I apologise if I go on a bit, I feel the need to get things out..
On paper, my partner is pretty much perfect, but I have always felt something was off about this relationship.. I got pregnant very quickly and we took a leap of faith deciding to be together and have a child. At the time I was really hopeful that this man would be the one, but I'm realising that I was wrong.
I find it hard to articulate what the issue is, it's often a bunch of small things, but they all add up leaving me feeling cold.
I'm sick of everything being my responsibility, because I work part-time and look after our toddler the rest of the time, I end up doing all the house work and most of the childcare, even though he works from home. If I ever bring it up he says I should just ask him to do things, or that I'm wrong and he does loads.
We never actually argue, but only because he will literally just shut me down if I try to discuss an issue with him.
He seems completely uninterested in me, in all ways. Sometimes I'll walk in to a room and maybe talk to him, maybe not, but he won't even look up from his laptop. Or if I'm struggling to carry something, or I burn my hand on a pan and say ouch, he won't react at all or ask if I'm OK (that last one is something I saw in a post today which resonated with me as something that sounds petty, until you experience it multiple times and it just becomes heartbreaking).
There's no passion, I've had to actually ask him to look at me or kiss me during sex. Lust is completely non existent and sex is all about the things he likes.
He never makes any effort, no romance. He doesn't do anything nice for me on special occasions, doesn't suggest we go anywhere or do anything..
I told him years ago I'd like to get married, mainly just to have the same surname as my child. I have zero interest in a wedding, and have requested just either two random strangers as witnesses or just his mum and nan. I don't really care if none of my family are there, and the ring I've chosen is £30. But he hasn't proposed, and whilst yes he'd go along with it if I arranged it, is it wrong of me to want him to actually want to?
Before we got together he was so very curious in me, always asking questions etc, it made me feel so wanted at a time when I had zero interest in a relationship.. He was very persuasive. But nowadays he barely listens to me. We spend every weekend going to see his family, I've seen mine maybe a handful of times this year. There's just no interest at all in me or anything about me. And we've only been together 3 years.
He never compliments me, only ever in a jokey way.
Anything that needs doing that I'm capable of doing myself gets done straight away, the things I can't do stay not done for weeks or months until he eventually does it because I've asked for the millionth time (yes, overdramatic but you know what I mean).
I've tried so so many times to talk about things, but he either brushes it off like I'm being silly or if I get genuinely upset he becomes really lovely and understanding and apologetic.. Like he can't stand to see me cry.. I get everything off my chest and he's amazing and I feel so much better, but then the next day everything is back to normal!!! As I've said to him, he's only good to me when I cry, and I'd really rather not have to cry all the time.
He's very good to his family, helping them out whenever needed, and in general he is a genuinely good person, very generous financially, and I think that's how he expresses love, but I'm just not materialised at all unfortunately.
He his, in my opinion, a genuinely good human, so I just can't understand why he is like this with me.. He claims he absolutely does love me and is scared to lose me, but then why do I only feel it when I've reached the end of my tether with it all and am crying in a pathetic heap?!
This just isn't what I want. But should I really end a safe relationship with the father of my child, when we have a nice house and nothing is majorly wrong, am I being immature to want more? I'm heading to 40, and I wasted several years in an abusive relationship in my twenties, and this is nothing like that at all. He's just neutral all the time, which definitely has it's positives. He's a good dad when he isn't gaming... I just don't know what to do.