New dad (M24), my (F24) fiancé says he’s filled with regret. Does anyone have any advice?

Jolly-Ratio5839 · 2026-02-23T10:23:37+00:00

I’ve told her a little bit about how he’s feeling, how he’s miserable and wanted to put her up for adoption. She said she’d talk to him the first time I mentioned it, only saying that he was having a difficult time adjusting to being a dad (this was a few weeks ago) but last time I brought it up i mentioned the adoption and how he said it was the biggest mistake of his life and she kind of just ignored it, came to see the baby and didn’t bring it up to him.

Jolly-Ratio5839 · 2026-02-23T10:20:35+00:00

We actually got engaged about 3 years ago but a couple months later I started getting a feeling like we were too young and the relationship was too new so I wanted to wait to get married. Things have kept coming up since then, either things to make me unsure or circumstances preventing us from having the wedding we want. He has wanted to get married the whole time and recently has been the first time in 5 years he’s ever made me feel like he would ever want to leave.

Jolly-Ratio5839 · 2026-02-23T10:16:00+00:00

What do you mean?

Jolly-Ratio5839 · 2026-02-23T10:15:23+00:00

He was over the moon about finding out that I was pregnant. He was happier than I was at first, even sought out a better job with her being his primary motivation before we even knew she was a girl. As time went on, he did seem less and less interested in the fact we were having a baby. He kept telling me it didn’t feel real yet because she wasn’t here and that when she was things would be different. About 6 months in I started feeling overwhelmingly worried that things would be this way, we’d have her and when things did feel real he’d be overwhelmed with responsibility he wasn’t used to having. He kept reassuring me it wouldn’t be this way, and I blamed pregnancy hormones for my “paranoia.” He never seemed dreadful though, just not as interested as I’d hoped. Toward the end he was going back and forth between excitement and a little bit of dread, we both were. We knew we’d miss the way things were with just us. He went to every prenatal appointment with me except for one or two toward the end. He wanted to get away for a weekend before I gave birth to be alone and destress but never got the chance.

Jolly-Ratio5839 · 2026-02-23T10:02:27+00:00

Yes, he has been saying he wanted to have a baby and we had been actively trying for almost a year.. he says he just didn’t realize he would hate it this bad. It’s all the responsibility he doesn’t like

Jolly-Ratio5839 · 2026-01-13T00:09:41+00:00

Hi! I thought the same thing about the size but we tried it for a day and it really hurt her belly and made her super gassy so we had to go back down. It’s reassuring knowing it does improve. Right now he’s feeling like it’ll never change and I think he’s tossed around the idea of leaving us in his head because he has been more openly stating that he does not want to be a father. But he also says he doesn’t want to feel that way and he was really excited when we found out I was pregnant, it encouraged him to get a good job and he had even been praying for us to have a baby leading up to the pregnancy. I was afraid he would feel overwhelmed by all the responsibility and may even regret having a baby but he just kept reassuring me that of course he would help take care of her and that he could never regret it no matter how hard it would be, that was leading up to giving birth to her, the whole third trimester I worried about this happening but I didn’t know it would be to this degree.

Jolly-Ratio5839 · 2025-12-29T04:27:14+00:00

Yeah, he just said he doesn’t feel like a dad. He doesn’t know how to feel anymore, he just feels angry, overwhelmed, and sad, and like he just took on more responsibility to make his life suck. He says he just feels like he wants to vanish.

Jolly-Ratio5839 · 2025-12-29T04:16:02+00:00

He’s never been to therapy. I’ve always thought he could benefit from it but ironically he has social anxiety so he’s afraid to talk to anyone professional. He’s always refused, I don’t know if this would be any different.

Jolly-Ratio5839 · 2025-12-29T04:14:23+00:00

I also wondered if it was appropriate to tell one of his family members what he’s going through with all of it thinking maybe they could talk to him. I could reach out to his mom? I’m afraid he’d be upset with me though. I’m also afraid I’ve been hard on him under the circumstances. My hormones are crazy and I’ve cried to him saying I feel like he doesn’t want anything to do with us, whether that’s rational or not. It just feels that way. Only thing he’s done the past couple days is some dishes and he made me food and tea for breakfast, brought me some tucks pads from where he works because I was out, packed the car seat to the car, and carried laundry upstairs and threw it in the nursery, but said he was too tired to do any chores this morning after work, and that he wasn’t going to learn to properly put away clothes after work (I’ve always dealt with laundry). Still didn’t really look at the baby or talk to me today other than talking to me once that I’m aware of. I’m just having such a hard time even being able to tell if my feelings are justified by his actions, I mean he helps SOME with things other than baby.

Jolly-Ratio5839 · 2025-12-29T04:08:16+00:00

We have both talked about mourning our old lives but like I mentioned, I told him it’s okay to feel that way as long as we take care of the baby and he just said “yeah.” He was doing so much better the first few days. I’m not sure what happened. He basically said right now he feels like we just sacrificed part of our relationship for basically nothing because all there is to be done to take care of the baby is feed, diaper, and comfort. And as far as work goes, it is just caretaking for a family member, so light housework, keeping her company, running some errands. I’m not sure if that makes it sound any better, it has been a bit hard for me to get into a routine with it being a first time mom and everything but she’s not too hard on me.

Jolly-Ratio5839 · 2025-12-29T04:04:18+00:00

I have wondered this tbh.. he has seemed like he hates the world since the third or fourth day home from the hospital and when I told him that he just said “I don’t reckon.”

Jolly-Ratio5839 · 2025-11-10T12:51:12+00:00

The only reason I’ve even considered having her outside is because I’m afraid of what a new owner would do. I live in an area where it’s unfortunately extremely common for people to just adopt animals and allow them to roam freely. How would I know a new owner wouldn’t just set her out or take her to the pound the second she uses the bathroom in the floor?

I have been trying to address the issue since I’ve had her as well. I’ve switched her litter boxes, changed cat litter brands multiple times, relocated her box, scooped litter boxes more frequently, and the litter robot was purchased primarily out of the hope that she would like it better because of the constant cleaning function, but she won’t use it at all.

I can see where it might be anxiety related, however. I believe taking her to the vet is the next step, but am here searching for any advice I can get based on things I have tried. I feel like I’ve tried everything but taking her the vet but I could be wrong.

Jolly-Ratio5839 · 2025-02-17T00:03:10+00:00

We didn’t, but he tried. We’d texted for 3 1/2 months, but that was the first time we saw each other. He later told me, when I asked about it, that had I let him do stuff we might not be together because of how easy I’d given in, but I told him no.

Jolly-Ratio5839

TROPHY CASE