To think you can never really know your partner, no matter how long you're together?

[GirlOnIt]

Sorry if it's a bit depressive. Known Dp 5+ years and there's things I'd have sworn he'd never do or say things he now has. It's like us having a Ds has brought out a sexist idiot in him and I'm wondering how he could have hidden that side of himself.

Then reading relationship threads on here and I think, no matter how long you're with someone you never really know do you? Not even just with cheating but how some men then are completely different if it comes to a separation or after kids arrive.
Before I'd have sworn if me and Dp split up he'd be fair and considerate regarding Ds, but really he could be an absolute dick, because I don't really know.

This is why I could never ever be reliant on a partner. Least I have my own money and a job to return to after mat leave. So he can quite frankly go fuck himself!

Having worked in HR for global vompanies for twenty-odd years, I can categoricaly say that people keep all sorts of thoughs and behaviours to themselves. Its not uncommon for some yo have a completely secret life either. Ive known partners/spouses be completely ignorant of their partner’s gambling, affairs, secret children, alcoholism, IVAs, bankruptcy, debts, arrests, prison record, violence, abuse, drug taking, theft, blackmail and other ‘undesirable’ behaviour.

A lot of people simply wear a cloak of respectability and agreeableness in order to get what they want.

That sounds similar to what we are going through Frouby. He's acting like the 'big man' bullshit and he's never been like that before.

*I think someone always has the ability to shock you.

Not just a dp/dh I don’t think you ever completely know anyone not even your own child tbh*

Absolutely!

Call him on it Girl. I did my dh, he was then dp.

It came to a head one sunday morning, I was bfing ds while I typed an invoice up and I disagreed with something he was invoicing for. He told me to just type it, he was the one doing the work and he was the one running the company and working away all week and I didn't know anything.

It's my fucking company!

I unlatched ds, turned the pc off and told him to fuck off and leave us alone. Had had enough. He'd been swinging his dick about for weeks. He had lent my car to the lads for work, because 'I didn't need it, you aren't working and can't drive for 6 weeks anyway'. He came home every friday and started drinking 'because he'd been at work all week'. He started going out Saturday afternoons because 'he needed a break because he's worked all week'.

He was a full weight wanker and I was getting more and more and more exhausted and lonely and miserable a d felt really vulnerable and he couldn't cope with me being vulnerable as I am the strong one.

When I flipped he was shocked. Didn't believe me. Refused to leave. Refused to accept that he was wrong.

But he did leave. Only for a few hours then came home, cried, told me he was sorry and would I please try again. It took a few months to trust him again and he did have to work hard to change things but we did find our way back to each other.

Ds is 5 now. I am back to my normal, gobby, bolshy self. We nearly lost our business 6 months later and I managed to scrape us through it, but it wouldn't have happened if dh had listened to me. And we wouldn't have got through it if it wasn't for me and dh knows that and his dick swinging days are behind him now.

I wouldn't have thought in a million years that he would have been like that. He was never abusive but he did change in his attitude to me. Went all hunter gatherer but forgot when he came through the front door we were supposed to be a team I suppose.

I know my dh very well. However in the event of divorce I know he would fight me hard over money.

I also have concerns over him acting in the same way as @Frouby's dh once we have a child of our own. I think there's a possibility he will think doing housework is ' helping me' and want a pat on the back for it.

I would, however, not hesitate to leave him if he was a shit partner.

@Frouby Brilliant! Well done you.

I'm stealing 'Full Weight Wanker.' Sorry.

ForOldsLadsEye steal away. It suited him at the time but he's back to his normal if a bit annoying dh again so hopefully I don't have to use it for him again.

I do think men changing after a baby is more common than is discussed. I was shocked by him at the time. I wondered if it was me, wondered if he didn't love me anymore because I was fat and flabby and sore after a c section. I wondered if he regretted ds that we had tried for for nearly 4 years.

I think what happened with us was a shift in dynamics that started when I was pg. We stopped getting drunk together because obviously I was pg. We stopped socialising as much because I was tired and didn't want to listen to drunk folk. We stopped having sex as much. We lost a lot of intimacy that makes a couple a couple rather than housemates.

When I had ds I was like most mums, tired, sore, anxious, touched out with a constantly bfing baby. I was savagely in love with ds and didn't have much time for anyone else other than dd.

Dh went from being a normal subcontractor with a few lads, to 15 men in the space of a month. He had 3 or 4 jobs on at any one time and we were dealing with 3 contractors. He was consistently working away and working in a dick swinging environment so when he came home to 2 dcs, a hormonal bfing, exhausted mum and a baby who only wanted me, he just couldn't make the switch to his new environment. Partly because it was hard work, and because if he acknowledged how hard it was, he would have to pitch in a bit more at a weekend and he didn't want to do that, he was genuinely knackered by the time he walked through the door on a Friday.

He didn't cover himself in glory. He was a full weight wanker. But he does admit that now.

Me telling him to leave shocked him. And I think he realised that even though I was still vulnerable and still exhausted and still struggling I was still me underneath it and would still rather be on my own with 2 dcs than put up with shit from some Billy Big Bollocks throwing his weight around.

It was hard. But we got there in the end. We got married last year. I love him very much. Alls well that ends well but it did shock me at the time and I don't take our relationship for granted anymore.