My partner and I have been together for almost 11 years, and we have a wonderful eight year old son together. Our relationship has always been quite tempermental, but generally we get on, and I think we parent well together. However, the past two years have been quite turbulent.
Two years ago we relocated to a new town, primarily to be closer to my family. Sadly, about six months after we moved, my mother passed away unexpectedly. This obviously took me by surprise, and was really upsetting. I had always had a rocky, but ultimately loving relationship with my mother, however we weren't on the best of terms when she died. I feel like I had a lot to process with her death, both emotionally, and practically, and I spent a lot of the next few months in a state of shock and sadness. I cried myself to sleep a lot at this time.
When we relocated two years ago, we removed my son from his old school, and started home educating him. This was going well, and everyone was on board with the whole process. However, when my mother died I struggled to be able to cope with everything, and my partner took on the lion's share of home educating. I spent a lot of time either at work, or with my father and sister organising the practicalities of settling her estate, etc. I admit I had less time for my partner, and less head space to be able to home educate. At this time, I think I would have happily sent my son back to school, but my partner was keen to continue. (This is pre-corona, and the nationwide lockdown schooling we have all just been through). As part of homeschooling activities, my partner would spend one or two days a week with another mother and her two children. They would go for walks together, and clubs together and generally enjoy each others company, as he and I seemed to spend less and less time communicating. He ended up sleeping on the sofa every night, and I would dread coming home, to be ignored. I became jealous of the time they would spend together and the friendship they had. I don't think that anything happened between them (she is married), but I do think there is a sort of chemistry between them. In fact, my partner has admitted as much, although perhaps not - this is when I think maybe I'm just crazy, or am I being overly sensitive, or am I being intuitive? Jealousy really sucks!!
At this time, I think he became depressed - a thing he has suffered with on-and-off over the years. It manifests as him going into what I call his "cave". When he does this, he becomes completely unresponsive. He locks himself away, blanking me, being silent, rejecting me physically in every way. He started to go into this state again, and I just didn't have the strength to deal with his mood, and my sadness, and home schooling. I put on a brave face with my son, but retreated emotionally from my partner. Then Febuary came, and we went on holiday with friends to Greece. It was the first time in months we seemed to enjoy each other's company. Shortly after this, lockdown happened, and we moved again from our small flat, to my mother's larger home. Since then everything has been better for us. My son now goes to the local school, my partner and I have been getting on better . For several months, he continued to reject me physically, but eventually we decided that without a physical relationship, we might need to reassess what our relationship is about, and where it is going. He moved back into our bedroom, and all was going quite well for a while. That is until he arranged another play date with the homeschool mum. I just couldn't help myself, and I told him that I was jealous of their friendship. He criticised me, saying that I always notice the faults in people, that I am always negative. He also said that he feels trapped. He says that my reaction to their meeting is nothing to do with them - it's to do with my father having an affair and leaving my family when I was a teenager, and my ex-partner leaving me for another woman. I suppose I do have issues with this that I carry with me, and I probably do continue to process these emotions.
That night, I ended up sobbing in bed. Really sobbing. It was like the early days of grieving again. I suddenly became overwhelmed with past sadness - my mother, my father, my past realtionship, my jealousy. So he left the room, moved back out of my bedroom, and has retreated into his cave again. He has literally locked himself in his bedroom for the past 48 hours. I needed him to look after our son for a couple of hours while I worked, but he didn't get up, so luckily my sister took our son for this time.
I am really angry with him for retreating in this way, and my son is also really upset with him (my partner, from his bed, told my son and I to "go away" yesterday, and hasn't spoken to us since then). I tell my son that he is ill, and needs to rest, and that he does love him, but my son is clearly upset and angry.
Basically, am I being unreasonable to want to express my emotions (ie. jealousy - not an attractive or desirable or nice emotion, but a real one nevertheless), or should I hold it all in? He doesn't have many other friends, and I don't want to stop him from seeing anyone, but I can't help how I feel. He says he feels trapped.
Sorry for the rant, I just feel like I need a new perspective on it. I'm so tired of going around in circles.
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AIBU?
Do I have anything to be jealous about, or am I over reacting? If so, should I keep my emotions to myself?
38 replies
Liviava · 18/04/2021 22:16
OP posts:
TaraR2020 ·
18/04/2021 22:27
Oh, op 
I'm so sorry for the loss of your mum and your grief, as well as the strain you have been under since.
Of course yanbu to express your feelings.
There's a lot of unpick about your marriage, if you both want it to work then I think you'd benefit from marriage counselling and quite possibly individual therapy as well.
Did your DH support you emotionally at all when you lost your mum?
I think most women would feel jealous of his friendship btw, even if they didn't have other issues within their relationship.
Cut yourself a little slack, you've been through hell and it will take time to recover. Somehow you and your dh need to find a way to move forward, no doubt with compromises on both sides. I think for your marriage to survive he will need to rethink his friendship with this woman but it sounds as if before you get there, you need to jointly decide whether you wish to remain together.
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