BellaOnline Forums Relationships Married No Kids Men get postpartum depression too

According to a news article on CNN today, dads suffer from postpartum depression. Frankly I'm not surprised. I heard a man on TV once say that after watching the birth of his child he could never look at his wife the same way again. Without trying to come off as a completely narcissistic jerk and making men sound like they are all that way too, I'll simply say that men are visual creatures. There's more to it than that though. Men are fed this fairy story that mommy plus daddy plus baby equals a complete, serene and happy perfect family unit. Mom glows and baby sleeps and suckles while dad looks on proudly. Sure there are bad kids, but that's due to bad parenting and we shall overcome that! Once the bundle of joy arrives though, the reality is that it keeps the pair up at night. Mom still looks pregnant for a while and doesn't even have time to pamper dad anymore. Dad takes a backseat to baby and maybe, if he's lucky, once the pair of them figure out time management things will go back the way they were plus one. More often though, I think baby replaces dad in mom's heart forever. What's a guy to do? Get depressed, I'd imagine. It's understood that the pregnancy is the "woman's time" to be doted on and made to feel special. The next 18-40 years are the "child's time" so when is the man's time"? I wonder how many men feel some resentment toward their kids for taking their partner away? I bet there are more than we will ever know because it's just too taboo to admit it.

Wow....what you said makes a lot of sense to me, and I really don't think too many fathers would admit to all of that, but there must be some out there going through this. I will say though that my new boyfriend would certainly agree with you on several points.

This is just one example..... When he was married and the baby was born, a baby he really didn't want in the first place but he caved in for to please his wife, his wife forgot all about him. The intimacy was shut off because she now had her little "prize", as he puts it. In three years they were divorced.

I know he does not resent his daughter whom he loves dearly, but it is obvious that at one point he resented his ex-wife who replaced him in her heart with the new baby.

I read that, too. Before I read the article, i was completely unaware that men could experience PPD....and to think they spent all of these years onfocusing in women's hormones! I have 2 family members that experienced PPD. It's interesting because one of them confessed to me a few days before her daughter was born, that she got pregnant because she was supposed to! She was uneasy about the upcoming lifestyle change...more than uneasy. after her daughter was born, she was an absolute mess psychologically....YIKES!

Cassie, yes that makes even more sense, resenting the wife (who is now the ex-wife for a reason!) because she put him in a position that he was ready for. It's sad on all sides that people sometimes do what is best for or most accepted by society rather than what they themselves want or can handle. I personally had some serious battles with depression and anxiety as well as body image issues in the past. Not only that but my dad's sister has schizophrenia and it always came on hard and she had to be institutionalized after each of her three children were born. I've never had anything like that, but it does run in the family. If I not been able to follow my own head and heart and my husband wasn't on the same page I can imagine having a child would drudge up a lot of mental health problems in a very bad way.

Ellavemia: Schizophrenia and other mental illnesses run in my family as well. I knew in my heart that I could not mentally handle the responsibility and challenges of raising children. I felt that for sure it would push me over the edge.

Mental illness is genetic, and it's possible to pass on some sort of mental illness to your children. There were so many things to consider when the issue of children came up, and I truly am grateful that I stuck to my decision to remain CF.