Source: Reddit
So I (32M) and my wife (33F) have a beautiful 2 month old daughter.
Background:
My wife has always struggled with anxiety, and having a baby during a pandemic really made this worse. Her last trimester, labor and delivery were absolutely horrible for a variety of reasons.
We recently realized that she was suffering from postpartum depression, and she has been getting help, including 10 days of impatient therapy, after she told me that the baby and I would be “better off” if she killed herself. Right now, she says that she is “not safe” to be unsupervised around our daughter.
I can’t really vocalize how horrible this has been for all of us- I’m helpless to do anything to help my best friend, the love of my life, and she just sits and cries about how much she loves us both, and she wants to get better. As bad as it is for me, I imagine it’s 10000% times worse for my wife.
Last week her sister has moved in with us to help with our daughter, with taking my wife to her appointments etc. With this help, we’ve been able to come to a schedule, I’ve gotten more than 90 minutes of sleep at a time, we’ve start to dig out from under the weight of everything we have left undone, and my wife is starting to show improvement. We owe my SIL a debt that can never be repaid- she is an angel in human form, and if I could do anything, ever, for her I would. It’s quite possible that she’s saved my wife’s life.
So the problem:
My mother. We don’t have a great relationship, but she was very excited about the baby and was willing to help out, but she is very old school about mental health care. She thinks therapy is for “crazy” people, that autism and ADHD are made up, that drugs are overprescribed, etc etc.
I didn’t tell her what we’re going through, and I certainly did not ask for her help, but she found out, probability through my BIL, who knew some of this.
She found out that my SIL had moved in and was really angry that we didn’t ask her, but we smoothed that over by saying that SIL lost her job, etc. It’s a lie, but I don’t care. Well, yesterday she found out that my wife has been impatient, and lost her mind. She sent my wife the nastiest, meanest text message I have ever seen, has been blowing up my phone, has been screaming at my MIL and FIL, and has demanded that I bring my daughter to her house and leave “that crazy b***h”.
I’ve blocked her on my wife’s phone, my in-laws have blocked her, and I’ve told her that I won’t respond to her ever.
Have I done the right thing for now.
