The Last Taboo?

[stuart]

No men seem to be replying to this site as it is the most difficult thing in the world to try and understand your feelings, let alone try and put into words how they make you feel. I have a brilliant relationship with my wife, and to even intimate that all is not rosy would be a massive bombshell especially as our son is lovely in every way and I don't even know what my problem is. I just feel detached from things and feel that my whole life is now mapped out for the next 30 years, and I feel very trapped and our simple happy life is changed without trace. Everything seems upside down. Everyone comments on what a great natural dad I am, blah, blah, blah and I feel like a fraud, if they only knew... Now sitting crying at my desk, so must go...
Any websites, helplines, advice gladly received

[Catherine]

It is true that you will be a parent now for the rest of your life Stuart, but if you think its all boring straight forward and mapped out you are deluding yourself! You are in for an incredible adventure with your children, you can never be sure what the future holds and its not going to be like the films or the adverts, your family life will be unique, suprising and incredibly eventful so never underestimate life and all that has to offer
Regards Catherine

[Veritee]

Hi Stuart

I do feel for you - my husband suffered a lot when I had PNI and he had no support himself. I always felt that while it was me who had PNI it affected us all especially my husband, and it was a shared problem.
You are certainly not a fraud as I doubt you would be as concerned or upset if you did not care and were not a good dad.
Many men have mixed feelings and morn the loss of the way it was before they had the baby. It takes time for men to adjust too.

However from your post I am not sure if the problem for you is your wife’s PNI

(does she have PNI? is she finding things difficult or is it only you who is experiencing these problems?)

or the loss of the relationship with your wife that happened because of you having a child – which may have happened anyway as children do change your relationship beyond anything you could imagine before you had children.
I also wondered by your post whether you feel trapped by the PNI or by the fact you are now a father and as you say ‘my whole life is now mapped out for the next 30 years’

I get the impression that you are depressed yourself as many fathers actually feel the opposite to you, they are happy that their life is now secure and that their role for the next few years is to be a dad – a father and a husband, and this is their despite their need to adjust.

(Believe me though it is not 30 years, our child is now only 15 but she has already an independent life and we also have our independence back to some degree and in some ways we miss her dependence and our involvement in her world)

I am afraid I do not believe that men get PNI as you will note if you read my posts on this, but I do very much know that men do get depressed and very badly depressed due to the life changes that happen due to a new baby.

You may be depressed yourself, grieving for the loss of many things, your independence, your relationship with your wife, the time you could spend together.

If you do feel you are depressed I would say the same to you as I do to women – that the first port of call is you GP. I know this can be a hard step, but one that most feel glad they took.
Anyway I will wait your reply as to whether it is you or your wife or both of you that are depressed and/or unhappy.

However I will say that it is not that men do not post on this site, less men than women post on this forum, but they do use it they just do not post in this section I started for men.

I started the section as it was requested - but then never used.
Men do post on this site, not generally to reply to other threads but they tend to start their own.
Although this is a site predominately for sufferers of PNI we do welcome men on the site.
Here are a few links to threads started fairly recently by men on this forum. The forum moves on very quickly as it is well used but if you search you will probably find more threads and replies by men:

veritee.proboards7.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&n=1&thread=370
veritee.proboards7.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&n=1&thread=285
veritee.proboards7.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&n=1&thread=224
veritee.proboards7.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&n=1&thread=174

Perhaps you can contact the men who have posted on the site and ask them for support and or advice as they are probably a bit more down the path to recovery. I have put some links in the men’s section but if you tell me specifically what your issues are and what you need I will try to find out.

All the best

Veritee

[Wendy]

Hi Stuart

Thanks so much for sharing your personal thoughts here. Good on you because I hear that this is not an easy thing for you to do. It sounds to me like you feel guilty because you "should" feel happy and you don't feel happy. There seem to be a lot of societal expectations for people to be completely overjoyed by the arrival of a beautiful little baby. And of course some people are. However the arrival of said babies can bring enormous changes to a household and it takes time to adjust to these changes. My husband wants to add that even when you have adjusted to the changes, the baby then continues to change and alters the balance again. So the changes continue... Plus of course your partner will prob. not have as much time for you just now. This must be difficult to adjust to also I would imagine. All I can suggest here is to try and keep involved with the day to day care of your baby and this will keep you in the loop as an important part of your babies and wife's life.

Does if feel like you have lost something? What is now missing do you think? I know some men carry on as if nothing has changed by going out a lot etc. and this can cause issues with their partner feeling trapped at home alone. It sounds like you are not one of these guys and for that I commend you. Is there a way that you can have some time out doing one or two of the things that you used to enjoy? One thing that I have learnt is that babies are happy when Mum and Dad are happy. So perhaps it's about figuring out what makes you happy and focussing on those things. Maybe as you become used to your new life, your baby will be one of the ones that brings you great joy like our baby does to myself and my husband.

Very best wishes to you and your family.

Wendy

[SIMON]

HI dont under estimate your self , i am anew dad at 24 and my partners 29 she treats me like akid all the time are you doing this make sure you do that ,but all that aside your both in it together ,you either bot miss out together or you enjoy it together ,ifeel trapped and that i missing out especially when im not getting much from my partner except negitivity,but so is she .
Im still trying to make sense of my situation my partner is rejecting me and thinks i am the course of all her problems ,stick in there WE DO WHAT WE CAN

Take care
SIMON

[William]

Hi,

My wife has PNI, and though we've found some great support there's still a lot of things that cannot be fully understood unless it's happened to you.

I have a friend at work who's wife has had PNI and he went to the Dr's thinking he was depressed and he ended up being told that he didn't have enough time for himself. It can be very difficult when you get up go to work, get home, have to have intelligent conversation with your wife, look after baby, cook tea, and help do the house work. There is a large amount of strain, on a person, and the cave man image means we need to retreat into ourselves to deal with things. I'm still affected when I think about the birth of my daughter.

The way that I've started trying to cope is by finding things that are mine to do, such as kite flying over lunch and going for a run on a Saturday morning whilst my wife and daughter sleep in.

The difficulty is that the new baby is the thing that everyone dotes over and even when you expect to lose your freedom, when you lose your freedom and your rest time, it becomes doubly difficult, especially when you become ill in one way or another aswell.

If there are any husbands, birth partners etc, who have been affected in any way with the birth of a child, I'm happy to get in contact and can be contacted through the email [e-mail]. I set up the annonymous email as I'm convinced that there are many other like us who need the support, but we need to know how and what support is there and help each other. Please don't let it stop you using this forum for posts, but it's there if anyone wants to make contact, you can.

God Bless you all,
William