Hi
First post here. I?m a father so I?m not sure if this is the right place for me to posting. However, I wanted some advice from a female perspective so I hope you don?t mind. This is quite a long story but I?ll be as brief as I possibly can.
Me and my partner have been together for just under three years now. I was her first boyfriend. There is an eight-year age gap between us. She is 21, I?m 29. We had a baby nine months ago. He was unplanned and came as quite a shock. She didn?t find out she was pregnant until three and a half months gone. She had been avoiding her periods by not taking breaks with the contraceptive pill as she should so didn?t notice she had not been having periods.
I was in a really stressful job at the time. We had moved into a flat together about 2 months before she found out she was pregnant. Just before she found out, I was signed off work with stress and depression and prescribed anti-depressants. However, these just made me worse and the combination of depression, being out of work, and the shock of the pregnancy really sent me into a bit of a downward spiral and I spent a period of around two months were I could barely get out of bed. She was still working during this period and took her maternity leave at about eight months pregnant. I ended up being signed off work for about eight months myself and was then made redundant. It has been a struggle to find employment since.
She meanwhile was feeling down herself about the whole situation. She?s never really been good at talking about her emotions so maybe I didn?t realise how much this was affecting her at the time. The scan we had of our baby told us we were expecting a girl. However, when she gave birth we were surprised to have a boy! This didn?t really bother me but I could immediately she it shook her up a bit. We had given our ?girl? a name and bought lots of pink clothes etc etc. She appeared to struggle to bond with him at first.
Following the birth, our relationship began to go rapidly downhill. There were no major arguments (there never have been) but everything got rather dull. Before her pregnancy, and before we moved in together, we had had the typical young couple?s life. Going out fairly regularly to pubs and clubs etc and generally having lots of fun. This obviously stopped when she became pregnant. Things weren?t helped by the fact that my sex drive was seriously affected by the anti-depressants and we barley had sex throughout the pregnancy. Since giving birth, we hadn?t has sex much either. I guess it became slightly awkward due to it not happening for a long time. Again though, she didn?t really tell me how she felt about things, and it was a struggle to get her to talk about it when I pressed her on it.
A few months later she was diagnosed with post-natal depression. At this point, I started putting in all the effort I could to support her, realising that things were really affecting her badly. She started complaining to me about me being out of work, despite me applying for many jobs but getting nowhere. She began to talk about wanting to go back to live near her parents, 150 miles away. I tried to persuade her against this, asking her to give the anti-depressants she had been prescribed more time and she how she felt when she went back to her job (her maternity leave was due to end in about a month?s time). She said I was right and agreed to see how things panned out.
However, about two weeks before she was due to go back to work, I popped out to the shops one morning. I came back about an hour later to find her parents at our flat, with a removal van and her moving all her stuff out. She told me that she couldn?t bare to be in the flat any longer, that she had grown to hate the place, and that she needed to get away. She told me that she still loved me and that she was sorry. She obviously took our son. It turned out that she had been planning this for a number of weeks behind my back, arranging the removal van with her parents and even arranging a work transfer.
I was naturally pretty distraught, and angry. I spent a few weeks feeling desperately sorry for myself although I stayed in touch with her by telephone. She was very apologetic, very teary, telling me it wasn?t me, she just needed to get away for a change of scenery and a fresh start. She told me I?d always be welcome to go and stay with her.
Shortly afterwards, we agreed for me to move to her. I didn?t particularly want to. We lived in a big city (I have always lived in big cities) and she had moved to a small town really out of the way. But I had to put keeping my family together first so I went. Strangely enough, she had rented herself a house but had been staying with her mother as she didn?t like living in it alone.
Despite not feeling excited at the prospect of living in this area, I was looking forward to having a fresh start, having our family back together and really putting in the effort into making us work out. The very night I arrived however I sensed that she wasn?t very welcoming. We began talking and she suddenly told me that she thought she had fallen out of love with me and didn?t think she could love me anymore. I was amazed. She hadn?t mentioned this in the weeks of phonecalls we had been having, saying the exact opposite in fact! She then started telling me she?d like me to stay over xmas, particularly because it was our son?s first xmas, but that she?d like me to move out and the end of January. I done a very naughty thing and went through her emails whilst she was at work. I know how bad this looks but I was completely paranoid about what was going on and needed to know of she?d been saying anything to her friends about us. I found emails to various of her friends telling them that she was sick of me and wanted me out of her life. I confronted her about this and we had a small argument. But after a heart-to ?heart, we agreed that I would stay around for a ?good few months? and we would try our best to make it work out and see how we felt further down the line.
So we struggle on, and when we don?t analyse our relationship things can be pretty good. We still sleep in the same bed and the sex, bizarrely enough, is better than ever. But small things bug me and hurt me. She refuses to acknowledge our relationship to her parents or friends. For example, if we?re along in the house together, and she popping out to the shops or something, she?ll peck me goodbye on the cheek as normal. But if any of her friends or parents are here she won?t. She refuses to commit, saying she needs to see if things will work out. Our relationship status used to be on our Facebook profiles but she removed this when she originally left me and she won?t change it back, saying again she needs to see if it works out or not. I don?t think there is anybody else involved.
Whenever I bring up these insecurities she says this is totally my problem that I need to deal with and doesn?t seem to see things from my point of view at all or even seem to care about how I feel. She also brings up issues like she feel s that I wasn?t there for her during her pregnancy. She knows I had my own problems at the time and she didn?t talk to me about this when it was happening. She admits that I have been the prefect man since I?ve moved here with her but she can?t seem to forgive me for my failing in the past. She also seems extremely resentful about supporting me because I?m out of work. I have still been trying to find work. In fact, I had an interview this week and the potential employers have requested references for me from my referees so there is a very good chance that I will be employed in a few weeks time. This doesn?t seem to have satisfied her though. She has naturally told her friends about this whole situation and she has told me that they are constantly encouraging her to kick me out. How am I supposed to compete with that?
Today I got really upset. She went to work and our son went to nursery. About midday, I emailed her asking what she would like to eat this evening. (I?m a good cook and constantly prepare food for her and do plenty of housework ? I was doing this even during my low points during the pregnancy. Despite probably not being there for her emotionally as well as I should have been, I wasn?t a complete arse.) She mentioned casually that our son had been taken ill at nursery and she had arranged for her mother to pick him up. I asked her why she hadn?t contacted me. I said I felt like she was cutting me out of his life now and not being fair on me. She hasn?t bothered replying to me.
The situation is really causing me grief. I can?t help feeling like I?m being used. That I deserve better and wondering why she seems to be oblivious to my feelings. Am I over-reacting? Am I being paranoid? Do I need to chill out a bit? Is her behaviour normal and acceptable?
Sorry if this story is a bit of a ramble. I?m at my wits end and don?t know what to do. Any advice or thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.