.

[Wretched]

.

He called his pregnant wife a dick OP, he is a bully and worse. Please don't cover up for him any more.

This just sounds really strange, is your DH depressed and trying to shut himself off from the reality of two DCs to support. I think you really need to sit down and talk properly either to each other and or a councillor of some sort.
You just don't sound like your normally unhappy together.

Please please talk to some of your friends in real life.

I am so sorry you lost your mother and you no longer have a person you feel close to but please turn to your friends. Pregnancy is such a vulnerable time, especially when you are grieving. please try and get some support elsewhere as your H isn't offering it

So don't. Tomorrow is the start of a new era for you and your little family.

Tell him to cop the fuck on or to get the fuck out.

Stop cooking things you can't eat ffs. Stop carrying freezers, really, STOP it all. You don't have to carry on like this. This is his problem. He will lose his family, make him aware of this.

I absolutely adore him, he is the love of my life. He is ordinarily very different.

That was the old him, he is gone. Do not be a slave to this memory and living in the hope that this man will return. Chances are when new baby comes along the burden will be wholly on you. How do you know the old him will return. His habit of treating you like shit will be routine then, so why should he bother. You still comply to his wishes regardless.

Enough is enough.

Oh, he will be right as rain as soon as I've had the baby and he can see the prize. His cold treatment will continue until around the time the baby is two, if last time is anything to go by. There will be no sex, very little affection. He seems to physically shrink from me as I am needing him more. When I start to get me back, I.e. get the baby sleeping through the night, get my career back into the swing, I'm sure he will be interested again. It's like history repeating. But I put a lot of it down to our young age and inexperience last time.

He is ordinarily very different. See, I don't get this. Everything he is saying and doing at the moment shows someone capable of real cruelty. How can you ever go back to what you think you had before? This is who he is!
So you really think so little of yourself that you will accept this treatment in the hope that one day he might deign to toss a little kindness your way?

Oh that sounds just wonderful. So he gets a full 3 years of being a bastard written off.

Startail, we usually rub along just fine. It's as though the baby has taken us off course though. I do love him and am sure he loves me, he jut doesn't love the waddling, doe eyed, tissue clutching me I have become. He can't make the connection between the me who is pregnant and the me who he normally loves.

Eh? "Right as rain as soon as you've had the baby" yet "continue the cold treatment until it is two."
Please tell me why you adore this man. I'm feeling so angry on your behalf.

Stop making excuses for him. I'm sorry but everything you've written about him leads me to think he's an absolute bastard.
Sorry.

He struggled to regain intimacy with me last time after I had our first baby. I don't know why, I assume it was seeing me give birth or whatever, coupled with the fact he has a lower sex drive than me anyway.

It regained momentum and we were fine up until I fell pregnant again this summer.

Now all the memories are flooding back. Ironically he does seem to find me attractive, but shies away from sex and intimacy. I assume he is worried about hurting the baby?

Anyway, it's just one more thing to make me feel hopeless and unloved.

I wouldn't assume that at all. Doesn't sound like he gives a shit about the baby. Or you, frankly.
I hope I'm wrong, but how can he possible be so cavalier and cruel towards you - and call you a dick when you tell him how upset you are, and yet expect you to believe he loves you really. That's not covered by any definition of love I've ever read.

Anyway, I don't think I'm helping at all - probably making you feel even worse so I think I'd better bow out.
I do feel for you though, and sincerely hope that you have some RL friends/family who can look after you.
All the best.

Well, he does take a very cavalier and unromantic attitude to things generally. Thers is no grey areas, everything is black and white. In his book, we are simply up against a challenge, and there is no love issues, no need for special treatment, let's just get on and get the baby out and then onto the next thing. It's just not a special time for him. Sadly.

Thank you for the replies clam. I have a lot to think about.

"Its my fault for getting pregnant"

Errr....I hope you pointed out to him that he had something to do with that too, and if he really didnt want a child then he had a choice of using condoms or not having sex!

this is not a normal relationship, you know that dont you? 3 years of "punishment" for having a baby is not normal. ONE DAY is not normal but 3 years is appalling.

I think you need some help with this. Relate can help you one your own, if (as I suspect) he refuses to come with you. They can help you see your relationship more clearly and help you decide what you want and how to move forward.

Thinking of you

You poor soul, this thread is heartbreaking. Please don't take any more of this crap, this man doesn't love you properly and you deserve so much better. Someone who loves you wouldn't treat you (or your baby) this way. Someone who is only there for you when you are on the 'up' is no good for you at all. What happens when you really need him, such as if you are really ill or you become disabled in some way? You need someone who will cherish you through the good times and the bad and when you are feeling vulnerable will make even more of an effort to surround you with love.

You sound like a lovely mum and such a capable person, please value yourself more and start to consider a life where you are happy on your own with your lovely children or with someone who puts you first and doesn't behave like a nasty, spoilt brat.

You sound quite depressed and fearful. And I don't mean to frighten you but if you feel like this now, chances of pnd are quite high.
When is your next antenatal appointment? Talk to the midwife or gp about what is going on. He is being abusive, treating you badly because you are vulnerable and he knows the chances of you standing up to him at the moment are very slight because of the pregnancy. He may be worried, he may be feeling distant towards the pregnant you, but he is taking that out on you. Hee needs to be told why he needs to be supportive. Get some advice from gp etc and find out who can help you, and you need to tell him that he needs to solve his attitude to this pregnancy and the baby so that he can support you.
What about his mum? Other family?
My ex was like this during my pregnancy, got gradually more abusive, I got depressed, it all ended in more abuse. I kept believing he'd sort himself out and the old him would come back, but he'd got used to treating me without any respect by that point.
Please look after yourself, DD and the pregnancy.

" His cold treatment will continue until around the time the baby is two, if last time is anything to go by."

That sentence says it all. He has form for this type of abusive behaviour. He is not a good dad to your child - a good dad wouldn't treat the child's mother like that. Not once and certainly not twice.

This pregnancy is your shared responsibility - he is 50% responsible. He carelessly took the risk of you getting pregnant for 2 years until you conceived, knowing that he didn't want another child. Then he punishes you for it for the duration of your pregnancy. And you expect this punishment to continue until this new baby is around 2 years old?

So, out of the 8 years of your relationship, he has been abusive and cold to you for 2 years + a pregnancy, now 6 months of another pregnancy, plus the lack of taking his responsibility for this pregnancy (= 2 years). That totals to 5 years and 3 months of this kind of unacceptable behaviour towards you. That is a whole lot of shitty behaviour!

You have to really question your relationship with this excuse for a man.

Morning. I am at work now after my night sofa surfing! Feeling a lot clearer headed.

What I would like to do is keep my family together. I do really love him and i know he does love me. But he has the sensitivity of a pig sometimes.

He does, as one poster points out, like me when Im on "the up" so to speak and when times get tough he tends to withdraw from me to a degree, whether this is self perservation I dont know. He really is an excellent father, I would have never considered another pregnancy otherwise. Our DD is the most treasured little child and she really is wonderful. Thats what hurts me in a way, he has spent this whole pregnancy worrying and fretting about money and practicalities, he has forgotten what a fantastic little life we are creating and how lucky we are.

No amount of spoiling or caring for me could replace the lost weeks of excitement and anticipation he has missed out on. In my book. How do I get past this? How do I make him see that it would be so easy to have a lovely last few weeks before the baby is born if only he could get round to acting interested and caring for me a little more. Think I am banging my head against a brick wall to be honest.

"He does, as one poster points out, like me when Im on "the up" so to speak and when times get tough he tends to withdraw from me to a degree"

If a friend only spent time with you when you were all happy and full of light, they'd get short shrift - in my world, at least. Fair weather friends can't be trusted.

You're lacking two major elements of a successful relationship - trust and respect. You can't trust him to treat you fairly, and he shows you no respect.

"How do I get past this?"

You don't. He might. But don't count on it!

The only control you have over someone else is in your reaction to their behaviour.

Chances are, once you stop crawling round him and actually detach and tell him to fuck off to where he deseves, he'll realise what he's losing and swing back again. You need to remember how he was now and not simply give in to his monumental sulk by taking hiim back.

He is NOT an excellent father - he is treating the mother of his children appallingly and if your DD is witnessing any of this that makes him a terrible father.

'How do I make him see that it would be so easy to have a lovely last few weeks before the baby is born if only he could get round to acting interested and caring for me a little more.'

You can't make him do anything.

I can't see what is so wonderful about him, sorry. He sounds like an abusive self-centred arse and I would be telling him to sort himself out or fuck off. I would not be cooking food for him that gave me indigestion or carrying heavy things around that he could get someone else to help him with.

I know you want to believe that he is really a lovely person but a lovely person would not behave like this.

Purple, I can assure you, Im not the type of person to ever crawl around. For anyone.

What I have tried to do is carry on, not mind that he never asks about my appointments/scans/feelings not expect any special treatment and generally lower my expectations of a partner of a mum-to-be. I work a long week, keep busy and to be fair he works very hard as well so we only have every other weekend when we are thrown together. On these occasions we try to spend as much time with DD as possible or he decorates/does DIY 9one thing he has done for the baby is prepare the basics for the nursery, we just need some furnishings now).

I dont see that as fawning or subservient behaviour. But sat on the settee at night, you would think a cuddle/backrub/cosy chat about the baby wouldnt be too much to ask.

Malinkey, we will have to disagree. I live with him, he really is a very good dad. My DD is in no doubt that we love each other, we are quite tactile and respectful of one another and always back each other 100 percent in parenting.

But when she is in bed and its just the two of us, its a different story.

I'm very glad to hear it, Wretched - drawing on my own experience of emotionally abusive distant men, it brought out the worst in me and I would get all waily and clingy which would just piss them right off (and me from the last scrap of sanity inside my head which was watching in horror)

You shouldn't be lowering your expectations, because they sound pretty reasonable to me (not a parent). I had a self-inflicted hangover last Saturday, and spent the day watching shite on telly and drinking weak tea. Quite prepared to make do for myself, completely my fault I was feeling crap - DP bought me flowers and brought me cups of tea and food all day. You're blinking pregnant, so my hangover day should be your minimum standard!