I'm an idiot. An immature idiot who's now fucking up someone else's life. If you read this and can help me straighten my thoughts out or just be someone who listens I would appreciate it. I don't know who to talk to or what to do. I will try and type everything so as not to drip feed.
A year ago I started seeing someone. He was very kind, attentive, a good listener. He apologised when he did something wrong and admitted he was at fault and made sure not to do it again. All good things, I thought.
I think I wilfully ignored all of the bad signs.
We moved too fast, together from the first date. I think looking back now I was so immature with relationships, starved for attention and due to horrendous low self esteem I ignored this typical red flag and chose instead to hope that we would be the exception to the rule, one of the couples you hear about who get engaged after two weeks and are happily married for 20 years.
He still lived at home at 28 and had everything done for him by his mum. I told him that if we were to have a serious relationship and move in together I wouldn't be doing anything like that and that it was very important to me to have an equal partner who took care of their share of things, and that I didn't want to be with a man child.
We moved in together after 6 months. Two months later I got pregnant due to a ripped condom. I took the MAP but must have already ovulated. We talked about me having a termination, but being in my late 20s and having issues with my ovaries and not even knowing if I would be able to conceive and carry a child I decided to continue with the pregnancy.
We've been living together since the new year and there's a regular pattern of him not doing anything around the house, anything, then I get upset and point it out and say it's not good enough and that I told him this wasn't what I wanted in a relationship, and then he gets upset at himself and promises to change and to try harder and he'll do a few things for a few days and then it stops again.
We've just had the same talk. I told him that these things never improve after a baby is born and only get worse, that we've had this conversation so many times but nothing has changed in six months, so how long am I supposed to keep waiting and hoping that things will change? I said that I didn't want to stay together hoping things improve only to break up in another year or so because nothing has changed.
He broke down and cried, and said he doesn't know why he does it and that it's not because he doesn't love me it's because he doesn't love himself.
I know he's struggling with a bit of depression and anxiety, his weight has just been going up and up since he had a bad breakup a few years ago. I suggested he try therapy and he's been going for a couple of months. He also has untreated sleep apnoea which was finally confirmed last week, which I told him he had when we first got together, and he's had blood tests last week to see if there's another reason he's always so tired/mentally fatigued. He said he almost hopes they say he has diabetes so there's a reason for the way he feels.
So I know physically he's not great, and mentally he's not great and that it all exacerbates each other, and I've tried to be patient and not get upset when he falls asleep when we're talking or when he can't remember anything I tell him, even important things, but the reason for his behaviour or how sorry he is doesn't change the effect it has on me, our relationship, and in the future, our child. I don't want my child to grow up and see that modelled as a way of how to behave in a relationship. Whether it's a boy or a girl it will grow up learning how to take care of yourself and how to take care of others.
He has many good qualities. He's very kind, and can be thoughtful and bring me home things I like to eat or flowers. He's gentle, and never raised his voice. He loves this baby very much, and gets very emotional whenever he looks at scan pictures etc.
I said this morning that I can't afford to stay in the UK and be a single parent. At least in London where we live. I've been furloughed since it came in, and I will have to quit my job once the baby is born as it's not something that's possible to continue to do. I have no family in this country. I said that the most sensible option is for me to go back to my home country where I have family support, and to go before the baby is born because no matter how kind he is now, things can always change after a breakup and he would be able to stop me leaving the country if the baby is born here. And then I would be trapped.
But I'm still fucking up this baby's life. It will grow up without two parents. He won't be able to see the baby for a long time after it's born because the borders are closed from CV19. He won't be able to get into the country. And even then, we live on opposite sides of the world with a very expensive flight in between us. He wouldn't be able to be a present father.
I want nothing more than for us to be together, as a family, and for things to work out. There is still, even now, a tiny part of me that is foolishly hoping this will be the catalyst he needs to change and to step up. But if it hasn't happened so far when will it? I feel like a stupid little girl blindly crossing her fingers.
I was stupid to let things move too fast, I was stupid to move in together so fast and to get pregnant so fast. None of this should've happened. I'm so angry at myself for letting myself get into this position. I never thought I would be here. This isn't how I wanted my life to be.
So I've fucked up, and now I've fucked up another human being's life who isn't even born yet. I don't know what advice I'm looking for, I just feel so overwhelmed and so heartbroken, and even if no one replies it was cathartic to write it down.
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Relationships
I've been an idiot, and I don't know what to do now
PotOfYoghurt · 26/06/2020 10:25
First of all stop beating yourself up about being stupid. You’re not. You don’t have to justify your decision to carry on with your pregnancy. Anyone who judges someone for having a baby in any circumstance isn’t worth listening to, so please don’t keep feeling like you’ve fucked up just by being pregnant.
Kids are brought up in all sorts of family circumstances and they thrive as long as they’re loved, which yours will be.
As for your DP, blood tests are a positive step, but you have to consider that if nothing physical or fixable shows up, that this man is going to be next to useless as a dad. He’s shown that he can’t step up and do his share even after repeatedly telling him that he needs to.
It sounds like you have a few months left to sort this out before the baby arrives so I’d suggest speaking to someone official about your rights as a mother to either remain here or take your baby back to be with your family. I’d start planning to be a single parent either way. 
Why is it the ideal for the woman to stay in a foreign country away from her family support to struggle as a single parent and live on benefits for the sake of enabling the father's relationship with the child?
He could travel regularly or move and keep a relationship via Internet. They could visit. There are ways of making it work that don't involve her sacrificing everything on his altar.
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