Communication Breakdown - Feeling lost and alone.

[Chris_1306]

Hi All.

I am feeling pretty lost and in need of some help. We have recently given birth to our son (Nov) and in our second year of marriage. I am struggling to communicate effectively with my wife (vice versa) and unfortunately the frustration of this is causing bad arguments.

I regularly tell her that the communication in our marriage is non existent and when I do try and talk to her she get's angry and blow's her top. I honestly appreciate she's been through the mill with the pregnancy + birth and I am sympathetic to her up's and downs following the birth but without effective communication I really don't know where we are going?

Things are gradually going down hill and I really want to get things back on track but it has to be 2 way traffic and at the moment I'm not seeing anything in return. I am a doting father, working hard and as helpful as I can but I feel so alone at the moment and not sure what to do. I just want us to sit down and get to an understanding.

How do I get her to sit down and talk to me when she won't. Or do I just put up and shut up and hope that things turn a corner?

[jellybean28]

Hi Chris

Congratulations on the birth of your son. :)

Did you have communication problems before your son was born?

Is it possible that your wife has post natal depression? This can effect moods.

Also the birth of a child can leave both parents exhausted and overwhelmed.

Does your wife have a friend or famiy member who can come and visit or take both bub and her out for a coffee, so your wife can have some adult conversation and get out of the house for a few hours. Or even look after bub for couple of hours while you and your wife go out together for a while?

My only other suggestion would be go with her to see her Doctor and ask for help from the Dr it maybe that you both need some councilling or your wife needs help if she has post natal depression.

You sound like a good husband and father Chris and for the sake of your marriage, don't put up and shut up, seek help for this, don't try and do it alone. Also keep posting here, there are plenty of people with good advice and it helps if you need to vent.

Take care Chris

[Raymond]

I think you are going to need patience here Chris. I wasn't very good at sitting down and talking and I'm a husband. We got there in the end. Timing is everything. You will have your opportunities. Use them when they arriive and keep loving her through thick and thin. You will come out to another place in the end I swear.

It might be useful to know what her love language is. We all have them. It's the way we perceive love and eveybody is different. You can love her but are you scratching where it itches? Love languages are helpful in this. There are five of them. One of them will be her main love language. They are Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Touch (not talking sex here, more hugs holding hands etc.) Act of Service (practical) Gifts (not expensive, more the thought).

It is worth a try. People usually express their love in their own language which can be a clue, but the trick is to express it in their language.

Raymond

[dalesman]

Hi Chris,
You say there is a lack of communication but in what way ? Can you be a bit more specific. Communication takes many forms. Has the way in which you and your partner communicate changed since the birth ?

[Ageing Grace]

Hello from me, too, Chris :)

Congratulations on your baby! You must know you can expect your relationship with your wife to be totally rubbish for about 6 months after the baby is born. Not only because you're both unbelievably tired, but also due to your wife's hormones which are dictating that she bond with her baby, no matter what.

There are very common complications after birth, which many men are a bit under-informed about. Here's a few:


If she's breast feeding, the baby may be hurting her and/or she might not be producing enough milk, both of which cause both physical pain (very painful!) and feelings of inadequacy & worry. Conversely, if she's not breast-feeding, she's probably vulnerable to major guilt-trips from the natural feeding brigade: also giving rise to inadequacy worries.

Did she tear during the birth, or was she cut? This isn't a plain-speaking forum. But just imagine if that had happened to your equivalent parts, and ask yourself how lovey-dovey you'd be feeling :eek:

PND (post-natal depression) happens to almost half of new mothers. It causes anything from exhaustion to suicide, so please be very sympathetic if she seems to be quite negative about everything. A doctor can help with PND.

Bonding doesn't always happen like in the movies. Many new mothers feel the baby is nothing more than a screaming, demanding parasite! They do bond with the baby later, but you can picture how awful it would feel to be dedicating your every waking & sleeping moment, and your body, to a creature you can't seem to love like they say you should :(

Exhaustion is universal during the first six months. There really isn't a spare moment, not one minute to call your own. It's tough and, no matter how many warnings you've had, nothing quite prepares you for the absolute wiped-out-ness of having a newborn.


As you can see, a new baby isn't exactly the best communication aid you could hope for!! If you already had communication problems, those issues will no doubt recur once your little one is settled. In either case, though, it would be crazy to make any judgements about your relationship whilst your demanding, ever-hungry, fascinating, delightful, annoying bundle of love is less than 6 months old!

Help her. Brush her hair, massage her feet, ask how her day was (and listen to the minutiae of baby-life), get up in the night to do feeds and changes. Do the shopping. Tell her she's beautiful. Good luck!

AG :)

[Helen_uk]

Sleep deprivation , a new person to be responsible for....new babies are a gift but LOTS of stress in the first few months.

If I were you I'd put your communication problems and worries about them on a back burner for now and just concentrate on helping your wife get through these few months.

Do practical things , bath your son , let your wife sleep whilst you change nappies, buy her flowers........let her moan to you and be sympathetic.Try not to take anything she says ( or doesn't say ! ) right now to heart.

It's a blummin difficult time and I know it can feel like dads take a back seat but believe me lack of sleep and hormones out of control don't make for a good time to communicate !

If the problems were there previous to your son's birth then leaving them for a short while isn't going to make that much difference in the long run....

Bite your tongue, pitch in and help ( I'm sure you were anyway !! ) and wait til life is more settled ... That might pay dividends for your marriage.

Oh and big congratulations from me too !

Helen

[Chris_1306]

Hi again, so here I am again lost and living in a completely love less marriage.

I sat back for just under a year trying my best to live and enjoy my son's first year. Alas I've been made to feel an outsider and no matter what I have done and continue to do its never enough.

Last January (2011) I requested we go to relate to try communicating and get over a lot of the things are continually brought up in arguments. We went once, she didn't like what I had to say and it made things worse.

My wife hasn't gone back to work and I've not put any pressure on her going back to work. I've said (with backing from friends and family) that we have not been strong enough to warrant having more children. How she can even think that we could survive another child I really don't know.

I see other couples and families around us and they are completely different. When I get home from work I play with my son every hour before bed and weekends I am there because I love him and I am a good dad. I cook, clean, work, be a good dad and in return I get someone who sits there on Ebay looking for bargains and because she has no time in the day to do it because she is looking after the little man.

I've had an okay Christmas mainly because of my son being so interactive and getting to spend the waking hour with him as normally I'm in work 5 days a week and don't see them in the mornings but effectively there is nothing between my wife and myself. There hasn't been for sometime, I'd say since the birth of our son. Its almost that whilst we are partners, her focus is solely our son and if I don't like it then I can either lump it or leave.

Bottom line is after a lot of trying last year (I wanted to go back to Relate and I wrote letter explaining why I was so unhappy) is that we are on the cusp of separation. In fact that's why I am back here on the forum, for rough advice on what to do next.

I can't go through life feeling so utterly rubbish with the only thing keeping me together is work and spending time with my son (and avoiding my wife at all costs). We had an argument yesterday and she has a temper and in turn that riles me because she shouts, points finger and swears. She's starting to bring out the worst person in me and that needs to stop.

I suppose my next step is to seek legal advice from a solicitor? To ensure my access to my son and financial matters are sorted properly? Any advice helpful.

[Raymond]

I don't think anyone knows what to say here Chris. If it was me I would continue loving her until connection was established. Not in a grovelling way but in a sincere way.

Part of the trouble here is none of us knows what is wrong with her as you sound a super husband. Did she come from a good background or were there problems there?

[Forever]

Greetings,

I would try to approach this from a more pragmatic stand point...for another year or so, since you do not have anything to lose by staying, and nothing to gain by leaving. Given that if you did separate, things would not really be any different than they are now except that you would have to be responsible for two households rather than one. You would not be seeing your son as much (your joy in life) if separated, and you would not be communicating one nit then, or having "relations" anyway in the event that you parted ways...so you might as well hang in there at home.

You would be surprised at how many people think that separating everything is better, but it is really much harder to make any headway doing that.

What do you think?

[SimonLLL]

Hi, Chris

Child birth can play absolute havoc with hormones, and getting back to 'normal' is not something that has a finite time-frame.

I don't know how you can approach this, except to say at a 'convenient' point "It must be hard feeling this way all the time. I can see you're exhausted. Perhaps we can see if there's a remedy that a doctor or specialist can suggest?" What I'm suggesting here is natural hormones, not necessarily the stuff prescribed for menopause. There are significant differences. Both my wife and a couple of good friends have been checked out and the results were alarming when it came to progesterone and testosterone deficiencies. These can be brought back into line fairly easily.

Babies can also give mothers a feeling of resentment. Suddenly their life is completely focussed on someone else and it seems like they have none of their own time. And you're copping the fallout because you're closest. You already have some good suggestions about getting outside help from other commenters.

You have to make sure that she believes that your primary concern is her well-being here - as soon as she gets a whiff of self-serving suggestions, you run the risk of her ascribing selfish motives and another blow-up.

Hope this helps. You seem like a good bloke and she seems like a confused, wrung-out mum!

[MC123]

Hi Chris,

I have read a book by Andrew Marshall 'help your Partner say Yes' which looks at cooperation and communication. This looks at communication from a different perspective. It has helped me to understand why some of the things I say can be construed differently to what I actually mean and some different approaches to take. It is worth taking a look.