Just in such a funk, any help welcome….

[PenguinEmpress82]

Not sure if this is the best place to share this but couldn't find anywhere better and not a common user but could really do with some advice.

I’m stuck in a horrible funk.

I’m late thirties, married with a 2yo and another on the way. I’m so miserable.

Due to a bereavement when DC was only a few months old, I got pretty bad post-natal depression. I never told anyone and only just really came to accept it but that and the grief I spiralled privately quite badly. I was a mess. I was positive outside, and managed to pull myself together and am now functioning …fine.

But I just can’t seem to get back to the ‘old’ me, and don’t really like the ‘new’ me - so I want to do something about it.

Husband is a good dad, and he’s lovely and great etc etc but I feel our relationship has become very flat-matey, trying for a baby killed the shit sex life we had before, and whereas we were both so chill and fun before, now we just snap at each other or just sit on our phones watching TV in silence. It’s miserable. We are not the kind of couple who talk about our feelings but I suspect he thinks I hate him…and I’m pretty sure he’s going to start hating me if I don’t do something about it.

I can’t live like this much more.

Has anyone else found themselves in a similar funk, and any ideas what I can do to lift myself out.

Self-help books, new routines, different attitudes??? I’d prefer to avoid getting professional help, i know I probably should, but realistically I’m a way off accepting that so want to see what I can do in my own first.

Please help!!!

We are not the kind of couple who talk about our feelings

What would happen if you said to him 'I'd like us to talk about our feelings with regard to our relationship. Are you up for a chat about that?'

So this is what I want to do, sorry, should have been clearer in the post, feeling a bit all over the place.

I want to speak to him, but right now I think if I started that conversation I would just start crying and we’d not really speak speak, we’d just say a few words and it would be shut down cos I’d be emotional and then it actually wouldn’t be a valuable conversation.

What I’m trying to do is get myself in a better head space - try and actually think about how I want to have that conversation with him, suggest somethings we could do to improve our relationship together, rather than to just blurt out ‘this is broken’ as I also don’t want to hurt him and I know a lot of the negativity in the relationship is coming from me.

I don’t want to go just say ‘I’m miserable’ cos I don’t think he’d do well with that, I want a bit of an action plan.

Not sure if that makes sense.

(also, thank you so much for replying!)

we’d just say a few words and it would be shut down cos I’d be emotional

How would the shutting down happen? Would he do that, or would you?

I was exactly the same after my first baby. I didn’t want to get help and wanted to see if I could ‘deal’ with it all.

My dh and I were like angry flat mates. There was no intimacy there and I resented how his life seemed to carry on as normal where as my life had changed. He resented the close bond I had with our child.
One day we just cracked and argued like we had never argued before- we both broke down. We were exhausted and trying to adapt to these new people who aren’t just a couple but parents. We didn’t have deep emotional chats before but we had one that day and it was needed. We now aim to have at least one date day/ night together a week. We don’t have a long list of baby sitters but we put the baby to bed, get a take awah and watch a film. No phones, no distractions, just us cuddled on the couch and it really has helped to bring back some intimacy into our relationship.

Adapting to being a mum was much harder than I expected. Everyone prepared me for the baby and what she would need but no one prepared me for how I would feel and how I would change. That change I wasn’t ready for and I craved my old life. I loved my baby with all my heart but I was living in the past and wishing past me was still around.

I started going to classes but it didn’t help, watching other mums who I assumed had their life together made me feel worse and I spiralled even more.

Im sorry to say the only thing that helped me was speaking to my gp. I tried self help books, I read stuff online, everything helped for a few days but I felt I was pretending to feel better when I was actually struggling and really sad.

After speaking to the gp and going on medication for a short time, I was able to adjust to the new life and being back some of the old me.

I now make sure I have me time, my dh fully supports it. I either have a bath, meet up with friends, go out on my own but I make sure I have time to just be me. I also ensure he has time to just be him too.
It also massively helps us have stuff to chat about that isn’t just The baby or work. It makes us feel like us again.

I’ve reached out to mums in mum groups and made some new friends who I try to meet up with regularly. I chat to them about how I’m feeling and they share a lot of the same feelings as me so it’s helped to reassure me and make me feel kinda normal again. I still see friends without baby but I admit it’s hard to arrange.

I got back into work so I could spend adult time doing adult things again.

I won’t lie, it was an incredibly tough time and it made me go to really dark places but honestly the only way I got out of it was speaking to my dh, friends and a gp. I’m no longer on any medication and feeling a lot better. There are still down and bad days but they are nowhere near as bad.

This is hard as you’re also grieving but please trh reach out to others
(sorry for the long post!)

Probably me to be honest. It would not be a productive conversation, I’d end up apologising. He’d be happy to have an out from an awkward conversation. We’d go back to pretending everything is ok.

God this was hard to read and I cried a lot. Thank you for sharing this and I’m really glad you have found a good place, though I’m sure it’s always a work in progress.

I hear you on the GP. I have a midwife appointment tomorrow and I’m trying to pluck up the courage to mention something to her. The midwife I usually see isn’t very easy to talk to which I probably why I’ve not done it before and my GPs are generally useless, it just feels so icky having to talk to a stranger about everything. But you’re no doubt right that this probably isn’t a fix-it-yourself situation

So, it sounds like you've not really got his emotional support? Like he wants you to just pipe down and stop making a fuss if you're upset? Rather than supporting you in finding ways to feel better?

Does that sound right?

If you find it hard to speak to her then maybe write it down? Write it all down, exactly how you’re feeling and then say this is really difficult for you to talk through. She should be able to then support you.
When I phoned my gp- who are also useless- I just explained I was really struggling with my mental health and that I thought I might have post partum depression. The gp called that day and was lovely. They were so calm, no judgmental and just listened to me. They then had a range of options of how to help me and booked me in for a follow up within 4 weeks to just catch up.

It was scary, I was nervous admitting to everyone this is how I was feeling but when I did start to tell others, it genuinely felt like a massive weight off my shoulders. Sadly not everyone will understand- my parents found it difficult to get but they are from a completely different generation where they were not encouraged to share their feelings.

Please reach out. There will always be down days and dark days but once you’re feeling a bit stronger, they don’t feel as bad and your learn different techniques to help bring you out of it.

No, I think that’s probably a bit harsh but I can see why you would take that from what I’ve said. We are both not good at having emotional conversations but if I asked him for help, he would help me. I know he would. I self moderate my emotions and downplay them, I don’t think he has any idea how I really feel so when we’ve spoken in the past I’ll cry and the automatically try and say it’s nothing, and he will accept that because he would trust what I say. I need to find the best way to say ‘I’m not ok’ and then I do think he will be there for me.

What I’m trying to do here is get myself part of the way there first, so I know what it is I’m asking from him.

Maybe you need to have a cry and say how you’re feeling?

OK, thanks for clarifying.

I self moderate my emotions and downplay them

This is the crux. You are silencing yourself, and by doing so, you are stopping yourself from having any importance. There's no wonder you feel miserable, you poor thing. Where did you learn to do this? Normally it originates in childhood. Did you have an absent or ill parent? Fighting parents? Addicted parent(s)? Neglectful parents? Demanding sibling who got all the attention?