A nurse friend of mine and my W, who was on Mat Leave the same time as my wife, believes that there was some postpartum depression that wasn't addressed. Basically, my wife sheltered herself during Mat Leave rarely taking our son out for walks or to meet other mom groups. Probably spent 95% of her time indoors, sleeping when he slept, and doing nothing else around the house. Most of the time was SPring/Summer too so it was nice out. She has since said that she's felt caged for 2 years.
Also, with her dad's lung cancer, now spread to the brain, our nurse friend thinks she could still be suffering from postpartum or now she's just depressed.
My W still refuses to get help, but our friend suggested I talk to our family doctor about postpartum and she might be able to schedule a visit with Chantel for something else, and then ask some targeted questions about her time with our son.
Any thoughts on how this may or may not change how I deal with this?
Yes. Do nothing. The last thing you want to do right now is tell her you think she has mental issues and needs help. She fired you as H and you are the last person in the world she will take advice from right now. She'll just see it as you refusing to own your issues and instead heaping them all on her "mental problems". Don't do it, it will not go over well.
The only exception to this is if you feel she is in imminent harm to herself, as in she is suicidal and might act on it. In that case you would want to call a suicide hotline and ask advice. But don't try to intervene with her directly, if she's suicidal then you will need to work through doctors and/ or her family to get help for her. To be clear it will NOT help your situation and will probably make it worse because she will blame you for "meddling". So it's really a last resort only to be exercised if you think there is danger.
Sounds good - seems to be the core advice...do nothing and work on yourself. She's definitely not in danger of harming herself so I will let her be.
Everyone on this board is great, thank you for responding!
H 37 W 31 S 2
T: 7 M: 4
BD 12/18 Separated 2/19 Living back together 04/06/2019 W Moved out again 07/15/2019
