Am I being selfish? My wife and I have been married for 3 years. We dated for 3 years before getting married. We have an 11 month old daughter now.
My happiness has slowly been drained over the course of this relationship. Whether it’s because I find my wife’s attitude has became unpleasant, or if I’m feeling unappreciated, or if I feel not cared about. It’s soooo many things I could touch on for each one of these but I will try not to rant. In simpler terms I just find it super hard to be happy anymore. It’s always negativity thrown at me or I’m realizing that if I go to run an errand I’m rushed back home to tend to everything but if she’s out shopping or whatever she’s gone for hours (no I don’t rush her home or blow up her phone the way she does mine)
I really just don’t know what to do. I’ve been patient for a long time and I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her or my babygirl. But at the same time when do I get to be happy again? Work is my escape as well as whatever store she needs me to go to at any given time that I am home.
If you need more details I’d be happy to dm. Im just lost in this whole thing rn. Thanks guys!
Edit: this post is still very new so feel free to continue the advice. I’ve come to the conclusion that a counselor will be the best. I’ve tried pretty much every single bit of advice that you amazing people have given me at some point in the past and mostly multiple times at that. A counselor being present and knowing what to do or what should/should not be said will help tremendously. I appreciate each and every one of you guys. 😊
You’re in the first year of your baby’s life. Of course things are hard right now.
I have talked to her about it in the past multiple times. I actually held everything in for so long that the first time I talked with her about it was because I just snapped and started bawling and had to go take a walk around the block multiple times to calm down. But it’s like she’ll care when I finally reach a breaking point and feel helpless but then I give it a couple days and boom back to what I feel is treating me like shit. And the thing that sucks is I feel terrible feeling all these things like I feel guilty or as if I shouldn’t feel sad and should just cheer up and keep trecking.
Counseling might be a good way to hold each other accountable for your behavior while caring for your child together.
I get that it sucks big time. Maybe reading some books about relationships in the early parenthood stages? Maybe write your partner a really long letter going over everything. I’m not sure what the best thing to do is but I do know this happens to a lot of people, both men and women, during this time of life.
Time to be an adult, you don’t get to be happy all the time. That’s okay because you have a real responsibility now. And you’re in it together. Communicate.
I would go to couples therapy and communicate that. Maybe take a vacation. Kids change things but that doesn’t mean the relationship has to end. A lot of people think the grass is greener on the other side and end up losing everything so I would communicate how you feel.
Honestly, this is exactly what therapy is for. We can’t untangle whether you’re in a bad relationship or a tough time of life right now – though you have an 11 month old child, and yeah, everyone feels like that when they have an 11 month old child. (If not everyone, a LOT of people do.)
It’s time to learn how to communicate your own needs and feelings.
A lot of people just assume that a relationship should be everything they want by default.
That’s just not reality. If you feel like you aren’t currently equipped with the tools to talk to your wife, then seek out a counselor and consider couples’ counseling.
This is prolly gonna be the next step tbh. But I try to not ask people who are friends or what not cause for one, privacy and anonymity is nice. And 2 that’s just asking for a biased opinion ya know?
Couples therapy. You have a small child who deserves every effort to be made here.
You have a young kid and your wife needs to focus on bringing her up. Having kids is not easy and often the couples with young kids are struggling. The best thing to do is talk to your wife. When was the last time you took her out on a date? Bought her flowers and chocolates? Are you showing her affection and making her feel special or are you trying to avoid her? Listen to her needs. Get a therapist and talk the issues through if you can’t communicate with your wife about your needs.
Therapist here… I think the fathers struggle with the change in lifestyle and relationship dynamics and trying to find their “place” in parenthood especially early on with a newborn, gets really overlooked. Post partum depression in dads is something I see quite often and most men have never even considered these major changes that have occurred and how they could impact the way they view their life and emotions. I’m glad you’re going to see someone.
Yeah i have a personal therapist as well as a psychiatrist I regularly see. So now I just need to find a good marriage counselor and go from there. Thank you for a little bit of validation/acknowledgment. Definitely helps me not feel so wrong for feeling this way or atleast not as insane.
You mention two issues here but everyone is concentrating on one of them so I’ll mention that one first.
You go to work and your wife is with your 11 month old child for the whole time you are there. When you run errands and she is constantly calling you to see how long you will be, it’s because she’s alone with the baby for even longer. When she goes shopping you don’t call her to see how long she will be so you resent her calling you.
Is it possible that the errands you are running used to take you a lot less time and she’s noticed? You’ve been together for 6 years. She knows how long you have always taken to do things. Is she calling you after 10 minutes during an errand that used to take you half an hour, or is she calling you after 40 minutes because you are taking longer than you used to? Big difference.
Remember, she is alone with the baby all week. She wants support when you are at home. Her shopping trips might be 3 or 4 hours. So what? She has a baby. She NEEDS to have time to herself to recharge.
The thing that nobody is mentioning is that your happiness has slowly been drained over the course of your relationship, so there were clearly other issues prior to your child being born. There’s no point asking why you got married if you were already unhappy. What’s done is done. But it’s important that you look at this from both sides. If your happiness has slowly been drained, so has hers. If it hadn’t, she wouldn’t be so angry.
You BOTH have the same problem. So instead of throwing money at counselling so that you can both talk about how you feel while someone writes notes and nods at you, why don’t you suggest that you consider counselling but have a real conversation before paying someone else to passively listen to you have a conversation?
Start with talking about the things you mentioned here. And ask her to talk about her views on the same issues and to tell you about her own.
I like the way you approached this so thank you. I’ve always been a very fast errand runner. I go in, grab what we need, pay for it, and head home. But she will call me while I’m 5 minutes down the road and tell me to try to hurry, after she’s already told me to try to hurry as I was leaving the house. Then when I call and say “they’re out of this should I get this brand?” She’ll answer and again tell me to try to hurry. But if she went to that same store for the same items it would take 5x the amount of time. Also yes I’m sure she needs the alone time just as much as any sahm does. But if I come home from my job to take over her job. And on the weekend I just take care of our baby alone with little to no help. When do I get that self care/alone time???