Sorry this is very long!...
Feeling really down and just needed to share what I am going through. I've got a 5 and a half month old baby boy and a month ago my partner left me.
We'd had a really tough year, the pregnancy was planned but it coincided with me being made redundant and then I found out I was pregnant the day before I started a new job. The new job was horrendous, I was bullied at work and my clients were not very nice people either. I was working 10 hour days right up until my maternity leave and hating every minute. During that time I was extra tired, emotional and grumpy from working in such a stressful environment. My partner would try to be sympathetic, but every day would be the same from me so he did become tired of it. He used to tell me to leave, but we had no savings, a baby on the way and he was self employed so I felt it was my duty as I was earning a lot to use the time to save just in case we needed it in the future. You never know what's round the corner and I was worried if he had an accident at work we wouldn't have any income at all.
During my pregnancy my little boy was breech, something that I found really hard to deal with, it was my first child and I had my heart set on a natural birth. Not to mention the fact that we live up three flights of stairs and we don't have any family nearby to help and I was concerned about the recovery time after a section because he would only be able to have five days off work. I went for two ECVs to see if a consultant could turn our baby, but both were unsuccessful and very painful. While we were there I raised my concerns about the operation and the consultant and midwife both said I could try for a natural breech birth, we decided to do this.
Labour was awful, it lasted 52 hours and ended in a section. I caught an infection during my labour and became very ill, very quickly. The section was fine, but when our baby was born he was whisked off to SCBU for tests because there were concerns about his health. It turned out he had meningitis and was then put on a course of very heavy anti biotics over two weeks. He had to also go for lumber punctures and had a brain scan to see if the meningitis had had any lasting effects, fortunately it didn't and he made a full recovery. I was in hospital for over two weeks with our son because I was also really poorly, my bladder had had some serious trauma during the op and I even ended up going home with a catheter.
I was desperate to breast feed and unfortunately that didn't work for me either. My baby was losing weight very quickly and there was talk that he had a thyroid problem, he was put on formula and a second set of tests were done which showed his thyroid was fine.
During our son's first four months I tried really hard to make the transition to fatherhood easy for my partner. He was working 7 - 7 so I made sure I got up for all feeds in the night. His hours meant he never saw our son during the week so I ended up doing everything until he could help at weekends, it was exhausting, but I loved it. Being a mum was the best job I'd ever had!
Four weeks ago I discovered that my partner had been lying to me, he'd been drinking (and even admitted to drink driving) and he'd also had a pay cut and on top of that he hadn't been paid out for weeks, which he'd had before our baby was born but hid from me. We'd also been asked to move out of our flat by the landlady because she'd decided she no longer wanted a baby in there so we also needed to find somewhere to live. We'd always wanted to move nearer to my family so i started exploring this and it looked like it was going to be a lifeline. My dad had a really good job available he was prepared to offer my partner and there was an opportunity to stay with them for a few months rent and bills free while we pulled together a deposit for a house quickly, not ideal, but a means to an end. My partner refused and said he didn't want the job or to move.
Everything came to a head a few Friday's ago when I confronted him about the finances and what we were going to do about where we were living. We needed to discuss me going back to work and also how we were going to find somewhere else to rent - letting agents dont look kindly on people on maternity leave or those who are self employed at the moment. One thing led to another and he told me that he wanted out of the relationship. He said that he didn't love me anymore, he couldn't forgive me for the way I was while I was pregnant and that although in the last couple of months I was getting back to my old self it was all 'too little too late'. I was crushed and devastated.
The next day I came home to my family, I needed support looking after the baby and couldn't do it alone while I was so emotional. He then decided to fly to Majorca to join his family on holiday. He told me he was going for three days, didn't tell me where in Majorca he was and didn't communicate about when exactly he was returning - he actually went for over a week in the end.
Four weeks on and things are still terrible and I'm petrified of being on my own. He still maintains that he doesn't love me and also maintain's there is no one else (and I do believe him on that).
Not one member of his family has been in touch with me (I thought we all got on well), not even to ask after their grandson/nephew.
He's shown absolutely no remorse, guilt or upset and has almost acted like nothing's happened. In the last four weeks he's made the effort to see his son twice. He's also not given me any money to help support our son and hasn't even thought or discussed with me what we're going to do, where me and the baby will live, how I'll be able to afford going back to work etc. My family have been amazing and whilst I was happy to move back down here, I wanted to move with him to be a family. I have no friends here and am feeling really alone.
I don't even know where to start with how I begin to pull my life back together and move on. I feel so hurt and betrayed, I felt like I'd/we'd been through so much and now this is happening...