TL;DR I got pregnant very early on into my relationship with my fiancé before truly knowing him. Pre and postpartum, he’s not being the partner that I need. Our fights are over the top and unsolvable, mainly because he refuses to talk about anything. I’m debating leaving but the baby is a huge part of the reason I’m staying.
To start, my fiancé and I have been together less than 2 years. We got pregnant and then engaged pretty early on in our relationship. The engagement followed the pregnancy and now looking back, I’m sure he proposed because of the baby. And when I say pretty early on, I mean we were together less than a year before I got pregnant. I’m a firm believer that you don’t truly know someone until you’ve been dating for at least 2 years, this is from my experience. So the pregnancy hit me like a ton of bricks with worry and angst, I was just waiting for his skeletons to come out of the closet and knew once they did it was too late. And sure enough, they came out to play in the middle of my pregnancy.
My fiancé went from this loving, understanding guy to my worst nightmare. We started fighting ALL THE TIME. To the point that I would have to walk away because I know stress and anxiety affects your baby while pregnant. I would feel guilty and remove myself from the situation for the babies sake. I tried to chalk up our fights to my pregnancy hormones clashing with a hard headed person. But the more we fought, the more I felt he truly didn’t care about me. I explained over and over through these fights how bad it was for me, for our unborn baby, our environment (we have 2 dogs, 1 of whom is very in tune with me emotionally) and nothing would stop him. If he was mad, that was it. There was no reeling him back in. No amount of talking to him could get him to calm down. The way he would talk to me in general during these fights was sickening, me being pregnant as well just added insult to injury. And the fights themselves would NEVER get resolved. He would either walk away, magically need to shower right in that moment, or go for a drive. After he did one of these things, he would come back and act like it didn’t happen. To the point I felt like I was insane and had just made up that whole fight in my head. Several times when he came back I’d try to rehash what we were talking about so we could get to solutions, accountability and apologies. He always refused. He is the type of person that once he’s done talking and got his points across, the conversation is simply over. Even if there’s more to be said on my end.
This cycle was exhausting. I contemplated leaving him numerous times during my pregnancy and even voiced it to him as well. I told him I refused to bring up a child in this kind of environment, as I first hand have experience on how that can affect a kid. To this he one time responded that if he couldn’t live with his kid, he’d take his own life. This made me feel instantly trapped. I had grown resentment for him. What was supposed to be such an amazing, blissful time of me literally growing a human from scratch became completely tainted.
I couldn’t help but feel envy for the other girls online I saw and knew personally and how their partners were praising the ground they walked on while pregnant. I mean, you’d think you’d cherish the woman who’s carrying your child, right?
So this cycle continues throughout the pregnancy, I tough it out and stay with him. Deliver our baby who is now 6 months old. The first few weeks postpartum from my fiancé were amazing, he was helping so much. Completely hands on without me asking. I was in pure bliss. He was being the guy I had begged him to be for most of our relationship and my entire pregnancy. Then, as he got back into his work routine and regular life he seemed to slip back into who he was before. I called him on this several times, which you guessed it, didn’t go well at all. Now that the baby is here, I can’t tolerate the fighting at all. I know he’s little but I still don’t want him to see or hear it. Babies are smarter than given credit for.
I even suggested me taking the baby to go stay with my mom for a few weeks. To give us time and space to breathe and think. And that maybe working on things would be easier after. To which his response was “if you take my baby from me, I no longer have anything to work on with you. At that point I’ll owe you nothing”. Yet another thing I feel trapped by.
A lot of our fights are about how he helps me either with the baby or around the house. He’s a great dad, I’ll give him that. But won’t truly help with the baby without being asked. I still do all the chores and house duties, besides making dinner as I will give him credit for that. I take care of the baby plus work from home. I put the baby down every night for bed and get up for every night waking. Essentially, my life has completely 100% changed since the baby got here. And his, kind of just continued on… Even in his free time he’ll do his extra curricular fun things without paying any mind to me. He’s never even just simply offered to take the baby for a few hours to allow me to catch up on some much needed sleep. I’ve brought this up to him, to which he responds I don’t ask. But I don’t feel like I should have to ask. I feel as my fiancé he sees me day to day and he should be able to recognize just how truly exhausted I am day in and day out. I feel that is the bare minimum responsibility of your “other half”. I can count the times on my hand he’s asked me how I am feeling or even sleeping since I gave birth.
A part of me feels I deserve so much more than this, my day to day consists of our baby and making sure he comes home to a clean place. I’m constantly thinking of ways to make his life easier. And I don’t get the same in return. I’m terrified to be a single mom, it’s the last thing I ever wanted for my child. I don’t know if my postpartum hormones are also playing a part in how intensely I feel about this situation and wanting to leave him.
I apologize for how long this is. This is truly the first time I’ve gotten these thoughts out all at once. Any thoughts or advice is appreciated!
Comments
Lol you say hes a great dad but this entire post is full of examples of why he sucks as a partner AND a parent. Youre doing everything. You guys are clearly incompatible and only trying to make it work for the sake of your shared child… you dont have to do that. I suggest going to your parents house and letting him leave. Cultivate a good co-parenting relationship without being romantically together.
You deserve a better life than this. You deserve a partner that will treat you with respect. You deserve someone who will help you around the house.
You do not have any of that. I do not see a reason to stay with this man.
You say he’s a “good dad” but nothing in your story supports that.
You need to leave, you need to get out of this situation. Do not marry him! That will only make leaving more complicated. Find your own space and move out. Your life will feel much better when you do. Get a lawyer to figure out custody of the baby, but also inform the courts about his threats of self harm.
You do deserve more. If there’s no way to work on your relationship, it’s better to move on sooner rather than later. He’s told you he’s only with you because of the baby and he has no interest in developing a more equal partnership. Believe him. Make plans.
Girl, it’s time to go. If he threatens to kill himself, keep walking out that door. You said it
yourself in your post: this kind of environment affects a kid. Stay true to your word and refuse this kind of life for your child.
Honey, you need to leave. This relationship is unhealthy for you and the baby.
Disregard his attempts to manipulate you into staying, and do what is best for you and the baby.
If he threatens to kill himself again, call 911. Do not listen to his bullshit. Things will not get better, and you do not want to raise you baby in such a dysfunctional home.
You’ve wasted enough time, snd put yourself and the baby through enough. Now is the time to go.
Studies have shown that one stable parent is better for a child than a dysfunctional relationship with two parents.
A great dad would be caring for his child without being asked. A great dad would be making sure YOU sleep and get time for yourself. He is not a great dad. He’s barely a mediocre dad.
Your child deserves better. Move out, get child support set up.
You need to speak to a lawyer and learn your rights as a parent.
You do not have to marry him. You can keep your child and fight for custody and child support. I am a single mom of a 5 year old, I have her 2/3 of the time. The divorce is terrible but my daughter is the love of my life. You have the child, so that’s too late to do anything about, but don’t marry this man.
Free yourself from him so you can meet someone who will love and cherish you, and set a good example of a healthy, loving relationship for your son.
Don’t stay for the baby. They’ll have to witness their parents fighting all the time and treating their mom like crap. He’s a crappy partner and already a terrible father.
Go to your parents house.
As someone who saw the very same signs in her partner but ignored them for 14 years, please don’t be me. You should be open with him and tell him everything you mentioned in your post. If he sees no issue or refuses change, you’ll know exactly what you’re marriage will look like.
“I can be alone all by myself” is something I’d tell myself as I was with him but I felt alone. It wound up being much easier to deal with 2 kids (in my case) rather than 2 kids and an adult child.
I’m truly sorry you’re going through this right now. Hugs from afar 💙
If your child were in a similar situation, what would you want them to do?
You cannot stay in a relationship for the child. You’re job is to show them what a healthy relationship looks like (among other things obviously) so that they dont settle for less one day.
Take it from someone whose mom didn’t leave dad, please LEAVE him. Your kid doesn’t want to grow up watching his father disrespect you. It’s torture. I had to deal with complicated feelings about the whole thing for forty years. Anger at them both. The almost crippling feeling that I have to step in and be the meat shield for her. Wishing for divorce at every birthday and every Christmas.
YOU DESERVE BETTER.
Be single. It’s way better than this.
Talk to a family lawyer about what your options are (do NOT let your fiance know you’re discussing this or considering leaving) and then follow their advice
You can talk to your mom or a therapist about your fears of being single.
But it isn’t fair for your baby to force them to grow up in this environment.
r/abusiverelationships. Because you are in one.
He has tested to see exactly how much effort to put in to keep you tied to him. He is manipulating you. He knows you will keep giving him chances if he keeps promising to do better.
You already failed at “not bringing a child into this situation”. You can still keep it from being what they grow up with though. You have compromised your own morals so much just to be with him, and for what? Not even consistenly the bare minimum.
A big part of being a good dad is being proactive in caring for your kid. A guy who engages well with a kid is just that.
Do not stay with this man or marry him. You know this isn’t going to work out. And divorce is very very expensive. If you think you’re trapped now, it’ll be worse when you’re married. You’re putting off the inevitable. He’s just being manipulative trying to threaten his own life. He is not your responsibility and you need to think of yourself and your child first. Please go stay with your parents and let them help you.
Essentially, my life has completely 100% change since the baby got here. And his kind of just continued on…
While this is not OK, this is very common. In fact, it’s a large part of the reason why so many women everywhere are deciding not to have children. They’ve watched their own mothers be in the same position you’re in now. I can certainly tell you I watched my father do this to my mother. Now he was not abusive like your fiancé is and he loved my mother very much, but back in that time, the woman was left with the kids, and the husband just went on to live his life.
Society does a great job of romanticizing pregnancy, birth and parenthood, and that’s all to convince people to do it. They leave out how traumatic and damaging pregnancy in birth can be on a woman’s body. They leave out that all the reward that you get from parenting is few and that it’s a lot of hard work in between those small rewards. Women give up everything. We give up our autonomy, hobbies, friends, privacy, peace and quiet, alone time. Our job/career takes a hit that we can usually never recover.
You have sacrificed everything for a guy you barely knew. And you have to remember that. So don’t feel like you owe him anything. This guy sounds like a massive jerk. Leave him, get a custody agreement and child support set up and get your life in order. Maybe go back to school if you need to so that you can better prepare to take care of your son. And do it now while you’re still young and your parents are able to help you. They say that the longer woman puts off school, the lesser chance that she will go back.
I can promise you this will not get better. I dated a guy that was emotionally manipulative and would threaten to break up if he didn’t get his way and other manipulative tactics. The best thing I did for myself was dumping him. And to this day, anytime anybody tries to gaslight me, guilt trip me, or use any type of manipulative tactics on me immediately triggers anger as I have zero tolerance for that behavior.
Never stay in a relationship that isn’t working “for the child”. The child will not thank you for it when they grow up. He can be a great dad and a terrible partner. Staying will reinforce an unhealthy dynamic being acceptable to your child. The fact he is leveraging his relationship with the baby to control you and keep you from leaving comes off as super controlling. A good dad would be there for the baby even if you left or separated and he has told you he will not. He is already treating you and the baby as an after thought with you there in the house. Think hard about if him being there actually helps you or just makes more work for you. But even if he does, he clearly doesn’t appreciate you two. You are right. You DO deserve better.
Whether you stay or not, stop trying to make his life easier. He has shown he doesn’t deserve that effort from you and doesn’t reciprocate. The baby is your focus. Do what you would normally do for yourself but stop doing anything extra for this man.
Also as a child with a verbally and sometimes physically abusive father, who would be a great dad, but only when he felt like it, he will likely eventually target your child with his verbal abuse. And from experience. It doesn’t get better. They just get good at hiding it so outside the family nobody notices. Even if he does love the child, it will leave emotional scars. Outside of everything I do believe my father loved me in his own way, but it was not a healthy environment to grow up in and I was very happy when my mother left. She still tells me she wonders if leaving was the best thing for me and even now after he has passed, all these years later she still loves him and sadly wonders if she made the right choice sometimes. And I will tell you what I tell her every time. “You are strong and you did your best and what you needed to do to protect your child and yourself. You tried. You gave him choices to make it work and he refused them all. It’s okay to love him and acknowledge he isn’t what was best for us.”
This sounds almost exactly like my first pregnancy, including the emotional blackmail about leaving and self harm. Let me tell you, it was so much easier being a single mom than putting up with my ex’s crap. If had known I could do it and how much better my life would be I would have left sooner. It will be the same for you. You deserve an actual partner, not someone who plays dad when they feel like it.
You keep telling yourself it can’t get worse right? Well when you baby can start talking and then starts yelling and behaving like your fiancé then what? You’re exhausted. Have a child that thinks this chaos is standard. Thinks abusive behaviour is normal. And suddenly you’re in your 30s with so many years of your life spent being miserable. Sounds fun!
He told you exactly what he thinks, that the baby is the only reason he even speaks to you. If he says that he has nothing to work on if you take the baby, then why not let him to it? He isn’t doing his fair share already and is making your environment hell. You and your baby would be better off just being away from him.
I never wanted to be a single parent, but raising my kids alone was much better than the situation we were in with their father. I hope you are able to make a plan to leave and stick to it. Try talking to a domestic violence shelter and make a plan.
Stop letting him make you feel trapped. You’re not trapped. He’s saying that shit to manipulate you so you won’t leave. He has a free live-in maid who helps pay the bills and a nanny for his child so he doesn’t have to lift a finger in his home and with his child. Of course, he wants you to stay.
You’re living the single life now you just don’t know it/can’t recognize it for some reason.
Leave. It’s much better for a child to be in a loving home than it is to have 2 parents who are misrable and hate each other. Is that the kind of environment you want for your child? You’re not compatible with this man.
LEAVE. Again, you’re already living a single life. He’s not a partner. He’s a leech.
Hey, functional and giving dad here. I never have to be asked to do a goddamn thing at least 90% of the time.
*You got pregnant. Not ‘we’, this is harmful wording in my opinion. LEAVE.
Also the thing about how he owns you nothing if you take his child, WRONG. He still needs to be a dad to your child, if not, he will own you child support. What a dumb statement from him.