Pregnant, feel let down by my fiancé and thinking of moving out.

[Firstchilddue2022]

Fiancé and I have been together 2 and a half years. He is 27 and has a daughter from an ex who lives overseas. I'm 33 and expecting my first baby in August. The first trimester is kicking my butt... Literally. I'm currently bed bound with morning sickness and (TMI alert) am not sleeping well due to a huge haemorrhoid caused by gnarly constipation. I'm also coming out in rashes on my arms.

Fiancé and I both work full time and I have always done the majority of the housework. I realise now how much of a mistake that was. Since the morning sickness got very bad 3 weeks ago I've been focusing on trying to work and take care of myself. I hoped fiancé would pick up the slack, at first he did quite well but after a week and a half he started to do much less. Now he will cook a nutritional meal maybe twice a week. He's not done a weekly shop yet only a shop to last a day or two. As a result I've had to order a lot of takeaways and it's definitely not helping my constipation.

I am sleeping almost naked in January because I have no clean clothes to wear since he's doing all the laundry. The toilet is too dirty for me to be sick in and the house is generally not in a good state. He's hardly spending any time in the bedroom with me but he always has a spare 3-4hrs every night to watch TV and get drunk. He's not very good at taking responsibility. He often oversleeps and is late for work, he forgets his mums birthday, he always forgets things when shopping and he doesn't brush his teeth every day then gets excruciating toothache that he doesn't see the dentist for.

I'll admit, we have a housemate who I'm 99% sure has never cleaned the bathroom in the 2 years he's lived here. He's never deep cleaned any part of the house and the state of his windowsill got us in trouble with the landlord (mould).

Fiancé has accepted he has depression and WAS trying to seek help. He admits he has a drinking problem but doesn't think its a problem worth addressing in any serious manner even though he knows it upsets me a lot.

I love him so much. I wanted a baby with him to begin with but after the first pregnancy (which ended in a miscarriage) I realised he wasn't exactly what I considered father material. I realise now that we continued trying because I wanted to be a mum. Now I feel let down again and he seems resentful of me doing so little around the house. I tried to take a bin out this week and vomited. He definitely doesn't understand how miserable my condition is making me, nor how much more I need of him.

Am I fighting a losing battle asking him to step up? Am I being too hasty looking to move out? We're starting couples counseling on Monday and I'm hoping it will help but I don't think he's ready or able to make the fundamental changes I need. Am I being unreasonable?

I think it's clear you stayed with him because you wanted to get pregnant, maybe with the noble idea that it might make the relationship better.

It won't. Having a baby is really hard and you'll just get more and more resentful of him.

The only way I would change my mind about him being a worthless piece of you know what, is if his behaviour has been significantly different in the past. Is the depression the reason he's being so useless around the house or has he always been like this now with poor mental health added in?

@Mix56

You deserve better than this.

Your baby deserves better than this.

I think we've ascertained the partner isn't going to change. Baby's don't strengthen relationships either, they put a LOT of extra strain and a partnership needs to be a strong one to ride through the pressure, exhaustion and everything else that comes with having a baby.

OP, you must start making plans to move out. You absolutely can parent this child alone and even if you stayed in the relationship I guarantee you'd be parenting alone anyway but with the extra stress of a man child to look after too.

Firstly, contact your GP and request some anti sickness treatment to at least allow you to function a bit better on a daily basis. Can you afford £30 to hire a cleaner for a one off clean to make it easier to keep on top of. Shove some bleach down the loo and give it a scrub. Your physical limitations will start to ebb away at your mental health. I found forcing myself to do these things were bloody hard but I felt better after knowing I'd managed it.

Try and make a start on your laundry. Sit on the floor with it tipped out, take a sick bowl with you and sort a load of washing and put it on. Do a couple a day until you're on top of it. I had severe HG with all my pregnancies and I took a bowl or bag round with me everywhere. Housework and washing and cooking were awful tasks but you just have to do it.

Contact your local council/housing association and get on the list for social housing. You might not be offered one but if you do then great.

You could ask your partner to leave considering his name isn't on the tenancy and yours is but the property isn't suitable for a baby anyway so I'd be looking for affordable private let's in the meantime for just you. Sign it over to the housemate and the partner and let them get on with it.

Cut your losses and make a life for yourself and your child.

You can claim UC as a low earner and will be entitled to help with housing costs once the baby is here (at the moment you'd only be eligible for a 1 bed rate but you'd increase to a 2 bed rate once baby is born)

You've got to start being practical. I've done this before, been pregnant with HG with a waster of a partner and then raised baby on my own. You can do it. Start being selfish and think of yourself. He will never chamge.

Xxx

It’s not a good situation to bring a child into is it? He’s lazy and has a crap work ethic, his personal hygiene is atrocious and he’s quite happy to leave baked on shit in the toilet, how are you going to manage with a baby while running around cleaning up after two selfish idle wasters?
If he’s quite happy to treat you like this how is he a good father and partner?
I’d get out now because it will get worse because it will.

I’m sorry but you have to take responsibility OP. For a variety of reasons you have decided to have a child with this man, at least partially knowing that he wasn’t going to step up.
You are living in a dirty flat with two blokes who don’t take basic hygiene seriously. That won’t change when the baby comes and you will be doing everything plus clearing the mess they make by the sounds of it.
Hopefully you won’t be sick much longer. Just get through this tough bit then for the rest of your pregnancy you really need to make some hard decisions about staying or leaving and getting a better place / life for your child.
Your child has to come first above everything including your own personal feelings for his or her father.

Oh OP, no judgement from me. I had my child in a similar situation, it's not a crime that you thought the man you loved would step up as soon as you were pregnant as you have. At 33 with PCOS I'd keep the baby too, but be preparing to go it alone.

When I was unexpectedly pregnant with my first, my boyfriend who I didn't yet live with had a flatmate, and didn't move out and in with me until the last month of my pregnancy. His flat was tidy, but the bathroom wasn't the cleanest. Thankfully, he did step up housework and cooking wise equally (and completely on his own during the newborn weeks) once he lived with me, and still does now 10 years on. In your situation, I think you need to communicate clearly and calmly to him that you are seriously struggling with your morning sickness, that you are likely to have some relief from that soon (10-12 weeks it stopped with mine) before you have different struggles in the third trimester. But right now, you are feeling extremely vulnerable and in need of physical and emotional support and his inability to step up is giving you very serious doubts of his capabilities of a father and loving partner. That you are considering going it alone now, to save arguing and distress around the baby. Possibly write this in a letter and go and stay with someone or a cheap air BnB for a night or two, so you can get some rest and a clean toilet to be sick in to, and so he has time to reflect and realise what he could lose.

I am not excusing him in any way, but I've seen time and again men who act like single teenagers during pregnancy, and then do actually step up once the baby arrives. But of course many more don't ever step up and just show their true colours once you are pregnant, and you have no way of knowing, and right now, he is not good enough for you and you need support now while you are struggling.

Also, stop wasting your money on takeaways. Get online and order a food shop, asda is pretty cheap and best for substitutions IME. Even if you got yourself some ready meals for the microwave and some frozen veg you'd be eating a lot better than what you're wasting your money on with takeaways.

So you’re living with 2 dirty, disgusting man children and you are now bringing another child into the mix. YUK, I don’t even know how you could bring yourself to have sex with a man who doesn’t brush his teeth and who leaves shit stains in the toilet to be honest (definitely not envy). If I were you I would give couples counselling a go as you’ve already made the appointment but I would be getting my ducks in a row too just in case nothing changes, which quite honestly I don’t think it will now.

Sorry posted too soon, meant to finish with never get any better.

@Sweetpeasaremadeforbees

Here we are again. Pitifully low standards. I honestly weep for what’s happening to the women on here - it’s like someone has blinded them to reality

This. And the saddest thing is the children growing up thinking that this is normal.

This. Why on Earth do some women put up with this kind of crap behaviour? I can only assume lack of self worth, and self worth is instilled in childhood so the cycle just repeats with the next generation and men can keep acting like this. It’s so so depressing

Am I fighting a losing battle asking him to step up?

Yes

Am I being too hasty looking to move out?

No

I don’t think you should be having a baby especially in the situation you’re in. It’s selfish to bring a baby into this world if you essentially know you can’t afford to and also with a partner that’s shit. You’re thinking about yourself and quite frankly I find it hard to feel sorry for you.

@Firstchilddue2022

I think love for my partner and a desire to be a mother has clouded my judgment. I can change the tenancy to my fiancé but I don't think he'll agree to it. And I paid the full deposit.

Seriously? What's to love about him?

Go to CAB and find out your rights regarding the tenancy.
The trouble with just leaving is the potential loss of your deposit as those two wasters will probably trash the place as they can't live like decent human beings.

Have you got family you can go to?

He’s not 19, scared & confused first time dad though is he?

He’s unable to care about his other child, unable to clean his house, unable to get a decent enough job to provide for him and his partner and even unable to brush his teeth regularly. I doubt he’s going to do a 180 now. I don’t think he became all the above in the 10 weeks that @Firstchilddue2022 has been pregnant…

Don’t waste your energy on trying to change him @Firstchilddue2022 . Find yourself a place to stay, contact GP regarding your sickness cause your health is the most important right now, not teaching a 27 year old bloke basic life skills.

Ok, so you’re moving out in 2 months anyway. Could you get a place that you could afford on your own? Then if things don’t improve and you split with your fiancé then you don’t have to move again with a baby.
Right now you need some help with the housework situation. Split the cost of a weekly cleaner for 2 months between the three of you? Can you do an online shop once a week to fix the takeaways/no food in issue?
Go to dr and ask for help with the morning sickness and the constipation and piles. These issues are stopping you functioning so they are worth treating.

@Firstchilddue2022

He's not a random male housemate he's our friend and fiancé's best man.

PLEASE don't even think of marrying this man. EVER

Honestly OP I don’t think you love him, you just wanted to love something and he was there.

He’s a receptacle of all your love feelings but he’s not initiator of them.

You really wanted a child and now you’ve got one. But you do need to get out of this environment as it’s not even clean.

@TopCatsTopHat

He's not going to change, he made an effort and it lasted less than 2 weeks. He can't see with his own eyes you're struggling and things need attending to but also managed to resent this. It's a mess and you're wasting your time, he's behaving like a teenage student who's just left home for the first time. Except he's a grown adult and has so far fathered two babies and somehow managed to remain pathetically useless. The shit will hit the fan when this baby is born and life gets 5 times more difficult. Until then you have a limited window of time where things are relatively simple (despite your health difficulties) to get out and set yourself up with a living arrangement that doesn't include carrying 2 men who can't do basic adult things. You might love him but you'll be miserable and mentally unwell in no time if you stick with this. Good luck.

Everything above.

@Firstchilddue2022

The child will sleep in a bedroom. I'm only 10 weeks pregnant and have two months on my tenancy agreement, give it a rest!

He presented himself as very mature when we first got together and a loving father to his daughter. He talked about her a lot and took me to see her in Ireland when we had only been together 4 months. I fell in love with him and crucially we were able to work through some initial problems which have not returned as an issue and I was reassured by his ability to grow as a person. Over time more issues came up but we didn't overcome them. I thought this was normal and then when I found out I had PCOS I was panicked that I wouldn't have any children so I tried to focus on all the positives and take less notice of the problems.

The problems didn't really come to the fore until I started having morning sickness. Is that reason enough for the decisions I made or are you just here to judge?

No-one's here to judge.

But you've come here because you are having big problems early in your pregnancy, and sadly many posters are a bit jaded because we've seen this so often and it's hard to understand how intelligent women put up with such disgusting men.

You're getting some good advice on here. It's up to you whether or not you take it.

@Sweetpeasaremadeforbees

Here we are again. Pitifully low standards. I honestly weep for what’s happening to the women on here - it’s like someone has blinded them to reality

This. And the saddest thing is the children growing up thinking that this is normal.

I feel so sad every time I come on mumsnet, I just can't understand it.

I'm sure there are many good fathers with poor dental hygiene

I just don't get how you could say that and defend it - this is the person you choose to spend your life with - they should be the BEST person in the world in your eyes.

@Iwonder08

I don't know.. I think it is not a completely lost case. It feels he is immature, but I would try to fix things first given you are pregnant and want to keep the baby. Don't expect him to guess(he absoultuley should have done though).. Tell him what is wrong and he needs to do exactly to fix it, I.e. Cleaning, cooking, food shopping etc.

He's a grown bloody man! Allegedly.

He absolutely is a lost cause. She's already told him (why should she have to? He's in his fucking 30s!) and he hasn't and won't do it.

There is nothing left to fix.

I agree. This is a grown up woman too, not a seventeen year old.

It's all so sordid: dirty, drunken, young fiance with a child and a low income, , useless housemate, inadequate housing.

Btw, both Jools Oliver and Victoria Beckham have polycystic ovary syndrome and managed to have a few children.

I was going with yanbu at first, but then saw that he already has a child in another country, so he doesn't see his first child often and isn't bothered by that, plus he took a woman he'd known for 4 months to see his child. That had red flags all over this relationship from the start and you missed them all. Plus he hasn't cleaned from the beginning of your relationship because you've been doing it, so again, you knew what he was like. You blinded yourself to all of his flaws. So you are a bit unreasonable here. He showed you he was a twat already. You chose to ignore it.

You can improve your life though and get out of this. You need to see the light and dump him, like the previous one did, and live somewhere without him and the 'friend' who doesn't give a shit enough either about you to clean.

Ultimately love is an action.

Your DP cannot even be arsed to clean the loo so that you who are carrying his child can be sick in hygienic surroundings. At your first counselling appointment I would be bringing this up quite bluntly. And the rest of your very legitimate issues, of course.

Depression can kill love and it is very sad but I agree wit PPs that it is time to prioritise yourself and your longed for child. Preferably by moving out. Best of luck to you

@Firstchilddue2022

The child will sleep in a bedroom. I'm only 10 weeks pregnant and have two months on my tenancy agreement, give it a rest!

He presented himself as very mature when we first got together and a loving father to his daughter. He talked about her a lot and took me to see her in Ireland when we had only been together 4 months. I fell in love with him and crucially we were able to work through some initial problems which have not returned as an issue and I was reassured by his ability to grow as a person. Over time more issues came up but we didn't overcome them. I thought this was normal and then when I found out I had PCOS I was panicked that I wouldn't have any children so I tried to focus on all the positives and take less notice of the problems.

The problems didn't really come to the fore until I started having morning sickness. Is that reason enough for the decisions I made or are you just here to judge?

Easy to talk about a child and present as a loving father on a visit, really easy. Less easy is going several extra miles to fully support your pregnant partner and less easy still the demands of a newborn. Cleaning your teeth daily is pretty easy for most people though, but he can't seem to even do that.

You have a window to make better arrangements for yourself and the baby and like almost everyone else, I suggest you use it. He won't improve.