to half wish this pregnancy isn't successful?

[hells1908]

Flame me.

Right, long winded rant alert.

I had my DS when I was 19 and at university so far from perfect but we pulled through, and he's about to go off to university himself. We've been through our trials and tribulations - his Dad, who was the college heartthrob, revealed himself to be a violent, alcoholic depressive. I bore the brunt of it, sometimes my DS. DS has Aspergers, which has brought us lows and many more highs. It's not been the most ideal of childhoods, and I have spent most of it as a lone parent, but managed to run various ad agencies in between, DS rocks, bless him, because I wouldn't have wished some of the things he's gone through on anyone, least of all my own flesh and blood.

Anyhows. New DP, have been together 18 months, and I am 5 months with twins. We've been through our own woods too. But now the very successful MD of a global company (sue me, it was sexy that he was powerful) is out of work, is trying very hard, but it's been 6 months and still nothing doing, I am the size of a small elephant because of the twins, knackered, and in a huge amount of pain (scans keep showing up OK and they keep saying it's just ligaments but it's crippling), but am working full time as a freelancer because each week is one month's rent on the new house we need to rent because this one is too small/run down (had bought it before I met DP as a romantic project to do after DS left home, tiny cottage, but fab location, I had a Beeny moment!)...oh, and I don't know whether it's that I'm taking out my ire at my lot on him, or hormones, or just...but simply don't find him sexy anymore and we haven't done the deed since August, and (yes, because he'll be picking up on that) most nights I go to bed and he drinks 3 bottles of wine (I'm not exagerating) and falls asleep on the sofa.

Unless he's been out at networking events - and it's absolutely right he shuold do that to help with the job search - but then he'll come in at 2am and breathe fumes over me and wake me up. I was actually sick the last time I did it; second trimester hasn't brought any respite!

So...ramble ramble. It's just the first time around with DS, when we lived in a damp basement and frogs got into his nursery, and I was at Oxford bloomin university and got a first despite everything, I made all sorts of Scarlett O'Hara promises to myself that next time, if there was one, it would be oh so different.

Yet I am stuck with an unemployed partner, in a rundown house, at work when I shouldn't be (I know that sounds lame, I know everyone gets pregnant and works, but even the hospital has been raising eyebrows), with DP drinking himself silly each night...and the final straw was tonight he's suggested packing DS off for New Year to his Dad's so we can have a babymoon which is a LOVELY idea, but last New Year his alcho Dad beat him up on NY and we had to drive to Oxford to rescue him and there is absolutely no way on earth I am letting that happen again. Ever.

AIBU? Spoilt? The twins were completely unplanned. But I am resenting every minute that I am not enjoying being pregnant. And, yes, I do have Bad Thoughts about how maybe it wasn't meant to be.

I just don't know how to begin to even broach this with him without it completely knocking his self esteem which would be so counter productive. But I get emails from the Pampers bloomin baby club saying 'you may feel like painting your nursery now, don't climb a ladder!' and it's like, what nursery? How did I get to this point?

Argh.

A lot of rich people posting on this thread, perhaps why the OP seems to be getting such an easy ride!
For the "rest" of us, it's hard to really feel for your financial situation while you still own your own home (and boat ffs). Because you're used to having a dh with an incredibly important job doesn't mean you are entitled to that lifestyle for ever.
If you're currently depressed, do you honestly think having stillborn babies is going to lift that depression?

Morning all and apologies for radio silence yesterday; the three of us went out and it was fun. Still haven't been able to have The Talk with him but a) he didn't touch a drop yesterday and b) is off at interviews again today, so fingers crossed. And this morning he even questioned whether I should be going to work. Which obviously I need to, but it's good he's thinking.

I'm not going to get into a tit for tat, responding to some of the meaner comments on here (apart from marriedinwhite just to say Aspergers is NOT a disability). Everyone's entitled to their opinion and I think that's the beauty of something like Mumsnet - you can say what you really think.

But to those who have posted such kind, constructive comments, and for those who took the time to PM me - thank you. It's been genuinely helpful as I try to mull this all through and think what the blazes to do. I hope I can be half as useful when I reply to some of your conundrums!

Over and out.

@iggi999: "If you're currently depressed, do you honestly think having stillborn babies is going to lift that depression?"

I doubt the OP really does think that. I'm sure if she lost her babies, she'd be devastated. I just think that when a situation is really bad, and you're depressed, you can have some very dark thoughts. I can quite see that in the OP's situation there is a bit of her thinking life would be a lot easier if she didn't have a twin pregnancy to deal with. Haven't we all had some terrible thoughts that we wouldn't share with other people? The difference with the OP is that she has decided to voice them.

My point being that what she is thinking would undoubtably make the situation worse - it would be different wishing you'd never got pregnant, but wishing you had a stillbirth is completely counter-productive. I don't think it's unreasonable to try to get the OP to think this through. I thought that was why she posted!

OP -first thought sell the boat this would ease your financial situation. Not sure that spending money trekking in the amazon was a great idea 1 month after your DP had been made redundant. If things really are as tight as you say, you need to turn the taps off on your spending, no unnecessary expenditure.

As for trying to sell your place, no-one is buying houses 1 month before Christmas, the market will pick up again in January, if I were you I would be getting your DP to do as much as possible to spruce the place up over the next month to maximise your chances of a successful sale in the new year. Although if I were you I wouldn't attempt to sell and buy another place but would rent for the time being given your twins will probably arrive in February.

I also think your thread title is the height of insensitivity, I personally think you should ask for it to be changed as it is very offensive to all the people who have suffered tragic losses.

Good luck with everything.

Thanks Mooninsarescary I could not believe the other posts. I wouldn't want anybody to go through what I have.

Sad10 so sorry for you loss

@iggi999: "My point being that what she is thinking would undoubtably make the situation worse - it would be different wishing you'd never got pregnant, but wishing you had a stillbirth is completely counter-productive. I don't think it's unreasonable to try to get the OP to think this through. I thought that was why she posted!"

Well, yes, but...

The thing about feelings is that they're not rational, are they? People who are in deep depression often think (wrongly) that the world would be a better place without them and nobody would miss them if they were dead. Are they being unreasonable? Well, not exactly. It's that they've reached a state of mind where reason doesn't come into it.

I feel for you in what isn't an ideal situation, but please, please don't think its your babies' fault. And don't tempt fate but wishing anything bad happens to them. Check this thread out for some sobering up: Stuck in hospital might lose my twin - please hold my hand

just to say Aspergers is NOT a disability

Of course it is. It affects each person differently, but it is in itself a disability.

Agree with Moomins. jasminerice tells sad10, a bereaved mother to put herself in the OP's shoes. And the OP tells bereaved mums she is in her own hell.
As another bereaved Mum, let me tell you that there is no worse hell than losing a child. And it's a hell that stays with you till the day you die yourself.
So yes, your thread title is absolutely vile and I would give my right arm to be pregnant with twins.
You will in all likelihood have your babies, work through your problems, with or without your dp. We are stuck here without our babies.

You seem to be quite a ... glamorous person OP, and your glamour seems to have elicited some very fawning understanding posts. You posted a very unpalatable thread title in AIBU - I assume you are bright enough re oxbridge first (relevance?) to know that the appropriate place to talk about difficult and potentially inflammatory feelings is the more sedate and measured Relationships forum.

You say you could write a book, turn what is happening to you into good copy. That may be appropriate at some stage and to think about it now may be a coping mechanism - it does put the events of your life somewhat at arms length. But what is happening to you is a nightmare and, despite your honesty in grasping unmentionable feelings, something in you seems to be refusing to grasp the reality of it. YOu came through a very tough time with DS and, just as you were at the point of reaping the benefits of all your hard work and gliding into an easier life, you took up with glamorous MD/DP (the icing on the cake?) but then got unexpectedly pg - with twins no less; glamorous MD lost his job, had an expensive divorce to pay for, has hit the bottle big time. So your dream has come crumbling down and you are not only right back where you started but things are a whole lost worse than the first time round and the future is stretching ahead....

Apart from the horror and understandable revulsion that an even worse scenario seems to be playing out, I get the sense that you don't think things like this should be happening to you; that charmed people don't have shit like this happen, they someone bend the universe to make sure things go their way. And, certainly, charmed, talented people very often have the ability to do that, to make the universe tilt to what they want and what they choose; the skills to make good a bad lot. You say that counselling is lame [for people like you?], and some posters say that you don't need counselling, you just need to talk to your DP - but you haven't managed that so far, despite (or maybe because of) the chaos that is clanging around you: counselling would give you a forum to do that constructively.

You seem cavalier towards those who have lost babies - not at the beginning of your thread but your impatience has begun to show as the thread has progressed re eg yes, yes, how awful for you but this is different and I need to be heard here. I find that an extremely unpleasant attitude OP, wounding to those who are so bereaved. There is a place to air unpalatable feelings and attitudes and imo it is not in the marketplace that is AIBU. It could be argued that an anonymous website is a good approximation of 'private' but you have placed your feelings on the busiest highway - max exposure ? and seem to be curiously lacking in humility about what you are saying.

springydaffs very well put.

Well said, springydaffs!

Well said springy

Sorry that you brave ladies had to read this bollox and well done for speaking out so articulately springy.

oh FFS - can everyone stop flaming the OP?
If all of you had read through the thread you would see that she has apologised for using "an insensitive" title.
that's not the issue here - the issue is that she's feeling depressed and uncared for.
which she is now addressing, thanks to the helpful advice she's been given.

grow up - your hell might be hell, but it's a different hell than the OP's, so do not judge until you've walked a mile in her shoes.

hells your posts at times have made me want to throw my pc out of the window, and I haven't felt that since I unwittingly read Liz Jone's column at my parents and promptly threw it on the fire (thankfully it was in paper form).

However, without going off what you've written but of where you're at, then I think you do deserve a little slack.

Yes a powerful man can be a very very sexy man, but for a life long (or even just long) you have to be able to love past the power. He is in a very dark place right now, losing a job, especially a high powered job and struggling to be re-employed is a horrible place to be in. His drinking is a problem, but sounds like its more of a symptom of his circumstance rather than a problem in its own right. He's also got the added pressure of a pregnant partner and not one, but two children en route! No, they way it manifests itself is not at all attractive, but love is about more than that. He needs support, and so do you.

This is reality, and at times, reality bites. I remember after my DH's accident. when he couldn't work for 18months, and I was pregnant and just out of uni with no job, and we were told that our landlord was selling up so we had to leave, that suddenly all the attractiveness was sucked out of our world. All the things that had been a joy became a chore and a millstone round our necks. It was the lowest point of my life, and though I didn't wish anything bad to happen to the child I was carrying I did sometime wish that it simply wasn't there anymore. I loved my DH, I didn't like who he was that much, once stripped of his health, good nature, and burdened with worry and I didn't much like myself either.

Bad times.

BUt we muddled through and it was/is a long road. This was 8 years ago, we're still suffering financially but we're managing okay, still renting and may never buy a home (certainly not for a few years) and many of our pre-children, sexy self gratifying dreams have been put on hold ad infinitum.

But you know what? I've never been happier. DH and I got through it together, sometimes its taken sheer willpower and determination, sometimes it would have been easier to walk away, or even to pick up my children and leave and not look back. I'm glad I didn't. I am very proud of DH and myself, of our little family (one more too, he's just turned 4) and that although we sold our 'nice' things to help tide us over and now our furniture is mostly from Ikea and our clothes from supermarkets I wouldn't ever go back to that shallow existence I had before.

These things do seem to be sent to try us, and sometimes they all happen at once, you'r house of cards comes tumbling down and you're back at square one, or even in the minus zone! It IS shit. But actually stuff is just stuff, it can be re-bought if you want badly enough. But love really is a rare and precious thing that's worth sticking with.

If he's really not the man for you now he hasn't got the job you found sexy, then maybe he was never the man for you. Maybe it won't work out. That's your call. But this is life, you need to pull your socks up, get some steel in your spine and make the very best of it, not for you, you are not the centre of your world any more, not for your eldest son either, he's a man now, but for the babies you're carrying. They may not have been planned, but you didn't accidently fall on his penis. Good luck and sorry for the long post. x

No she is acting like a spoilt petulant entitled child

She apologised for the thread title when flamed for it but showed her true colours when turning on a bereaved mother and telling her to put herself in her shoes.

I'm surprised she hasn't been flamed more

Sell your boat , get rid of your husband if he's that bad

I'd be bloody skipping in her shoes, regardless of the drunk out of work husband

ack, ladies, dont let it get to you that much.
I bet she is just a journo or other sort of trash writer doing "research" for the book she has planned. She mentioned the book already, probably just canvassing opinions on whether it would appeal, seem believable, etc.

I think it's really unfair to say that a poster cannot be down about their situation because it isn't as bad as someone elses. Must everything be ranked? Are we really so in love with the 'pull your socks up' school of parental support?

Great post Springy and some great advice from aldiwhore too.

I think that if the OP had been sorry for the title, she would have asked to have it changed.

Shadows - you may have a point there.

NL - OP sounds very materialist and shallow, which I think has really wound people up. There are so many people out there who have coped in much worse situations, and that is relevant to an OP who claims to be intelligent and capable.

She has every right to be down but has no right to compare her circumstances to that of people who have lost their children

Springy has just said what I tried to, but so much better!