Postpartum- Why Your Partner Will Never Understand

I recently read an article on HuffPost, which studied women and postpartum, and found that a significant amount of mom’s show symptoms for years. The article starts looking at a mother who had thoughts of suicide 4 years after her son was born. She finally realized when her son was 4, that she needed help, and she set out and got it. She felt like she couldn’t talk about it to anyone, because she loved her son but couldn’t help from feeling the way she did. This is just one of many examples of how mother’s feel every single day. In the study, they looked at over 5000 women, and 25% of those women experience elevated depression within 3 years of delivering their baby. With that being said, I wanted to share my families journey with postpartum.

Right up top I want to say I am unqualified to weigh in on this topic. I, as a man writing about postpartum can never fully grasp the toll pregnancy, child birth and postpartum takes our wives, sisters, mothers and friends. With that said, I find myself wanting to share my experience as way of processing what my wife went through and to do my part to absolve any stigma that may still linger around the subject of PPD and PPA.

It blows my mind that this is a subject that is so faux paux for women to talk about. Roughly 1 in 9of all women who give birth experience some form of postpartum depression or anxiety. I’ll be the first to admit, I never thought my usually bubbly and outgoing wife would experience such a severe form of PPD. Looking back, I’m not sure why I was naive. My wife, Ashley, told me when she was still pregnant “this pregnancy has been really tough on me, I’m a little nervous about my postpartum.” In fact, she even had me listen to Podcast on subject, which I dutifully did. However it never clicked.

So flash forward to May 23rd 2020 at 11:56 pm. After a grueling 36 hour labor and a C-Section, our son Bear was born. Unbeknownst to me at the time, but so began Ashley’s tailspin into PPD. The first few days at the hospital will “normal” or as normal as life can feel after just having a child. When we were discharged 3 days later, we went home to full on receiving line of family. I was so happy, my son was perfect, our family got to meet him and I was tired but like, not that tired. Ashley on the other hand seemed a little manic. Running around cleaning up the house, unpacking our hospital bags, throwing laundry into the washer. All the while, she seemed vacant. That entire week she became “super woman” ushering me off to bed at 10pm while she was posted up on our couch with Bear heading into a long, lonely night. She was unable to go upstairs or get into our bed after her surgery so the living room became her sanctuary. After about 2 weeks, her manic state seemed to subside and what was left in its wake was times of uncontrollable crying, irrational rage, times of despondency, a deep loathing of herself and her new postpartum body. It was just a crushing feeling of sadness emanating from my wife.

One day, she came to me and told me she felt as if she had died. She said it felt like she was dead but could see her life around her and couldn’t interact. The feeling of homesickness and longing consumed her and while she loved our son, she wasn’t sure we didn’t make a mistake.

Again, I was totally ill equipped to handle this. I hugged her, tried to encourage her to sleep or do a workout but nothing seemed to help. By July I was starting to get frustrated. I’m ashamed to say but I felt like she was being over sensitive even ridiculous at times. Where was the person I married? I didn’t care her body was different, why was she so worried about it? I’m telling her to sleep, why can’t she sleep? It all got too much for me.

Almost 3 months into our son’s life, we had a massive fight. I said things I wished I hadn’t out of frustration and frankly fear. I was scared of this person I didn’t know and I missed my partner of almost a decade. I don’t remember the specifics of the fight, but I do remember after I yelled she broke down, started yelling back at me and freaking out (something she never does) and told me how she doesn’t want to be on this earth anymore, and how she has thought about hurting herself. This was a very scary moment for me, in fact it floored me. I looked around at our lives; I was happy, physically active and working. I loved my son and my wife and was so happy to have the family I had dreamed about my entire life. Ashley on the other hand was shattering. She loved Bear with her entire being, but nothing about her life resembled what it once was.

I couldn’t stand the thought of my wife feeling like this for another second. We talked and talked and talked. Well, to be honest, she talked-I listened. And this time, I really listened. Just a few days after that, she met with a new therapist. My wife is a badass. She got sober when she was 23 and always been able to take control of her life. I guess I just figured if I waited it out, this would all sort itself out. It didn’t. And I didn’t treat it with the respect it deserved. Now that Bear is 6 months old, we find ourselves in a much different place. Yes it’s still hard at times, but Ashley has gotten help and I’ve listened. That’s all I can do for now, but I’ll never stop.

The most important thing that I learned from all of this is that I will never understand what Ashley and other women have and will go through. That doesn’t mean that I can’t be there for Ashley and be as supportive and loving as possible. I want people to know that it is okay if you don’t understand, that doesn’t mean that you are a bad partner or that you need to get defensive. Be loving, be supportive, and be there for your partner and you will get through it together.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, if you enjoyed it make sure you subscribe!