So just a bit of my backstory, I have two children one who is aged four and the other who is 17 months. I was in what I thought was a happy marriage when I fell pregnant with our second, he was planned, however my husband walked out of me completely out of the blue when I was five months pregnant. The year that followed this was awful because he emotionally abused me And just threatened me repeatedly with childcare even make him comments like "you may have given birth to him but I put him there" and just constantly threatened to take the new baby off me overnight and soon he was born. We do seem to have come to a point where we can get on for the sake of a co-parenting. I really hope that this can last, but it really has got to this point because I've had to brush a lot of my Anger and disrespect and upset and feelings towards him have been brushed under the carpet. But I'm just finding it so hard at the moment. I find it so hard seeing my sons go and be so happy to see him. I just have this fear that they won't want to come home. I just had this fear that they will leave me or aren't happy with me. I had this really vivid dream the other night of me shouting "i'm not good enough" over and over again and it's really resonated with me that that is exactly how I feel absolutely myself. Deep deep down I know that I'm a good mum. I have 70/30 childcare I did my pregnancy on my own, I gave birth without a partner in lockdown, I have done all the sleepless nights, I'm still breastfeeding my baby which I know is a massive accomplishment. But I just feel so lonely and like I'm just not good enough. And I really think that these feelings have been accelerated by the fact that I was just left out of the blue all those months ago. I have no feelings towards my ex romantically anymore. I don't really feel anything towards him, I like to think that I've really moved on from that. But the way all of this has made me feel about myself it's just terrible. I'm not really sure why I'm writing this post, I suppose it's just nice to have people to talk to and I wondered if anyone else feels the same?
On top of this I just feel like my heart breaks every single day at the thought of my youngest going and staying overnight with him. At the moment he is still breastfed and is a terrible sleeper so he's stays with me overnight and sees his dad I'm on one of the weekend days. I feel so incredibly protective and attached to him because I feel like when I was pregnant my ex abandoned both of us and I did it all on my own. He never asked about the baby, he even told me that he point blank didn't want to be there when he was born. He never asked to spend any time with him until he was at least three months old.I know that I'm gonna find it really hard to accept their relationship. I feel absolutely awful feeling like this, I should be happy that both my sons are having a relationship with their dad, but what about my feelings? Whenever I speak to anybody about this they always reinforce that it's the child's best interest et cetera et cetera, but when does my best interest count?
I've had CBT therapy not too long ago, and the therapist did recommend that I refer myself to minds matter for counselling which I'm going to do when the three month time period has passed.
At the moment all my time and energy just goes onto my sons, which is exactly where I want it to go. I know when my youngest gets older they'll be more time for me to do things myself I go to the gym or reconnect with friendships that seem to have dwindled because I just don't really have any time.
So I know it won't always be like this, maybe it's the dark nights, but it's just hard.