Dear Mumsnet,
I think this is fairly long, but I've tried to make it as succinct as possible!
My son's father (I will call him Jack) and I split up when our son was 1 due to financial stress and the vastly unequal amount of responsibility that fell on my shoulders when it came to our child and the domestic/mental load. There was constant escalating arguments because of these issues, to the point of things getting thrown and, worse, some actual physical fighting (pushing and shoving, rather than punching and kicking, but still).
We took some time apart (at my insistence), and looking back I think we needed much longer, but around 15 months after the split we decided to try and work on fixing the family. We promised each other we would have couples therapy and individual therapy. This was at the start of November. I started therapy a few weeks later at the end of November, and Jack started his own therapy in January.
Unfortunately, very quickly after getting back together, I got pregnant. I immediately decided to have a termination, as everything was too unstable and I didn't want our son to be disrupted any further. My landlord had sold the flat I was living in and, as rent had gone up by atleast £200 in my area, I was struggling to find anywhere appropriate and within budget for me and my son to move into. Jack had suggested we pool resources and find somewhere together. We discussed whether it would work and how it would work, but he was very eager to start living together again and didn't seem to care much about the details. I wasn't so sure, but felt it would make a lot of sense practically as we'd be able to have more space for our son with a pooled income, so I was open to it.
At the same time, I was preparing for a postgrad interview in January for a course that I had been wanting to apply for for many years, and had put a lot of time and energy into my application. I was so tired from the pregnancy that I could barely get the energy together to prepare for it, and I ended up being very tired and nauseated in the interview.
I was really miserable with the nausea from the pregnancy. I felt it was a constant reminder of how irresponsible we had been, and I half blamed Jack for it. I felt ashamed of us both, and I didn't want him to touch me at all. Almost everything about him began to repulse me, his touch felt like molestation (something I have childhood experience of). It was horrible for us both, to be honest. He was hurt by the way I was rejecting his affection, but I explained to him how I felt, and he said he would try to take it less personally. I still wanted to be around him, I just didn't want any romantic/intimate physical touch. I especially didn't want to kiss him, at all. He started to demand that I kiss him goodbye at the very least, and I reluctantly would sometimes, but it felt very forced.
I had the termination mid January, the nausea instantly subsided, the relationship returned to normal and the affection resumed. Sadly, this lasted only two weeks...
Due to the strain the termination (and how it affected me) put on the relationship, it came out that Jack had impulsively spent a lot of money (almost 2k) in less than a month. He gets student finance as he is a mature student, and he received an installment at the start of January. He lives with family, so no rent or bills to pay. He isn't liable to pay any child maintenance while he's a student, either. So his entire student loan is his to play with. He told me when he received his loan that he had made a decent monthly budget, and had given himself a generous rainy day pot.
When he finally revealed he had not stuck to his budget at all and had spent almost all of it, I asked what he had actually spent it on. He told me about some (reasonable) large purchases, and he had helped with a few small food shops for us and took us out for two meals, but after that he said the rest (around £1k) just went on take aways, taxis and cannabis for himself. He had £250 left to last him the next 2 months.
I felt really let down and very disappointed with him. After that, every little quibble escalated into a huge argument, and they became frequent. I withdrew from him again, as I felt he had purposefully put the entire stress of being a responsible parent on me through his selfishness. I started to feel the same way I felt about him when we first split up; like every fibre of my being needed to get me and our son far, far away from him. He had apologised and said from now on he would put all of his student finance in my account, but that dynamic worried me as I could see him not being happy with it once he realised he wouldn't be able to spend impulsively when he was stressed. That impulsive behaviour has to go somewhere, and I knew I would be resentful about having to keep an eye on what he would do instead. I didn't agree to it.
Again, Jack felt really hurt by my withdrawal from him and rejection of his affection. I was too stressed, too busy, and deep down just very unattracted to his immaturity.
He says that I'm making him feel really bad about himself, and that I'm acting like I "don't give a fuck about him". I've tried to explain that I do, I'm just really disappointed in him at the minute and stressed about finding somewhere to live and how I'm going to afford it on my own. He insists that I'm just as much the problem in the relationship by rejecting him now, and said that I've disappointed him too (although had very few examples).
So, AIBU? Is it unreasonable to reject physical affection from your partner under any circumstances?
Or YANBU: A partner should accept that the relationship will go cold on the affection front when it is under stress.