My wife’s self-deprecation is taking a toll on our marriage

^{By James H.}

I know the title sounds harsh. I hate how it sounds, but I don’t know how else to describe what’s been happening.

Let me start with this: I love my wife. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. I don’t mean that in a forced or obligatory way — I mean it in the I still stare at her across the room kind of way. She’s my favorite person.

We’ve been together eleven years, married for seven. We’ve got three kids under eight, which is both the best and hardest thing that’s ever happened to us.

The third pregnancy took everything out of her. She ended up needing a C-section, and the recovery was long and brutal. I’d heard C-sections were rough, but I didn’t get it until I watched her try to sit up for the first time or walk across the room holding our son. Every movement looked like it hurt. For weeks, she was exhausted, stitched up, barely sleeping. I did what I could — made meals, changed diapers, handled the night feedings — while praying every night that time would start doing the work I couldn’t.

Things improved eventually. She got cleared to move around again, went back to work, and life slipped back into something resembling normal. Or at least what passes for normal when you’ve got a newborn and two other kids still demanding your full attention.

But something about the way she carried herself never really came back the way it did after the other two pregnancies. With our first and second, there was this light that always returned — a moment when she started to feel like herself again. This time, it didn’t. Even after the stitches healed and the exhaustion faded, it was like a part of her stayed in recovery.

Months passed and life kept moving. The exhaustion stuck around, and somewhere in the middle of all that, we both started to let things slide.

It’s fair to say we’ve both let ourselves go a bit physically, and that’s fine. Expected, even.

But she hasn’t been able to accept it.

At first I thought it was just frustration. A throwaway comment while getting dressed, then another the next week about her jeans not fitting. Little things I didn’t think much of at the time. But it’s been over a year and a half, and now it’s every. single. day.

When we’re getting ready to go somewhere, she’ll stand in front of the mirror and say something like, “Ugh, I look terrible.”

If I try to take a photo of us, it’s always, “No, delete that, I look huge,” or “Don’t post that.”

And anytime I mention a trip or a beach or anything like that, she’ll say, “Not until I lose weight,” like it’s a rule she made for herself.

I've tried to laugh it off in that lighthearted way couples joke when they think the other person’s exaggerating. But that only works for so long before you realize it’s not a phase. It’s deeper. And I don’t know how to help.

I’ve told her she’s beautiful so many times that the word barely means anything anymore. I’ve listened when she cries about not feeling like herself. I’ve started cooking more, tried to make healthier meals, encouraged her to go for walks when she’s up for it.

Lately, it’s started to wear on me. I'm out of things to say and exhausted from trying to make her believe me.

Last weekend, her parents offered to take the kids, which almost never happens. I said, “We should hit the gym in the morning and then the brewery in the afternoon. Supposed to be nice out.”

She paused for a second, giving me that look I know too well.

“So you’re saying I need to go to the gym?”

I swear, that’s not what I meant. I panicked trying to explain — “No, I just meant we could go together since we rarely get a free weekend like this.”

She rolled her eyes and said, “Sure,” in that tone that means I’m done with this conversation.

Moments like that happen all the time now.

I can’t win. If I stay quiet, it feels like I’m ignoring her. If I speak up, it feels like I’m making it worse.

And sometimes I shut down and that kills me because I want to help. I just seriously don't know how.

And more than anything I miss her. Not her “before body.” Not the woman from our wedding photos. I miss her. The way she used to be comfortable in her own skin. How she’d make a stupid face in photos and not give a shit.

I miss the energy she used to have. She'd walk into a room and just radiate good vibes. Now it’s just this low, heavy kind of sadness that hangs over her.

And you’re probably reading this thinking it’s selfish to make it about me when she’s clearly the one struggling. I know that. And I’ve tried not to take it personally, but it’s hard.

How do you separate someone’s pain from the space growing between you?

Every day feels like I’m married to someone who’s slipping further away and I don’t know how to hold on without breaking myself in the process.