The Night I Felt Useless as a Husband

Two nights ago, our daughter slept on her own.

For the first time in four weeks.

For about three and a half, maybe four hours…but who’s counting?

We are. We are absolutely counting.

When you have a newborn, four straight hours feels like someone handed you an all-inclusive vacation. We woke up almost confused.

Wait…did she actually sleep?

Did we actually sleep?

And then we made the rookie mistake of thinking:

Maybe we turned a corner.

We did not turn a corner.

Last night, the corner turned around and punched us directly in the face.

She cluster-fed. She kept sharting her diaper (yes, I’m using the word sharting in a Substack article).

She was yawning, clearly exhausted, barely keeping her eyes open…and yet absolutely refusing to sleep.

It was like watching someone scream, “I’M NOT TIRED,” while actively falling asleep.

We tried everything.

Rocking. Bouncing. Walking. Shushing. Different positions. Different rooms. The whole newborn Olympics.

I kept trying to take her because more than anything, I wanted to give my wife a break.

Not even some luxurious break.

I just wanted her to be able to go to our room, get into our bed, close her eyes and sleep for a few hours.

To not have someone touching her.

Needing her.

Eating from her.

Just to be a human for a little while.

And I wanted to be the one who gave her that.

But our daughter wanted absolutely nothing to do with my plan.

Finally, around 10:45 p.m., after what felt like feeding number 40 of the night, my wife put her back on the boob.

And that was kind of it.

She was staying with her.

Again.

I remember walking out of the room and looking back at my wife.

She was crying.

She was exhausted.

She felt trapped.

And alone.

And I just stood there for a second.

My heart sank into my stomach.

Because I couldn’t help her.

Or at least, that’s what it felt like.

I Just Wanted to Give Her a Break

This is a feeling I’ve been wrestling with during these first few weeks.

I know I’m helping.

Logically, I know that.

There are diapers. Bottles. Laundry. Our older kids. Food. Cleaning. Bedtimes. The million random things that keep our house from completely imploding.

I’m doing those things.

But in that moment, none of that mattered to me.

I wanted to do the ONE thing my wife desperately needed:

Take the baby.

Let her sleep.

And I couldn’t.

That feeling sucked.

Because I’m watching the person I love be so unbelievably tired.

Not I could use a nap tired.

I mean that newborn tired where it feels like it has seeped into your bones.

The kind where you’re so tired you could cry.

And then sometimes…you do.

And the complicated part is that you’re holding this little human you prayed for. Dreamed about. Wanted more than anything.

You love them more than you can explain.

And you also desperately want someone to take them away from you for a few hours.

Both can be true.

You can be insanely grateful and completely overwhelmed.

You can love your baby and desperately need a break from your baby.

You can know this phase won’t last forever and still think:

I don’t know how I’m going to do tonight.

I could see all of that on my wife’s face.

And all I wanted to do was take some of it from her.

I Wanted to Fix It

Maybe it’s a husband thing.

Maybe it’s a therapist thing.

Maybe it’s just an Eli thing.

But when someone I love is hurting, my brain immediately goes to:

Okay. What do we do?

Give me a job.

Give me the crying baby.

I’ll walk around the house for three hours. I’ll bounce until my knees stop working. I’ll change every diaper. Wash every bottle. Clean the kitchen at midnight.

Just tell me what to do.

But newborn life doesn’t always work like that.

Sometimes there isn’t a solution.

Sometimes this tiny human just wants Mom.

And Mom has nothing left.

And Dad is standing there thinking:

Please just let me take this from her.

That’s a really crappy feeling.

Because that’s what partnership is supposed to be, right?

You see the person you love drowning and you grab some of the water.

But what happens when you can’t?

What happens when they’re struggling right in front of you and there isn’t some magical thing you can do to make it better?

That’s where I was last night.

I didn’t feel like her teammate.

I felt like a spectator.

And I hated it.

Sometimes 50/50 Isn’t Even an Option

I talk about this a lot in my work and in my book—the idea of checking each other’s tanks.

Marriage isn’t 50/50.

It can’t be.

Sometimes I’ve got 70 and she’s got 30.

Sometimes she’s carrying 90 because I barely have 10.

And sometimes we look at each other and realize we each have about 12% left…and somehow these three children are still asking us for 100%.

That’s real life.

The goal isn’t:

Did we split everything equally today?

It’s:

What does our team need right now?

And:

What do I actually have to give?

Last night, I had more to give.

I wanted to give more.

That’s what made it hurt.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to help.

It was that the help I wanted to give wasn’t the help our daughter was willing to accept.

And I think there’s something about that for dads and partners that we don’t talk about much.

Watching someone you love carry something you would gladly take from them…

but you can’t.

Maybe Helping Doesn’t Always Feel Like Helping

This is the part I’m trying to remind myself of today.

I walked out of that room feeling like I had failed.

But maybe I didn’t.

Maybe helping isn’t always getting the baby to sleep.

Maybe it’s taking her for 45 minutes so my wife gets 45 minutes without someone attached to her.

Maybe it’s making sure she has water while she’s feeding.

Maybe it’s handling our older kids in the morning.

Maybe it’s changing the next diaper.

Maybe it’s taking the baby at 6 a.m. even though I’m exhausted too.

Maybe it’s sitting next to my wife while she cries and not immediately trying to make the crying stop.

Maybe it’s just saying:

I see you. This sucks. I wish I could take more of this from you. I’m here.

I think sometimes I confuse not being able to fix something with not being helpful.

They’re not the same thing.

I’m writing that sentence mostly for myself.

This Is Parenthood Too

There’s so much beauty in having a newborn.

The smell.

The tiny fingers and toes.

The chest naps.

Those weird little dinosaur noises they make.

Watching our older kids completely fall in love with their baby sister.

Looking down at this tiny person and wondering how your heart somehow found room to grow again.

It’s incredible.

And then there are nights like last night.

Nobody is sleeping.

The baby is crying.

Your wife is crying.

You’re standing there feeling completely useless.

And somehow all of those things belong in the same story.

The gratitude and the exhaustion.

The love and the frustration.

The I can’t believe we get to do this and the I genuinely don’t know how we’re going to keep doing this.

That’s parenthood.

And honestly, that’s marriage too.

I’m realizing more and more that being a good husband isn’t proving I can carry exactly half the weight every night.

Sometimes I literally can’t.

Sometimes my wife is carrying something I can’t take from her.

And maybe my job in those moments isn’t to rescue her.

Maybe it’s to stay close.

To not run away from her exhaustion because it makes me feel inadequate.

To not turn her hard moment into a story about how I’m failing.

To keep looking for the things I can carry.

And then, when the sun comes up, get my ass back into the rotation.

Last night I wanted desperately to rescue my wife.

I couldn’t.

I still hate that.

But maybe love doesn’t always look like fixing the problem.

Sometimes it’s standing next to the person you love in the middle of the mess, wishing you could do more.

Still there.

Still trying.

Still us.