Its too much for me.. what can I do?

[Atreyu123]

 

I (27M) have been with my fiancée (24F) for almost 5 years. We have kids together, and life is already a handful between work, bills, and raising little ones. What’s making things harder is that my fiancée has a lot of unresolved trauma and mental health struggles.

 

Here’s the issue: every time she feels stressed, overwhelmed, or down, it falls directly on my shoulders. If the kids act up, she gets overwhelmed and starts yelling, and then I’m the one who has to calm everyone down. If she feels depressed, I step in to keep things together. When I try to give her constructive suggestions, like easier ways to handle bedtime, or cheaper activities we can do with the kids instead of spending money, she gets overwhelmed, starts overthinking, and sometimes breaks down crying.

 

I try to comfort her when she’s upset, because I know she needs it in the moment. But it feels like my own needs never get met. I carry my own problems too (work, health issues, money worries), but it seems invisible to her. It’s like she assumes everything I do is easy for me, and she doesn’t realize how much I’m overcompensating when she crashes.

 

On the flip side, when she does try to “help,” it often goes to the extreme and makes me feel useless—like if I say I’m tired, she’ll try to take over everything as if I can’t do anything at all.

 

I love her, and I don’t want to “fix” her. I just want her to be more independent, to carry her own share without collapsing under it, and to not project all her trauma onto me. But I can’t shake this nagging feeling: maybe I am being selfish for wanting her to be more stable, when I know what she’s been through.