I’m 20 weeks pregnant and we are getting remarried very soon. I’ve been pregnant three times in the past year, with the other pregnancies ending in miscarriages (one happened in the second trimester). My fiance was gone for over a month due to work & his bachelor trip, but he’s back now and I told him I was pregnant after he got back. When he left, I was like twelv weeks pregnant (was not confirmed), and not showing. My stomach still surprisingly looks quite flat, not complaining, great for my wedding dress. He felt some type of way that I didn’t tell him when I found out. Part of me wants to say that i didn’t tell him because I wanted him to have fun and focus on his trip, but if I’m being honest, I keep stressing about the fact that this is happening again.
I had my doctors appointment scheduled today and we had a little argument before. He wanted to come, I told him he doesn’t really have to, but we settled it. After the appointment, he was really excited and kept asking me questions and I gave dry responses because I didn’t want to talk about it but I didn’t want to be rude. He switched his tone up and asked me if I even want to marry him next week if I can’t even trust him with something that we are supposed to experience together. This time, it was a much bigger fight, but one of those silent big fights because we were at a restaurant. Needless to say, he’s mad at me.
He’s right. I can’t even lie, but it’s so hard to dive into this head first yet again. I’ve been in therapy for it for a while to try to work on how I feel about it. I feel bad for isolating him and I want to make things right. We’re getting married again and I want to focus on the happiness surrounding us. How should I approach how I’m feeling about my pregnancy to him?
tl;dr: I’m pregnant but I’m not very open about it with my husband, which makes him upset.
11 comments
You have to have an honest conversation about your fears, it makes sense that a part of you is scared to feel excited or to hope that this pregnancy will make it but locking him out isn’t helpful.
It sounds like you’re struggling with a lot of anxiety and fear from your past experiences, which is completely understandable. It might be helpful to have a conversation with your fiance about how you’re feeling and why it’s difficult for you to trust him with this pregnancy. Communication is key in any relationship, especially when it comes to something as important as starting a family together.
“I have pregnancy trauma because I’ve lost two babies already. We need to talk about this.”
While you’re at it, please research trauma so you can start understanding AND explaining your responses.
Biology, and his own ignorance about the impact of miscarriages and grief, have isolated him. You didn’t do it to him. He’s a full participant in this dynamic and he is not putting in the work to address it.
Try to open up to him about your fears and stress. Explain to him that while his optimism and happiness is lovely for him, it can be exhausting work for you to both manage your complex feelings, and your body, and *also* be made responsible for addressing *his feelings* in the way he enjoys most.
You would benefit from being more open with him, but he also needs be a much safer and more empathetic person to be open with. Your feelings are valid and you will not always have the bandwidth to take care of his too. He needs to do better and recognize the actual, valid emotional complexity of this situation for you. He cannot just steamroll you with “Me Me Me”ing.
Your fears are valid, however he doesn’t know that you’re feeling this way.
He’s excited and wants to be involved, but your pushing him away. How do you expect someone to react to that when both of your views are completely different?
Have a real conversation with him about it and let him know how you’re feeling and how he can best support you.
Over 95% of this can be solved by having an open conversation with him. The rest is dealing with your fears and then again talking with him about them.
So… just to clarify, you didn’t tell *your fiance* you were pregnant until *four months* in?
Did you mistype? How are you pregnant as a dude
I agree you should open up with him about your fears. If you need help your therapist may agree to have a joint session to help you navigate the discussion. These feelings are valid and normal. You’ve gone through trauma and are scared. Don’t let this destroy your relationship…don’t push him away and keep your hurt to yourself. He wants to be there for you and wants to build a life with you. It’s also very reasonable for him to be feeling hurt and upset that you are keeping him out of your pregnancy. It’s important that he knows this is not about him.
Something stuck out like a massive red flag to me. The advice I’m offering here isn’t just about your pregnancy, but about your entire relationship.
This was the problem:
> After the appointment, he was really excited and kept asking me questions and I gave dry responses because I didn’t want to talk about it but I didn’t want to be rude.
Don’t do this.
You say you didn’t want to be rude, but guess what you were? You were exceptionally rude!
It’s okay to not want to talk about things. It sounds like you have good reasons to be anxious. That’s fine.
However, the non-rude way to handle this is to communicate clearly: “I’m a little anxious and I’d prefer if we didn’t talk about it right now.”
This sort of thing is going to come up all the time, in all sorts of ways, and it is INCREDIBLY toxic.
When you’re upset or anxious about something and don’t want to talk about it, and your partner is asking you what’s wrong, *tell them you don’t want to talk about it now.*
Don’t do the “things are fine,” routine. Don’t try to act like nothing is wrong when something is CLEARLY wrong.
“I’m really anxious about this and would appreciate not talking about it right now,” is all you have to say. At other times, maybe it is, “Yes I’m upset but let’s talk about it later.”
Being honest also helps him help you. Having him know that something’s wrong but pushing because you won’t talk about it is only going to make you more anxious. But if you say, “I’m a little anxious about this and don’t want to talk about it now, can we just get through this?” … he can work with that. First, he’ll stop pressing you, helping you relax. Secondly, he can do something like … just silently take your hand, which will probably help.
Perhaps put it into perspective for him… you’ll be stressed and worried enough that you won’t have complications this time, without him being insensitive and fighting with you. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through with this 🙁 sending love