How do I mend a shattered heart?

[PleasehelpmetoLTB]

That's it really.

I am 31 weeks pregnant by my ex. He was my world, I loved him in a way I didn't know existed. He cheated on me and broke me. He started a new relationship but kept living with me and didn't tell me about it. He carried on sleeping with me, and I fell pregnant.

I have never had the time I needed to get over the relationship. I have always held out hope that we would somehow work it out. That's not why I kept the baby, I kept the baby because I wanted it and I couldn't bear to have an abortion. But I also always hoped that the baby would bring us back together. I know that's horribly naive.

ExP and I continued to live together and things have actually been really nice. We are physically affectionate, sleep in the same bed a couple of nights a week, kiss (but nothing else) etc. And he has been very much involved with the pregnancy. All of which have led me to think there was a chance for us, and that if he is still involved with OW, it is not serious or committed. But things have recently taken a big turn for the worse. Our relationship (in the friend, supportive, co-parent way) has deteriorated and he says he feels nothing for me and we will never ever be together again. He talks to me like he hates me, he threatens to walk out and leave and never come back. He tells me I've ruined his life, that his life is shit and it's my fault. When I get upset he yells at me for 'making it all about me', and when I object to him shouting and swearing at me he says I should just 'take it'.

I know I need to leave but I don't know how. I am still stuck in the past, in the wonderful, incredible relationship that we had, and I don't understand how he was able to so casually throw it away without a second thought. I don't know how I will be able to fix myself while looking after a baby, how I will ever stop loving him, and how I will ever find love again. I feel completely torn to pieces and, worst of all, I feel like I'm starting to resent and regret the baby I was previously so excited about as it will prevent me from ever having a clean break away from him.

I realise I sound pathetic. I hate it - I am a strong, educated, (formerly) independent, strong-willed woman in my 30s... but this man was my world. I also suspect he was/is EA but I am too confused to know.

Please, help me see that I can move past it, that there is life after a big love has ended, and that I can be strong enough to leave him, take the baby and start again.

[Resilience16]

I am so sorry you are in this situation.
Yes he is E A. You really do need to get away from him. Do you have any friends or family you can confide in?
You will get through this, even though it may seem bleak now. You and your baby deserve someone who loves them and wants to be with them, not someone who verbally abuses them and cheats. If he is like this now it will probably escalate once the baby is born.
I know it's scary, but you owe it to yourself and your baby to leave.
Hug for you

[PleasehelpmetoLTB]

Thank you Resilience. It's so difficult, my head is all over the place and I keep having to remind myself he was not good for me, and I should not let him destroy me. I feel so beaten down, he has always, always made me feel like he can and will leave at the drop of a hat, and now that I'm the one who needs to leave I just don't know if I have the strength, even though we're not actually together any more. I feel guilty, as he says this other relationship is over and the baby is all he has left.

If I leave, I have to really leave, as I moved across the country to be with him and I have no friends or family or support system nearby. He was going to be my support system through childbirth and the newborn phase and I just don't know if i think he should be any more.

[marthastew]

Please don't feel guilty.

If you had a friend in your situation, what would you want them to do? Be your own friend and try to get away as soon as you can.

Do you have friends or family you could stay with as a first step?

You'll get through this and one day look back and be very proud of how you built a new life for you and your little one.

[PleasehelpmetoLTB]

If I had a friend in my situation I hope I would be as patient and as sympathetic as my friends have been. But they have seen me go back to him time and again, give him the chances he probably doesn't deserve, cry my heart out over him and stay in the same situation...and they have stuck by me. I hope I would be the same. Most people would have given up on me as a lost, pathetic, unsaveable cause by now. And I hate myself for it.

I don't feel like I want my baby today. I'm getting lots and lots of kicks and rolls, which I usually love. But I just want to go back 7 months and not sleep with my ex, go back and go away, take myself off travelling, lick my wounds and mend my broken heart and start again. I don't know how to do it when I have his baby to look after. How do I do it? How do I start again?

[ImperialBlether]

How many weeks pregnant are you, OP?

I wouldn't rely on this man for anything. If you're going to keep the baby, you need to be with people who are good to you and care for you. This isn't the man for that.

I'm really sorry, it's a horrible situation to be in.