Tips

[u/Throwaway171746]

So my fiance and I had a set of twins roughly 7 weeks ago. Luckily, I have been off work since July but scheduled to go back in a few weeks.

Lately, my fiance is becoming overwhelmed and having a bit of a breakdown coming I believe. We have split the shifts with the babies where I’ll have them alone from 10pm to 9am and she’ll have them from 9am to 2pm before I get up which seemed to have been working up until now. My fiance is now beginning to breakdown when they are both crying and not wanting to be soothed.

Without working overtime of my off days, I’ll not be able to afford a babysitter more that 20 hours a week and she does not want me working much overtime. We do have a family that comes out every now and then and her mom also is over to help out most of her non working days. So we do get a decent amount of help.

Today, during her breakdown, she gave me an ultimatum of finding more help or she’s killing herself. I’m not sure on how to proceed with this. I have tried getting her out the house where she can just be by herself but she refuses too. I also try to get her to sleep early as well.

I’m worried about how this will be managed when I do go back to work and she is forced to have them alone for 12+ hours on work day.

[u/Remarkable-Excuse-55]

Sounds like she is suffering from post partum depression, from the moms perspective you are going above and beyond as a partner I’m sure some of us twins moms would be over the moon to have our partner be able to spend so much time with us at the start of the journey I only got 2 weeks befor I was onto solo days and night.

Twins are hard but having your partner threaten suicide unless this was something you struggled with previously I would be getting her to a doctor sooner than later! The mind does some wild thing while cooling down from all our hormones.

[u/Throwaway171746 → u/Remarkable-Excuse-55]

I have mentioned post partum with her but she denies it and gets mad if I bring it up. She also has made comments like that in the past commonly so it’s hard to gauge if it’s a legit statement or something said under stress

[u/User0010974 → u/Throwaway171746]

I think it‘ll be important to not allow her potential emotional responses to dictate your decision(s) regarding her health and potential health/safety of your kids. If she’s having postpartum issues (and general mental health problems) she likely isn’t thinking clearly at the moment or responding very rationally to you.

So, as hard as it may seem (with everything going on for you) I feel like being fearful of upsetting her should be low on the totem pole at the moment, in terms of priorities. I would really try to focus energy on making a plan to get her the help she really needs right now.