Hi ladies! I just want to hear some of your experiences. ill try keep it short ...
My husband and I have been together 15years and married 5 (we met very young) I am only 30 now. We have a wonderful life together. And have been through the usual ups and downs together. We have a 3yr old son together who is the light of our lives and he really is an amazing dad. I thank my lucky stars almost everyday that I have him in my life.
I had PND after our son was born and got through with antidepressants for only a few months.. then just last year I had what I can only call a 'breakdown' ... I quit my job (paediatric nurse) which was all I had ever know career wise and used to love, ended up in mental health for a week after a suicide attempt. Lost a lot of friends along the way. It has been a long long road to recovery. I am now starting a new career and am the happiest I have been in a long time. I am ready for another baby.. However my husband now says absolutely not as he cannot go through that with me again.. I know he has seen and delt with a lot through supporting my mental health journey but I feel like he is taking away my choice and not letting me decide if I think I am ready and can do this again. I have so much support now with psychologist, GP, and friends who have been there through this ride. He refuses marriage councilling or to talk further about it. It is breaking me again I can feel it.
I will respect his decision and would never force him into it. I just don't know what to do.. I don't even know if this is a deal breaker for me. I always wanted more than one child and we always talked about our family plans of 2/3 kids. It just feels as if I am just taking control of my life again after a year from hell and now I don't know what direction I am going in. I don't know ladies I just need to vent I guess and some advice wouldn't go astray..
6 Replies
I say none of this to make you feel guilty, only to point out how he might feeling.
This isn't about what you can cope with. It's about what HE can cope with. Its not a judgement on what happened to you but about his feers and his emotions and him needing time to recover from a trauma. Yes it was an extreme trauma for him.
Has he ever received any emotional support or counselling for what he has been through?
As the carer of an adult with a psychiatric condition I can tell you now, it takes me longer to recover as his carer than it takes my son to recover.
Poster here. I agree with you. But he refuses to talk to anyone as much as I have offered. I have tried to talk to his friends, book gp and councilling for him but he just won't have a bar of it. It has been a tough journey for the both of us. I do somewhat understand that it was probably harder for him to nearly loose his wife and the mother of his child. But I do believe that it is something we should decide together not something he just takes away from me..
you can't hurry his recovery no more than he could rush yours. It's time for a bit of patience. You've just turned 30.
Just because it happened once does not mean it will happen again. Every single pregnancy and child is different. It's different circumstances, place in life, place mentally, support, expectations, it goes on and on.
Im sure he's devastated to think he could go through that again, but having a baby doesn't mean it will. Equally, you could go through it again without having a baby.
Im proof; I'm absolutely flying with my second, loving it, loving life, finding having two so much easier than first one. Its a completely different experience with a completely different headspace. And just experiencing this is boosting my confidence so much. When I struggled with my first, I knew somewhere inside me I had this in me and hated that it wasn't like this. It can be. It's not person to person, it's experience to experience and each time is so different.
This gives me hope! Thank you ?
Maybe you could speak with a gp or midwife about it, and possibly take him along. Information is power. If you're best prepared, and he is, your husband might feel a lot more comfortable going ahead.