Hello everyone,
I’m writing here because I truly don’t know what to do anymore. I’m emotionally exhausted, I just had a baby, and I’m trying to hold my family together while my husband is falling apart.
My husband (34M) and I (33F) have been together for many years, and we recently became parents. His mental health issues began two years ago, after one of his parents died by suicide (it happened four years ago). Since then, he has struggled with severe anxiety and PTSD.
He has been in psychotherapy for two years and has consulted the best psychiatrists in our city. He has even been hospitalized several times — including during my pregnancy — and I stayed by his side through every crisis, even though it was extremely hard for me.
He is on a complex psychiatric treatment plan, but all the doctors — including three psychiatrists and his therapists — keep saying the same thing: the medication helps, but the core issue is psychological. They all point to avoidance, catastrophic thinking, and a lack of engagement in the healing process.
At home, this becomes painfully clear. He rarely puts into practice what he learns in therapy. He spirals almost daily, panics, cries, and constantly needs others around him to feel safe. Whenever he feels anxious, he calls his family members and expects them to drop everything and come over. He is afraid to go anywhere alone, even to his own job. Emotionally, he is completely absent — both with me and with our baby — almost as if he’s disconnected from our reality as a family. Recently, he also sleeps a lot, almost as if it’s the only way he can escape his thoughts.
I love him deeply, and I don’t want to separate, but I also don’t want to destroy myself and my newborn in this process. I have support from my own family (thank God), but no one can replace his role as a husband and father. I feel like I’m carrying everything alone.
What scares me even more is that recently he has said things like “I can’t do this anymore,” and hinted at taking many pills. I live in constant stress.
I feel drained, unsupported, scared, and honestly heartbroken. I want him to get better, but I don’t know how much more I can take.
What should I do?
Has anyone been through something similar?
How do you support a partner with PTSD who relies entirely on you and the family for emotional regulation?
Where do you draw boundaries without abandoning them?
And how do you protect your own mental health while raising a newborn?
Any advice would mean the world to me. Thank you