I hope someone may be able to offer some wise words or experience to me.
I've been with dp for five years, we have a six month old ds. Dp went out of his way to 'win me over' in the early days as I wasn't looking for a relationship at the time and wasn't really attracted to him initially but he showed himself to be a very kind and generous person, always giving to charity, he adopted a stray dog etc. Yes I know I'm probably a fool but kindness and intelligence are attractive to me so I overlooked the initial lack of interest I had in him and we became best friends and then a couple.
The difficulties started quite early, when dp showed he wasn't really interested in living together or sleeping together other than for sex. He was still a kind person, doing DIY, cooking me meals etc but we didn't do much in terms of couple things, if he did stay the night he would always have a reason to leave early etc.
I told him we had to live together or I was leaving (after a couple of years of dating). He agreed. It was better for a few months but certainly not great. Then I received news that I was infertile. I was devastated. I begged dp to do Ivf with me as I've always wanted children and now in my thirties I was worried it may never happen. He agreed and I thought he was happy. We went through treatment and got pregnant on the first cycle. However, I have always been an emotional person and whilst I was pregnant our arguments increased - I felt frightened and unsupported by dp, he would leave me to cry and sleep in the living room, most of our rows were about the future and he told me he no longer wanted a baby conceived in a lab :(
I was depressed in pregnancy and went on to have pnd. Dp knows this but ignores it. Since ds was born he's barely slept in the same room as us. He only took one day of paternity leave as he's self employed and left me to look after ds alone from the start, even though I'd had a caesarian and had no local friends or relatives. My wound got infected and I was quite ill from this, pnd and general exhaustion. A few weeks ago I was very ill with flu and still bf as ds won't take a bottle. The doctor told dp to take at least one day off to look after me and ds, however dp opted to sleep in the other room and go to work. I can understand if he feels no love for me, but surely he should care for ds?
It keeps coming to a head with arguments and me begging dp to help me and look after ds for a couple of hours and also begging him to sleep in a bed with me etc. He admits he doesn't spend much time with ds and I, he always resolves to change but it never lasts more than a few days. I don't know what I can do other than keep getting to breakdown point with dp, last week I asked him what I could do to get his help, did I need to hurt myself or something for him to realise I can't cope anymore? I keep getting to breaking point and dp just refuses to acknowledge the pnd or help me with ds, other than for an hour or two at the weekend.
I suspect dp is only with me due to ds and I've suggested we break up on numerous occasions but dp stubbornly refuses to. Am I crazy or is this a terrible relationship? Dp isn't lazy and he does work all week and often at the weekends, but he shows no love or even compassion for me, even though he can see me suffering. I am at the point I think it would be better we split up and I could start afresh, with ds being my main priority.