Hi there ladies and gents,
I apologise for waffling on, and please be kind I’m looking for advice as I can’t seemingly talk to anybody else about this.
I have a lovely little boy who is nearly 9 months old and live with my partner. My partner has two children from a previous relationship.
My partner is former military, when we first met he was splitting up with his wife and coming out of the military. I fell for his charm and character though it was a tough ride, he moved out of his house and his then wife was an absolute nightmare and at times nearly split us up however we battled through the whole thing (along with my BFF vino blanco). He moves into my house and initially everything is awesome.
He has always been complicated and at times difficult but since the birth of our son things have dramatically changed in our relationship. Firstly, I don’t know about anybody else but wowzers they don’t prepare you for having a child do they??! I tried to breastfeed for three weeks, but in the end became very depressed. I just couldn’t focus, and I was like – shit, I’ve built up a career and now I’m sat here with milk leaking out my sore and inflated boobs. I found breastfeeding psychologically damaging, my son would only come to me when crying (quite rightly so) and I was so tired, anyway I went to the doctors, gained support from other mums and stopped breastfeeding. Immediately I felt better and began to bond with my lad.
Things between me and my partner changed, he was at work and I was at home. He’d come home and say the house was a shithole, and there was shit everywhere (not literally), barking at me for not taking the washing out, not hanging it up. Telling me off for not cleaning the baby bottles right – the list goes on but it got to the point where I had to get a cleaner in once a week as I became absolutely obsessed with making sure the house was tidy upon his return from work. I did hide that from him, until one day he had a Monday afternoon off and he found out about my cleaner.
Things continued to be tough, I was still depressed and the adjustment of being a mum was brilliant but hard.
We had friends over one night, and it was a lovely evening. I settled my son down on our bed (I KNOW, but he was fine) and we all sat round the fire in the garden. My partner was drinking quite heavily, whilst I was staying sober but I had been sober for 9 months so no issue for me! Our friends leave and I am just sorting out the garden, and I notice my partner has disappeared. I go to our bedroom and there he is snoring next to my son so immediately I went to go get him to put him in the cot. The next thing that happened I’ll never forget, He lunged up at me (thankfully this was before I’d moved the boy) and chucked me on the floor. He then repeatedly punched me in the face and started strangling me. I now have this living memory of beginning to lose the ability to stay awake, I felt this overwhelming sense of calm but nothing but darkness. I obviously passed out but when I came round I staggered up and took me and my son into his room. The next morning he saw my face and looked horrified, asked me what had happened, I told him but he has no memory and said he was asleep. My face was a mess, I was going back to work for KIT days and I had to feign illness as I couldn’t conceal it. I met up with my parents as I couldn’t avoid it. They saw my eye and had a word, I said he did it in his sleep he couldn’t remember which is what he told me.
Unfortunately, I just had to get over it. After two weeks and no real improvement in the eye department he did tell me to get over it, that he didn’t do it intentionally. I said I was damaged emotionally by it, but got blank responses. I go back to work and we decide that it would be a good opportunity to go back to college and study, he was so keen so essentially became a full time dad. I was so remorseful of going back to work, as I suddenly realised I’d spent the whole 6 months worrying about cleaning, worrying about everything.
His behaviour has just got worse and worse, I know there is always 2 sides to the story but I promise you in this case there isn’t – I have just shrugged off everything he’s done and said, and focused on my lad. At least once a month for a spell of five days roughly he gets into a really bad rut and he’s having one recently. He tells me I don’t spend enough time with him and my son (I come home from work and I’m there, I’m not off gallivanting), he tells me I didn’t do enough when I was off, that I just pawned my son onto him when he came back from work. I said I was depressed, and it wasn’t true. He tells me I was never depressed. He tells me we don’t do anything, I can’t understand that as we socialise a lot and I give examples to which he bats off and tells me I still don’t do enough. He tells me how easy my life is, because he does everything (not true), he says I’m a liar, I ask him about what and he brings up something so random which to you and me, wouldn’t make sense. I suppose an example would be the cleaner. When I try to justify myself he gets more emotional and nit picky till basically I don’t say anything but sit there crying. I tell him he’s a bully, not in an aggressive manner but just because I feel like he is. He tells me he needs to “put his foot down with me” and makes me feel tiny.
Sometimes he’ll say whats wrong, and I can never ever be bothered to say actually you make me so sad, but if I do – he explodes. Nothing I do is good enough, no matter how hard I try, nothing is enough. He never tells me really when he is getting his kids but its normally once a month. Last night, in front of a friend he said he was picking the kids up Saturday, I said that’s great but bit short to be dropping them off on Sunday to which he said he was having them to the following Sunday. In front of a friend there was nothing I could say, he knew it. Later I said I can’t afford to feed us, my son, petrol to and from work yada yada and on top of that feed them, plus give money for them to do things throughout the day. I asked why, he said he just wants them for that long. I can’t say anything without seems like a complete c**t can I. Anyway it’s just another thing I have to suck up.
I’m sorry for my long winded message, there’s so much more and I could be typing for hours!! I feel like I should leave him, but he has no job, nowhere to go etc.
I feel so lonely, as my family think he's great, my friends do but I am just lost. If I talk to him, it never ever works sad xxx