#47 Postpartum Resentment is a Memory of Despair | The vectors of our efforts as a couple were 180 degrees apart. What I wanted was 'the end of loneliness'.

The phrase 'postpartum resentment lasts a lifetime' is something I often see on X.

Until I gave birth, I thought it was somewhat exaggerated.

But now, I can agree with it so much that my head might fall off.

That is because I realized through personal experience that postpartum resentment is not just anger, but rather

a deeper, darker, and colder despair, and words born from giving up on one's partner
than that.

At the time (when I was on maternity leave), my husband was working himself to the bone for our family.

While he was home, he tried to be actively involved in childcare.

That was undoubtedly his love for our family.

However, back then, he would come home at 10 PM, and it was common for him to work on one of the weekend days, so the time we spent together as a family was overwhelmingly short.

During the day, my mother, who lived nearby, would come over to visit, so I could refresh myself to some extent, but at night, I was alone with the child until my husband came home.

There were frequent occasions where I would rush to take a shower while the baby was crying uncontrollably, or eat dinner standing up while holding the baby, or rather, miss dinner entirely and be unable to eat anything until my husband returned.

I can still vividly remember waiting in the dark bedroom, crying, with the child on my chest so as not to wake them when I put them down after they fell asleep in my arms, unable to even eat dinner until my husband came home.

As someone who is not good at relying on others,
in the short message I typed in a pitch-black room saying 'I want you to come home early',
I poured my entire soul into asking for help.
But even now, I sometimes recall the despair I felt when even that heartfelt plea did not reach him.

It was impossible for my husband, who was busy with work,
to even sense that kind of despair.

If I was going to feel despair over not being helped,
if I was going to feel this lonely even though we were supposed to be raising our child together,
I should just not expect anything from the start
it would be better to just raise the child alone
I had fallen into such extreme thinking at the time.

Of course, my husband, for his part,
was doing everything he could,
and he was working enough that we didn't have to worry about money while I was on maternity leave.

That is, of course, something I should be grateful for.

However, at the time,
I wanted him to come home even a minute or a second earlier.

When I asked for help by saying 'come home early',
I wanted him to say 'I'll be right back'.

I wanted him to share the pain when things were tough.
It would have been enough if we could just talk together about how hard it is not to get any sleep.

If he was going to try to appease me by buying convenience store sweets on his way home,
I would have preferred he come straight home and let me sleep for even one minute longer.

The vectors of our efforts were 180 degrees apart.

Perhaps, that
cold and dark sense of loneliness from that time will never disappear.

Deep inside me,
this person was not there for me when I was suffering the most
—that fact alone remains deeply rooted.

However,
I am also at fault, of course,
for giving up on talking,
thinking that it was pointless to even discuss things
rather than hoping and then falling into despair.

If I had just been able to say, 'I'm suffering too much, please help me,'
perhaps something might have changed.

I cannot directly save the me from back then, but
if there is someone right now who is in the depths of despair like I was,
I want to tell them, 'It is okay to say, 'Help me.' If you don't say it clearly, that desperation won't get through.'

At the same time, I also want to say to the partner,
“If you don't help now, it will remain a lifelong memory. If you don't help at this very moment, it will be irreparable. It will be too late later on.”

Fortunately, in my case,
once the child's night crying settled down
and my husband's work situation improved from what it was then,
the resentment inside me gradually began to thaw.

In the end, even though we are a married couple, we are separate individuals.

I stopped expecting him to read my mind,
and we aligned the vectors that were 180 degrees apart
one by one through gritty, honest discussions.
And, when things are tough, I say they are tough.

I believe that the accumulation of that work is what is important.