I'd be really glad for any advice....sometimes I think my relationship can be patched up and could be okay, sometimes I think I'm a fool for not having left already :( After some horrible life events and a traumatic birth last year, I'm horribly depressed and sad and cry all the time, feel like I'm sliding into a sort of paralysis where I can't do anything. Sorry this is so long :(
I don't have PND, though for ages I worried I did: I'm depressed because of my partner. He has a nasty temper and is constantly snapping and shouting; he is constantly, and has since I became pregnant, been constantly nasty - just really nasty comments, lots of name-calling (including swearing at me, telling me I'm a liar, hypocrite, crazy, "mental", "stupid woman" and so on). Lots of talking to me in a contemptuous tone, comments about my appearance, body and character, picking fights, overreacting about completely petty and nonsensical things. I used to be able to remain more calm but now am so strung out I can't easily keep cool and I get very upset. The verbal and emotional abuse was much worse when I was pregnant and when DD was a bit younger, we have been going to couples counselling, but even though it's decreased a bit it's still going on (eg. every 2-3 days rather than several times a day). I have been trying to fix it for ages as well as being the main wage earner, having financial problems and being ill a lot (it took me a long time to recover from birth injuries, and I seem to have no immune system left so am catching a lot of viruses all the time).
I've bought him books, pushed for counselling, tried to reason with him, tried to avoid triggering it, and I'm so tired and unhappy. He has been looking after DD while I'm at work, as we have no childcare; but the house is often a mess and in chaos and he complains I don't do enough (I try but am just too tired to be at work all day, then come home, look after DD and put her to bed, finish off work in the evening, and then also clean and sort out all of the house - I already do as much as I can in the house). I'm still bf and co-sleeping, and DD has only just started to sleep through so I've had nearly a year of 6hrs or less a night and I'm still exhausted from that. (As I co-sleep with DD I do all the night wakings.) He does do the cooking and childcare for DD while I'm at work. He is kind and gentle with her, just not with me.
Family don't help (that's a whole other story; my parents are very difficult people, and they had an argumentative dysfunctional relationship which I'm terrified of recreating for my DD and I'm horrified that it seems like history is repeating itself). MIL is also a difficult person and has always indulged DP's temper and sort of rewarded it. We're really isolated without support or many friends here - most of my friends are scattered around the country now, and DP doesn't really have any friends. I feel like there's no help for me anywhere and I feel horribly trapped :( The house is in my name, but I can't afford childcare as well as the mortgage if DP isn't here, and he isn't earning (he's meant to be finishing his degree), so he has nowhere to go and no money. If I chuck him out, right now he'd only be able to get a very basic job which would just about pay his rent on a room (we're in greater London because of my job), so then he wouldn't be able to look after DD
and he'd have to drop out of his degree. It feels like I'm well and truly stuck. Plus this is DD's family - I wanted her to have a lovely family. I wanted her to have the happy family I didn't have :(
DP says he loves me and doesn't want to leave but he can't seem stop the constant nastiness - I think he genuinely thinks I'm unreasonable for not just indulging his temper the way his mum does. What he would like, I think, would be to just be allowed to be nasty whenever he wants but for me to remain impassive and placatory about it (that's what his mum does when he's nasty to her), and just excuse it as his temper. But I'm in bits, as I just can't manage being called names and being blown up at all the time, plus I can't forget the truly awful things he's said to me (you really would be shocked by some - eg. three weeks after a traumatic birth with a broken-down third degree tear when I was in complete shock and also had a chest infection, telling me he wasn't attracted to me any more, my breasts looked horrible, and he wished he could sleep with other women... :( Or calling me a cunt while I was breastfeeding a three-month-old because I'd asked him if he would mind getting me a cup of tea.... lots and lots more, too...)
If I say something he takes exception to, no matter how innocuous - genuinely innocuous, I can just be chatting away about nothing - I'm "behaving badly", I'm "obnoxious", he'll say I'm abusive, I'm irrational, a horrible person. When he's calmed down, which might be several hours later, he'll apologise and say he was wrong - for some of it, at least; he'll always say I provoked him in some way, even if I really didn't. I'm not being disingenuous here at all: I've always had good relationships before and have seen my parents' awful marriage and I know it's not me, it really isn't. And I have turned into a bit of a wreck, so I don't deal with this well at all any more.
I think he does feel genuinely remorseful and wishes he hadn't said and done many things. E has had a genuinely awful / dysfunctional upbringing. He adores DD. He can be kind and caring. We get on really well when he isn't doung this. It has been getting a bit better and he does seem really to be trying. But he can't seem to just curb his temper full stop. If he could just stop the angry outbursts and nasty comments we could try to rebuild the relationship, and in the occasions he does manage for a few days it does get a lot better. But I'm so tired of waiting and trying to manage and hoping and I'm so, so depressed (GP has suggested antidepressants but I don't see why I should medicate myself up to offset the effects of someone else's temper tantrums...) I don't know what to do. And I used to be a really strong and capable person, but all this and the birth and various other things (problems at work etc.) have really knocked me, and I'm struggling. I feel like I couldn't manage DD and the house and everything on my own now - I've even become scared of driving! I really need to do something to stop me sliding into this awful state of paralysis any further.
Does anyone have any advice for something I could do to change things? It may well be that we need to separate, but it isn't logistically possible right now - I've done the sums and we can't afford living costs and childcare at the moment if we separate. I'd have to give up the house (I'd lose the deposit, more than 20k - it's shared ownership and has horrendous lease conditions), have to give up my job, and move in with my parents 300 miles away - from one dysfunctional family back into another! :( Is there any way of trying something I haven't thought of yet? :(