Why am I so vile? I'm ruining my life. (Long, sorry).

[hatemyselfmostofthetime]

I met my DP very soon after his ex walked out on him, taking their DD with her. In hindsight we shouldn't have started a relationship until he was in a better place. But we really liked each other and wanted to be together so we just took things really, really slowly.

They've always shared 50:50 custody of his DD but in the early days he was absolutely devastated by the break up of his family.

I knew I was in love with him from about six months in. It took him a lot longer to fall in love with me. I'd say it was the best part of two years before I felt like he was wholly present in our relationship. Up until then he'd always kept me slightly at arm's length. I found this very painful at the time. But he was never cruel or unkind. Just...distant. Because I loved him so much I stuck around.

Last year I got pregnant very unexpectedly. We weren't living together then and it was a real test of our relationship. He was happy to do the right thing - we planned to move in together and we were going to make a real go of things. Then I had a miscarriage.

The night I miscarried DP was staying with DSD on the other side of the city at his mum's house. And irritatingly he hadn't taken his car with him. It was a Saturday night and I went to A&E at around 10.30pm. I called him while I was waiting to be seen by a doctor and asked him to come and meet me at the hospital. He said he couldn't because he didn't have his car, DSD was asleep and he'd have to leave her with his mum (and the problem was...?), he'd have to get a taxi all the way across the city, etc, etc. So I said leave it then and I'd call him once I'd seen the doc.

Then it all kicked off. I was seen by the doctor but it was too late. She removed the 'products' there and then. My baby was in a biological waste bin and I was devastated. I found the whole thing really traumatic. Just awful. Awful.

I called a friend and luckily she was able to come and be with me and take me home. I called and called and called DP to let him know what happened but there was no answer. By this time it was gone midnight. He rang the next morning and I was an incoherent mess on the phone. I wanted him to come and get me right away but he said he couldn't because he was having lunch that day with his dad (long story but he only sees his dad about three times a year). So I had to wait until he'd had lunch before he came and picked me up with DSD in tow.

I feel so let down by him. I really struggled to forgive him for a long time. He maintained, and still maintains that he had no choice. Couldn't have left DSD with his mum, it was important to see his dad, etc. He also said that back then he still wasn't sure if he loved me or wanted to be with me long term. So, I dunno, he didn't want to put himself out?? Not sure why he needed to tell me that. He says it's better to be 'honest'.

Anyway, we managed to move on. Nearly three years later we're living together and I'm pregnant again, planned this time. But despite the fact that I've now got everything I wanted I can't stop myself being really vile. I suddenly feel very, very angry about his behaviour during the miscarriage. And I find myself saying really horrible things to him about how he was stupid to have a child with his ex because she's selfish and shallow and a shit mum. What was he thinking ever being with her? He's already got a family so my baby won't be as special to him. Etc... Just really nasty, insane stuff.

I feel miserable and I hate myself for being this way but I don't know what will make it better. I just feel like I will never, ever be a priority. Even when I was losing our baby and going through one of the worst experiences of my life, when I needed him the most, he put other people before me.

I've gone from having a really great relationship with DSD to not really being able to be around her. And I think that part of it is to do with the fact that he didn't want to leave her with his mum to come and be with me when I was in hospital. Maybe that's terrible. But I resent her a bit for that. In my messed up mind she was the reason I was on that table, bleeding and crying, on my own.

All this came out in a big row with DP the other night and things have been strained ever since. I feel awful because I know I said some unforgivable things. But I think he acted unforgivably too. I don't know what to do now. I feel like we could've been so happy but I've ruined it all because I can't let go of what happened and now it's colouring everything.

If you've made it this far then thank you. I'd really appreciate some perspective on this. So I can disentangle my own shitty behaviour from righteous anger at the way he behaved.

Sorry, not three years later. I meant three years after meeting.

Before I give any advice, has you being the last priority been a common theme since you met?

I feel like it has, yes littlemissiggles.

But for ages I told myself that that's the way it should be because DSD should come first and he's a brilliant dad. But I've never felt like our relationship is as important to him as it is to me.

He says it's because DSD is number one. But I think the two things ought to be able to coexist.

You are scared about losing the baby and that's perfectly understandable. He wasn't there for you and in the back of your mind, you are worried that he won't be there for you this time.

You need to speak to him. I assume he thinks its all water under the bridge, but your protective instinct has kicked in big time and there is a niggle that he won't be a reliable partner and dad.

You need this in the open now, to let it go and look forward not back. You do not need worries or concerns about you, him or the pregnancy now, so be honest with him. Write down what you want to say to him, how you feel and what you want from him.

It sounds like you went through a horrendous time with losing your baby - and that is what it was to you, not 'just' a miscarriage.

I can understand him not being able to leave his daughter if there really was no one else to look after her but not miss lunch with his father? what a prick.
It doesn't matter what he thought of you lovewise, he could at least respected the woman he was having sex with

I think you should see if you could have some counselling, just to work through your grief and pain about this period in your life and stop it overflowing into today.

"Anyway, we managed to move on. "

I think this is the root of the problem... i.e. you haven't moved on. His response to being completely absent during the traumatic event you describe seems to be at best a shrug of the shoulders and, at worst, the cruellest thing anyone can say to someone else i.e 'I'm not sure if I loved you'. The only way you've moved on therefore is to try to suppress your anger and disappointment, which is a recipe for disaster. As you're discovering, unresolved anger only ever results in resentment.

So you have to talk about what happened three years ago and you have to express exactly how you felt and how you still feel. Shoulder-shrugging and trying to 'move on' just isn't going to cut it.

Thanks Moomins. We had a very open talk over the weekend and I spelt out everything to him, I feel, very clearly.

But I'm worried he now can't forgive me for the way I've been with DSD recently. Very distant and not engaging with her. I feel like any accusation I can level at him is now trumped by the fact he feels I've not been nice to DSD.

But his behaviour is the reason IYSWIM? So it's a vicious circle.

I'm wondering if counselling would help - couples or otherwise. I can see why you would harbour resentment at him not coming through in your time of need and him regarding pregnancy/miscarriage as your problem.

You're not vile but you know that you aren't being fair to DSD - natural as that might be after what you went through, it's not her fault, and hopefully she'll be a great sister to your baby.

I agree that family - couples and children - should be able to coexist. DSD might well be number one and I think that's common, but you should still be important especially when the need arises.

Wow. Poor you. I think you can be forgiven for your feelings, he did behave like an utter dick. I too have a dsd and when I was pregnant with my ds I know that dh would have moved heaven and earth to be with me if I had gone to hospital with any kind of problem. Your mistake was in not addressing your feelings at the time and carrying on regardless. What have things been like between you generally since that time? Are you now sure he loves you and is 100% committed to your relationship? If not, I would seriously question whether or not you should stay together. If he loves you, you need counselling together. I hope you work things out, but please don't put all the blame on yourself. It is easy to see where your feelings of resentment, hurt and anger come from. You now need help dealing with them. Good luck. X

X posted with some of you. Thank you. I did have a lot of counselling at the time and I thought I was okay but obviously I'm not.

I hate myself for letting it affect the way I feel about DSD but I just feel like he really should have put me first if not any other time, especially then. And he didn't. So now, every other time he puts her first it really pisses me off.

He asked me the other night if I'd treat DSD the same as my baby and I didn't know what to say because the answer is: of course not. I'll love my baby unconditionally. I simply don't feel that way about DSD and the way he is with her and me (ie. always putting her and their relationship before me) just makes that gulf wider.

Is the putting others first always just with DSD or do you feel it's everyone he puts first.

Matana he does love me now I know that (well, he did until the weekend at least).

He's been brutally honest (perhaps cruelly so) in the past about not reciprocating my feelings. So when he said he loved me and wanted to start a family I knew he was 100%.

But that pisses me off as well because it's on his terms. Now he's decided everything's hunky dory and he's over his break up and wants to be with me, it's like I'm supposed to just forget all the times he said he didn't feel the same as me.

At the time, all I wanted was for him to love me and I was prepared to wait and wait and wait. Now that he does, I feel angry about all the time that he didn't. It's weird.

"I really struggled to forgive him for a long time. He maintained, and still maintains that he had no choice"

I don't think you've forgiven him at all and if he's trotting out the 'no choice' excuse then he's not even accepting that his behaviour was unacceptable or distressing. The DSD issue just serves to support your fear that you never have been and never will be a high priority in his life. This is serious mismatch and I'm sorry but I don't see you closing the gap without an apology from him at the very least.

So you've been 'cold' to DSD? You haven't been banging her off the floor or shaving her head, have you? Its hormones! I'm sure you've been great with DSD up to now, but recently been 'not nice' to her.

Do you love DSD? I'm sure you do, but at the moment, you'd sell your granny to Huntingdon to protect the baby inside you. That is your whole focus. Did you have any grief counselling over your miscarriage?

It sounds like he really hasn't a clue how you feel. It's hard to feel in control when your instincts tell you that you have to protect your baby, but you've been through a miscarriage already. The worry must be horrendous.

I suspect you have just been bobbing along the past few years and not expressing how you feel about this. Please have another chat sooner rather than later.

Littlemiss to be fair it's only really DSD that he puts first. Which I know is as it should be.

The day after the miscarriage he wanted to go to lunch with his dad because they have a very complicated relationship and see each other very rarely. I don't think that was acceptable at all. His dad should've taken the backseat imo.

You might find you appreciate his relationship with her a bit differently to how you do at the moment. Not in a patronizing way at all, but have first hand experience of that bond.

My sister has DSS and she always thought she'd loved them as much as she would were they her own. She's had her own, she loves her DSS very much but does feel there is a different quality to the bond she has with her own. For a start he already has a mum. But in other ways she loves her DSS more than ever - seeing how great he is with her DC and feeling a biological 'connection', what with him being her DC's brother - I have to say, I feel that too towards him, it's cemented things in a way.

So maybe you'll feel a bit less excluded I guess with you all together?

You need some counselling fast. You are still grieving from your miscarriage and you need to address that or it will affect your whole life.

Cogito he has apologised but I still don't believe he really understands how bad he made me feel.

I'm terrified that this is going to split us up before the new baby is even here.

To be honest what I want is for him to grovel. I want him to be so abjectly sorry that he can't bear it.

Instead I feel like I'm getting 'sorry I made a bad decision but I felt like I couldn't leave DSD'. And then 'anyway, you're the bad guy because you've been cold with DSD lately so you're the one who should be apologising'.

"At the time, all I wanted was for him to love me and I was prepared to wait and wait and wait. Now that he does, I feel angry about all the time that he didn't. It's weird."

It's really not weird at all. Human beings will always crave most what we can't have. He was the 'carrot', the prize that you hung on for, taking a massive battering to your self-esteem in the process as you waited for His Lordship to decide if you were worth the trouble. You know you weren't worth cancelling a lunch for when you were having a miscarriage but you stuck around. It's a fairly classic infatuation behaviour pattern - not love, you note. So when he says 'yes' you relaxed, had time to think and examine this prize that your patience has won you. I don't think it's quite shaping up to your expectations

No it is no longer as it should be. He now has another child, with you, and it is you and your unborn baby that he needs to begin putting first, on a level with your dsd. It is possible to put 3 people first.

This is probably a silly question, but why did you hang around while he was brutally/cruelly telling you he didn't reciprocate your feelings? Why did you think it was ok to live like that? Was there an element of tragic heroine in that, do you think? It must have been absolutely horrible.

I think you need to figure out why you did that, and then figure out whether you really can move on from all the hurt and harm it caused you. Read this.

Plus I think he acted like a dick over the miscarriage, which is a separate, though related, issue.

I haven't got any useful advice...but I don't think you're wrong to be upset and worried about him not putting you first.

My DC are absolutely the most important people in my life, but that does not mean that they trump everything and everybody else. If somebody phoned me to tell me they were in hospital, alone and losing a baby and asked me to come, I would. I just would...You weren't just somebody that was his baby too!

MadBusLady I don't know. I thought about ending things lots of times.

We had lots of talks about it where I told him I wasn't happy and it wasn't good enough. But he was grieving, he wanted to take things slowly because of DSD, he didn't want to jump into anything too quickly.

I'd never been involved with a man who had DCs before. I thought that that was how it should be.

I know he's coming across as a right twat in this thread but he's a decent guy. After his ex left him he just went into a shell. The first two years of our relationship was like trying to coax a really shy animal out of that shell and build its trust.

The thing is he's over it now. He's happy in himself again and now he loves me. In his mind it's all fine. We're going to be a family. Things are great. And they were. They could be.

But I'm just so angry. I don't know what to do.

The first two years of our relationship was like trying to coax a really shy animal out of that shell and build its trust.

Hm. The trouble is that isn't what a relationship should be like really, is it?

Have you ever been a "rescuer" in previous relationships?

I do take your point re: not knowing whether this was normal with children involved though.