Hi all, I figured this might be a good forum for advice on how to help my wife. She is 40, I'm 42, we have 2 kids age 4 and 7.
She had mild anxiety and depression off and on most of her life but she pretty much figured out how to manage it after a lot of counseling and small dose of meds.
Fast forward to today, we have 2 young kids who are great, but present pretty typical young kid challenges. Listening, not fighting with each other, picking up, bedtime and eating are major struggles. They are great kids but raising them is tough. They are normal and healthy.
My wife is totally burned out from them. I'm worried because she has no joy around them and she admits she is sad about this but doesn't know what to do. The kids need positive reinforcement, but she is struggling to get them to follow directions because she can only focus on the negative behaviors.
We talk about this off and on, but tried to talk about it again last night. She acknowledged she is depressed but has no plan to try and defeat it. She is going to wait it out until the kids get older or it goes away. I ask about counseling, but she said she's been through it a bunch of times and they are going to reteach self care and other techniques she already knows.
Any advice? Our relationship is suffering, we don't talk about anything fun anymore. Her relationship with the kids is fine, but could be way better. She stresses me out because she's always frustrated by the kids. She has tons of vacation time this summer, a first for her, but she has no idea how to spend it because she says there is nothing she is excited about anymore. Our family fun time is no fun because we can't go 10 minutes in the car without her yelling at the kids to stop kicking the back of her seat or making certain kid noises.
Thanks for any advice.
She had mild anxiety and depression off and on most of her life but she pretty much figured out how to manage it after a lot of counseling and small dose of meds.
Fast forward to today, we have 2 young kids who are great, but present pretty typical young kid challenges. Listening, not fighting with each other, picking up, bedtime and eating are major struggles. They are great kids but raising them is tough. They are normal and healthy.
My wife is totally burned out from them. I'm worried because she has no joy around them and she admits she is sad about this but doesn't know what to do. The kids need positive reinforcement, but she is struggling to get them to follow directions because she can only focus on the negative behaviors.
We talk about this off and on, but tried to talk about it again last night. She acknowledged she is depressed but has no plan to try and defeat it. She is going to wait it out until the kids get older or it goes away. I ask about counseling, but she said she's been through it a bunch of times and they are going to reteach self care and other techniques she already knows.
Any advice? Our relationship is suffering, we don't talk about anything fun anymore. Her relationship with the kids is fine, but could be way better. She stresses me out because she's always frustrated by the kids. She has tons of vacation time this summer, a first for her, but she has no idea how to spend it because she says there is nothing she is excited about anymore. Our family fun time is no fun because we can't go 10 minutes in the car without her yelling at the kids to stop kicking the back of her seat or making certain kid noises.
Thanks for any advice.