Husband with PPD

He needs to see a doctor too and massive stress can also leads to low testosterone which makes tired

I don’t have advice but you’re not being a brat for sure, and you’re not alone. Mine has had significant issues since our daughter was born (she’s now two) - it comes and goes, but mostly I’ve been pretty much on my own. There are days I am so exhausted from trying to be everything I’m taking it 15 mins at a time. If I think beyond that I just feel angry and betrayed, and that doesn’t help either of us - I know he isn’t choosing this.

Paternal PPD is so horribly cruel - I knew this man 7 years before we had a child; he was so excited to be a father, and I assumed I could rely on him completely. But we were days out of the hospital, me still bleeding, when he just withdrew completely. There have been whole weeks he would talk to me maybe twice; he would go days without seeing his child and when he did, he would be so easily overwhelmed I’d have to be there to supervise. He couldn’t even sleep in the same room as us. Nothing could have prepared me for this.

my husband has pretty bad stretches of depression or bad anxiety attacks kind of. where he has no energy to do anything. that it’s not that he doesn’t wanna be with us, it’s just that he’s kind of in this subway tunnel and everyone and everything is rushing so fast and he’s getting dizzy and can’t grasp anything. we’ve tried a lot of things. for us, we do like 20mins-1 hour when he gets home where he relaxes. tries to get his mind off of work and just lays down or does whatever he wants. after we has time he comes and talks to us. we also got him into therapy which was hard for him to go for bc he felt like that meant he was “less like a man”. but just having him talk to someone impartial, and someone who isn’t romantically involved to him personally helped. i do feel like it’s hard for men to get the help they need bc they feel like maybe we might love them less or they might seem less manly. it’s hard for everyone. you should be proud that you are so caring and how strong you are.

My husband went through a pretty bad depressive episode after I gave birth. We both suffer from depression and anxiety and both work in mental health. Still, it was really tough for both of us to navigate. I spent a lot of time validating and normalizing his feelings (but he was sharing them with me, not sure if your husband is). I also encouraged him to talk to his psychiatrist about changing or increasing his meds, which he did. That made the biggest difference. If your husband doesn’t take an antidepressant, it’s definitely worth considering. Just be sure to frame it from a place of love and concern, not blame of shame ❤️ it’s really hard to be in this position. I feel for you.