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Sorry for the serial post. OP, your husband may also want to try a book called Maximum Self Esteem by Jerry Michinton (?) It's helped me to find the root cause of the cognitive distortions that I have. It really sounds like your husband has internalized the hypercritical voices of his family. Someone here also mentioned meditation. There are good videos on YouTube of various lengths. He can start with a short one and work his way up. Again, it is hard, but it takes practice, like anything else worth doing. I started doing it and it helped reverse my natural state of stressed and tired to more energetic and less worried. He might want to give it a shot.
Sorry for the serial post. OP, your husband may also want to try a book called Maximum Self Esteem by Jerry Michinton (?) It's helped me to find the root cause of the cognitive distortions that I have. It really sounds like your husband has internalized the hypercritical voices of his family. Someone here also mentioned meditation. There are good videos on YouTube of various lengths. He can start with a short one and work his way up. Again, it is hard, but it takes practice, like anything else worth doing. I started doing it and it helped reverse my natural state of stressed and tired to more energetic and less worried. He might want to give it a shot.
Thanks I appreciate your first hand advice. I ordered the books. Here's hoping!
Really? Y’all want her to leave a non-violent, hard-working husband and destroy the family because the husband has low self-esteem? Take the eight-month old and run away into nothingness?
The husband is bad because he did not play enough? Bad role model for the child? Some player without a job would be a better role model then?
OP, this seems more like your problem than your husband’s problem. He is content with it, lies on the couch after work and plays with his phone. He is not going partying and engaging in destructive behaviors; would you prefer he did that?
So, he grumbles about work, most people do: it is normal. It is good that he shares things with you; it would be worse if he did not.
If you have an issue with frequency of intimacy, you have a valid point. So, instead of beating around the bush, thinking of ephemeral hard to put a finger on issues, just go to your husband and tell him that you need more “Tumbling.”
This is more of a recent problem. Also, a private problem. My friends, family, even his own coworkers all like him. Like I said, he used to be able to turn it on and off. He's handsome and he can be happy and charming and funny but it seems like it's exhausting to him. He's fine in social situations once I coax him to go. Recently it's just been our home life that's deteriorating. I feel like the world gets his smiling side and I bear the brunt of the anxious side.
Maybe he has postpartum depression? I don't know the equivalent medical term for that for men but, that really happens right? Rare though. Don't know, you have to ask your Dr. about that.
OP, this seems more like your problem than your husband’s problem. He is content with it, lies on the couch after work and plays with his phone. He is not going partying and engaging in destructive behaviors; would you prefer he did that?
Nope.
His mental health issue is as much his problem as that of those around him.
Not sure where the logic that, "Hey, as long as he's not partying, you have nothing to be concerned with" arises from. Untreated mental health problems are VERY destructive to relationships. Especially spousal and parent-child ones.
If you have a family, you have a responsibility to see to your mental health, for their sake if not for your own.
I am with Long Time Listener on this: what's the deal with people asking/advising OP to get a divorce/a break? She say herself in one post that her husband doesn't want to lose her, what best could it do to him if he were to lose her and his daughter? Seriously, this is NO good advice, I am no expert, but please, the poor guy already seem on the brink of something bad, he actually do need his wife with him, I know OP has been quite strong until then, but she need to keep it up, if she let go, the guy won't want to fight, and he will drown.
The thing I hate with those kind of threads is the fact that the OP often seem to be the "victim", like a kind of shaming of the other (it's his own problem, he needs to be there for his family, he need to make efforts etc), if the man he's like this, that too, I don't know, OP seem like a loving wife, but maybe she has also a part in this? People like the OP's husband are as much, if not MORE victims, getting better isn't only in the head, if the enviroment doesn't help, there's not gonna be any getting better. OP need to be twice as much as loving to her husband, show him that she's here (which she did), but certainly not give him an ultimatum, I can understand (and I know what it's like), to be (near) someone like that, the guy probably already knows his behavior is making his wife going away, doesn't need to shove it in his face. Then I don't know the man, but he sound like he's just "done", he need a mood lift, not a letting down of his wife.
Also, the guy isn't a computer, with all the programming, some behaviors, thoughts, cannot be changed, especially if he got those from childhood. And I don't know what's the deal with being "playful" and all.
Whatever is going on, a divorce/break is probably not a good idea.
I was surprised myself at the divorce suggestions. Trust me, that's not a "solution" on my radar. I reached out on this forum because my husband is also aware something is wrong and I thought I could get some good, anonymous advice. And I did! We had a long talk about therapy, he watched some of the YouTube videos someone suggested, and he was on board with ordering a self help book. As for me "knowing what I was getting myself into", I clearly explained that things have recently gotten much worse than just him being his usual introverted self. I never had a problem with that. It's also slightly absurd that a previous poster thinks you can only rightfully be unhappy with a spouse if he is out partying . But I really don't have the energy to get into that.
Again, I want to thank everyone who offered positive advice and suggestions. It was cathartic in itself just to be able to vent, as I don't really wanna air our issues to friends and family. I'm going to continue to push my husband toward constructive solutions and a healthier mindset.
That's good. He is lucky to have someone who is willing to fight (and stay) even with all that is happening. Not many people like that it seems...
Good luck OP and OP's husband.
No kidding. What's with all the just hang it up and quit stuff? I've been through that same crap staying by my lady, and her by me, through all the tough times. People just telling us to up and quit. Like THAT would do anything except prove we don't really love each other, and that selfish interests should be our priorities. If we had listened to those people we would both be just shells of what was once a man and woman, or dead.
Yes, our situation was quite bad. Mental and physical health in the toilet, horrible demons howling at the door, and people were telling us that walking away from each other was the answer. It was outside forces that caused the issues. She was brutally assaulted, a woman's worst nightmare. Sure it caused her mental and emotional trauma that was far from easy to deal with. I had serious medical issues from an old injury that laid me low. And people were telling us that everything would be peachy if we bailed on each other? Sure , just when we needed each other the most we should just walk away.
And who would be left to stand by us then? You can bet those same quitters would have been nowhere to be found. "Friends" indeed. But God had other plans. We stuck it out and are still fighting the good fight. It is indeed gratifying that the OP isn't listening to these walk away Joes either. There are still people out there with heart and guts that don't just cut and run when trouble hits and who realize that some things ARE worth fighting for. Walking away doesn't either solve or prove a damn thing. It's real easy for someone to offer such "advice" especially when they don't have any skin in the game and one or the other of the people they tell to cut fence won't be coming to them for help and support when they are all alone and desperate.
Thanks OP. For reaffirming my Faith and that Love and commitment still matter to more folks than just my lady and I. For what it's worth I , personally, feel you're doing the right thing. By yourself and your family.
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. But I really don't have the energy to get into that. 
Sure , just when we needed each other the most we should just walk away. 
But God had other plans. We stuck it out and are still fighting the good fight. It is indeed gratifying that the OP isn't listening to these walk away Joes either. There are still people out there with heart and guts that don't just cut and run when trouble hits and who realize that some things ARE worth fighting for. Walking away doesn't either solve or prove a damn thing. It's real easy for someone to offer such "advice" especially when they don't have any skin in the game and one or the other of the people they tell to cut fence won't be coming to them for help and support when they are all alone and desperate. 
