Relationship problems - what should I do? (sorry - bit long)

[Lucyloo81]

I have a 9 week old baby with my partner of 3 years. Our DS wasn't planned but I thought we'd be fine and everything would be ok when he arrived. 3 weeks ago though my DP told me he wasn't that happy with our relationship for various reasons and hadn't been happy for about a year, so nothing to do with the arrival of DS. This all came as a complete shock to me and I'm still trying to get my head around it.

When I try to find out why he's not that happy he says he feels we've grown apart and that he just doesn't love me as much as he did a few years ago. I don't feel as if we've grown apart at all, we have our issues but what couples don't? I had posted a few weeks ago on MN about him wanting to smoke weed again after giving it up before the baby came - he said this was one of the reasons he's unhappy so I've said I don't mind if he does that occassionally and away from DS, if it'll make him happy. He also wanted us to have more, adventurous sex which I've also tried to do. The one problem I can't really fix is that we live away from his friends as he moved here 3 years ago to be with me and he doesn't see them that much as I don't get on with them overly well as all they seem to do is smoke weed.

I've been trying really hard for the past couple of weeks to bite my tongue and make him happy and hope this bad patch passes but I don't know how long I want to be in limbo for - I keep thinking 'should I be worrying about selling the house and where me and DS will live?' I explained this to him last night and he said he can't help that he isn't sure at the moment.

We've agreed to keep trying for now but I'm so scared that its all going wrong and I'm going to end up alone with my DS. I have lost both my parents and am an only child and was so happy to finally have a family of my own only to see it begin to fall apart after a few weeks. I've read a lot on MN about don't make any rash decisions for the first year but I'm just not sure how long I can cope with the uncertainty. Do I push him to make a decision or just do my best to make him happy and hope that things turn around? Thanks in advance for any advice.

[coppertop]

Is he making any effort to make you happy? It sounds to me as though he is having everything on his terms.

[Lucyloo81]

I think he does try to make me happy, its just he says he can't make me happy if he's not happy himself, its so hard atm cos we go between things feeling fine and all normal and cuddly and then the next day he'll be all distant and cold so my feelings seem to change from day to day as well. Somedays I feel like he is really trying and others not so much.

It does feel like things are a lot more on his terms just now, but I don't know what else to do except hold my hands up and let him walk away - I know he felt that for the first couple of years of our relationship things were on my terms because he moved to where I lived and restricted his smoking because of me and couldn't see his friends as much so now I feel like is it my turn to try to give back? At the same time I don't want to be a doormat!

[coppertop]

Other MNers will have far better advice than anything I could offer but the one thing that I would say is that neither of you should make any big decisions just yet. Your ds is only 9wks old and it's one of those times when everything seems a bit 'up in the air' because of all the changes that a new baby brings.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.