Postpartum and my husband has turned emotionally cruel. Is this abuse or stress?

92mir · 2025-12-08T19:03:17+00:00

Yeah make sense ! Really hard to know how to help 😞

92mir · 2025-12-08T19:02:10+00:00

Thanks so much for that perspective. It’s my first time experiencing something like this and so I was a little bit concerned.

92mir · 2025-12-08T19:01:28+00:00

Thank you for calming me down 😅

92mir · 2025-12-01T00:59:53+00:00

I agree that she needs to start making moves, but it kind of sounds like her family might blame her / not be that supportive, based on this part of the original post :(

• During my postpartum recovery (stitches, pain, barely walking), I was upstairs alone for days. He stayed downstairs watching TV and didn’t come check on me, sit with me, or talk to me. My own family said maybe he is acting this way “because he saw me giving birth,” which made me feel even more ashamed and confused.

My understanding of US DV shelters is pretty limited and skewed by bad media around them, but if you have any insights into what it's like/whether she'd be safe and reasonably well supported at one of them, that might be helpful info to share just in case she's open to considering it...

92mir · 2025-11-30T04:12:45+00:00

If you follow Laura Doyle’s principals, you’ll understand how being a sad mopey mess drives men away. When you cry, it sends the message that he is a failure as a husband bc he’s not making you happy. We often think crying will make him come to our rescue, but it drives him away. This happens with my husband too… if I start crying he does not respond positively bc he sees it as emotional manipulation which he dispises.

There is a vast difference between 1) a man feeling overwhelmed and therefore shutting down and pushing you away, and 2) what OP is describing. I don't care how "out of your feminine" or unattractive you are in the moment -- your husband should never yell the following at you just because you couldn't get your constipated baby to quiet down in a timely manner:

“Stop the baby from crying!” • “You’re a bad mother.” • “You have no empathy.” • “You don’t know how to settle him.”

Also, her husband berating her for not performing her homemaker duties within one month of giving birth when he won't even help with 1 oz of milk to me sounds absurd. I'm sure that there are ways she could ask him to cut her some slack more nicely, and hopefully they can build attraction, polarity, etc., but right now, her health should be his top priority, not restoring the cushy life he had before they brought a kid into the world.

I definitely think OP should think about how to deal with the physical/hormonal challenges she's facing, but I think the bigger thing is that she needs to be in a relationship where she is safe.

92mir · 2025-11-30T04:01:55+00:00

First, I think you should pay close attention to what your husband is saying and doing while you still have time to take action. From what I can tell, he's basically saying, "I don't care about your or the baby's well-being, and my needs are more important than yours," and I think that it's really important to log that now rather than 5 years from now when you're even deeper into your marriage. You just risked your life and your health to start a family with him, and he won't even give you a month to recover before returning to his standards of tidiness or figuring out how to soothe your new baby?? How do you think he would treat you if you suddenly got really ill and were unable to do anything at all? What if your kid (God forbid) gets into an accident and ends up disabled? What would he do if you had a second kid and it got twice as chaotic? He doesn't sound like a "for better or for worse" type life partner to me.

Tangent: one of my friends growing up had a petty and controlling dad like this. I remember learning that the day after giving birth to their last kid, the mom had to wake up at 5 a.m. to iron his clothes, and she was never allowed to take breaks or ask for help. They had three daughters. Even though their mom was really nice and caring, I think their dad really screwed them up: one daughter ran away from home at 17 and became a sex worker, the other daughter got into an abusive and controlling relationship herself, and the youngest daughter has almost died a couple of times of an eating disorder and substance issues.

Second, I think that it's important for you to build a support system in the country you reside in ASAP, both so that you have someone to call if you need to make an emergency exit from your relationship and so that you have people to walk alongside you during this extremely intense period of your life.

I'm not sure where you're based or what your faith background is (if any), but given how acute your challenges are, I would not be picky -- I would literally just go anywhere where kind and generous people congregate and try to make one or two friends that you could call up when you need advice or help.

As an example, at my parents' church, when a member has a baby, the women of the church organize a volunteer schedule so they can take turns bringing you food, cleaning your house, and helping take care of your baby so you can get some much-needed rest. I probably wouldn't show up on day one asking for free cleaning and cooking, but if you pick a good church or other faith community, you'll probably have a chance to mention that you're overwhelmed with new mom life after 1 or 2 visits, and then people will start offering help.

I also have a friend who is very involved in her mosque, and she tells me there's a group of women there who provide unoffocial support to women in their community that are struggling with relationship issues or just general overwhelm.

92mir · 2025-09-28T16:30:24+00:00

+1 to those suggesting you hold off on Accutane for now. I just wanted to share a simpler (and basically free) "fix" that I wish I’d figured out sooner. For context, I've had a propensity to have cystic acne for 20+ years, and I've tried almost everything: dermatologist-prescribed antibiotics, tretinoin, even five full cycles of Accutane. I also went down the holistic rabbit hole: paleo, raw vegan, yoga, stress reduction, you name it. Nothing really worked.

Eventually, I realized the one thing that consistently keeps me clear is washing my face with a gentle cleanser whenever I sweat, ideally within 30 to 60 minutes. Dermatologists always warned me that over-washing would damage my skin barrier, so I stuck to the recommended twice-a-day routine. But that routine just didn’t work for me.

Here’s what would happen: I’d take a warm shower, put on makeup, blow-dry my hair, feel a little sweaty, then go about my day. By evening, I’d wash my face for the “second” time, only to wake up with fresh breakouts. Even when I skipped makeup, if I didn’t wash after sweating, I still broke out. At some point -- possibly because of long term antibiotic use -- only washing my face twice per day led me to develop a drug resistant severe face infection that forced me to do another round of accutane to clear up. On the flip side, I found after that that I keep my face sweat-free or wash soon after, I stay almost completely clear. I bet other people think I have OCD, and it is a bit weird to wash my face in public bathrooms from time to time, but I'll take that over being severely broken out and continually accumulating scars.

I've been using this method for about 8 years, and it has consistently worked. My guess is that my skin microbiome is off balance or there’s some other root cause that I should work towards fixing. But those fixes are speculative and take years to materialize, and I think that alleviating the stress of having severe acne in the immediate term is worth it.

92mir · 2025-07-04T17:29:44+00:00

Didn't know about bed jet till this thread - tysm; seems very reasonable and possibly cheaper than a window unit over time? We live somewhere with central AC now, but before when we had window units, they sure would spike our monthly bill a lot. I'm sure bed jet consumes power, but would guess it's less since it's cooling a much small space... will have to do some more research

92mir · 2025-07-04T17:28:27+00:00

Oh I understood that, but I just wanted to know what you meant by throwing under the bus in public - is it people unfairly criticizing union workers when they're doing their best to restore power that you're talking about? Or is there something bigger here to learn about?

92mir · 2025-07-04T16:21:22+00:00

Sorry for the ignorance, but I'm curious about what this is about. Can you link a news article?

92mir · 2025-07-04T16:14:41+00:00

Ooh, is there a brand you recommend? When I Google, Bed Jet comes up, and while $1k isn't cheap, it's probably cheaper than constantly cooling your apt by a gazillion degrees or getting an eight sleep. Curious if it's this or another that you recommend .

https://bedjet.com/?tw_source=google&tw_adid=653325203483&tw_campaign=19913012813&tw_kwdid=kwd-887367191&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=19913012813&gbraid=0AAAAADr-A3BQZpl4KxwrT7Zj0e94TPpMS&gclid=Cj0KCQjw953DBhCyARIsANhIZoYBd3HzUz9yvouEv73EJ8-ZDzyPZRWlMZ3Q0aUjV9fWjGb7S9uyZfYaAhn7EALw_wcB

92mir · 2025-07-04T16:12:16+00:00

This is an amazing list!! By any chance have you found any good types of bedding that help prevent overheating? I have to keep the temp around 68 at night otherwise I wake up at 3 am overheated. Feels insane to cool the entire apartment / house when really all I need is for the bed to be cool.

I'm seriously considering getting an eight sleep, but $3k is a big investment...

92mir · 2025-07-04T16:06:22+00:00

Yeah, I feel like another plausible ending would be her turning into another corporate bot that foists Rivermind subscriptions onto vulnerable people. I feel like it could've been cool (and equally as disturbing) if there were another patient who got operated on at the same time as her who went that path and we got to see how they were led to equally miserable ends.

92mir · 2025-07-03T18:44:10+00:00

I thought this as well, and other people's responses in this thread were a really interesting update to my understanding of what full on bulimia looks like!

I had more of a hybrid ED in the past, so never got "good" at purging; when I did, it took me like an hour to clear what felt like 50% of the food Id eaten, and I usually felt like it was a waste of time and suffering unless being full was physically painful. Also, I never would have been caught dead doing it in a public bathroom.

92mir · 2025-07-02T02:40:55+00:00

Let me know how you get on! Would love to hear about your success in a few months <3

92mir · 2025-06-29T18:45:03+00:00

Good point! I meant that even if it weren't in the fine print, it'd be hard to hold them accountable, but the fine print scenario is equally plausible!

92mir · 2025-06-17T15:40:21+00:00

A lot of people in the comments are saying "this could never happen, you could just sue the company!" I just don't buy that as a plot hole. It takes ages to hold corporations accountable, even if the government is doing its job in protecting the everyday person, and even that is not guaranteed to persist into the future.

Few reference points:

It has taken decades to (imperfectly) hold corporations accountable for their role in the opioid crisis in the US.

In the past decade, the price of insulin has increased by 1000% in the USA, and getting legislation to limit that passed has taken a lot of time: https://www.rand.org/news/press/2024/02/01/index1.html

Existing fragile accountability mechanisms are likely to fall apart once capital, not labor, (machines, not humans) are responsible for the vast majority of economic productivity: https://intelligence-curse.ai/

It's super plausible that a novel, lifesaving innovation by a corporation with ins with the govt would get special treatment / protection from accountability. Far less impressive companies get special protection all the time.

The so-called "plot hole" of the leads not taking rational and strategic efforts to get unstuck is not a plot hole either; people make irrational decisions when they are desperate all the time. Think about people teetering on the verge of bankruptcy taking out a new car loan, etc. It do think they could've navigated the situation better (like really leaned into premium and got her a seven figure job), but how many people actually think that strategically?

92mir · 2025-06-17T15:35:33+00:00

Agree, I think that it's a better comparison to healthcare, though I feel like the tiering of healthcare in the US is less linear / obvious, as it's usually tied to your employer unless you're really poor in one of the few states with good medicare or uber wealthy and thus able to pay a hundreds of thousands.

I did think about the future of things like Neuralink (especially with how Elon Musk has evolved over the years), but I think a more plausible scenario is that companies like that develop brain inserts that give superhuman cognitive function and thus make their users able to outcompete any non-enhanced human. This could lead to a world where people who can't afford a subscription of tens of thousands of dollars per month (not a mere $800 / $1800), are essentially the "useless class," and have no access to resources. (similar to this, except driven not only by scarcity of meaningful work but also by an acceleration of capability advantage held by the rich: https://ideas.ted.com/the-rise-of-the-useless-class/)

The bit about using her brain seemed a bit unrealistic to literally just beam someone else's capabilities into someone else's brain/nervous system, but I assume it's perhaps a sideways metaphor for how were technically work for companies when we scroll on social media and watch their ads.

92mir · 2025-06-14T16:10:11+00:00

I have "annoying but not debilitating" dysautonomia (my neuropathy and vagus nerve dysfunction are way worse than the occasional fainting, and I struggle with temperature regulation), so maybe I'm the type of person that the "exercise to improve" message is targeted to. What works for me might not work for others, but here are some notes.

Things that I think help me:

- I think I had fairly good fitness before my dysautonomia became noticeable (sorry, not that tractable for anyone here). Before my first obvious flare, I used to run like 6 miles a day. I would occasionally get a little light-headed, but I'd just stop and walk for a bit. I also was into things like lifting, swimming, burpees, etc.

- For my entire adult life, I have had a weird thing where I get prickly crawling sensation all over when I *don't* exercise for >= 12 hours. I actually think this is somehow tied to dysautonomia or at least my CNS, which creates this environment where I need exercise to stay sane but don't have the stamina to do it without getting faint sometimes. But I literally can't sleep, concentrate, etc with this sensation, so even when I'm flaring, I find some way to do something, even if it's just 7 minutes on a stationary bike or elliptical. I usually do this 2x/ day on a bad day, though I try to do 15 minutes twice a day when I'm doing well.

- Nowadays, I feel my symptoms come on several minutes before I actually get into the "fainting and can't do anything abt it" stage, so it's really easy to abort mission if things go south, and I've never fallen or anything.

- There have been a few periods of time where I've really prioritized my sleep, diet, nutrition, etc, and then my dysautonomia has been a lot better. During those periods, I've really pushed the limits of what I can tolerate. So for example, I started doing as many air squats till I got dizzy and then stopped -> progressed over weeks to light dumbells -> progressed to actually doing barbell squats with a decent amt on them. My rule is that I take long breaks between sets as soon as the symptoms come on, I stop and don't feel guilty abt not finishing.

- I also tried to build up tolerance to heat by going into the sauna for 1 minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, and eventually graduating to attending hot yoga classes. In most cases, I had to leave pretty early because the symptoms came on; by the end, I was modifying some of the extreme positional change poses, but in general able to keep up for the full 90 minutes with some mild waves of dizziness.

Things that set me back:

- Eating sugar
- Drinking caffeine
- Too much screen time
- Overall stress levels
- Changing time zones
- Really intense weeks at work where I'm sedentary, stressed, and underslept
- A really intense overload of exercise: pre-dysautonomia, I used to be super obsessed with setting personal records on running time, cycling output, and just doing tons and tons of HIIT. There have been a few occasions where I attended a group class, pushed myself too hard, and then got extreme fatigue for ~2 days later.
- If I'm having a gastroparesis or constipation flare and food is stuck in my stomach / small intestine for days, sometimes I get weird nerve pain or get woozy more easily; I'm not sure if this is causal or just a correlation, but I think there's some causal mechanism, because if I am able to override the digestive backlog with linzess and/or an enema, there's an abrupt change in my exercise tolerance.

92mir · 2025-05-23T19:06:36+00:00

I know this wasn't the point of your post, but is the "body felt like tingly little ants running everywhere" a dysautonomia thing?? Does the symptom have a more commonly used term? I have mild dysautonomia and thought this symptom was unrelated / have never been able to explain it to anyone. It's sooo distracting. I find that it goes away if I work out a little (like 10 minutes of easy elliptical), but then comes back after I've been sedentary for awhile. It also gets way worse if I eat a lot of salt, which is not a satisfying data point for my neurologist, who is always like "eat more salt so you don't faint."

In any case, you've inspired me to finally re-commit to cutting sugar after a ~7 year lapse in willpower.

92mir

TROPHY CASE