When Your Wife Changes After the Baby: Why So Many Men Fall Apart

Okay, if you're a frequent listener of the Dad Starting Over podcast and you find yourself saying, "Yeah, that sounds like me," well, you don't need another podcast episode. What you need is support. The Help for Men Brotherhood is where men go when they're done pretending that they got it all handled. You know, your dead bedrooms, your divorce, your loneliness, your rebuilding life. We have private forums, frequent live Zoom meetings, one-on-one coaching, courses, all my books at no additional charge. And yes, we get together in person. Real men and real conversations. So stop doing this alone and join the Help for Men Brotherhood today at help4men.com/join. I look forward to seeing you in the next member meeting. A lot of men emotionally fall apart after the birth of their child. And it's not because they hate fatherhood, but it's because the woman that they love more than anything on the planet Earth suddenly becomes a new person. And these men, some of whom are very sensitive in nature, very anxiously attached to their partner, have no idea how to cope with this change. What I'm about to read is a post from a man that just recently ended his 20-year marriage. His story is what millions of men all over the world go through but don't quite know how to articulate. This subject is what you call a very verboten topic in the world of relationship talk. The post goes like this. I won't read it verbatim, but he says, "Just ended my 20-year marriage. My wife is the love of my life. I knew I was going to marry her the moment I saw her for the first time, and it was so. For the first 10 years, I was madly in love with her. She was my best friend. We did everything together. We were super affectionate." and there was trust and loyalty, everything that you can hope for. We had a bond so strong that I believed not even God himself could come between us. Unconditional love in the truest sense. So, I mean, 10 years, in this guy's defense, is a pretty good track record for how a relationship is gonna go. And as you can tell by the guy's language, he's somewhat of a romantic. But I continue. He says, then we decided to have kids. Immediately after my wife gave birth, the whole persona changed overnight. The affection was gone. Sex was gone. The support was gone. The kind gestures were gone. Her soft side gone. Everything I knew and loved about her was gone. I knew that childbirth can have a dramatic effect on a woman's hormones, and it can take a while for them to feel like themselves again. So I gave her time and lots of it. After 6 months of nothing changing, I sat her down and told her how I felt, what I've been missing, and asked if there was something that I was doing to get this treatment. She was dumbstruck and said that she hadn't even noticed. That caught me by surprise. I must be honest. How do you not realize that you've changed so dramatically? Anyway, she said she would try harder and nothing changed. So some people will immediately jump on this man for, you know, saying that he gave it a while, then he went to her after 6 months after the birth of the child. But in the guy's defense, it sounds like we just have to go by what he's saying. He approached this in a very mature way. Is there something I'm doing here? Because you have completely disconnected from me. You know, I understand you got the baby and all that, but you have just flip-flopped, did a complete 180. And the wife does what many wives in this situation do, which is, "Really? I had no idea." Completely baffling to most men. And then he goes on to say, since then he has sat down with her several times. He suggested counseling. The wife flat out refuses. He feels like a stranger in his own home. He's just a housemate there to help raise the child. There's no connection with his wife whatsoever. And then he had more sit-downs over the years and he told her that he can't continue on in this relationship. And the wife again was completely taken aback by this. She had no idea, but she swears she's gonna try harder. And he says in her defense, she did try a little bit, but only in his mind, only halfheartedly, but it wasn't enough. By that time, he had had a lot of resentment, a lot of water under the bridge, so to speak, and he was done. He is divorcing his wife. I've told men, at the risk of being melodramatic, you have two wives. The wife before kids, wife 1.0, and the wife after kids, wife 2.0. And unfortunately, you really don't know with 100% certainty what wife 2.0 is going to look like. Like the guy who posted this on Reddit has learned, sometimes it's a person that you flat out do not like anymore. It sounds like she experienced what a lot of women experience after childbirth, which is a complete and utter devotion to the new little one, and she flat out doesn't have any emotional and mental room left for husband. And in this woman's defense, it's not like she's overtly saying in her mind, must ignore husband, must focus on baby. No, her brain is quite literally, from the moment she wakes up in the morning, if she's lucky enough to get sleep, her brain is saying baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, 24/7, 365. This is Mother Nature doing what it's supposed to do. Mother Nature is telling her, make sure the little thing stays alive. Make sure it thrives. Mother Nature is not telling her to procreate again. In fact, everything in her body and brain is saying, don't do that. You need to focus all your resources, all your energy and time on the little one. In fact, we know for women that are breastfeeding, for example, the hormonal shift that goes on in their body is very much similar to what happens to women going through menopause. Sorry guys, but the desire for any sexual anything is just not there for most women. While you may be Mr. Romance and want to hold hands and hug and kiss and yes, have sex, your wife may be very naturally averse to all of that. And unfortunately for a lot of men that I talk to, those feelings that the woman apparently had pre-kid never ever seem to come back. The guys wait a year, 2 years, 3 years. And like our guy here experienced, he said, "We need to talk to somebody about this. This is no good." And the wife said what a lot of women say in this situation, which is, "I don't care, dude. No, I'm not going to go talk to anybody. I got to focus on the little one here." And it sucks. And unfortunately, there's a chorus of people out there that are just waiting to shame the man for having the needs that he has, a very real and very human need for companionship, for validation, for love, romance, and yes, the old in and out, God forbid. As far as people who have overcome this very natural shift in the dynamic of their relationship are concerned, people that have shifted back somewhat, it's never back to what it used to be, by the way, in the honeymoon stage. The honeymoon stage is what I call, you know, before long-term commitment and kids and all that stuff settles in. In this guy's defense, the honeymoon stage lasted for a freaking decade. But for those that want a glimpse of the old girl back, so to speak, What you need is basically a community to help you out. It takes a village to raise these kids. What you need is Aunt So-and-So and Grandma So-and-So to say, "Hey guys, you leave the little one with us. You two get away. It's important that you guys stay connected." She needs that emotional and verbal reinforcement telling her, "Don't forget your husband. Don't forget your relationship. That's really, really important." From what I've seen, if a woman doesn't have that overt push in that direction, her natural tendency is to just neglect it completely. So if your wife is one that comes from a family that's very disconnected, maybe you guys moved away, like, you know, 1,000 miles away for a career thing, which is super, super common in my world, and you don't have really an extended friend network, you're not able to financially, you know, hire a nanny or a babysitter on a regular basis, the tendency is for the romance, love, and connection to go, "Pfft." You can be the absolute best father on the planet Earth. You can be the best partner on the planet Earth. You can take over 90% of the household chores. You can get up every night and feed the kid the bottle and everything else. You can change every diaper. I'm saying all this because this is often the excuse or reasoning given by a lot of new mothers. Perhaps if the guy did more, I would have more energy for us. From what I've seen, sorry ladies, when man tries to absolve woman of a lot of responsibility and remove a lot of stress in her life, The typical mom finds a way to fill that void with more stress. She may put 12 things on her plate. The man may take over 11 of them, and leaving only one thing, she'll find 11 more things to fill the plate with. A lot of men learn this. The goalposts keep shifting, and they realize the old girl is dead. She's gone. This is Wife 2.0. And then, as the movie title suggests, a lot of guys face the reality of, is this as good as it gets? And the answer is, yeah, but you're not completely powerless in this. You do have to reintroduce some of the old energy back, some of the single pre-kid energy back. And from what I've seen, guys, yeah, you do need to be the driver of this. You do need to be a steward of the relationship, so to speak. If you sit back and cross your arms and pout and say, let's just see what she does, if she wants to work on this relationship, then she needs to be the one to do it. Don't hold your breath, dude. You got to be the one to champion If we want to stay together as a couple, if we want to still be connected, I as a husband, and this does not make me a needy asshole, need emotional connection with you. And yes, physical connection with you. And I recognize that that takes time to build up to, and I'm willing to put in the time and energy to build up to that connection. I'm not saying let's just jump in the sack right now. We got a lot of stuff to do before we get to that point. Really show her that you're committed to rebuilding this connection with her. Why? Because you love her. That's why you married her. That's why you had a child with her. You're not gonna give up on you guys so easily. And from what you can tell, that's exactly what she has done. She's given up on you. Remember, everything in her body and brain is saying baby, baby, baby. It's not saying husband, husband, husband. Now, a lot of guys will push back and say, dude, I've had the ultimate talk with the wife. I've been very supportive. I've done, again, all these chores and everything else. Wife says she will not talk to anybody. She refuses to go on a date. She doesn't trust the kid with anyone else on the planet Earth. But her. In other words, her anxiety is through the roof when it comes to raising a child. Very, very common, unfortunately. And the guy's like, "There's only so much I can take. I'm ready to leave the relationship, but I can't leave my kid. I want to see this kid every day, 365 days a year. I don't want to see him 180 days out of the year." Well, guys, doing the right thing, which is making the ultimatum of the relationship and saying what you expect, saying what your boundaries are, stating your needs, is not without some very real negative repercussions. And one of those negative repercussions is potentially divorce, not seeing your kids, losing a lot of money, being a single guy for a while. There's no such thing as a perfect situation. So what some guys have done, and I am not condoning this by any means, but what some guys have done is get something on the side, as they say. It could be in the form of sex workers. Ugh, there's a world you don't want to go down. Or an affair. Pretty common in my world. Adult entertainment, if you know what I mean, kind of fills that void for a lot of men as far as just the visceral release is concerned, if you know what I mean. But it doesn't fill a void as far as very real emotional and human connection with another human being. Adult entertainment ain't romance. You are not an animal for having these needs. You're a human being. You're a good person. Don't forget that. And for some of you guys, dare I say most of you guys watching this, you have a form of attachment. And if you want to learn more about attachment, I'll put a link down below in the description to some articles about attachment on the helpformen.com website. But some of you have a form of attachment called an anxious or preoccupied form of attachment. You are the one that from the beginning of the relationship, if you look back, you know, hindsight's 20/20, and you look back at the relationship and you go, you know what, I've always been the one to pursue. I've always been the one to suggest the romantic things. I've always been the one to want to talk. My wife, girlfriend at the time and now wife, has always been very kind of resistant about that. Very cold, almost masculine in energy. And there's some truth to the whole masculine thing because most avoidant people, which is the opposite of the anxious and preoccupied, most avoidant people are men. People by virtue of their childhood baggage have certain behaviors that they bring to a relationship. And for a lot of you, you're overly needy, quote unquote, and anxious in your attachment to your partner. So it behooves you to get with kind of a board of directors, if you will, a group of peers to kind of gauge exactly where you're at. And are you looking at this in the right way? Are you in fact being a little bit too needy? Are you not giving your wife enough leeway here? Are you expecting too much too soon? This is where something like a men's group really comes in handy. Chatting with men from around the world that have been there and done that, That is invaluable. And it just so happens I run such a group. Guys, check out the Brotherhood at help4men.com/join. We have private forums, we have live meetings, we get together in person, we have courses, we have books, all my books at no additional charge if you join the group. You can book time with myself or other guys on the team for one-on-one consultations. This is not a hopeless endeavor for many of you. You just need to get the right tools in your emotional mental toolbox to figure out how to deal with all of this. How to properly come to a compromise that both of you can live with. Because again, you're not crazy. You're not broken. You're reacting like a man who loves very deeply and you lost something that is very sacred to you. You lost your wife. But again, the good news is you can rebuild. You can rediscover yourselves as a couple. So once again, guys, check out thebrotherhoodhelpformen.com/join. I look forward to seeing you in our next member meeting. Thanks for watching.