Struggling...

[BigChocolateOrange]

Hi all,

Have had a few threads about this already (before my Christmas nc). I just feel wretched.

My ex-DP told me 3 weeks ago that he still loves me but that he doesn't feel the same about me anymore and that I'm not the same person he fell in love with. We have a 5 months old DD. I've been diagnosed with PND which has made me paranoid, clingy and not want to leave the house, so actually whilst I think it was a shitty thing to do he's probably right at the moment.

Since he's been gone I've been making a huge effort to force myself to do things and have been out every single day. I've also been given citalopram 20mg which I've been taking since Sunday. The side effects are absolutely slaying me. I can't sleep at night but I'm drained all day, I can't eat and I feel sick. I know that they will pass but I'm struggling with them.

Since he's moved out he's been out nearly every night, and I keep seeing photos and check ins on Facebook of him having a great time whilst I'm struggling to get through each day. Me and DP had been arguing about his friendship with a female colleague. She's a lesbian but I felt jealous and paranoid and he didn't do anything to reassure me. He came round last night to see DD and announced that he's going to be staying with her and her girlfriend. I just feel like I've been punched in the stomach. We all work together as well and I've been told by several people that everyone at work thinks there is something going on with them, and I feel like such a mug sat at home with our baby whilst he's out and about not giving a shit. He said a whole before he left that he felt trapped and he wanted his social life back. And he's been under a lot of stress at work and we've got no money.

I just don't understand why he's not supporting me through this. Regardless of his feelings towards me I've got it from having our baby so I don't understand why he doesn't want to help. I also don't understand how we can go from being so in love a couple of months ago to this?

I just feel like my heart has broken in two.

Oh poor poor you.

PND is horrible and a big well done for going to GP and getting meds, it's the first step.

I don't want to be blunt but what a twat! Truth is this man doesn't deserve to share the air you breath. Even if he cant 'cope' with your PND (ha!), he should be helping with DD not pissing his money away every night (especially as you say you've no money). He is a father (and apparently a grown up!)
Sorry I know none of this is helping and I have no answers.
I'm going through shit myself at the moment, on another thread, but another waste of space. I feel your pain and I'm sure someone will be along with something more constructive soon.

Look after yourself and DD

He's not supporting you because he's already left the relationship. Some people can be very black and white about this kind of thing. Once the love has gone, it's all gone... no half-measures. You, on the other hand, have that most depressing of situations i.e. living with someone who doesn't give a shit about you .... yet hoping, thinking and expecting that they might change their mind, wasting a lot of time trying to rationalise what's happening. 'Mug' may not be the right word but the longer you let this situation continue, the further your self-esteem will sink. Sorry

So diddums feels trapped? .... Let him go. Or, more accurately, tell him to get lost. Who the hell does he think he is?

I know you're both right, I just wish I could hate him, it would make things so much easier for me.

It's not easy to do the right thing sometimes. At the moment he is in control and you're just a passive recipient of crap. You're too busy trying to get inside his head to really understand what you're feeling. You're too busy trying to win him back, in a nutshell. The lower your self-respect gets, the less easy it will get to do the right thing... i.e. reject the miserable, selfish prick. So act first, make yourself top priority, restore your self-esteem and let your feelings catch up afterwards.

What should I be doing? I don't want him to say I'm not letting him see DD.

You tell him that if he doesn't feel the same about you and feels trapped then there's the front door, and close it quietly behind him. Plain as that. This is his choice now..... piss or get off the pot..... he's either in the relationship 100% voluntarily and wholehearted or he's 100% a bachelor with all the freedom in the world to sleep with whatever colleagues he fancies..

You can follow up by telling him that this freedom is not without conditions and responsibilities e.g. you expect a financial contribution for yourself and DD & he will share the parenting of DD to a schedule that you work out through mediation or lawyers... essentially you need to take all the fun out of this for him and show him some cold, hard, steely facts of where his life is headed.

Def what CogitoErgoSometimes says. If he wants to see DD, he needs to provide finically for her care.
It's hard to hate the person you have chosen to have a child with, and the truth is if you don't want to believe he's a knob you won't (sorry bit blunt, but I can just see myself in your situation a few months back and I didn't want to believe it and didn't want to face truths). So don't waste your energy on hate, you've enough to be dealing with. Spend your energy on feeling better, depression is crippling. It's easy for me to say, but in time when your depression is under control it will be so much easier to see tuis for whAt it is. You can't think clearly when you're in depression soup.
Have you got any help/support/hugs in RL?

Yeah, I've got a really good support network in RL, I'm lucky in that respect.

On a more practical note, I had that problem with Citalopram and the doctor told me to take the tablets at a different time of day. Iirc I ended up taking it early evening, sleepyness would then kick in at bedtime and I'd feel ok the next day.

That's not a bad plan. I've got another doctors appointment tomorrow so I'll talk to her about it. Thanks for the suggestion crafty.

My EH seemed to change personality when our 2nd son was born. It all escalated in the next 3 years, during which I was unhappy and wondering what on earth was going on. Eventually I clicked that he craved the single life, bachelorhood, freedom...he felt totally confined, trapped and frustrated [by his own kids!], alongside a health problem which made him want to live life to the full while he could.....!!!

I figured I could not make him feel any differently, and told him to go after agonising for ages and my health suffering. I hoped the shock and the reality would make him wake up - it didn't.

Let these selfish, shallow, spineless and callous fathers go....the responsibility of fatherhood/lack of spending money is too much for them to bear. Keep your energy for your recovery and building a bond and happy life for you and your DD. His loss.

XH

Sorry you've been through it too bluebird. I just don't get it, until recently he was devoted to me and he'd have done anything for me.