Right, so let’s just separate out the hurt you feel about being told to suck up the abuse from your mum.
That must have hurt so much, even if your mum didn’t mean it to, but I’m just putting that aside for a bit so I can understand the practical options involved.
So you desperately want to finish your PhD, which is important to you of course - does it also give you a jump start in terms of future career options?
Ways to finish PhD:
- Stay in dysfunctional relationship by suffering and appeasement. Hope you are ‘allowed’ to finish the PhD in this uncertain situation where an aggressor has all the power
- Split up... with a plan!
This doesn’t mean the instant panic you seem to think it does. But, I can see why you feel like it does, it’s very hard to see your way out of an abusive relationship. Especially when you’re currently dependent on the abuser for some element of daily life.
So, let’s work out exactly what you do need/want, because it’s not a replacement him!
So, are you ok for childcare for your other children when you’re doing nights? You don’t mention this so I’m assuming their not coming to the flat too?
What does your ‘partner’ threaten is going to happen if you split up? That he has the baby when you do nights but he doesn’t come to the uni flat? Or that he refuses to look after his baby on those nights at all, leaving childcare to you and saying that this means it will force you to give up the PhD altogether?
If he will look after the baby at night then that might be a help for you in the end.
If not, then you need to start problem solving about how to arrange overnight care for the baby. Can the baby go with your older children?
Or, If your money isn’t being stolen /coerced out of you, can you afford someone to stay overnight with the youngest in the uni flat?
You say if this partner doesn’t stay overnight in the flat you won’t get to see or breastfeed the baby for 48 hrs straight. How does the proximity of the flat help after the actual night shift and you being able to pop in from the lab? No need for too many details, but I’m just trying to understand what the partner would need replacing with!
Basically, by picking it all apart, and finding solutions for one bit at a time, you can come up with a plan. If you want to leave.
You also need to think about what is the minimum time you would want to breast feed for, & this is such a personal thing, only you can answer it. When you are thinking about this, gently and very nicely push yourself... I clung to breast feeding because I had to go back to work before I was ready, and it became a symbol of everything. But actually when we finally did stop bf, it wasn’t a big deal and it didn’t affect our bond at all, although when it was caught up with work, I’d been sure it would break the special bond we had forever. Obviously that’s me and you’re you, but I did want to share that and gently ask if, well, if everything else was better (like, if you weren’t scared and abused every moment of every day, and controlled by someone who holds your PhD over your head all the time), well, if those things were fixed, and your baby had a happier, more relaxed mummy, would it be such a desperate thing to reduce breast feeding one night a week / express or make some other changes that might help make it easier to get a plan up and running?
And tbh yes, maybe there is an element of appeasement in this plan, but only if it’s working towards a plan to leave (eg you need to keep this situation going for another x weeks), as appeasing an abuser as a way of life never, ever works.
Hope some of this is useful, I can feel your desperation through your post. I can also see how torn you are. Keeping an unsupportable situation going is a very hard thing to do.