Anyone else's DP turned into a prize dick since birth of baby? Anyone worked through it ok?

[speckymum]

Hi there

Before I post I'm really wanting to hear from ladies who have been through something like this or know someone who has. One of the reasons I'm on here is because my lovely supportive friends have not had experience of this (yet) and it is very easy to say "leave him" based on your own morals. I need to hear from people who have come out of the other side and either finished the relationship or worked to repair it as I do not know which way to turn at the moment.

Been with DP for 18 years and married for 11. There have been ups and downs - mainly money related but we are now in what I thought was living the dream. A beautiful house, lots of friends and most importantly two beautiful children, the latest of which was born 5 months ago. He always wanted to be a father. I had waited longer than he would have liked and when I fell pregnant with no1 you'd never seen a happier man.

Then last year we were blessed with no2 (planned just happened much sooner than we were expecting) and for some reason since their birth he has turned into the sort of man I thought he despised.

The first shock I got was when I opened an email on a googlemail account registered to both of our phones to support a shared calendar. He was away for two nights with work. The email was in response to a response he had made to a classified advert on a well known site. The lady (although I don't think the ad was genuine) in question had advertised for no strings attached sex (not an escort - a bored housewife type). He had responded basically saying he was interested. After some digging around his email account on my part it became clear he'd tried to change the settings on the gmail account the night before so it would only be seen by him but the idiot evidently failed. I am confident he hadn't tried this before.

After a week of me not even being able to look at him we eventually sat down to talk about it. He told me that since the birth of the baby he'd felt like a spare part. Banished to the spare room (so he could get more sleep I might add), no cuddles on the sofa, holding hands, being treated like a housemaid. He just wanted affirmation that someone might respond - the thrill of knowing he could still be "wanted" in this way. He promised me he would not have gone through with anything. (After more digging I realised the post was in a town with the same name in the US so even if this person had been real which I suspect she wasn't he couldn't have gone through with it even if he'd intended to). I have read that a lot of men after the birth of a baby do feel this way. It isn't right and is very bad behaviour but I started to believe this was the sole reason for this stupid act and that his promises of never doing it again, hating himself for even sending a message and not being able to actually do anything were worth trying to improve the relationship and work though this blip. I thought things were improving and he was certainly making an effort - or so I thought.

In the meantime I was stressing about money, going back to work and general finances as despite him earning a pretty decent wage and, according to my calculations having at least £1K a month do do what he wanted with his account was £1K overdrawn. I told him I wanted to go through his account. He's been shit with money before and I was worried he was spending money on something he shouldn't be. Prostitutes perhaps if he was still feeling lonely?

I was told I was being stupid. Unreasonable, irrational - it had just been an expensive few months.

On Monday I brought myself to tell him now was the time to have a look and see what was going wrong. He willingly provided me with his bank account on line. As I looked through the previous statements I realised there was repeatedly payments to iTunes going out at about £20-£30 a time. I asked him what he had been doing on iTunes. He told me he had a Star Wars game and you can buy extra packages for it and he'd been enjoying it and admitted he had bought a few extras.

I calmly added up all of these amounts which started in December and the cost came to the grand total of £800!!!!!

I showed him and he was utterly shocked. He told me he'd been "bored" - again feeling like a spare part and he had enjoyed the game. Meanwhile I'd been having sleepless nights thinking about money and just having a cup of tea if going out for lunch as my account was nearly in its overdraft and I didn't want to ask him for any money.

I'm furious, hurt, disappointed and totally aghast at his behaviour. I have no way right now of knowing how I'll move past it. I told him yesterday that it is like having three children and I need to concentrate on the two children we have. My head is full of him and his stupid disrespectful behaviour when I should be concentrating on them. I told him that when I'm back at work we need to put the house on the market and go our separate ways. He was devastated and said he’d do anything for that not to happen. He told me he knows he’s been an absolute shit and he is so very sorry but I’m too angry to hear that right now.

My mother once told me that a marriage takes work. One person can hurt the other, make bad decisions and you will often not agree on things but people give up far too easily these days.

He is (was) a lovely guy. Likeable, kind, funny and an amazing father but he is just being such a shit husband at the moment. I know £700 isn't a lot of money to spend in the space of 5 months for some people but it is the principal of him not realising he was doing it and it is, at the end of the day, an f-ing computer game!

Either of these two incidents on their own I could have probably worked past eventually but the two together and the fact they have both coincided with the birth of the second baby - it almost seems like he's trying to escape his life of middle of the road family man.

By the way no one tell me he needs a hobby - he has one that he loves and I resent that too as I'm actually the one who is feeling lonely and disrespected right now with nothing in my life other than my children and friends which actually, I was pretty content with until this week.

There - I've laid it all out on a plate. I am just hoping that there is someone out there who can relate to what is going on right now and can either tell me that they left, moved on and are glad that they did or that they worked at it and their DP did change back into the man he had once been.

I desperately want my children to grow up in the same house as their father and I want us to have the relationship we have had for 17 years. But I am worried that this is it now. This is who he is and he has lost all respect for me and will just keep hurting me like this if I decide to work through it.

He does sound damaged by his childhood. He seems to have looked at women who he feels would be less likely to reject him which is very skewed thinking as if it were a girlfriend situation rather than a financial transaction for unloving sex.

Since life was so good before it is definitely worth working together on this. To be honest if a man suddenly focussed entirely on his DC and almost ignored his wife she would also feel confused and left out. That's not to say I've not been there and done that. It's just a hard time of life, perhaps the hardest there is and as your dh has issues with feeling unloved it's a part of your relationship to deal with that. Not you or him but both of you.

The money thing is massively stupid and annoying but it's a bit of a red herring IMO. He was filling his time in some fantasy world and got carried away. Not wishing to sound cheesy but do you ever watch box sets together? Something like that is time filling, free/cheap and a shared interest which is relaxing.

Communication is everything. Try to accept his repentance and move on. I may well be going against the MN LTB lobby but you've been together a very long time and he deserves another chance if he is willing to change and examine his behaviours very honestly. I hope you feel better soon because it's very clear how much he has hurt you.

Thank you matildathecat. I knew it was a risk posting on here. I asked a question prepared for a lot of ltb but it's not as straight forward as that. I'm luck that I can if I want to. Financially a lot of people are trapped. I could set up on my own and be ok. But I really don't want it to come to that. If there's a way to get through this I want to at least try.

I don't think you got any LTB?

Great you are not trapped OP, by all means stay and work on your relationship, nobody is saying you shouldn't, just that you appeared to be taking a lot of blame for his inadequacies, I hope you both get to a place where you can trust and love each other again, long road ahead I guess, good luck.

The "MN LTB lobby" is a fallacy.

Your post really resonates with me.

Lots of similarities and behaviour from 'DH'.

He progressed to an affair when DC were 5 and 2.

He continuously regresses in his adult like behaviour.

I have spent so long blaming myself, trying to fix it, attempting to help him help himself. I got precisely nowhere and he hates me.

I would recommend you gently detach. Ground yourself, get back to work if you can, have a life. He will either step up and travel with you or continue to fuck it up and blame you but don't let him get you down.

Specky, I am so sorry you are going through this. My story is similar, We have been together 19 years, up until about 3 years ago things had been fantastic, including the pregnancy and birth of our first baby together. When I was pregnant with number 2 things got a bit tricky, too absorbed in work, seemingly less inrested in this pregnancy, plus the stress of being prganat, working full time with a toddler bouncing off the walls. I began to feel quite resentful. A difficult birth, partial prolapse, breast feeding and a poor sleeper killed my libido and we began to drift, both of us were feeling unloved. It culminated in him getting drunk at a wedding and snogging another woman, after 6 weeks he eventually told me, the guilt was eating him up. He states he felt unloved, unattractive and having some one (young and pretty) show an interest in him was such an ego boost.

He lied to start with, about what went on, how he felt about me, it etc. Once the truth was out we had counselling and 18 months on we are getting there. The fact that he actualy got physical with ow still causes me distress and insecurity.

I think it is paramount that they understand how much pain they have caused by their immature, selfish behavior and how serious this is. With hindsight I would have kicked him out. Tjey also need to understand that what you get from you partner is a reflection of what you put in. There was a light bulb moment when he said why on earth would you shower me with kindness and affection when I was sulking and ignoring you, like that was going to help.

Only you can decide what to do. The fact that he has previous good conduct is a good sign. You can work on the relationship together, but rebuilding your trust in him is going to require him to do the lions share of the work. If you decide to try and make a go of it I would recommend counseling, and given his history perhaps he should have some individual therapy. And remember whatever his reasons for this shoddy behaviour, it was his choice and NOT your fault.

From everything you have posted it sounds to me like he needs some counselling/therapy. You describe a man with a lot of good points (not the more common type of selfish manchild who starts hunting for sex because his ego is not getting sufficiently stroked) who has had some previous distressing experiences.
None of what has happened is your fault. You don't need to turn into a doting, indulgent combination of mummy and fuckhole to 'keep' him. But he needs to sort out, with the help of a professional, his feelings of being unlovable/bored/resentful/depressed which have set off this behaviour. If he's willing to do that, then you can probably sort things out. If he isn't, then he's going to keep on doing selfish, self-obsessed things.