go there again.

Neither of us wants to separate but I just can’t see a way forward. We spent a small fortune on therapy for me and I’m not sure if we can afford it again for relationship counselling (not living in the U.K. & access to services is difficult) and in the midst of all of this is our DS. None of this is good for him even though we try not to argue in front of him, I’m sure he’s still picking up on the tension in the house. I’m at a loss as to what to do. We’ve spoken about doing a trial separation but our only option for doing this is whilst living together in the same house. We both still love each other deep down, we’ve just become stuck in a horrible place that we can’t seem to move past and it’s destroying us.

I don’t even know what I’m asking or why I’m posting. I just feel so alone and sad for the future of our family. Does anyone have any advice?

Sorry you’ve had and are still having a hard time.

Couple’s counselling (and childcare so you can access it) is expensive, yes, but so is divorce. If both of you still want to try, suggest seeking someone good.

If one or both of you - underneath it all - want to call it quits, best do that.

You say you’re not in the UK. Would it help to have a break? Go home to family for a few months and see how you feel. Get some space?

@Fortunategirl

You say you’re not in the UK. Would it help to have a break? Go home to family for a few months and see how you feel. Get some space?

I have nowhere to go if I left. If I travel back to my home country, I would need to find my own place there and with the current uncertainty due to Covid, I'm not sure I'd want to separate my DH from our DS. If they close flights again or put restrictions in place, my DH would be devastated to not be able to see our son and I couldn't do that to him.

When I had young DC and was in a somewhat similar position with feelings of resentment etc. I read some advice either on here or another parenting forum that said never make any life changing decisions about your relationship in the first two years after having a baby (obviously if it was an abusive relationship that advice would be different!) it was very solid advice.

Things are so upside down after a baby. Particularly if it's a first baby, as it's all new and you're both trying to adapt to this huge change in roles and responsibilities. If I were you I'd give it until your DS is two before any trial separation. Get through the next year as best you can and try to make some time for your relationship where you can. You may feel when the dust settles emotions won't be so high and you can move forward happily as a family. Of course you may find you still harbour the same resentment and then you can accept the relationship has run its course and can make moves to separate. I would give it a little more time personally. Keep the lines of communication open with your DH and hopefully you will get back on track. Sorry you've had a tough time OP, PND is so hard

I think it's all about forgiveness OP. From reading what you wrote it all sounds quite normal for the first years after a baby. There is often resentment between the parents as a baby can put an enormous strain on everyone. I'd focus on trying to forgive your husband for the shortcomings towards you when you had pnd. Not all men can understand a woman's emotions and feelings. They are wired differently. Your husband probably felt he was doing what he could by trying to keep on providing for the family. Try and work on forgiving him for his mistakes and realising he's only human and isn't perfect. Also forgive yourself for how you were with pnd. Although it's not your fault you may feel some shame about that time or feel you did things wrong. Just let it go now. You've moved on now. It's in the past. My advice with your relationship is concentrate on your dp now. What does he need from you ? What does he like ? For example does he like a particular meal you can cook for him ? What are his hobbies? His favourite things to watch on tv? Take some time to do things with him that he enjoys for example watching his favourite programme with him or goinf cycling together for example. Whatever it is ? Approach this in a pragmatic way. You might not feel all close to him at the moment but if you start focussing on doing things to make him happy hopefully his energy will get a boost and he will look at you in a new light. Then hopefully he'll want to reciprocate and you'll get back to where you were both feeling good about the relationship. If I were you I'd write a list of things you could do to boost his happiness over the next week and choose 1/2 a day for example. See what happens then. Good luck xx

OP - it is quite possible that you aren’t totally over your PND, and your feelings, reactions and interactions with your H can still be affected. In general, women’s hormones don’t go back to pre-baby normal until the baby is about a year. And, with PND it may take longer...
You mentioned you had therapy for it. Were you also on any medication? You didn’t mention, so I am guessing not.

Anyway, what I am saying is that in your place - I’d not make any life changing decisions just yet. You are in the most difficult phase of motherhood/relationship. And with PND thrown in - you are most likely not completely yourself yet.
If you can see your doctor and ask about more therapy, or possibly medication - it can help you greatly.
I think many of your relationship issues stem from your side - PND and tiredness are probably to blame.

As someone said up thread, having a baby turns everything upside down so don’t make any life changing decisions in the first two years of baby’s life. I get the resentment, I felt that too. It kills off all positive feelings towards each other. We went on to have a second child and things went downhill again but have started to climb back up. I doubt they will ever fully return to be honest as I was in the depths of despair and I think it takes a lot to move on from that. What has helped us though was The Marriage Course ( themarriagecourse.org/) that we did. It’s free, online and has given us some tools to talk through our issues. We need to revisit it every 6 months or so as bad habits die hard but I can recommend it. It gave us both a lot of hope that we could work through things. I hope it does for you too.