Emotionally drained.

[LoyaltyAndLobster]

I have posted about this before, but after a few comments I asked for the thread to be deleted because I felt as I was betraying him, if you love someone you’d never post about them on an online forum where people are going to make nasty comments, right?

I need to let it out, well I am now.. I just want some advice from genuine people.

I do everything for him.
He is selfish
He is unsupportive
He doesn’t spend much time with DS
I feel as if I am a single parent

Every conversation we have is brief or forced... by me.

When he is at home, it feels like he is just part of the furniture. The only time it feels as if we are in a relationship and love affection is shown is in the bedroom.

He is NOT physically, mentally or verbally abusive.
We never argue
I trust him

Yesterday he returned back from holiday, which is the third holiday he has taken since the end of term – Today was our sons 6th birthday, before he left he said that he had planned a little surprise for DS (just the two of them) then afterwards the three of us would go and do something special (which I was looking forward to myself, as DS suffers from anxiety, and is very anxious when it comes to leaving the house and being outside – but is fine if he knows dad is coming too)

DP woke up this morning and said that he was still tired (yes I understand that he might have been jet lagged) and that he has bad muscle pain (he never complained about this when he got home yesterday) then went back to sleep. I am not angry at him, I am disappointed, but it is ok because DS had a nice day today.

I'm emotionally drained I don’t know how much more I can take of this and how I am going to cope when DS2 is born, because I am not going to be able to do everything myself.

I don’t want to read LTB – I just want advice on how this relationship can be fixed, as it is not YET broken.

@BitOutOfPractice - I just put it down to the kind of person I am. I don't see any point in getting angry! @Cambionome - I don't know why I have accepted this behaviour for so long, I wish I did.
@Quartz2208 - Yes I know that's the reason he does it, I am mentally strong person and he knows that.

So if you are a mentally strong person why put up with it

@Quartz2208 - Sorry typo I'm NOT a mentally strong person that's why I put up with things.

Does that realisation not make you see he is abusive. He does it knowing it is wrong, hiding it from his mum and family because he knows your anxiety and weak mental state won't allow you to questiob or fight back.

Can't you see that might be why jeaux90 calls him an asshole?

You need to find your anger and strengthen for your child and unborn baby

@Quartz2208 - No it doesn't... I don't ever think I can find anger and yes I need to find strength.

It's wonderful you've spoken to your Mum and MIL. That's a massive step. Please don't back down now. Neither you nor your children deserve to be treated this way. And DO NOT take him saying he will change, he will do better as fine. HE WILL NOT. He has proven this over and over. He wants to play the teenager and will not be "held down" by a family, and that is terribly unlikely to change, even if Mum steps in.

If you can't bring yourself to put an end to the abuse for yourself, do it for your DC. Don't let them grow up believing that this behaviour is acceptable, that they have to accept an emotionally distant and negligent father, that it's in any way tolerable to use a partner as an appliance and sex toy, that swanning off on hols without family several times a year is okay...

Your children are learning from him how a father should act and how a woman should be treated, and they are learning from you how a mother should act and what she should put up with, how to be abused, how to enable an abuser. You cannot do that to them. And they don't deserve to have a negligent, absent father who very much appears to not love them. It's not fair. They are innocent.

Can I ask if you are sure that he is not having an affair?

@JWrecks - You don't know his mother or father, they speak he listens.
@MmmmmmmChips - Yes I am sure; I was just waiting for that question to come up.

I certainly hope for your sake, that he will listen to them.

But what do you actually want? Do you want him to suddenly start paying attention to you and the DC, stop going off alone on holidays, start listening to you, start supporting you, start becoming emotionally and intellectually engaged with you and the DC?

Do you honestly believe that his parents can persuade him to change himself and his very personality so drastically, to the point he wants to be with you as a family? Or do you think that he would do those things simply in obedience, without actually wanting to or caring? And how long do you think that would last?

Would you WANT to be with a man who begrudgingly goes through the motions of being a family? Would you WANT to be with a man who won't listen to you, so you have to go through his parents to get to him?

Do you not see any correlation between his shitty entitled behaviour and your refusal / reluctance / inability to assert yourself. I'm not blaming you. He would've acted badly regardless. But you need to change the way you react to it. You can't change his behaviour. Bit you can change yours.

.jerecks I think that's the key question. Op wants her dp to change. But she seems to want to stand by passively while that happens because anything else would be rude, or unladylike, or inappropriate in some way. That's not going to happen. He's not going to change. What would he? He's got it made

Op the meek might inherit the earth but in the meantime, while they're waiting to inherit, you'll have a shit time.

So pleased you told your mum and his parents. Baby steps
Best of luck.

Do you want him to suddenly start paying attention to you and the DC, stop going off alone on holidays, start listening to you, start supporting you, start becoming emotionally and intellectually engaged with you and the DC?

Yes that's what I'd like.

You cant make someone fundamentally change like that.

He used to be like that because he loved you, he has emotionally withdraw now because his feelings have changed you have to accept that

As an aside does he contact your son when he is away

@Quartz2208 - Ok... and yes he calls DS every single day, he called to speak to him this morning before school and said he will call again at bed time... maybe I am making him out to be worst than he actually is!

I think to be honest yes and no. I think you are making it out worse from DS perspective but downplaying it from your own. I think you have merged them in your head because its easier and less hurtful than facing up to the truth

he calls DS every single day, he called to speak to him this morning before school and said he will call again at bed time... maybe I am making him out to be worst than he actually is!

What, because he deigns to take time out from his "busy" schedule of swanning off on his hols to (omg) speak to his actual child? Give the guy a medal sharpish! But whatever you do; please don't call him an ass.

OP, I have been following this thread. Well done for taking the steps that you have so far but there is so much wrong with this whole set up I can't keep looking at the updates.

You are looking for something that doesn't exist anymore - the man he once was. Note there is nobody on this thread who's come on and said "oh yes my OH utterly checked out of family life and all of a sudden apropos of nothing plugged back in and now we are all hunky dory".

I knew someone in such a similar position to you once. Her clever bright and funny children flunked their 11+ and have had their academic and social pathways irreversibly altered because their daft mother put her utterly feckless OH first and completely took her eye off the ball re the welfare of her children, socially and academically. She didn't have the mental bandwidth to tune in and wise up when DS started acting out at school (he was being bullied). She didn't know that her DD was skiving school and smoking with the "cool" kids because she was so wrapped up in executing every iota of energy into trying to fix the unfixable. She put her OH first at cost to her children. Does this sound familiar?

This is not victim blaming OP; this is your choice to stay in the crap relationship you are in - at seemingly cost to you and your DS' happiness. You do not strike me as being in danger or under threat of violence and you have mentioned that on the whole you and your OH chivvy along ok. You are choosing an unhappy life. For that reason, I'm out.

Good luck OP. I hope you get your miracle. And I wish you and your children the very best. Just don't opt out of being happy forever.

Her clever bright and funny children flunked their 11+ and have had their academic and social pathways irreversibly altered because their daft mother put her utterly feckless OH first and completely took her eye off the ball re the welfare of her children, socially and academically. She didn't have the mental bandwidth to tune in and wise up when DS started acting out at school (he was being bullied). She didn't know that her DD was skiving school and smoking with the "cool" kids because she was so wrapped up in executing every iota of energy into trying to fix the unfixable. She put her OH first at cost to her children. Does this sound familiar?

Not to be rude but I have no idea why you are telling me this? Above is never going to happen to my child(ren) as they will always have the best education and my son absolutely loves his school.

Not going to happen to yours? Your son is on therapy session 3 in a week and suffers from anxiety. Just stick your head in the sand, it will all be fine.

I'm out too. Good luck.

@jeaux90 - My child has a therapy session once a week, not three times week I am getting him the help he needs. Please read things over properly.

Your children will absolutely suffer. Their mother is in an abusive relationship. Their father comes and goes as he pleases. Saying they won't have the same struggles because you can afford to pay for the 'best education' is ludicrous. Do you really think having a private education means they will have good mental health? No, it means that they'll probably get private treatment for their mental health problems.

I chose to leave my abuser. My children have suffered, but they are doing better now. A child with an unhappy mother is always going to be an unhappy child. If your partner as you said, wouldn't see the children if you left, then he simply doesn't love them. If he says he won't see them if you leave, then this is yet another way he is controlling you.

I really feel for you because I felt the same once, felt I was stuck, felt I couldn't leave. Then I remembered I'm a strong adult woman, who can do whatever she wants. I don't feel strong a lot of the time, but deep down I know I am.

It is way easier looking after 2 children alone, than with a man who doesn't want to participate in family life, and doesn't care that you are getting ground down a bit more each day by his lazy, selfish behaviour.

It's not easy, but for me, I'd rather struggle alone than have the man I love watch me struggle.

My advice if you're interested, is a trial separation. See what you can do on your own, then decide for yourself if the sex is worth having him back.

Loyalty have you read through this thread, what you have written and what others have written.

Firstly you are right no one knows how it is apart from you, but this is your telling of events, your version of the truth and I think that the way you write brings out more elements of the truth than you perhaps realise.

Do you have counselling at all - there are comments in here, such as your desire to be seen as the sensible one and your unwillingness to embarrass and your complete passiveness that leads to anxiety that could do with being talked through.

I think deep down you know the effect this is having on you and your son mental health and the fact is that he is unwilling or unwanting to change; there are many occasions here that posters tell you the impact that this could have.

The poster who mentioned the future did not say that those children did not have the best education or that they did not have the best education just that they all were conditioned to ensure that the husband/father was happy and his needs were met that she forgot to focus on theirs and hers. That is exactly the pattern you have said is here. No amount of expensive private education can cover up and chaotic home life

A 6 year old in therapy is so highly unusual it time you realised that and really thought through what is causing it.

@Quartz2208 - That is right no one knows what it is like apart from me and I have been truthful throughout and I have answered all questions.

My son doesn't have a chaotic home life, his home life has nothing to do with him getting anxious, before you make accusations you should ask.

You're getting angry at the wrong people. Hope about directing it where it's deserved.

And it's very, very unusual for pre-adolescent children to develop mental health issues.

But you keep on sticking your head in the sand.

@flippinada - I am not getting "angry" at anyone. I find it extremely difficult to get angry in real life, so it would be impossible for me to get angry on here.