Therapy for Dads
Finding the right therapist for this phase of your life can be surprisingly difficult.
● Everyone asks how your partner and the baby are doing. Almost no one asks how you’re doing.
● You love your kid, but sometimes parenting feels more like responsibility than connection.
● You miss your old life and then feel guilty for missing it.
● Maybe you’re still trying to become a dad. Fertility treatment has taken over your life and your relationship, and it feels like there’s nowhere for your disappointment, fear, or grief to go.
● You keep telling yourself you should be able to handle this. Your partner has been through so much. You’re supposed to be the person supporting them.
There’s therapy for moms. There’s therapy for men. But there aren’t many places specifically focused on what happens to dads during one of the biggest transitions of their lives. Becoming a father isn’t just a men’s mental health issue, it’s a major life transition of its own.
Your relationship changes. Your freedom changes. Sex changes. Sleep changes. Work and money suddenly become much more high stakes. You may be trying to take care of a partner who is struggling too, while figuring out what kind of father you want to be.
If you’re angry more often than you used to be or than you’d like or worried all the time or doing everything you’re supposed to do and wondering why you don’t feel happier or more connected to your partner or your baby.
Therapy can give you somewhere to say the things you don’t want to put on your partner, figure out what’s actually happening underneath the irritability or disconnection, and find a way to feel more like yourself while becoming the dad you want to be.
We can help.