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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Can't even get him to talk to me about babies
A little backstory:
I suffer from terrible anxiety. In 2011, my husband and I started to try to conceive. I was already being tapered off of my anxiety medication (Lexapro), and when I finally got pregnant in late November, I stopped taking it cold turkey. The anxiety came back worse than ever before, plus the pregnancy hormones made me very emotional. My husband and I started bickering non-stop, over absolutely everything. We just couldn't do anything right in each others' eyes. My already-pretty-bad jealousy got worse as my weight increased, and I wasn't letting him do anything. I mean, I'm telling you, we were terrible to each other. I accept responsibility for my part in that, and he accepts his.
In February, the baby passed away. I was already at the end of my first trimester, and the process of losing the baby was gruesome. We fought all the way to the hospital, both extremely stressed, sleepless, and me in terrible pain. I had to go through a mini-labor essentially. It traumatized both of us, and I always remembered the times we'd argue and I'd worry that my rapid heart rate, and all the stress hormones, could be so damaging to the baby. I blamed how bad we had been with each other, and my personal decision not to continue with my anxiety medication, for the miscarriage. My doctor told me to weigh the personal risks of being on the medication against the risks of stopping it and having anxiety come back... and I had chosen to be medicine-free. I hated my husband and myself at that point.
Throughout all of the following month, my depression worsened. I asked my husband daily when we would try again. My solution was to immediately replace my loss, while his was to never, EVER talk about babies again. We actually separated for about a month, since we were being more damaging to each other than helpful. Coming back together, I realized the desperation had helped. We were grateful for each other, and with a renewed commitment to being kind to one another. I realized it needed to be a joint decision, and we needed to heal ourselves before we could consider a child.
Flash forward to today:
Now it's August 2013 and the very idea of having a child still causes my husband to revert to a freakishly childlike state. Last night I mentioned it, asking "when will we sit down and plan for our family?" I made it clear that I wasn't saying "give me a baby right now", but rather, asking when this discussion could take place. He turned to stone. He faced away from me suddenly in bed, hardened his voice, and barely answered me. He said "I don't know" in response to everything I asked, and in the end yelled at me. "Everything always has to be your way, when you want it huh?!!! I don't want a f**king kid right now."
I mean, it's like night and day. He says I'm trying to pull an answer out of him, when he just doesn't know. He said "it was bad last time. Bad during the pregnancy, bad after the pregnancy". He's a very black or white person. He either wants something or he doesn't, and his stubbornness is probably my least favorite quality. I have no way to convince him next time will be different, I can't guarantee that. But I'm 29 now, I work from home (I had planned for this to raise my family), drive a family-car that I'd bought while pregnant... and most importantly, I have always felt like my greatest ambition in my life would be to become a mother. I am growing increasingly bitter that he is taking that from me. It's not even that I want to be pregnant tomorrow, it's the fear that he won't even approach the subject without a Grade A Freakout. That makes me feel like this isn't even on the horizon for us, and that thought absolutely devastates me.
I don't know what to do. I'm not even sure what my question is here, since there's no real magical way to open him back up to having kids. What would you do, in my situation? I love him very much, but this topic brings out the absolute worse in him. I don't know if that will ever change.
I suffer from terrible anxiety. In 2011, my husband and I started to try to conceive. I was already being tapered off of my anxiety medication (Lexapro), and when I finally got pregnant in late November, I stopped taking it cold turkey. The anxiety came back worse than ever before, plus the pregnancy hormones made me very emotional. My husband and I started bickering non-stop, over absolutely everything. We just couldn't do anything right in each others' eyes. My already-pretty-bad jealousy got worse as my weight increased, and I wasn't letting him do anything. I mean, I'm telling you, we were terrible to each other. I accept responsibility for my part in that, and he accepts his.
In February, the baby passed away. I was already at the end of my first trimester, and the process of losing the baby was gruesome. We fought all the way to the hospital, both extremely stressed, sleepless, and me in terrible pain. I had to go through a mini-labor essentially. It traumatized both of us, and I always remembered the times we'd argue and I'd worry that my rapid heart rate, and all the stress hormones, could be so damaging to the baby. I blamed how bad we had been with each other, and my personal decision not to continue with my anxiety medication, for the miscarriage. My doctor told me to weigh the personal risks of being on the medication against the risks of stopping it and having anxiety come back... and I had chosen to be medicine-free. I hated my husband and myself at that point.
Throughout all of the following month, my depression worsened. I asked my husband daily when we would try again. My solution was to immediately replace my loss, while his was to never, EVER talk about babies again. We actually separated for about a month, since we were being more damaging to each other than helpful. Coming back together, I realized the desperation had helped. We were grateful for each other, and with a renewed commitment to being kind to one another. I realized it needed to be a joint decision, and we needed to heal ourselves before we could consider a child.
Flash forward to today:
Now it's August 2013 and the very idea of having a child still causes my husband to revert to a freakishly childlike state. Last night I mentioned it, asking "when will we sit down and plan for our family?" I made it clear that I wasn't saying "give me a baby right now", but rather, asking when this discussion could take place. He turned to stone. He faced away from me suddenly in bed, hardened his voice, and barely answered me. He said "I don't know" in response to everything I asked, and in the end yelled at me. "Everything always has to be your way, when you want it huh?!!! I don't want a f**king kid right now."
I mean, it's like night and day. He says I'm trying to pull an answer out of him, when he just doesn't know. He said "it was bad last time. Bad during the pregnancy, bad after the pregnancy". He's a very black or white person. He either wants something or he doesn't, and his stubbornness is probably my least favorite quality. I have no way to convince him next time will be different, I can't guarantee that. But I'm 29 now, I work from home (I had planned for this to raise my family), drive a family-car that I'd bought while pregnant... and most importantly, I have always felt like my greatest ambition in my life would be to become a mother. I am growing increasingly bitter that he is taking that from me. It's not even that I want to be pregnant tomorrow, it's the fear that he won't even approach the subject without a Grade A Freakout. That makes me feel like this isn't even on the horizon for us, and that thought absolutely devastates me.
I don't know what to do. I'm not even sure what my question is here, since there's no real magical way to open him back up to having kids. What would you do, in my situation? I love him very much, but this topic brings out the absolute worse in him. I don't know if that will ever change.
Re: Can't even get him to talk to me about babies
Counseling for you both and with your anxiety it would benefit you to go to individual counseling. Anxiety is a bitch and with both meds and counseling you can manage it, usually meds by themselves isn't enough.
As to your H, idk it could be many things surrounding having kids. With him freaking out and shutting down I don't know how you'd figure out what it is. I'm sure the loss of the baby, with the fighting and the separation all play a role. He could be worried that you two will lose each other if you get PG again or this could be his anxiety at work and the thought of losing another child terrifies him.
Again, really I just don't know just like you don't. You also may have to face the fact that he will never change his mind about this. If so, you will have to choose. Stay with him and never have a child or leave him and pursue this dream. I will caution you to face this before you step into a couseling situation so you aren't blindsided.
You need a great many things:
Bereavement counseling would not be a bad idea, either. The loss of a child is tough for both parties; he is no exception.
There are groups for bereavement purposes and I believe a counselor can also help.
If he won't go to a bereavement group with you, maybe he'll speak to a counselor on his own, of if he is religious, perhaps his clergyperson. He needs help and fast to help cope with the loss -- as you can see it has a horrible trickle down effect.
Maybe you need a different doc for your anxiety problem.
And I don't want to further rock the boat but have you considered adopting a child or fostering one? Perhaps that would be an ideal solution in light of the fact you're on anxiety meds and you had quite the problem with pregnancy hormones, also.
Take care of yourselves first -- get counseling and bereavement addressed.
In the interim, see what you can do to volunteer to help some kids -- three are tons of things where volunteers are gladly welcome: coaching, mentoring, helping at an after school group, something through your house of worship, volunteer to be a Big Sister to a child or tween who needs a good female grown up to emulate.
Don't rush having another child before you and he are not emotionally and physically ready for one.
Wishing you luck.
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