Just venting here and looking for some advice. Hope some of you can hear me out.
I’m in a situationship, got a little toddler, not yet 2. Her dad and I were dating about a year before she came along, we’ve been together just over 3 years now. Due to differences and circumstances at the time before I was due, he had a flatmate and I was too pregnant to do any heavy lifting and packing, he temporarily moved in with me for the first two months and then we settled on him coming over and staying 3 nights a week.
We’ve split almost 50/50 on all the big expenses, like the pram, cot, car seat, high chair and he contributes about £60 a week for groceries for DD and I. I organised the dentist, GP, all the childcare, found a suitable childminder (went round an visited a couple, invited him to join but he never came with), my parents help out whilst I work and I fill in the remaining time. From early on, DD didn’t sleep well and he couldn’t settle her so I do the bathing and putting DD to sleep every night. We had an argument about 3 weeks ago and things has took a turn, he’s stop contributing entirely. He often complains he has no money, he picked a new hobby when I was newly postpartum, and now regularly goes running and training for marathons. That’s about 4 times a week, plus once a week climbing and meeting friends around that. He makes a lot more than me, around £75k.
We used to still date but since autumn last year we’ve grown apart. Neither one of us puts a label on it, it seems we’re just both trudging along. I had very much hoped things would get better, I still cared about him but things has just gotten worse. It has recently come to my attention from fellow MN community that I’ve been suffering from DV, the verbal and mental mind games has reduced me to low self esteem, he controls how long it takes to do the grocery shop and wouldn’t give me the money to do it in my own time, he drags me around in store to rush me to complete the shop within 40mins. He complains about the weight gain from pregnancy and that I still haven’t lost it and he’s lost weight. He complains the work sector I am in is crap and I should change jobs, change field to something like his because he earns more (I made more than him when we first started dating and I’m the younger one). I’ve pushed the few friends that I had away defending him. I’m normally quite introverted but now I literally have zero social life, zero time to myself for hobbies or exercise. My life is just work, childcare, make sure I eat and housework. The days he spends here, one of those days are his marathon training days so he’s not even at home to help, he’ll come back late afternoon. I’m scared of him. We’ve been to family counselling for about 4 months, it was offered by the hospital after I gave birth but it didn’t help.
I admit I’m very weak spined now that DD is here, I’m doing my best to care for her, with her interests in mind. I don’t want DD to not have a dad. DD’s dad didn’t want her but felt guilty to leave, stating it doesn’t morally sit right with him so I put him on the BC, now I am too scared and too tangled up to leave. He has a lot of friends, he’s from a broken family, his mum who is still in contact loves to dote on DD with lots of gifts, but there’s separate issues and she is of no help either to talk to her son or help with childcare.