How to get over feeling of resentment - DH behaviour

[Pcos24x]

My twins are 10 months old, it took years to conceive them through IVF. They are everything I ever wanted and bring me so much joy. I’m struggling however with how my husband behaved in the months that followed their birth.

I have been with him for 11 years. I would say everything was good in the relationship until the day the twins were born. I could see all over his face it wasn’t the instant magical love people describe, more like horror. No bond whatsoever and instant sadness at the loss of “old life”. In the first week of their life when they and I were still in hospital together he drank heavily at home (doesn’t normally drink much so out of character) was generally moody, nasty and unpleasant, and basically made the start of their life what was meant to be a happy time totally miserable. I was truly shocked by his behaviour, no one including myself would have expected it from him. What followed was a couple months of his constant extremely low moods, angry outbursts, he made the first few months of their life extremely difficult, sad and totally ignored the babies, I did absolutely everything for them. I did every night feed. I was exhausted. He basically checked out and did his own thing and said he had post natal depression (… I know it’s up for debate if men can really “get that”). I just took over everything for them. He would walk in a room and not even look at them. It just broke my heart.

I was in shock by the whole thing and gave him the benefit of doubt as really I felt too overwhelmed to make any big decisions then. He was honest about how depressed he felt and asked me to give him a chance to sort himself out. Which, I have to say for the most part he did. Things started looking up about 4/5 months in, he became a lot more interested in them as they developed personalities, he helped out more, and generally things have been fine since.

Even though things are good now and I can honestly say they are - I struggle with how to let go of the resentment I feel about how he acted in those first few months. It’s also broken that trust I had in his character. I just don’t know if I can move on from it. Equally I also think am I being harsh as he was struggling and has dealt with it. I suppose I’m just still angry about how he acted. I don’t know how to deal with these feelings, I feel like I can’t discuss it now as it would be harsh to punish him again so to speak. I just sit and think about it every day and it consumes me though. Can a relationship move on from this?

@Pcos24x 1 in 10 men suffer from PND after the birth of their first child. It's not exclusive to mothers.

You've said things are good now, you need to stop holding a grudge. Plenty of mothers don't bond with their babies and a man who held a grudge about it would be torn to shreds.

Men do not get PND, they haven't got the post birth hormones that have a severe affect on their brains.
What does happen though is they suddenly realise they are not the centre of the world now and resent the fact they are no longer No1.

I would resent this sack of selfish shit as well, he ruined the most crucial time of your life, he is unreliable, it was literally the only thing he had to do, support you and couldn't do it.

Try counselling but I wouldn't hold hope.

Postnatal Psychosis is different to PND and isn't relevant to this thread.

Hey op, that sounds really hard and you have been an amazing mum to cope with your husbands mental health and awful behaviour, especially postpartum, and with twins, even more so after IVF and the journey you had been on to get them in your arms. You deserved so much love, support, joy and celebration ant their anrrival and I’m sorry you missed out on that. I’m not surprised you’re feeling resentful, you have probably had to suppress a lot of hurt, anger and anxiety trying to hold everything together. When we hold such strong feelings in they don’t go anywhere, they stay inside and get bigger until we are either able to work through them - or they start to take their toll on our well-being. Some counselling/therapy would be a good place to do this and will help you make sense of everything you have been through. You sound really strong and it’s good that you’re recognising that something feels wrong so that you can address it. Big hugs

Was just going to say the same.

Let’s not call it PND if you object. He was suffering from severe depression brought on by the birth of the children. There is reason why men can’t suffer this.

Most men don't care if she struggles to bond so long as they do the hard slog of looking after the baby, they hardly notice.

Your conflicting feelings are understandable but you need to make a decision to either forgive him or not. You can't go on resenting him, that's not healthy for anyone. Why don't you do some therapy alone to try and work through it? Then maybe some sessions together if he is up for it? If things are better now then it's worth fighting for your marriage especially with two little babies involved. No one is perfect OP.

@Tae1

Has the measure of him.

Sorry you're going through this OP.

Dump him and go it alone, at least that way you have peace.

Found the bloke 🙄

Women, while dealing with the aftermath of birth and the huge emotional and mental toll on them, mostly just get on with it even with post-natal depression.

Your husband sounds like a lazy, entitled arse who wasn't even prepared to look after his own children and left you to it.

Lots of us battle with anxiety and depression but keep on going with work and childcare, keeping our responsibilities in mind.

Little to no sympathy here for the selfish twat.

Not all of them. Some men end up being single parents too. It's not always the men who walk away and leave their children.

Not a bloke 🙄

Just somebody who has experienced depression and living with somebody who has depression. You really can’t pour from an empty cup.

@StormingNorman is a woman. So you're wrong.

Because I'm an over sharer and their are reasons as such as to why we split up and the children knew. But at same time I deserve love and affection and a time in my life I needed it I didn't get it. But he loves his kids and sees his kids but we didn't gel

Yes mothers can struggle to bond but rarely do they just flit off and leave the other parent to manage 24/7 on their own. They care for the child and feel guilty they don’t have the feelings they should.

PND is caused by all the post birth hormones. So I don’t see how men can have it. They may have just depression. But the thing with depression is that is doesn’t seem like he was depressed enough that he couldn’t work or go out or do other normal activities. He just checked out of parenting his twins. It’s a pretty lousy thing to do, and screams narcissist to me. Now they are older and more fun he’s happy to get involved. I bet he doesn’t do 50% of the parenting now though. Probably plays with them and then lets OP do all the hard work.

He didn't have an empty cup - he likely had regret and resentment and turned in to a prize arse because of it until he grew up and eventually got his shit in order. He was a passenger happily bobbing along and then resented having to take the wheel for a while and aimed that emotion all at OP and their baby and checked out. That's not depression. It's certainly not PND and it's insulting to those of us who've had it to ever call it that.

God the man is getting crucified!

Has anyone here ever suffered PND?! And having your first child let alone two can be a shock to the system - most people handle it better than this man but he was undergoing a major life change, now he’s adapted and apologised.

I understand your position OP that you saw a different man but now he is back to how he was - why keep looking back?

I mean for an issue like this it may only take 2/3 therapy sessions if you feel that’s a route you want to explore

I think you can’t move on (one can’t move on) because he demonstrated a crashing level of selfish collapse and neglect of you and the children at your most vulnerable time—when abandonment was not an option for you. Why was it an option for him? What kind of a person drops their partner and new babies off the cliff because they are sad?

Now that he has slightly pulled himself together he seems to think that the original shit the bed moment never happened, or was no big deal. But it was a toxic dose of abandonment given the age and stage of the babies and your level of need.

What has he said or done to reflect true contrition and determination to make it up to you—to make sure it doesn’t happen again?

My DH also had serious MH issues when my kid was born. I’m in a similar position to you, OP in some ways (no twins though - I salute you!). I haven’t been able to resolve the resentment internally and I’ve realised I need to talk about it and have it all acknowledged, even years later.

We are very carefully trying to do this, it’s hard work. I want to blame him but he wasn’t in a good place and he actually just doesn’t have answers. It’s hard to sidestep blame. But I was glad the toll that it took on me was recognised.

I vowed I would never get into that situation again. To be honest I think it’s fractured my sense of trust for good. You can only really rely on yourself. There’s a distance between us I can’t bridge and I don’t want to as I don’t see him as a ‘safe’ person, ultimately, even though that might be quite unfair.

He wants you to be his mummy. Now he's got competition.

Wow this is hard and because completely out of character, there seems to have been some shift in his mental ability to cope.

But that said, and congratulations BTW , you will really struggle with forgiveness for this and speaking from someone who had similar,but mine was during pregnancy, I can still think about this regularly, and I mean once or twice a month. For context this happened 30 years ago !

Holding onto this has not been healthy so I would say try to get support, talk it through and genuinely try and understand his point of view and make yours clear. You cannot turn back time, so try and decide would you and your babies be better with him in your lives as it is now, or in their lives as daddy but not your husband. If he’s a good man and father then your babies will benefit more from growing up with both of you present and happy and together,

I am not saying single parents or divorced and separate do not equally achieve this, parenting is hard and so are relationships.

you need to talk, you need to be assured this is not behaviour that will be repeated and you need to be a team. I really do hope it works out in a positive way for you all x

Well, hats off to you. You’ve stuck with him. I wouldn’t have been able to.

Wow. He had a few rough months a d was really down. I understand you have trauma from it, but he's back to his normal self now,.and you're doing well together. I wouldn't throw away an 11 year old relationship or.part from the father of my twins for that.

You need to talk and explain how you felt and give him a chance to explain, so you can both process what happened. He needs to apologise, and be really sincere.

If this was a mum who acted like this she'd have support and sympathy.

Has your partner got any trauma from his upbringing? Because having chdren can trigger it.