Struggling with conflict at home and trying to hold myself together as a dad

[CaringDad]

I’m a dad of two young children and I feel like I’m reaching a breaking point emotionally. Things at home between my wife and I have deteriorated badly over the past months and especially recently. There is a lot of tension, criticism, hostility and verbal conflict. We barely communicate normally anymore unless it’s about the children or practical things.
I feel constantly on edge in my own home. I try very hard to avoid arguments and de-escalate things, but even small interactions seem to become tense. I often feel criticised, dismissed or provoked, and when things escalate I end up emotionally overwhelmed and anxious. Recently I’ve been experiencing panic attacks, anxiety, racing thoughts at night and inability to sleep properly. Some nights I wake up at 3 or 4am and cannot get back to sleep.
The hardest part is that I genuinely care deeply about my children and being a good father. I look after them every day, help with routines, daycare, meals, baths, bedtime, and I love them more than anything. My biggest fear right now is the idea of separation and somehow losing meaningful time with them or the stability of family life.
At the same time, I know the current environment is unhealthy and emotionally exhausting for everyone. I’m trying to function normally, continue working, care for the kids, and keep myself calm, but internally I feel very broken down and emotionally drained.
I often times feel successful at work and momentarily proud and confident again. But coming home to conflict and emotional distance has made the contrast really hard mentally.
I’ve started reaching out for support, including legal advice and now posting here because I think I need help navigating this in a healthier way. I don’t want constant fighting. I don’t want my children growing up around tension and resentment but don't want to be forced to be away from them. I also don’t want to lose myself emotionally.
I guess I’m posting because I feel isolated and overwhelmed, and I’m wondering if anyone else has gone through something similar and how they managed to cope emotionally while still showing up as a parent.

Thanks for reading

[Her444]

Tonight was my first time visiting Beyond Blue’s website. I’ve been struggling with a lot of internal thoughts lately, and somehow it led me here. After reading your post (especially seeing it was only posted a few hours ago!) it genuinely felt like I was meant to come across it.

Honestly, your post could have been written by my husband. We also have 2 young children, and so much of what you described feels incredibly familiar. It’s eerie.

From my side, I think I’ve been dealing with depression that’s carried on from postnatal depression after having my first daughter 4 years ago. My husband probably suspects something, but we don’t really talk about it openly. I know I project a lot of what’s going on in my head into our relationship, and while I’m very aware of it, I’m struggling to manage it on my own. That’s partly why I ended up here tonight.

Have you been able to communicate any of this with your wife? Do you think she might need someone to talk to, and is that something you could gently suggest? Maybe even couples therapy to help get her to chat to someone.

I think part of me wishes my husband and I communicated better with each other too.

[therising]

Hi CaringDad

First, I have to say how blessed your kids are to have you in their life, such a loving Dad. 

Not sure if will be of any help but I've found 3 major factors in the more challenging times throughout my marriage of 23 years has involved 1)the fighting, 2)the disappointment factor and 3)the lack of constructive communication regarding emotions, amongst a number of other factors. For me, it's the revelations that came regarding those 3 areas of my marriage that made a massive difference to me. 

With the fighting, 'Everyone's fighting for something' was the mind altering revelation I needed. Whether we're yelling 'But the kids need this. I don't care what you say, I'm doing it for them anyway!' or we're yelling 'You never listen to me!' it's about fighting for the right for the kids to have something that leads them to evolve and fighting for the need to be heard. Developing a way of being on the same page, compromising, can be a massive challenge especially when our partner doesn't care what it is we're fighting for.

When it comes to disappointment, the revelation that made all the different to me came down to the question 'What's the appointment?'. For example, we can appoint our partner the role of 'He/she who feels deeply for us', to find that they seemingly couldn't care less at times. We can feel them dis-appointing themself from that role we've given them. Or we could appoint ourself the role of 'Always reasonable', only to find that there are times we're we've failed to offer or accept valid reasons for something. That's the feeling of dis-appointing ourself (from a role). The question becomes 'What are realistic roles or appointments, as opposed to the ones we simply wish could be filled?' or 'What kind of roles now really need to be appointed and accepted?'.

With the emotional communication, I once heard something define emotion as 'energy in motion'. You can definitely tell how much energy is in motion within a person and what type of energy at times. Whether it's the kind of energy we feel and define as 'grief', 'heartbreak', 'despair' and whether the amount is displayed to a raging degree or it's an overwhelming amount that's vented through tears, how it's felt, worked up and worked out depends on each person. How to manage emotion and better understand it can take a lifetime or a really amazing guide/teacher with great knowledge of how emotion works (in other words, a 'fast tracker'). Her444 touches on a really important point. Can certain types of emotion be based on an underlying factor such as depression? Is someone's rage built on their sadness? Is their despair built on their sense of disappointment or hopelessness?

I think we can come to lose ourself to some degree in a relationship. We can lose parts of ourself through compromise (giving up what we want or long for), lose ourself through not rocking the boat, lose ourself through becoming often angry and lose ourself in so many other ways. I'm going back about 15 years when I went to see a marriage counselor who led me to remember myself or put myself back together in a lot of ways. I ended up going on my own but learned a lot. My husband didn't believe in sharing our private business with a stranger. If your wife doesn't want to consider guidance of this type, don't let that stop you from going and finding the way forward and maybe even finding skills you wish you'd had from the beginning.

I feel for you so much at a time in your life that is so far from easy.