Always fall apart when we go out as a couple

[OrangesPloranges]

DH and I have a 3yo DC and like any parents find it harder to find time together. DH is intermittently depressed and anxious I would say and has started therapy - he recognises he is insecure and has low self esteem. When we do manage to find time together to go out, we've noticed things always go wrong - somehow we end up talking about difficult things (generally how much sex / affection we have) and I feel he becomes fatalistic about it and he feels I've not properly understood him. I feel I find concrete things we can do about it but he stays in the world of thinking that things should just happen without effort and so it's a sign of incompatibility. I've had moments of thinking like this when younger but now I don't think it works like that, desire is influenced by so many things and it's more important to focus on what we can do.

Does anyone have any tips?

To be clear I'm not talking big arguments, just talking about difficult things and both feeling further apart from each other than the great moments we have for most of the time when we go out.

Would you consider couples’ therapy?

Thanks for the reply, yes definitely would consider. We've talked about it in the past but landed on letting DH get properly settled into individual therapy first.

Thank you to the person who DM'd me to say they found the same and it's natural when the date nights are one of the only times you can have deep conversations, so to keep working together and go easy on each other.

I think my post was partly in the place of it being late at night and things feeling difficult, and in the light of day it's easier to talk about. We've spoken about it since and both agree we are in a good place, just with things to work on together

Have a watch of Couples Therapy on BBC as a warm up to getting therapy. Also when you don’t get a lot of some thing eg date nights and then you finally do it can be like a starving person being given a menu with a 1,000 options and it’s just overwhelming with where to start x