#6 | Amazing Husband Syndrome

Every week, Cynthia and Trisha moderate a postpartum support group, where women gain validation and unique insight into one another's thoughts, experiences and comments. Over time, it's clear to see certain patterns emerge within every new group. In this episode we discuss one of them: Why do so many women feel compelled to describe their partners as "amazing" -- not good, not 'doing his best', not human -- but amazing. Thus was born our term Amazing Husband Syndrome. We question why women suffer so much guilt around their mothering while holding their partners to a markedly different standard. While overemphasizing the magnitude of their partners' contributions, we women can unwittingly underemphasize our own efforts, qualities and achievements in parenting. 

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Transcript

Mothers, we need to feel like it's okay to speak up about these things. Like it's okay to want more from your partner.

I'm Cynthia Overgard, owner of HypnoBirthing of Connecticut, childbirth advocate and postpartum support specialist. And I'm Trisha Ludwig, certified nurse midwife and international board certified lactation consultant. And this is the Down To Birth Podcast.
 Childbirth is something we're made to do. But how do we have our safest and most satisfying experience in today's medical culture? Let's dispel the myths and get down to birth.

So picture about 10 women sitting there postpartum between two weeks and three months postpartum. They're all you know, love compassionately supporting one another. And they start to talk about some changes happening within their household with their partners. And one woman starts to share that, you know, she's struggling with a little bit of communication, totally understandable postpartum. Everything's in upheaval since having a baby. And the stories start to come out, you know, like, she's up all night every night because he quote, he works. So she's the one up all night every night. And then the weekend rolls around, and he's sleeping in on Saturday. And she's kind of expressing that she's in the other room holding the baby, maybe since five or 6am, nine 930 rolls around and she's just stewing like that. She waited for the weekend all this time. And you can feel that she's getting in touch with her, her very legitimate emotions about what's going on. And invariably and almost on cue, she pauses and Then she, her whole face changes and her demeanor changes. And she then starts to, I don't know, reassure herself or everyone in the room. I mean, but my husband is amazing. He's so amazing. Honestly, I don't mean to complain about him. He's, he's, he's really amazing. And she goes on this little part about how amazing he is. This is totally predictable. Trisha, do we not see this every time we run a new group,

every time. And I would venture so far as to say that if we got any 10 women in a group together, pregnant, postpartum, menopausal, whatever. And we started having these conversations that we have in our postpartum group, we would hear the same thing. But my husband, he's so amazing.

I don't mean to complain about him. He's amazing. And so what is this about what is happening and we don't doubt that, that these women married well, that they married wonderful men who loved horn doing their best? We don't doubt that. We don't question that. What our focus is on right now is, why does she feel the need to bring that into this place? What is that need to kind of reassure oneself or the other women, that he's not good, he's not doing his best, he is amazing.

And just in case any husbands out there are listening and we hope that you are, this is really about trying to understand what is happening in a woman's mind that she needs to prop up her husband in this way and, and sort of justify her admiration for him to other women and to herself.

Because what why? Why does amazing have to become the goal? Do we have to marry an amazing person? Is that is that important to we have to marry an amazing person. I think that's probably what we all hope for, and we arrived for it. Not possible, it doesn't exist. If you really ask yourself what amazing means, right? There's such it's like almost like the difference between excellence and perfection. So the bar can be very high. And we can marry people who love and respect us and with whom we have a really trusting, open, respectful relationship. But why does amazing have to come into it? And then what kind of pressure are we putting on them? And ourselves is expectation the root of all disappointment? That's according to the Buddhists Yes, and I couldn't agree more. But anyway, we don't want these women to like the woman who was speaking in our group the other day, to D legitimize what she's feeling it's okay to say this isn't equitable. Right now, I'm feeling whatever you're feeling isolated in the other room while you sleep. resentful. overwhelmed, it's all okay within a healthy relationship. It's all okay to have these emotions. So can we relieve the pressure to remind ourselves or to assure ourselves that this person is amazing? Because they're not and they're not supposed to be? So what comes up when a woman goes in this direction? What kind of emotions does she know? She like lays the foundation to feel what?

No, she feels guilty. Yeah, she maybe there's some sort of self protection going on there, then, you know, there's this feeling of like, well, I'm in this really, really vulnerable space and time in my life, and I need my husband to be amazing, so that I feel safer. And that I feel you know that he's really got me through this, but I'm not really able to speak up about my needs. So I'm just going to sort of talk about how amazing he is. So I really believe it and I feel that extra level of safety of anything. That's One thing that women are probably feeling and experiencing in that moment when they feel the need to talk about their husbands that way, I think it's reassuring.

This is really hard. And I don't know if my husband is really here for me in the way I need him to be. That's right. But you know, he's super amazing. So I'm just gonna go with it. It's right. And, and I want to make sure that all these other people that I'm in this room with our understanding that I have total adoration for my husband, and he's awesome. And I'm such a lucky woman.

And the way I go further in my own mind when I hear this discussion, because we did talk about this with that woman as we always bring it up. And she did get to that point, she kind of it was really touching. She was just like, he's not amazing. He's wonderful, and I love him and I am I really need to talk to him about this. And we're like, yes. So when we kind of sweep in with that way of thinking, the way I actually personally view this is you're robbing him of the opportunity to grow. You know, we can grow to love our partners so much more in this postpartum phase, if we're willing to communicate what we're feeling if we're willing to set the bar a little higher on what he can be doing. And you can grow closer in the long, you know, in the grand scheme of your relationship, because this is where marriage starts to break down. That's right when kids come into the picture. And if we are entering this phase, with this belief that we need to justify our husbands and whatever they do, even if we're disappointed that we still need to consider them to be amazing because they have a job and amazing because they you know, do a little laundry for us every now and then or they're amazing because They offered to hold the baby for an hour a day. But really, that's not meeting our needs. And if we're not starting to speak up about it early on, 1015 years go by, and a whole lot more needs go unmet.

And this is where things start to break down. And if we can address it early on, and we can get real about how we're really feeling, and we can communicate it to our partners. We stand to have a lot better experience in our relationship after we bring children into the picture.

Yeah. And when you talk to people about why, like, let's go with it, you know, why is he amazing? Tell us about it. we're likely to hear things that touch us. We do have those moments of being very touched and moved by our partners. So she might say something like, you know, he I watched him holding the baby and he just he kisses the baby so much or he carried the baby all day or he you He's so sensitive to the baby's needs and you hear these lovely things these moments where we have these likes this this swell of affection for our partners. But then I just want to say to you if you're having those thoughts then Then what are you if that makes him amazing that he's tending to this baby that he's affectionate and tender with this baby and what on earth do we call you do tending to the babies every single little me you know, taking the shower and the baby's crying and it's like, I'll be right there. Okay, mommy's hurrying every second all day long tending to their needs picking up on every little cue when they're not happy in your right shoulder you momentary left shoulder when they're are they tired? Are they hungry? Are they need to change the diaper? Or do they need to change clothes I mean, we, you know, it's it goes way, way, way beyond.

And the so therefore, it's the bar is lower. If we're thinking this way lower for them higher for us, which lets us feel Even guiltier because when we do the slightest thing that might not perfectly tend to the bee's knees, we can be that much harder on ourselves.

So let's talk about that emotion guilt that comes up when we when we have this conversation. And why are new moms feeling so much guilt?

Well, guilt is it's partly a function of how intensely bonded we are to our babies. So when we're very intensely bonded, and it for some women, it happens right after birth, and for some women, it happens a few days later, and in pretty extreme cases, it can take weeks or months, but it is a function of how bonded a woman is to her baby so she can feel guilty very easily, like if she's in the shower and the baby wakes up and starts to cry. And it takes her three more minutes to rinse the shampoo out of her hair and jump out soaking wet and pick up the baby. She can feel guilty that the baby's needs weren't met for a couple of minutes. And that's, and then the birth experience can have a woman feeling so guilty. You know, the baby is separated at birth. It's the more sensitive moms who really are hard on themselves in this area. That's the irony.

Yeah. It seems that as soon as these little creatures come into our world, we're finding all of these things that we're all of these things in these ways that we're not necessarily meeting their expectations or it's not really their expectations. It's this expectation that we have for ourselves or that our, our society or our family members have for us as mothers and it's impossible for us to feel like the the perfect moment we have such a high expectation for meeting every need of this baby and the need of our husbands and the need of our family members and the needs of our friends. And our community as I how can we possibly do it all? And why do we feel so bad if we don't, we're here to build resilience and these kids, we want children to be resilient totally, and you are meeting their needs. And if it's not every second of every day, you're still meeting their needs, they're these children are taken care of, I would argue that not meeting some of their needs is way more beneficial than meeting all their needs.

What's an example you would provide?

I just, I think that what's an unreal expectation in life to have somebody meet all of your needs, right? You need to learn how to care for yourself. And while that sounds a little extreme, when we're talking about a baby, I don't mean that. But I mean that like, even it's a mentality as a parent. So if you think that every time your baby's needs are not immediately being met, you're failing as a parent, you're going to struggle because you're not going to meet all their needs throughout life and You're going to meet their basic needs, you're going to, you're going to love them, you're going to provide for them, you're going to give them food and shelter and all of these things, and you're going to give them great opportunities. But do we really need to meet every single one of their needs? Every moment? That's impossible.

And you just you're just you're just setting yourself up for feeling like a failure all the time. And that's more harmful to the child than especially a child. But beyond the newborn stage that's more harmful a mother who feels guilty and who's beating herself up, then having that occasional need not mad, but that's what this generation apparently, does. That's where the resiliency it starts young. Right?

Right. It's like a key message for children is like, well, you can handle that. Absolutely. Right. Totally. So back to marriage. It's a kind of the same message we can lovingly give our partners like, so often women say, Well, he works. Okay, he's working maybe eight 1012 hours a day. Are you working 810 12 hours a day whether you're at home on maternity leave, or you're an at home mom, this is around the clock with no reprieve.

And an eight or 12 hour workday is nothing in comparison nothing that can be fulfilling that you know, we've we who had babies worked before we had babies and there's you know, that you get a lot of needs met when you're out there working got a lot of needs for recognition and, and other things. But so frequently, the argument is, well, I can't be tired for work.

Why not?

Why don't you why not. I'm tired for work every day as a new mom every day when I have to get up at 6am and but even if you have like even before we had kids and we had a presentation or an important negotiation or a business trip and there was a night we went to bed too late or didn't get a good night's sleep or whatever it was. And okay, like you are just tired the next day. Okay, you can handle that, right. But for some reason when it comes to babies, and the husbands and the mothers, there's this are the fathers and the mothers, there's this ingrained belief that it always falls back on the mother is the responsibility to be the tire, it's like, it's normal for the mother be tired. It's not normal for the father to be tired, which is just not fair. And it's not healthy. And, you know, marriage has a lot of chapters. And it's just this chapter that, that the postpartum mom is very dependent. And she feels like, well, this is my life now. No, now in 10 years, 20 years, you're going to be completely vibrant again and reinventing yourself and it's in our older age, the men can grow very dependent on the women statistics support that. And I think it makes so much sense for men to realize this is really an investment in their long term marriage. She's not gonna be different dependent on you forever. So take care of her and step it up and come up with a framework for it. When you moved in together, you had to decide who did chores. Well, you wipe that slate clean now. There's a baby now. Now who even if it's just for one year for the next year, it's like, okay, you do all the laundry for the next year, you just do it come home two nights a week and or whatever, four nights a week and do the laundry or you do all the grocery shopping or you do all the cleaning after dinner. You just wipe that slate clean.

Gosh, I wish I would have done that.

Yeah. Oh, the other thought I had? Yes. Oh, yeah. It would be like I was just so satisfied that my husband was even interested in holding the baby or could be alone with the baby for an hour or was willing to change a diaper. I mean, I really felt that all the responsibility was mine. And anything that he did was bonus. Like you might have had the thought.

And knowing you you probably did like well, I wanted to be a mother. That's right. And that's you. That's okay. You can want to be a mother and not be as what feels like you're bearing too much of this 100% of the time. The other example is to just put a framework around it. For example, if you need him to get up during the night, sometimes maybe it's not best to just snap when you're overtired and be like, wake up, you know, get up the baby, because you're just so angry now and you've snapped but say, okay, every Wednesday and Saturday, or even if for a breastfeeding mom, even to if she's not co sleeping, bring the baby over so she doesn't have to get up. And then we won't be so disturbed, but two nights a week, and then he might go to bed at 830 or nine to make up for that rough night. But this is an investment in your relationship.

You're so right. And it's such a good idea. And just thinking back I remember feeling so guilty when I would make my husband get up and get the baby in the middle of the night because he worked because he worked and by the way I was in graduate school at the time doing full time clinical, okay. Oh, I didn't realize that yes, with your first Yeah. Okay. Yeah, for the first six months.

And I you say full time, yes, full time at Yale getting a Master's. And you were doing all of that. And I did that I took my final exams when Lola was two weeks old. And I still felt guilty that I had him get up sometimes and get the baby I don't even think I in those first two weeks, I didn't ask him to do anything like that.

So that to me is not his fault. This is the crazy part like this is on us, right? This is not to sit in the room and say, Oh, they should be doing more. It's like women, why are you feeling guilty? Why are you Why aren't you setting the bar higher? Like you do when you really are willing to love and respect someone you do set that bar higher on some of its like you were talking about beginning the the concept of excellence versus perfectionism and the feeling the need to be the person who can handle it all and Do it all. And I was 26 at the time, so I had a lot of energy. And I really believed I could. I could do it all night. I really didn't need any other help.

I've heard that term do it all to women regarding women much more than men like, Oh, she's just, she's got it all. She's beautiful. And she's got a great career and she's got kids and a great husband and I so rarely hear someone saying, he's got it all. He's a great father, he. So we hear this message and we might want to be perceived as that woman who does it all.

That's so true. You never hear men. I don't I can't think of that. I don't think I do hear that. And other women. Women talk about women that way. Oh, yeah. So perpetuated short, cultural, I mean, we really, it's cultural. Want to be like that. Uber mom, and it's impossible to have and do it all because even when working and having children is the right choice for women. It always comes with anguish. You know, when you're work in that wonderful fulfilling career you do have that longing to or that guilt around not being with your child full time. And if you're with your child full time, you have that longing to be a little bit more and to do a little something else and to be seen as something else. So how can we do it all because each one would require kind of a full time commitment. So it's always you're always taking a little bit of a sacrifice somewhere.

I mean, in our groups, it's this always this this conversation about like, how do we win as moms because the for the working mom, who is having child care for the baby, we're feeling guilty and afraid to stay at home mom who's not out doing something in the world, we're also feeling guilty or unfulfilled. It's really tricky for women. During this time of life, it's really hard and there is no right answer. But having these conversations is so helpful about just learning what works for you, what works for you and what works for me. I mean, we know this from just sharing your own stories and different really different. The only thing I think that's harder is be occasional at home dad. Because every now and then there's the woman who goes back to her career and her husband or her partner stays home full time. And I think that's the only scenario that becomes even harder because as little support as there is for women, there's virtually none for men. So if it is that man who's staying home with his child, what does he do? Is he it's really tough scenarios. He had exchanging phone numbers with other women and saying, Hey, wanna get together for a playdate? I hope so. But is that is society prepared for that? And are they questioning that or is he not treated as legitimate? I know a couple of at home dads, just some of my favorites. madly fascinated by those cases, fascinated by the women, and how they feel in that in that situation, and I'm fascinated by the men and how they feel. I know a few families where it works really well. And I love these dads I bumped into a few of them. The store sometimes and I love bumping into them. And they seem really, they really they're cut out for it. They're good natured and cheerful and patient, but I always think what's their community like? I hope they have community.

I mean, these moms who are coming to our group are struggling to find people in their same place and state of mind. So what I mean, it must be really isolating for men.

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Do we have any? Do we have any tips for the women who are struggling to bring this up with their husbands? how to approach the subject?

We always seem to see that there are a couple of different camps here. Because when we're with a group of women, after a couple of weeks, we know the women who speak to their partners. They come back the following week, and they share those difficult conversations that might even be an argument. And they share those conversations that they have with their husband where they're like, I can't do this. It's I'm tired or you have to do this or why do you get to go to the gym every Saturday and I'm home. I want to go to my yoga class and they share these stories. And I know they feel like they're the woman in the room who's sharing yet another argument with the partner, but I'm thinking what a healthy relationship that you're grappling together through this, that you have enough respect for each other and commitment in this relationship to go through this pain and struggle together. Because the women I'm more concerned about are the ones who don't speak up the quiet ones. They're like we had a mom Trisha remember on on Monday, another mom in the same group, mom of two. She went out for I think the first time postpartum for a couple of hours to remember this one who left the door open.

No, that was another one.

No, no, no, no, no did. Another dad who left the house left the front door wide open. That was great. She forgot to close the door. That was that was harmless. It turned out to be totally harmless. No, the mom who came home to her toddler and newborn Oh yeah. And she said that the T was watching too. And that the house was in chaos, even the dirty diapers weren't thrown away. If they were sitting on the couch next to the husband on the floor with the baby on the couch, she couldn't walk because there were things everywhere. And then what we always hear too is, and I know you've heard this zoo. I know you've heard women say this, that they feel like their partners think their only job is to just keep the child alive, right? Watch the baby, like I say are alive. The baby and nothing is done. Or the toddler didn't eat lunch and it's 2:30pm or their toys are everywhere. Can you relate?

Oh, violent flashbacks.

That reminds me of that time, we went out one night and I was dropping you off at home. And I don't know if it's like 930 or 10. And we pulled up to your house. And we could see through the window. Eric was like playing the guitar. Or Eric was playing the guitar and your kids were like jumping up and down down. Second. I turned around and drove you right back away. Mike, we're going back out. You can text him Try again in 10 minutes, get the kids to bed before I walk in that door waiting, playing the guitar and getting them all worked up two hours past their bedtime or whatever it was dad. Imagine there's a lot of women out there right now going home. Oh, yeah, that's my house. Yeah. Like he was finishing some show he's really into all the time. For sure. I think that's happening all the time. Yeah.

Yeah. So communication and we want to see the woman who's having that discussion. If it needs to be an argument, then it okay. I mean, we we hope to come up with communication skills where it isn't one. You do that by just figuring out what you're feeling and owning your feelings without being blaming or name calling. But those are their relationships. So I think there's really that growth has happened. Yeah, and first of all, though, women mothers we need to feel like it's okay to speak up about these things. Like it's okay to want more from your partner.

It's an act of love. I really believe that it's an act of love for him self love you Yes, yeah. And then love for your partner.

Yes, loving your relationship like this relationship means enough to me to have this argument right now and, and I'm going to take good care of myself by communicating this to you so that you and I do better, better parents, healthier marriage, happier family, happier life.

It's definitely part of self respect and self care. It's It's weird to think about it that way.

But it is self care. You need to take care of yourself, you know, to take care of other people first and we women we struggled with that so much we feel that guilt again. So guilty if we put ourselves first but we're doing a disservice to everyone around us when we don't. And you you know, it's so I think first of all, everyone out there listening. It's about being comfortable. Having meats and speaking up about them. And it's okay. And the more that we can communicate with our partners about it, the better off everybody's going to be.

You know that you just brought it back for me a little bit. Because before I had my son Alex, I was perceived as a high achieving woman. I felt like a high achieving woman. And I didn't realize it, but I started to really, I don't know if my ego got attached to it. But there was that there was that going on. There was the day we came home with Alex, it was seven hours after I gave birth. And Eric and I got home. And my brother, I insisted my brother and my sister in law, come home with us. They were like, Are you sure? I said, please come before you go back to the city come home. It's fine. It's fine. So there's that they were like, Oh, yeah. And I meant it. I was really happy to have them and they came up and it's kind of sad, and it was surreal and beautiful. I had just given birth and I was fine. And we were sitting there and introducing our dog to the baby and vice versa. And about an hour later they're like Alright, well, we We're gonna get going and I said, No, no stay for dinner, stay for dinner and I stood up and started to go to the kitchen and my husband just said, Cynthia, sit down. Just I'll make dinner Sit down. And while he was saying that I could feel my heart racing like almost in a scary way. And I sat down and I looked back thinking what is wrong with you? What were you doing? What what was happening in my head where I had to show that Oh, not only did I give birth, and it was so easy and great, but now I'm gonna make dinner. What crazy thing was in my head, see this? This is hard for anybody. This is why we're like soul sisters. Right? Because I was the same way. Yeah, four days after Lola was born. I was in the kitchen for days. Four days in the kitchen making homemade pies for Thanksgiving dinner. Oh, okay.

Lola's in a sling. I have my final exams in two weeks. Thanksgiving is today. Everybody's coming over. Got this like, and I did it right. But sure at what cost, huh? But yeah, I mean it's the same thing if I knew then what I know now about setting boundaries for myself and and taking better care and being able to ask for help and being able to be okay with having needs and not being able to do it all.

Maybe things would have been a little different.

I also think of both of those scenes between me getting up and offering to make dinner and Tricia bacon rolling out the dough and baking the pies. I also would like we you know, I have a son and a daughter you have two girls and a boy I'd like you to I'd like us to envision our children as young adults, or before they become parents watching these scenes witnessing and saying, what do you think about this like mom just gave birth and she's getting up to cook dinner fortunately My husband gently, kind of sat me back down and said sit down would have been crazy. If he didn't. I mean, I don't know. He did what I think most people would do in that moment. But then rolling out the dough, it's like, do you want your daughter to think this is what she has to do? Do you want your son to think this is what his partner has to do? And the answer I think, is No, we don't.

Right. What are your thoughts? Certainly not has to do. Certainly not has to do for me. It's more like what was the height? Like, right? Well, you're asking me to make those pies. Right. There was nobody was asking me to make it's coming from us. It was all coming from me and my, my feeling but you know, you can do it all are an overachiever or high achiever. Yes. And I wanted to be a mother and here I am just and this is how I envisioned being a mom. I'm exactly the same. I just have a baby in a sling. Now I do everything every day fresh for the rest of my children's lives. Right. Right. So it was me living out my fantasy Like what it meant to be this homemaker, Uber mom. I'm doing it all.

Yeah, but in the day we don't. But you know that we can be hard on ourselves like I got nothing done today. Oh really? We got nothing done and it was baby. It wasn't the toll that it took on me that day on Thanksgiving. I was fine. I had a great day and I you know, I felt okay and I took a rest in the afternoon is the toll that it took on me over the next 10 years of trying to maintain that, that expectation for myself. And the not asking my partner for help, right. And the incredible thing is when you ask most partners say yes. Or sometimes they say no one likes to hear this, but all you had to do was ask and then the woman always wants to be like, Why do I have to ask No, you never can respond.

We but yet better to ask and take responsibility for Asking for what we need the not. But it's, it would also be in a perfect world we don't have to ask. But if no one is offering, we still have to ask. Because most people would like to step it up even if they have little fight first and push back. They usually feel their own self respect go up when they do step up more What are you know, I really agree. And I wouldn't say, you know, in my situation my, my husband saw me as someone who could do this, so he wasn't offering help, because he probably felt like it was going to be some sort of, you know, criticism or I was going to take it that way. Like what do you mean You think I can't do this or of course, I got this I can do this on he saw me that way. But he saw me that way because I didn't change the story. I didn't change the picture. I didn't express that I might need a little bit more help than I was getting.

And another thing just comes to mind with what you just said that some women are told by their partners. But this is easier for you than it is for me. But you're a woman but you but you Designed to this way, but you can function better when you're tired than I can. And that is just not fair. Because what can she say to that? She's still a human being who needs sleep, but a lot of women get that in response. What do you think about that? If you're anything along those lines, I think one of the things that I heard was, oh, you have breasts.

What does that mean? breastfeeding? Well, that's fair. That's true. Right? And I was like, Well, I guess Yes. Yeah. Well, you're not asking him to breastfeed. Right. But it was so many other things. And a better way to say that though. Yeah, really, we could find a much better way. So that's a true point and true. What do you know, you're just like, what does that have to do with laundry?

So to all you amazing husbands out there, huh?

Being good is enough. doing your best is enough. And to all the women out there, he doesn't have to be amazing. Can we try to strike this word from our vocabulary? You just might feel better about him and have more real estate expectations. Your you are more likely than not two people who really love each other, neither of whom is having their needs met right now. So be gentle with each other. And let's not seek to be amazing. Let's not seek to make people think we're amazing when they see us in the grocery store and we want to make it look like everything is so easy and we're taking motherhood in stride. No one can take it in stride. It's a big deal. The good news is it gets easier, but your relationship is worth investing in, have the conversation take responsibility for your emotions, but always followed up with a request as to how your partner can better support you through the stage and if you're that at home, dad that rare occasional at home dad because we're seeing more of those than this all we flip this conversation around and this goes to you because that shouldn't be a 24 hour job for you either.

For anyone.

That's why we do it in partnership.

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