My pregnant aspie wife is falling apart.

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One of the things that made me feel absolutely awful during pregnancy is that I was treated like an incubator. What I hear is concern for baby and not necessarily her. I felt so alone during pregnancy. She may feel attacked re. the gd (especially if you are fighting over cereal). One of the best things you can do is SUPPORT and value her.

I did admit my comments may come off as insensitive as I've never been a parent myself, but it does strike me as really selfish and irresponsible to have chronic untreated depression and get pregnant. I have a parent that should not have been a parent due to serious untreated mental health issues that made my childhood very unhappy and traumatic and caused me to need years of therapy, so I suppose it's natural for me to empathize with the child in this scenario and not the parents.

OP, you and your wife should have talked about getting her treatment for her mental health issues before deciding to get pregnant. You are creating a new life and that is a huge responsibility that you apparently didn't think to talk about much before jumping in. I think you need family counselling as well as your wife needing mental health treatment to learn to talk about these important decisions BEFORE you make them, in the future.

The funny thing about pregnancy and parenting is that NO ONE knows what it will be like, how it will play out, or what kinds of games it may (or may not) play on one's mental health. I don't know anyone who is free of traits that could be potentially harmful to a child. A reasonable person does try to weight it out beforehand but, still, you just can't actually ever know. Plenty of people prone to depression become wonderful parents. I think it all depends on how willing they are to recognize the problem and get help when needed.

Did you notice that I was specific in talking about how it's irresponsible to get pregnant when your depression is CHRONIC and UNTREATED? Because I made a point to be specific about that, anticipating someone will interpret my comments to be against depressed people having kids. I am against people with untreated mental illness having children without discussing treatment beforehand. I was careful to be specific about that.

I am a person with (treated) mental illness, and with a history of untreated mental illness in my family. I speak from experience in that regard.

^^^ I had an edit that didn't take. My apologies for the tone.

Still ... I can't get inside someone else's head or illness, and we don't have all the facts.

I am very sorry that your mother's illness adversely affected you, and I would hope that people are looking at their own situations clearly before choosing to get pregnant.

Of course ... getting pregnant is not always a choice. This whole area gets complicated fast.

It is a personal thing, but I don't find it productive to question someone's choice after the choice has been made. The ship has sailed, and I prefer to focus on discussion points that can actually help the situation, instead of adding more stress. For me that is especially true in the area of parenting, where parents make mistakes oh, every 5 seconds or so? Parents can get beat down with self-doubt fast. What they need are positive ideas and support.

My mother was not the one who had untreated mental illness, it was actually my father who was mentally ill and should not have been a parent. My mother just made the mistake of marrying and having kids with a man who should never have had kids (she got pregnant when they were dating and that was it, back then you got married when that happened.) He was an extremely unhappy and unwell person with substance abuse issues who refused to admit anything was wrong with him or to get any help and took it out on us just because we were there. He resented our presence in his life and let us know as often as he could and refused to do anything about it when we confronted him about his emotional abuse and neglect. He went along with married life with kids on the surface because that's what he thought he was supposed to do, he put no thought into whether it was actually a good idea for him to be a parent or what kind of parent he would be. All he cared about was looking normal to the outside world.

Whatever the issue is and whatever is "in someone else's head", people with untreated mental illness who refuse to get help should not bring children into their messy unhappy lives, it is unfair to the children. I am not saying anything controversial here. I just think that people with mental illness have an extra responsibility to think about the decisions they make that effect the lives of other people, like having children, and be sure they are as prepared as they can be. Getting treatment is part of that responsibility you need to have if you want to be a parent.

I think it’s great that you are making healthy changes along with her. Making changes to your routine can be hard and stressful and having a supportive partner can really help. I recently went through some big dietary changes for my health and my boyfriend joined me in the beginning until I got used to it. Now I’m set in my new routine and he eats what he wants and I don’t feel deprived. You’re a good man.

I agree with this 100%. People with untreated mental illness and those that don't take care of themselves during pregnancy have no business having children. It's just irresponsible and selfish.

My wife and I had our two children naturally - the Bradley Method. Sometimes it takes two people to prepare together to have a child and these classes can be very helpful.