I don’t know what more I can do

[PinkUser]

I’m not too sure what I’m hoping to gain from posting anything here, I think I’d just like some perspective that I’m not going insane.

My partner and I have been together 4.5 years. We have a 3 year old and I am 4.5 months pregnant with our second.

I work part time, 2.5 days (having given up a very well paid full time role to have our child). I look after our child 1 day a week one of of my 2 weekdays off, and the other day she is at nursery and the day is dedicated to housework / chores / “working for the family”.

I am responsible for all the housework in the house, laundry, cooking, cleaning, shopping, making beds, organising bills, and do the vast majority of the care for our child. I do bedtimes every evening, only I take her to and pick her up from childcare. I take her to her classes on the weekend. I make and clean up all her meals. (Please don’t mistake that as me doing that begrudgingly. I adore her - just for an idea of how domestic things are split.)

2/3 of my wage are for nursery fees and our family car, house insurance and minor bills which totals around £1200. The remainder is for my personal bills (phone etc). Our mortgage, utility bills, council tax, food shopping and holidays and paid for by my partner. He owns his own business and earns around 6 times my income.

Our Relationship is generally great, but occasionally come these outbursts which feel like a complete character assassination. I am called insults, lazy, sworn at, and a liar for lying about the amount of jobs / chores I am completing on my day of work for the family.

He doesn’t sleep in the same bed as me anymore, and has recently made comments (when going through my first trimester - rough!) that I’ve let myself go and I need to make more of an effort with myself.

i dedicate every hour of my Friday to cleaning our sizeable home, car, and doing all the invisible workload.

This evening before bed he asked what I’d done all day. He said I was a liar and nothing had been done, that I was watching tv or sleeping (I wish!).

In reality I’d take some bits over to a poorly relative on my way home from the nursery drop. Cleaned out our car and cleaned all apholstery. Cleaned the house and bathrooms. Hoovers the stairs, cleaned the windows, 2 laundry loads. All bedrooms and done a food shop, between the hours of 9:30-3:30.

picked our child up and of course played and made her dinner. He arrived home maybe 2 hours later to a home cooked meal.

i can provide timestamps and pictures of things I’d done but he’s says he’s not interested, that I’m lazy and I’m a liar.

Am I deluded? Am I lazy? I feel like I’m starting to go crazy and that I need to document my day as proof to him. I have never ever given him a reason not to trust me and I don’t understand any of this.

please help me

The day any partner calls me lazy and a liar to my face is the day that relationship ends. You are in an abusive relationship, and pregnancy is the most dangerous time for a woman with an abuser, because obviously baby comes first.

You need to leave

Oh I'm sorry.

You shouldn't have to justify yourself. Even if you'd done absolutely nothing, you are pregnant and caring for a toddler.

I work part time. My kids are now at school. I get a day and a half off a week. I keep on top of cleaning and laundry but most of the time I go out with a friend, go for a swim or a walk because I'm not spending all bloody day cleaning.

My husband doesn't care. Perhaps there's less imbalance because we earn similar amounts but really, I think it's because he's not a prick.

Who has the very high home standards? Because I wouldn't say cleaning upholstery is a regular job. Does he expect this or is it driven by you?

I understand how hard thinking about leaving must be right now but this isn't right. How does he respond when you tell him what you have done? How would he respond if you said 'yes I'm tired, I had a nap '. I think you need to start seeing his behaviour for what it really is.

Hope you are okay..

Which bits of your relationship are great?

Even if you did nap or have a chill day he shouldn't speak to you like that.
It's not a healthy or good relationship.
You are pregnant and he is fine to make you stressed ?? He should be more concerned about your health and wellbeing . Especially during pregnancy.
Also never would someone who truly loved you make derogatory comments about your appearance.
You need to turn this all around. And tell him how awful he is treating you .
Especially if you plan on staying with him.

I’m so sorry OP. Your husband is abusive. This is not the way you treat someone you love. There is no respect or kindness and instead a cruel and manipulative manner of behaviour from your DH. You are not lazy. Nor are you mad. Your instinct is telling you this is not ok but he is trying to tell you otherwise. I think you know what you need to do but I realise it’s much easier said than done.

I would immediately stop doing the domestic things you do for him and focus on yourself and DC and start looking for somewhere else to live. I'm sure he'll be happy when he comes home from work today to find you and some possessions gone.

I did this with my ex partner and although the aftermath was scary, lonely, and I had no idea how I was going to manage I did it. He would've killed me if I'd have stayed!

At your age you could start a happy new life without him, the world is full of men, you could be a much happier person without all this nonsense and it would not hurt him to lay out that if he is really not happy being married to you he should get out RIGHT NOW and you can both get on with meeting a new person and living a happier life with them. That might focus his mind a little, you do have to mean it though. You have to be quite sure that you would be better off getting out of this depressing relationship now rather than in 2 years and then he can meet some fantasy dream woman, and you can meet a nice supportive partner who makes you happy. Have an image in your mind of how you would like to be treated and how you would like to be spoken to. Compare it to this nonsense you are putting up with.

I have also in the past texted every tiny thing I have done over and over all day long and that was so annoying it seemed to work, but I don’t know if your partner would respond well to that. He seems like quite a nasty person.

And invariably he’s ’really sweet and caring’ - the 20% of the time he’s not being an abuse wanker

Bloody hell @PinkUser, this person is not a good man and your relationship certainly isn't good.
Unless he's a brain surgeon or astrophysicist or something, what exactly does he do?! He's treating you, the mother of his children, appallingly. Oh and why is he sleeping in a different room?
You need to seriously think how to proceed from here and it's not coming here and asking what else you can do. You're already doing too much!

what more can you do OP?

When you’re asking this you seem to be looking at your relationship. Now turn the camera and look at yourself.

What you can do is start your own healing. Make some time for yourself (I’d also distance myself from this man) look after yourself, get to know boundaries for yourself, stand up for yourself, know you’re enough and know you’re worthy.

I would stop doing it as he thinks nothing has been done. He can then see when nothing gets done.

Do what you need to do for you and your DC. He can do his stuff and his share.

I hate people like this. His baseline is everything is done so you need to do more. No.

And I'd seriously consider leaving. At least then you'd have no one to have a go at you when you have a newborn and dishes are piling up.

Great relationship? You are living with a monster. Save yourself please xxx

As many others have said, you are being abused. This relationship likely feels “comfortable” to you because it mimics your childhood, but it is abusive nonetheless and you need to get out.

Can you start making plans? I recommend taking copies of all important documents such as mortgage and bank statements and speaking to Women’s Aid and a solicitor.

When you are free, please look into therapy to unpick your childhood. You and your daughter can have a happy life away from him, don’t let this be the model for her future relationships x

I think the worse bit is that you feel the need to take photos of what you've done to prove it.

What was he like when you were on maternity leave?

I see both your points, but abusers always hide their true colours and only start abusing when the other person thinks the relationship is safe. Then the abuse starts with little, insidious things and can take a while to become full blown abuse - and I believe your partner as already reached that point. Often, pregnancy and having a child make the abuse ramp up too.

Take your time to think about what everybody has been saying on here, take it all in. Then quietly starts putting your ducks in a row: find a solicitor to make sure you protect your money and assets and get full custody of your kids (I would not want an abusive parent to have 50:50). DO NOT LET HIM KNOW YOU'RE DOING THIS!!! If he learns you're preparing to leave, he will manipulate you and abuse you even more to keep you in.
Once all is ready and you have a safe accommodation to go to with your kids and all, leave!
Abusers will not change, there is no point in counselling (they often lie and manipulate the counsellors). The only safe thing to do is to leave.
Best of luck OP! We're all here to support you 💖

I’m a lot older than you and only know this about my friends because of their dating history.
They're not abusive btw, I wouldn’t be friends with them if they were, they’re more like players.

Your partner hid his true colours from you until you had your DC and then once you felt safe and settled and you were tied to him with a child, that’s when the abuse starts.

It’s the boiled frog scenario. The abusive starts slowly and builds up so you don’t realise until it reaches a certain point which is what’s happening to you now. If you look back, I guarantee you’ll see there were earlier red flags that you missed.

Whenever I see the line "generally/mostly great" or " he/she is a good mother/father" I instantly know I'm about to read something that shows it isn't...

Get out OP. He sounds like a twat.

Ever seen those cartoons where the house is a mess and as the man comes through the door the woman says - you wonder what I do all day, well today I didnt do it. Going away for a week and not doing much before you go might change his perspective.

When he says something abusive just say calmly that's really offensive and you are being abusive. Repeat you are being abusive and walk away.

Make plans to go back to full time work as soon as you can and to leave him afterwards.

You need to leave. You'll have more money, more time, more joy, and more love for yourself if you do.

There's worse than being a single parent. Much worse. And you're living it now.

You don’t need to put up with any of that

Leave him now before your daughter picks up on all of this

Oh gosh you poor thing. This made me so sad to read. As basically everyone else has said, he's a horribly abusive man and you deserve so much better.

You're in early pregnancy and vulnerable, he should be bending over backwards to make sure you can take it easy when you need to. Not berating you. Sounds like you're working incredibly hard.

Nothing much to add but I do hope happier times are in your future.

Breaks my heart the way this poor woman lists the justifications for her life instead of simply telling him to FUCK OFF.

Theres nothing for you to work with here op. I had an ex in my twenties who had “outbursts” and although I loved him at the time I was fortunate to come from a happy family so knew it wasn’t right turned down his proposal and married a kind decent gorgeous successful man. In 20 years he has never once said anything mean. Not even once.

YANBU and you can't do any more than what you're doing. FWIW, I think you're amazing to do all that. Big well done :) You're NOT lazy at all. Unfortunately, you are saddled with a guy who has shown his true colours, and he's a nasty, abusive tosser.

I know I'm divorced, but I've seen plenty of couples in wonderful relationships where both equally respected and cherished, whether they're out at work FT or SAHPs. My mum was an SAHP, whilst Dad worked FT (quite a high profile job with lots of international travel). Not once did he ever disrespect her or talk to her in the way your partner talks to you, or complain about the food cooked, or ask her what she did all day etc. Dad knew fine well that if it were not for my mum holding the fort at home, looking after us kids etc, he wouldn't be able to have his job or progress in it like he did. The house was jointly in their names and he ensured she had her own personal savings and shares (equal to his), bank accounts, private pension etc, and that she was able to access all of his accounts. He also made sure that she had help when she needed it, and time for herself to pursue hobbies, see her friends, go away on holiday with them etc. He never took her for granted, he never questioned or criticised what she did at home, and he never let any of us kids forget just how hard she worked for all of us. When he was home, he'd roll his sleeves up and get stuck in with whatever needed doing.

My DB and DSIL both work FT (but they do 4 day weeks). They pay for things jointly and both get stuck in with childcare and household chores. They also make sure that each have time for seeing friends, doing hobbies, and they make sure they have date nights for themselves.

Please realise your worth and all that you do. Remember that if it was not for you holding the fort at home with all you do, your "D"P wouldn't be able to work and earn like he does. Get your ducks in a row quietly and talk to Womens Aid. Get advice and info so that you're well equipped to know how to move forward. Obvs don't mention any of this to him: just do it for you. And then take stock and see what is what. Take care of yourself. You deserve so much better than this x

This.
Speak to Women’s Aid and a solicitor asap. You need to leave and find out your financial position. Obviously he’ll pay child support for both children. He won’t change.

You are in an abusive relationship.
You may not see it clearly, but you are.
And he will wear you down, down, down until you think this is normal and you don't deserve any better.

You need to quietly get good legal advice and make plans to leave. Now.