I'm a guy, asking questions about birth control pills and mood/personality changes

In My Humble Opinion
1

I am actually asking this for both my wife and myself. I’ve been the observer of this for the almost 19 years that we’ve been married and things are so bad that something has to change and I’m asking for ideas that we haven’t thought of. Not only have we been married for 19 years, but we have worked together pretty much every day of those 19 years with a few exceptions. So we are intimately familiar with the patterns of one another.

A little more background. My wife and I literally work together every day. We have tremendous communication and have been through so much together. We have a great relationship…most of the time. I understand that we may even have it better than most when it comes to the issues that come from hormones and such. With that said, working together and being together so much, for years we were all that we had. We’ve overcome so much. We’ve gotten out of debt and out of a cult. We’ve been shunned by everyone we knew and we’ve built a new life. We’ve grown up together in many ways, married young (19 and 22). My wife has had to grow up so much because she not only grew up in the cult but sheltered even for that in a very dysfunctional family. We have both changed tremendously for the better, but this one thing persists and we’re both desperate for some answers.

Maybe the following is normal. I don’t know. Neither does she. With the isolation we’ve lived this is one thing we’ve never really spoken to others about.

My wife takes birth control that is tricyclic (I think). In other words, three weeks on, one week off. There are patterns to her behavior to the point where I can see things coming and she even has reminders on her phone that this day or that might be really rough. The good times are week three of her pills and the fourth week where she takes no pills. They are really fantastic times. However, the moment she takes the first pill of her first week (tonight in fact) things change. Like we wake up to go to work on Monday morning and she’s just a different person. The first week is simply awful. The second week starts getting better but at times if the first week is better for some reason (rare) the second week is bad. I’ll get to what “bad” looks like in a minute.

So you have a terrible week one of pills, mixed second week, and good third and fourth. Then you have to factor in months for some reason. Our anniversary is in March. We have never had a good anniversary. Why? Because for some reason everything gets amplified starting in October and culminating in a horrible February. I hate that damn month for many reasons, but it is never good between us. This isn’t simply my observations, she corroborates this. I’m a guy with a tremendous memory that notices patterns. She takes notes on things. We openly discuss most things in life and try to work out problems. February is approaching.

Now let’s talk about what happens that first week of pills. My wife takes her hormone pills and starts feeling like she’s stupid. She gets “cranky” as she calls it. She has no problems the week of her period. She’s never been a heavy bleeder or had wicked cramps or anything. She has said that she has it so easy comparatively. But once she starts feeling stupid, a feeling that comes out of nowhere, things go downhill. I have tried being comforting and that is a spiral to awful arguments. I’ve tried being quiet and then she thinks I don’t like her. I’ve suggested that she do things with friends and that doesn’t work. Because we work together we can’t get away from one another and rely on each other to some degree but literally anything can trigger this massive defensiveness and heck, just sitting next to her you can feel the seething intensity coming off her. No matter what I do, and no matter how hard she tries, she cannot beat this change that happens and it isn’t fun for either of us. It will result in a fight. It honestly is like it has to get to that point and there has to be high emotion for her to see it. She typically can’t see it. She is so changed that she feels like the way she’s being is the way she is 100% of the time. I hate it for her, and I hate it for me, but it seems the only way to snap her out of it at some point and to wake her up many times is for her to get at me and at me until I’ve had enough and we blow up and then suddenly she’s fine and thanking me for waking her out of it. She just can’t seem to manage to get out of it on her own many times.

I’m literally writing this because my wife just took her first pill at 6PM tonight. We’ve had a wonderful week, and a wonderful weekend. Literally had a great time together. We’ve been looking at this transformation and talking about it so much lately to the point where I don’t know that I might not need to close our business and go find a job or something just to get some space. I don’t want to live with and work with the person she becomes 25-50% of the month. It makes me crazy because it takes the woman I love and makes her someone totally different for so long and I cannot do anything to head it off at the pass or make it better. Even when we do maybe have a good Monday because I’ve really walked on eggshells eventually one will break and here comes the defensiveness. It is like pure ego is unleashed.

Anyway, like I said she took her first pill at 6PM. Just a few hours after she comes to me and says “I can already feel the change happening and I don’t want to lose who I’ve been”. She’s already feeling stupid and worthless and cranky, her words. We haven’t done anything but watched some tv together and she went in the back and then came and told me this. She said that it wasn’t present whatsoever today until now, coincidentally after taking that first birth control pill. Nothing we have tried helps. She’s asked her doctors about it and their answer is always just “so you want to try another pill?” with no acknowledgment of whether what she’s going through is normal or not, no discussion at all, just hey here’s another pill. She has tried a few over the years. I’m fine if she just wants to go off them to be honest. Nobody should have to live like this, neither myself nor her. She’s so deeply unhappy when this happens.

Any suggestions? She asked me to post this and she can read it. Like I said, we discuss this stuff openly and we want to live the happiest life possible. The good news is that after February the same pattern will be there but it won’t be as extreme as it is now in this October-February time frame that is so hard on us. Still, this is no way to live, and we both want to look for information and alternatives. I know that the subject matter alone can bring out the fists and I’m really not interested in fighting people that may get offended by this post for some reason. My intent is good and my wife and I are on the same team in this post.

2

Holy-moley. IANAD or any kind of health care pro. I’d go off those pills. Seems like y’all have been on them awhile. You should go and tackle birth control on your end. Whatever that means. IMO, only.

3

This. Try something else.

4

What Beckdawreck said. There is a wide variety of birth control options available that don’t require your wife to take pills. Surely you have looked at, or even tried, some of the others?

And if all her doctors are saying to her is “so you want to try another pill?” she maybe needs to find other doctors too.

5

I mean just to name a few options :

a. Yes, you can try condoms, though after this many years you probably won’t be able to function sexually with them
b. Non hormonal birth control. If your wife gets a copper IUD, the primary side effect is pain and a bit of bleeding after insertion. Also, it won’t interfere with her periods which means she will still have naturally cycling behavior and bleeding - which might be as bad or worse as the kind caused by the hormones in the pills.
c. Hormonal IUDs. A piece of plastic that leaks a tiny amount of hormone right in her uterus. These are thought to have little effect on behavior because the hormone levels inside her brain will be barely affected.

Also, yes, there are other types of pills, they don’t all use the same mechanism.

6

If you guys have had your kids or don’t want any go get a vasectomy. They’re not that hard on a man. I know, big words from a woman. Seriously before I would give up another, really, 6 mos.(of the year) of happiness, I think I could pluck up the courage. You and she shouldn’t suffer like this.

7

They cause permanent damage to a man, unlike the previous options I outlined above.

8

Well yeah. But the pills may very well be causing his wife permanent damage. It’s widely known the long term use of birthcontrol pills have side effects that are really bad. He’s lost nearly half his married life to her suffering. Gotta weigh the pros and cons. A little snip/snip, a day or 2 off work, pain meds. He’ll live through it, I bet.

9

No, I mean permanent endocrine system damage and an increased risk of prostate cancer. Versus a temporary measure that only needs to be used until his wife has menopause, within probably less than 10 years.

10

IANALady or Doctor, but, Me two too, your wife needs to stop taking those particular pills.
I’ll also second the vote for a vasectomy. You seem to have some reservations about that option, does that stem from your previous life? If so, perhaps you can view it as another step away from that? Or are you worried about wanting kids later, if so vasectomies aren’t necessarily permanent.
Look ya go in for some counceling, get a little “happy chemo” to keep you settled the day of the procedure. Go in get it done, go home and spend a few days on the couch with an ice pack. Shoot, they don’t even knock ya out, just use a local.

Ninja’d

11

Oh, my gosh, how horrible for both of you. I 1000% agree that seeing her doctor/gynecologist and discussing other options is urgent. The first time I went on the pill, I became extremely depressed. I cried all the time, couldn’t get out of bed, and it kept getting worse. My gyno put me on another one and I was fine.

It doesn’t have to be like this! The very best of luck!

12

Same ol’ song and dance, my friend. “Tut-tut. Birth control is a woman’s problem” Everything a woman has to do as a reproductive adult is possibly life threatening. He needs to man-up and do what he needs to do for birth control. It doesn’t have to be surgery, but he needs to change something. Clearly he’d bothered by the current state of affairs, as they are.

13

This is a 23-year-old study on 91 men in China. Got something more recent?

Sterilization is meant to be permanent, whether you’re male or female, and in either case has a very low risk.

14

It’s not as though the only options are that she keeps taking the pills or he has a vasectomy. There are numerous options, some of which have been mentioned in this thread. None of them is perfect; they all have their plusses and minusses, but the option they are taking now has a huge, huge minus so, yeah, definitely worth doing a bit of research and thinking openly about other options. As already stated, if their current doctors are not supporting them in doing this, find other doctors. There are lots of sources of competent and experienced advice about family planning options.

15

A temporary measure which also increases risk of cardiovascular problems including strokes and heart attacks. It’s not swapping a totally safe option for a dangerous one, but it’s changing who’s taking on the slight risk.

The first pill I tried as a teen did something similar to my moods, everyone irritated me unbearably and I had screaming rows with people I’ve never fallen out with in 30 years otherwise, until I stopped taking it. Years later when I tried a different one it was fine, no mood swings, only my normal level of irrational anger.

I hope you find something that works soon, it sounds very unpleasant for both of you. Maybe try find a doctor who’s better at listening?

16

Speaking as a man that has endocrine problems and after treatment had a vasectomy, I’d question a single study published 24 years ago.

17

OP, the two of you both, together, need to sit down with a doctor in real life to discuss options to the pills your wife is currently taking. There are other options, you should review them all with someone who can help you evaluate the risks and benefits of each in your particular situation.

Hormonal birth control isn’t for everyone, and it sounds like your wife might be one of them.

18

I had a couple of cousins who suffered permanent damage from that “temporary measure” that might want to have a word with you… if they were still around to have words with anyone…

Birth control pills are not risk free, either.

19

Hormonal birth control is far more dangerous for women than vasectomy is for men. That’s well-documented. Stroke, deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary emboli (including fatal PE) and more happen frequently.

Whereas recent, well designed studies on the consequences of vasectomy show a much, much lower rate of significant complications.

From UpToDate:

20

Ladies and gents, let’s not do the women vs men bickering over who takes care of the birth control. That’s a race to the bottom. People are already reading in my view on the old snip snip, something I haven’t even written a word on yet.

I think maybe I should have just asked “is this normal” instead of asking for suggestions. There are many options that we’re aware of. I think that, much like my wife going to her doctor, we get lost in the weeds of defining options when really we’re just looking to have our experience validated so that we can know what’s normal and what’s not.

This discussion is fraught with peril. Growing up in a patriarchal male dominated cult the message is more along the lines of “bitches be cray” which does neither the woman (obviously) nor the man (yes, patriarchy negatively impacts the men not at the top as well) any favors. Things like this weren’t really talked about. TV showed men terrified of their wives at “that time of the month”. Nobody was talking openly about the realities of pre or post menstrual expectations.

We don’t know what we don’t know. What we do know is that this situation, as presently constituted, has been scarring for the both of us in what otherwise can be a very good relationship. When this happens with the taking of the pills the quills come out and she wants love but hugging a porcupine hurts and I’ve been doing my best for years but it simply doesn’t work because my love can’t make up for her lack of love for herself during that time. She gets wrapped up in looking to me for everything then. The arguments are wild and crazy illogical circular arguments of insanity. They build over time and just get worse. I try not to get into them but staying out creates its own emotional vortex and eventually I get sucked in.

The bottom line is that the pills pretty much make her instantly feel like she’s awful or just not enough, she isn’t as sharp mentally, she gets codependent with me as if somehow I’m the engine that has to drive everything, I get overly consumed with her feelings walking on eggshells trying to avoid the next switch in personality or mood, etc. It is effective birth control in that nobody wants to be with the other in this situation. Nobody is happy.

I’m glad to see that the responses seem to be that this isn’t a normal experience. It gives me hope that we can change this.