Wife personality change during pregnancy

LegacyUser

Can anyone tell me that they have been through anything like this before. My wife is pregnant and I do not know her anymore. She is distant, over emotional, doesnt talk or laugh as much. We were very happily married up to this stage in our lives. Sex is out of the question. I feel totally ignored and unloved and very hurt. And 6 months on I am starting to feel like Im living with a lodger. I resent her change of personality. I did not marry this woman, she is a stranger to me. My home life has become dull and boring. She has no interest in going anywhere. It seems that she is in hiding until the pregnancy is over. I know I am supposed to be supportive to her, but I have tried everything and now Im starting to take it personal. When I try to talk to her, she fails to communicate what the problem is. She assures me its nothing to do with our relationship, but to tell you the truth, im past caring.

Ellsbells

Dont let this drift. My OH was happily married for 5 years, his (ex) wife got pregnant with their first kid and took to the bed a week after she found out. She obviously have some form of despression but this was not diagnosed til after she had the baby and it deterioarated rpidly from there. I am not trying to scare you but the woman was in a mental care hospital for 9 of the first 12 months of the baby's life...

Things didnt improve much for 3 years and she is still on medication. They split up because of this. The signs are the same and you need to get her to a doctor...

With regard your wife, it doenst make sense that she has just gone off you. Her hormones are gone mad and now is not the time to sit on your high horse - for better or worse and this is the worse bit.

good luck

herya

She might be scared stiff or even paranoid about the pregnancy, giving birth etc. If it's her first pregnancy and her hormones are all over the place it's not unheard of. What you say about "hiding" might be very apt.

I very much doubt it is directed towards you personally, although it seems that some women who experience difficult pregnancy can feel like "blaming" the father for their condition. It's not rational, but then pregnancy might be an awful experience for some.

Please take her to her doctor, for her and your health (and the baby's).

Das Kitty

OP!

When she says don't take it personally you have to believe her.

I'm currently pregnant and pretty much all you describe above applies to me. I have no interest in anything at all. All I want to do is sleep. Most of the time I don't want humans anywhere near me including my husband. I've literally had to tell him lovingly from across the room that I love him and how much of a great Dad he's going to be. It's a total aversion to human contact and I'm normally a very touchy feely person.

I don't know if there's some anthropological reason for it, you'll often see pregnant animals who won't let you or any of their own species near them.

Pregnancy is very tough on a woman's body, your OH cannot control her reactions due to the floods and floods of unfamiliar hormones coursing through her body. It doesn't mean that she doesn't love you in the slightest.

Think of it this way, my Mum has a friend that went bananas whilst pregnant and kicked her husband out of the house only to reconcile about a month before the birth. It could be so much worse.

Try to see this from your partner's point of view, she has absolutely no control over her aversions, her body is a vessel solely given over to the child growing inside her. There's only 3 months to go, try to understand.

Good luck

paperclip2

With both my pregnancies I changed personality too and was very much like how you describe your wife. I moved into the spare room, I was distant and disconnected from my OH and family, I would also get completely overemotional and over react to everything no matter how trivial. Looking back I know I must have been absolutely headwrecking for my husband.:(
It was not fun and I dont know why it happened but it did go away when my kiddies arrived. Dont give up on your wife OP. Talk to her about it if you can but know that she might not see things the way you do, I know I didnt see how much I'd changed until well after the births. If it continues much past the baby's arrival I would be worried about PND but until then it may just be a side effect of being pregnant.

Best of luck and congratulations.

~me~

I was like this throughout my pregnancy- dont worry about it! my partner irritated the crap out of me and i felt bad about it and tried to tollerate him but i just couldnt and it wasnt anything to do with him it was my problem and it was only with people close to me- now its all grand! it stopped in the third trimester when i was more comfortable and the sickness got less frequent!

LegacyUser

my girl found out she was pregnant about a month ago...she is now almost 3 months...she is very reculsive also...she says she loves me...but just dosnet feel like being around anyone...before our relationship was great...been together one year...but ever since she started to feel all those hormons kick in ... she started acting like what you described...its hard and its going to be hard for us too...but we have to suck it up...and take the good with bad...everthing will be cool...so hang in there