"My wife is so over protective over our children that it’s crumbling our marriage."

My wife (Let’s call her Laura) and I have been together for fourteen years and married for nine. We were together since high school and had our firsts everything. By some luck, we managed to get through the odds of high school lovers breaking up and managed to get married at twenty. I enrolled in university while she worked part-time to support our expenses.

We were grateful as my parents had paid for my college and her parents helped us rent out an apartment so we didn't have too much debt or any other financial obligations. We had a small wedding in between when I was in Uni with just immediate family. Within a few months after our wedding we realized that she was pregnant. Needless to say, we weren’t thrilled.

Our initial plan was for me to finish university and get a job so that she could go back to studying and get her degree before we plan a family. Before everyone yells at me, no we weren’t being careless. We used protection. She was on birth control and I used condoms every now and then too for the sake of additional safety.

Our baby girl was a force to reckon with and no birth control was stopping her from coming into the world and kicking our asses. Laura wasn’t so overjoyed during the initial months of her pregnancy. I did mention terminating the pregnancy if she wanted to and told her I would be fully supportive either way. She instantly shut me down saying that wasn’t an option (she comes from a pretty religious family.)

We didn’t even sleep together until two years into the relationship. We were only allowed to move in together because I popped the question and made her my fiance.) Around the fourth month, we found out the gender and I saw my wife slowly warming up to the idea of having an actual human being inside her and at almost 18 weeks, she felt the first movement of the baby inside her stomach.

Now that I think of it, it was an instant change. Though I didn’t realise it then, looking back it was all right there from her very first pregnancy. Before we got the pregnancy news, she had applied for an accounting course and had gotten an admission (I had found a job by then). She had even started her classes and continued attending them though she was pregnant.

I first noticed her reluctance around week 30 when she continuously took a few sick leaves even though she wasn’t sick. I confronted her about it and she broke down saying she didn’t want to attend Uni while pregnant because her stomach was getting big and everyone was noticing that she was actually pregnant.

At first, I thought she was embarrassed to be pregnant in front of her classmates at a relatively young age. But upon further talking to her, I realized that she wasn’t embarrassed. Rather, she was afraid someone would try to hurt her. She was terrified of falling down the stairs or slipping or eating something she wasn’t supposed to or drinking alcohol accidentally etc.

I was confused and like any other person thought her fears were way too irrational. Why would anyone try to purposefully hurt a pregnant woman? I asked her if she felt like she was being threatened by someone and she simply shook her head no.

She begged me to let her drop out just until the baby was old enough to go to daycare or be placed with a babysitter. She promised me she’d continue with her studies after. Fast forward a couple more months and she gives birth to our beautiful baby girl. I was so instantly in love with her and so was my wife.

During the remaining months of her pregnancy, my wife rarely went out and that too only for appointments at the doctor. I called her mother and asked her to be with my wife for some time so that she wouldn’t be alone all day. My wife wasn’t a big fan of that idea either but she liked the idea of not having to do rough jobs around the house since her mother would help her out. After delivery was the worst.

My wife didn’t let anyone help her out with the baby. Since my wife and I are the oldest in our families, our little girl is the first grandchild on both sides. Everyone was so excited to meet her but my wife was so on the fence and overwhelmed with anyone holding our daughter that it started annoying everyone. Soon everyone started talking behind her back.

I tried my best to defend her and asked all our relatives to give us space since she was a new mom and needed her space. Laura didn’t let anyone help her out with our daughter. She barely let me take care of my own child. She was overworked and running on no sleep but would still let no one help her out with our baby, not even me. Once, she fell asleep for almost six hours after not getting any sleep for days.

I didn’t wake her up because I wanted her to get some decent sleep and took care of our baby by myself. I fed her the bottle of milk Laura had pumped and changed her diapers etc. When Laura woke up all hell broke loose and she started having a mental breakdown calling me a terrible person for basically letting her sleep and she called herself a horrible mother for not being awake to care for our child.

At this point, even I was overwhelmed and frustrated. I put our daughter to bed and shut the door before sitting her down and having a long talk/argument with her. She started crying explaining she was scared something would happen to our child if she wasn’t there to take care of her.

She had read about conditions where babies have passed away suddenly or while being entrusted to someone else who is not the mother. I didn’t understand if this was normal or not. At that time, I wrote it off as a mother being concerned about her baby. I have heard about new mothers having their hormones all over the place.

I told her I understood she didn’t want another person near our child but that she had no right to keep me away. I explained that we are a team and we would be raising our baby together not just her alone. Since that day, she loosened the knot just a little with me to give me enough gap to take care of our baby to give her time to get some good sleep.

As our daughter grew older, I tried to convince her to go back to college and that we could send our daughter to daycare or ask one of the grandparents to babysit while she was at Uni. She quickly shut down the idea saying that our daughter was a toddler and now was a very important time for her since she will start retaining memories.

She said there’s no way she’ll let her daughter get attached to someone else as it was her responsibility to raise the baby and not anyone else’s. I tried my best to convince her that her education was important.

I told her that if someday God forbid something happened to me, she will need a degree to get some decent job so she can take care of our child and herself or that she will be struggling to make ends meet. This seemed to get through her and she finally agreed to study but that too was only an online course that she could study at home. She just had to write an exam at a test centre as per requirement.

When our daughter turned three, we found out that my wife was pregnant again. We were still on protection so I was confused as to how this happened. I asked her about it and she admitted to sometimes forgetting about taking her pills on time.

I wanted to get mad at her but it felt wrong to put all the blame on her because the burden of contraception didn’t have to fall all on her and I wasn’t being very careful either. Since I had a stable and comfortable paying job, money wasn’t a big issue. Since our parents had helped us out in the beginning, we were able to save up a bit over the years without any huge student loans.

It was the same thing all over again with baby number 2. She wouldn’t leave the house much. The only people she really let be around her were me and her mother. Sometimes her sister too. She rarely left the house except for anything our child needed or for appointments etc or if she had any exams she needed to take.

I tried talking to her about it again but she was never interested in addressing the issue of being so possessive. The baby was born and there she was all over again, never letting anyone other than me or extremely rarely even her mom around her and the kids.

I remember seeing dark circles under her eyes and telling her there was no need for her to take on so much of the load by herself. That she could let me take at least a quarter of it when I’m home. She kept saying she didn’t like the way anyone else handled things etc. Even our intimate life took a big hit after our second baby because my wife was exhausted and drooping by the time she returned to bed.

Sometimes she’d even get the kids to sleep in between us because she “felt horrible” making them sleep alone in another room. She stopped that once she saw an article about a baby dying because of co-sleeping after which she gave me a huge lecture to make sure that I would never do that. I literally had no intention anyway.

I was desperate by this point but as time went by, I learned to give in and just let her handle the children the way she wanted. Whatever she was doing, it was all anyway for the safety of our children so I guessed it couldn’t be too bad. Our kids grew up and I made sure to use protection always while having sex after that much to her dismay. But at that point, I didn’t care.

Laura had calmed down a little since the kids got older and I in no way wanted it to go back to how it was with a new baby. Laura was still very involved and overly cautious of our children. She found work close to our house once our youngest was old enough for preschool. She would drop them both off at school before heading to work and pick them both up before returning.

We have school buses on our route but whenever I mention it she brings up the statistics of school bus accidents and bullying saying it’s not a good idea. Our oldest has a best friend and had asked us to let her sleepover at her friend's house and my wife almost blew up at the request.

My daughter cried all night and I had to cuddle her to sleep to comfort her and promise her loads of books (she loves reading) to get her to stop crying. I had to convince her best friend's parents to let the sleepover be at our house instead. Our youngest is five now and my wife is pregnant again with our third child.

She convinced me one night (I will not go into too much detail about how she seduced me but if you are a man reading this, you’ll know how tempting it is when they whisper in your ears and tell you to finish inside). Since my wife had calmed down relatively from before, I thought maybe as we got older, she’s gotten a bit easier on herself and the children.

Now all of this was just important background. What actually happened was something that occurred a week ago. While playing a sport in school last week, a random small boy in my daughter's class accidentally kicked a ball in our daughter's direction and hit her head. The teachers quickly took her to the hospital and she had to get stitches.

Safe to say, my wife went ballistic. She got hysterical and started crying. Our daughter is okay and the stitches will heal in no time but my wife is not taking it well. When the boy’s parents visited us to formally apologise with their son (an eight-year-old boy who looked terrified off his wits), my wife went crazy angry at the parents.

She started threatening to sue them for damages and get restraining orders. I have no idea where all that idea came from. The parents were shocked. I quickly apologized to them and sent them on their way. My wife kept rambling about suing them. She then talked about pulling the kids off school so she could home-school them.

According to her, that is the safest choice plus with all the school shootings she’s been hearing around the country. She kept going on and on about how school was unnecessary and dangerous. After that, I did something I’m not proud of. I yelled at her. I was so mad and frustrated and annoyed. Years of pent-up frustration just poured out of me.

I think for a moment I forgot she was even pregnant with my baby. She looked at me with teary eyes before getting up and walking away. It’s been almost a week now and neither of us has taken the effort to apologize or speak to each other. The only communication we have is regarding the children. I am absolutely adamant about not pulling the kids out of school.

They deserve to have a normal school life with friends and a typical growing-up experience. I’m not about to take that away from them because my wife gets crazy protective over them. I don’t know how to handle this. Other than this one issue, our life is great. She’s honestly the best woman I could have met. I know she loves me and I love her too.

The funniest part is before the kids, my wife was an extremely shy person. She hated confrontation and would run away from arguments. She had a tough time making friends because of how shy she was. But it all changed once she became a mom.

I must say in the beginning, it was beautiful for me as the father of our children and her husband to see how a shy and timid woman could go fierce and loud when it affected her baby. But the love/obsession she has over our kids now is getting too much to me and now to even our kids.

It’s already starting to suffocate my daughter. It’s putting a dent in our relationship because she always wants to have the final say when it comes to decisions regarding the kids. I want to have an equal say in the matters of our kids without being made to look out like a villain for having a different opinion than her. We have another one on the way and at this point, I’m scared.

I’ve already booked an appointment with the doctor to get a vasectomy. I’m done with our third one. I’m already dreading how she’s going to be with the new little boy born. I’m already looking into therapy but it’s going to be a bit hard to convince her. Is there anything else I can do to get her relaxed over the children? I hate watching our relationship crumble like this.

What do you think is going on here? And what should he do? This is what top commenters had to say:

[deleted] said:

It sounds like your wife had a RAGING case of post partum anxiety after the first that was never addressed. If these things aren't addressed and handled then they spiral. She's spiraling. She needs probably meds and definitely therapy.

Present-Breakfast768 said:

I can't believe you guys keep getting pregnant. Your wife is mentally ill and has been since her first pregnancy. She should have gotten help then ffs. You need to get her to her doctor and probably a psychologist ASAP before she totally ruins all of your children's lives or does something drastic. This kind of thing compounds and she's been getting worse for years while you just cower and hope for the best.

Exotic-Guitar4370 said:

Therapy should be a non negotiable. The behavior your wife is exhibited, although probably routed in best intentions, is extraordinarily toxic to the development of a child. The children will undoubtably be influenced by the extreme anxiety your wife is displaying which might significantly hinder their quality of life as they grow older.

She needs help, professional help, and if you explain it to her in terms of how her behavior may seriously damage your children in the long run she may take that as sufficient motivation.

A month later, he shared his UPDATE (TW: miscarriage, death of a child):

Just a warning, somethings mentioned towards the latter of this post may be disturbing to some people. Okay, so to the update. To say things happened is an understatement.

My wife found the post on my phone two days after I had posted it on the site. She saw my notification go off one night when she was up because our youngest had a slight fever. I think at first she assumed I was having an affair or something and so she went through my phone quickly while I was asleep (It’s not a deal breaker for either of us.

We have each others passwords and are free to go through the others phones whenever we want). It’s just that I was way too stupid and forgot to turn the notification off on Reddit. My wife went through the whole post and comments that night. I woke up early morning the next day and couldn’t find my wife in bed. I assumed she’d be with my son since he was a bit sick.

I checked his room and he was alright but my wife wasn’t there. I searched around the house and then found her sitting in the living room in complete darkness. I turned the lights on and she looked like a living ghost. Her face was tear stained and she didn’t look like she was aware of where she was. I rushed to her scared if something happened.

That’s when I found my phone with her and my heart dropped instantly. I tried getting her to talk but she just wasn’t budging at all. After trying to get her to speak for so long, she finally just looked me in the eye and asked, “I am dangerous to them?” Her voice broke and it hurt to hear her like that. I didn’t know what to tell her. It was like she was hyperventilating, and it was terrifying to see her like that.

She told me to leave her alone and continued just staring into nothing for a long time without responding to me. The kids woke up since they had school and went to find my wife like they usually do every morning. The moment my wife saw the kids trying to get to her, it was like she was seeing a ghost.

She looked terrified and she got up from the sofa and quickly walked away to our room and shut herself inside it. The children were confused and scared, so I told them I’ll drop them off at their grandparents today and that I’d let them skip school. They were excited and quickly went off to get ready. My daughter came up to me after a while and asked me about what’s happening with her mother.

She’s intuitive, that little one. I explained that her mother was just a little sick and needed sometime to get rest and get well. She told me to “hug mummy when she feels like crying cuz that helps.” I hadn’t really realized my daughter has seen my wife anxiety attacks and it hurt my heart to know that I was oblivious to it. I dropped the kids off at the grandparents before heading back home.

I had already booked a session with the therapist for that week after reading all the feedbacks. I got back home and my wife refused to talk to me or eat or move or literally even do anything. I was a bit scared that she might try to hurt herself. But then, she never does anything that could possibly harm herself when she’s pregnant. I’ve noticed that.

She asked me about where the kids were and I could visibly see her displeasure that she was trying to hide when I told her I dropped them off at her parents house. But I guess the comments were still fresh in her mind and so she fought trying to fight me on that. Things were difficult for almost a week. I extended the kids stay at the grandparents and asked her mum to help out explaining the situation.

They were super supportive and they even dropped the kids off at school everyday too. I explained to my wife that I had booked a session for therapy and that I was taking her there no matter what she said. This was the only one thing she didn’t fight me on that whole week. To be honest, it was so difficult to find her crying herself to sleep every night.

She had random outbursts of panic attacks and I sometimes found her talking to herself when I got back from work. She started going to therapy and for the first few sessions, it didn’t look like there was any difference. She just kept silent. She was on maternity leave so work wasn’t an issue.

I took her to her parents house every alternative day because I could feel her suffocating without seeing the kids and I knew she was too conflicted with her emotions to ask me to take her to see them. We visited with breakfast but my wife avoided them like a plague only seeing them from a distance.

Our son tried his best to wiggle his way into her arms cause he missed her and this was the longest he’s gone since he was born without her. But my wife started having panic attacks when he tried to do so which in-turn hurt him. That week was terrible. I spend extra time with our children when she was at home to ensure they know that we love them and that she loved them so much.

I told them mummy needs help and that she’s sick and that I’m doing everything to make sure she’ll be okay. After about two weeks, I got the kids back home. My wife had gone to more that five sessions by then and while it wasn’t all sparkles and butterflies, she started talking to the children again, though she continued to maintain her distance always. I was now the primary caretaker.

She would always be there to tell me what to do because well she knows everything about them better than I do. She was talking again to me and her mother. It was a bit better. Around a week ago, after one of her sessions, she came back home and told me that she needed to talk to me. I put the kids to bed and we locked ourselves in our room to speak.

My wife explained how she always wanted to tell this to me but she never got around to it and that the therapy sessions with the doctor had finally made her realize that it wasn’t fair of her to not explain something like this to me.

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I had suspicions that something happened in her first pregnancy that completely altered her attitude towards everything. And I was right. Around her twenty fourth week, nine years back, my wife met someone. It’s crazy how one incident changed the rest of our lives. My wife was still enrolled in Uni and she had quit her part time job at a diner following the pregnancy.

But my wife still frequented the diner to do her homework’s and assignments etc when she doesn’t have classes since it’s only walking distance. On a day like that, my wife was in the diner and had to use the washroom.

She headed to the women’s washroom and after getting inside, she heard noises from someone. My wife went closer to the stall where the woman was and asked if she needed help. The woman was hesitant but after sometime opened the door to take the offered help.

Turns out, the woman was miscarrying. She was a middle aged woman and was around seventeen weeks pregnant. It was a huge shock to my wife then but she didn’t hesitate to try and help. Somehow, she managed to bring the woman to the hospital where the doctors took care of her. My wife stayed with the woman the whole day.

The woman had lost her consciousness around half way but once she was conscious again, my wife sat by her side to offer moral support. It’s during this time, the woman told my wife about her story. She explained how her boyfriend is abusive. He had hit her prior that day and it had triggered the miscarriage. And it wasn't the first time she lost a child.

Apparently around a year ago from then, she had entrusted her seven and four year old girls with her boyfriend when she went to work. But he threw a party and instead of keeping an eye on them, he was too occupied. The four year old was playing outside and ran into the road. A car hit the child and she died on spot.

As a father, it boiled my blood to hear just how another man could be so careless about his child. I don’t understand how she stayed with that man for a year more after. What a pathetic excuse of a human being. That woman told my wife that no one would care for a child as well as their mother would.

She told her to never trust anyone else with her children because no one puts enough effort to ensure the safety of her child as much as she could. My wife has never met her again after that day, but that one incident altered her brain chemistry so much that she started viewing everything and everyone as a threat to our children.

It all made sense why she was so carefully even just walking when she was pregnant. I mean I can’t imagine what it must have been like to see a lifeless fetus in your hands. There’s no wonder why she would avoid every possibility that might lead to it. Also made sense why she never could trust anyone else with the kids.

She probably trusted me with them too only because she loves me and knew deep down that I couldn’t hurt her or the kids. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to be in your second trimester and have to deliver a miscarried baby. My heart hurts for her every time I think of it.

It feels maddening that one day changed our lives so much. My wife told me that she loved our children so much and that she’s living for them but she also explained that she’s willing to understand that they are separate human beings who need to grow on their own without her. She doesn’t claim to understand yet but I know she needs time.

As of now, the sessions have proved a tiny bit helpful in some of her attitude changes. I’m hopeful that she may come around better as she continues this. She has to unlearn years of trauma related behaviors. I’m sure they take time. Her therapist gives me regular updates to her condition and she sounds positive about being able to treat my wife.

So maybe, it isn’t too bad. The doctor has recommended to put my wife medications for anxiety and stress after the baby is here. She’s due in a week. So I’m still nervous about the whole baby number three situation. But I’m not letting a new baby stop her from attending therapy. I’m going to make sure she continues for her sake and for our kids sakes.