I met my partner 5 years ago, during that time of my life I had been struggling with my mental health and so had my partner.
In hindsight our relationship had been somewhat toxic as both of us had been quite alienated from our families due to our situations at the time. As time went on my partners family had never accepted me or our relationship, my family had always accepted and invited my partner into there lives.
My partners family has an Italian background and they are lovely people, I can understand they may have had a bad perception of me as during the beginning of the relationship as my partner and myself were not on a good path at the time.
By 2021 I had really changed my life around and had direction and a great job, things were looking up for me, my partner was still struggling to find a secure a stable job as he had a license issue but nether less we continued to stick it out together. I don’t know if they viewed me bad for this?
My partner had tried to initiate connection with myself and the family around this time and invited me to his parents house, I had brought flowers for his mum and was really nervous about getting to finally meet her properly, when I had arrived my partner was at the front with his mum having a cigarette. I greeted her and joined them for a cigarette. I was so surprised when after the smoke we left. I had expected to atleast be invited in for a coffee or something. it really deflated me.
More time goes on to Jan 2023 me and my partner get the wonderful news that we are expecting a child together. This was a very exciting time for us. My partner told me that the family didn’t seem very pleased about this as their concerns were about how his daughter from a previous relationship would feel. Again not fun for me to hear.
It wasn’t until I was 34 weeks pregnant I got my first invite to a family gathering, everyone was warm and welcoming.
Since giving birth to my daughter within the first month there was a wedding, two birthdays and a bbq. I had been very overwhelmed as it went from 0-100 obviously having our daughter changed things.
My daughter has now turned 4 months, I have since refused or made excuses to not go to a couple of things as I am just so overwhelmed by the whole situation.
I am seeking professional help about this but would still like some validation to be honest. I don’t want this to become an issue for us (my partner and I) I want to be involved with the family it’s just very sudden and I do feel like I hold some hurt from feeling disconnected from them for years.
When I try explain to him how I feel he does get defensive about it, he doesn’t understand that I am very overwhelmed or if he does he just doesn’t think I should be declining to go regardless. We spent Christmas and new years with his family. This evening we were invited to pizza and I just didn’t have the energy to go and he was quiet upset with me and went alone.
I will add since I have went on maternity leave I have been quite secluded from even my own family and friends and have felt a decline in my mental health again.
Thoughts on this please! I do want to move foward but this is very overwhelming for me to the point I get anxiety on upcoming events. Should I be going to every single thing? When I haven’t attended a couple of times my partner says everyone asks where I am and it looks bad me not attending.