This is a long one, thank you for reading!
I have a gorgeous child who is 9 months old, they stay with me full time and see their dad regularly. Me and my ex partner fell pregnant after only a few months of seeing one another.
I’m 4 years older than him, at the beginning of my pregnancy I found flirty messages to girls on his phone and felt so betrayed! I felt an incredible amount of pressure in my pregnancy from his side of the family as they kept saying it better be a boy as they already had girls in the family. I originally had a great relationship with his family especially his sister.
Between the 6th & 8th month of pregnancy I found myself not feeling like me, intrusive thoughts etc I asked my partner for a night or two by myself in the 8th month to gather my thoughts, I asked him to come home and explained the suicidal thoughts I was having and he refused to come home stating if he did that’s me walking all over him. When my baby was 4 weeks old he left us because he had deleted messages to a girl he had previously slept with, I asked him if he could stop messaging these girls as it’s disrespectful and he told me he wanted to be able to message whoever he wanted as I would be controlling him if I didn’t allow him.
He left again when my baby was 16 weeks old this time because he said he was moaned at too much for things like not helping round the house, or supporting me. He’s never done a night feed, and I would constantly find that I was his mother/maid. He cooked our main meal, but he felt that because he worked, his role as a dad stopped when he got home. This caused a massive argument when he came home from work one evening and I asked him to watch our child for a couple of hours so I could nip out and get some bits, I was unable to leave the house on the days he worked as he didn’t want me to leave our dog by himself, he worked 4 on 4 off. This resulted in him comparing me to other mums he knew and saying that I was a rubbish mum.
The next time he left the baby was 20 weeks old and this was because he wanted to buy himself new clothes - he was on half pay, had already borrowed money from his dad and from myself. I told him that it was a luxury at this point and to wait on his full pay the next month, he hadn’t paid me any money for living in my home for the last year or paid anything towards his child, hadn’t so much as bought him a bib. This caused him to smash his phone off the floor, become quite aggressive and shout/call me names, this frightened me. He told me I was controlling him.
In between the times he has left we have had arguments in which we’ve insulted each other, this isn’t common but I can think of a of time where I called him a shit dad, and multiple times in which he has said the same to me and other nasty names - his favourite insult is the usual psychopath/crackpot. I’ve also insulted his Mum to him but this was because she wrote a Facebook status about me and mocked me for being upset when he has left me. I feel like they were fake to my face. I am trying to be as honest as I can here because I don’t want people to think I am playing poor me or have victim mentality.
I have felt since the time he left at 20 weeks his sister and mother have constantly made me feel like an inadequate mum, they comment on what I feed my child, where he sleeps etc, and during that argument he told me that they think I’m a nutter, never happy etc. But I feel like I was constantly biting my tongue, letting my boundaries slip for the sake of my family, eg to avoid arguments I wouldn’t ask him to watch our child for me to get a break/sleep or for me to go out alone. His sisters children come from a one parent household and she uses this as an excuse as to why they are disrespectful/undisciplined, this had came up in conversation between me and my ex daily for around two weeks because of their behaviour.
In that same two weeks my mental health took a major dip, I told my ex that I felt horrendously low and that I actually hated myself, felt worthless etc. On top of that I wasn’t getting any sleep as my child was waking up 10/12 times a night (please this is not an exaggeration)
My birthday night out came around and I did not want to go, that morning I even said to my ex I wasn’t feeling it. I knew inside something was going to go wrong. It resulted in me getting black out drunk - I rarely drink & I don’t remember anything passed 8pm, but apparently I pushed his sister & insulted her parenting. When I came home my ex was furious which resulted in me hitting him, now because I don’t remember, him and his families story has changed it went from pushed his face away, to scratched, to slap, to punch. They are now using terms like assault and attack - which I suppose technically it is. I don’t remember if he pushed me back. I have never been violent in my life.
Anyway he left that night and it was all over. This was around two months ago, and we were getting on fine until I mentioned things like maintenance payments, support I needed from him etc. I found my MH severely taking a beating. I found myself becoming literally delusional, I made a fake Snapchat using his name (wtf) I didn’t have any intention of doing anything malicious on it I think it was just an excuse to get his attention and I deleted it within seconds but he knew because I synced my contacts so since then he has blocked me and we don’t speak at all. His family are compulsive liars - eg pretend they are in hospital when they are not. They are also insanely dramatic, but my ex is the apple of their eye.
So all of this - horrendous, inexcusable, vile behaviour from myself has broken up my family.
I have been diagnosed with severe pp depression, that they think started in my pregnancy, and I am seriously considering ending it all.
I can’t forgive my actions I am the world’s worst person. I don’t know if I want to die because I am heartbroken, or because I am depressed. I have tried everything but nothing is working! I’m still in love with him and the thought of him hating me, makes me ill, especially because I have to see him for the next 18 years!
My poor beautiful child is in the middle of all of this chaos I have created!