Hi all
I'm pretty new to using mumsnet so don't have all the lingo down yet but hope you can give me some guidance!
I've been with my partner for 2 years 7 months, and am 32 weeks pregnant. We’ve been through a lot in our short relationship, inc 2 terminations (one with twins, an unplanned pregnancy which after 13 weeks of increasingly severe depression I felt unable to cope with and another 5 months later, despite using contraception, which I would have kept but he convinced me to terminate) all in the past 18 months. The current pregnancy was planned, but I conceived within hours of saying I wanted to try so we didn’t have much time to process it. I have always believed I wouldn’t be able to conceive easily as I have pcos and had never been pregnant before this relationship – I had even started finding out about fertility treatment before meeting him at almost 35.
When we met he was in a difficult place – seriously in debt, stuck in a job where he wasn’t getting paid, living off savings at his parents’ place at the age of 37. I am a very independent person with a successful career who has always dated successful men and I found this hard to cope with, however I was falling for him and probably thought I could fix things (I have a tendency to do that). So when I fell pregnant the first time, I suggested that we move in together and promised to pay the majority of the rent and bills, while he got himself out of the bad situation he was in and looked for a secure job (which he did get, very quickly, although his debts meant that he still could not contribute much towards rent etc).
Just before the first pregnancy his behaviour started to change. It started with an extreme reaction to my being pursued by someone I had met socially, someone I wasn’t interested in romantically but who was a useful work contact – where he hacked into my emails and put me through hell, making me feel guilty about something that wasn’t there. I considered leaving then, but very shortly afterwards I discovered I was pregnant and thereafter seemed constantly trapped in a cycle of pregnancy and getting over the trauma of termination.
Over the past year and a half things have deteriorated and he has done and said many things that constitute emotional abuse (much of it while I’ve been pregnant). I have also got myself into financial difficulties by covering so much, and regret having got myself into this situation but at the time I wanted to show that I believed in him. I no longer love him, in fact I don’t even like him, and I now know I should have left after the first pregnancy. Some things he has said or done include:
• making me feel I’m always at fault
• automatically disagreeing with everything I think or say
• telling me I’m too selfish to have kids
• discounting/belittling my personal experience and opinion, making me feel stupid, saying I’m “intellectually shallow”
• Using the abortions to hurt me (you took my babies away) even though he coerced me into having the second one
• Telling me I “have a problem with pain” and that I have left him out of the birth process because I want to have an epidural and he wants me to have an unmedicalised birth
• telling me he doesn’t trust me but he doesn’t know why
• saying he knows I’m not telling him something/that I have just lied – that he can “feel” it leading me to feel constantly guilty (this could be a look or, on one occasion, a “pause” in the wrong place)
• withdrawing emotionally from me when I see certain people/go to certain places so that I stopped doing it
• withholding affection as punishment – during this pregnancy I’ve constantly had to ask him for it
• saying he wants to take his baby away i.e. if we split up he wants to look after it - making me feel I would be a bad mother
• saying that he cares about the baby inside me but not about me
• making me feel bad for asking him to move out of our shared bed because he snores heavily & 4 months in to the pregnancy I was permanently exhausted - saying he “no longer felt close to me” cos we weren’t sharing a bed and that I was “taking his baby away from him”.
• making me feel I have abandoned him/the relationship when I go to see my family or go away for work
• saying insensitive things about my appearance and weight while I’m pregnant, making me feel ugly
I’m now in an impossible situation because we are about to move into a new (cheaper) place together, I have worked hard to make sure I can cover my maternity leave (I have my own company so it is up to me) but it doesn’t leave me with much financial wiggle room and it would be a serious stretch for me to cover the rent on my own – although it might be doable. Every instinct I have is telling me to get out now, rather than trying to get him to leave later, because I am in a constant state of stress and anxiety - but the small group of friends and family that I have talked to have warned me that I will need him around immediately after the birth and that I should just grin and bear it for now. I also don’t want to leave him out of the process despite his behaviour, as I know he has always wanted to be a father. He is extremely good with children, is very charming and popular and people generally think he is a loving, kind, gentle guy and that I’m lucky to have him. I feel very anxious about the labour with him, and am considering having my mum there for moral support. Any advice would be much appreciated.