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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Difficult relationship... advice needed !!!

46 replies

Jfizz · 24/04/2019 20:54

I’m feeling a little hollow and need some objective advice please.

I’ve been with him off and on for a little under 3 years. Our relationship is sometimes amazing and sometimes awful. I am totally head over heels for him but he’s so difficult sometimes and really brings out my insecurities. At the start he was in a relationship when we began and I didn’t find out until a few months later (there was an overlap of two weeks). This gave me massive trust issues with him and I have caught him lying a few times, and any time we’ve broken up (always because of trust) the first thing he does is go hunting for girls. For validation. I’ve found messages and the like and if I honestly ask myself if he’s cheated on me I’d say yes but I’ve no proof.

He’s very passive aggressive and always teases me and pokes fun at me, sometimes I give as good as I get but it’s relentless. Sometimes I feel like I pander after him when he’s really mean to be because I feel desperate for some affection and niceness. This makes it worse. Sometimes he’s so lovely and affectionate and says the sweetest things and complements me too. He tells me he loves me all the time. We have a great sex life.

Last night we were out and his daughter got a message that her dog had died at her mums house and she was being babysat by his parents and she was distraught on the phone saying daddy please come home and he was adamant we weren’t going home. I was totally dumbstruck. His lack of empathy for his distraught 7 year old daughter really floored me. I told him he was being a shit dad and he went nuts and told me to go and get my shit out of his house and leave.

We had a falling out a few days ago about the teasing and lack of niceness because as soon as I stopped pandering after him he started chasing me. Like a really fucked up game. He’s very high and mighty and entitled. Thinks he deserves the best of everything and special treatment because he used to be an international rugby player. His Instagram is covered with half naked pictures of himself and his kids and nothing of me.

He told me he was going out out this weekend and I’ve been an anxious wreck because I’m terrified he will go home with someone. I don’t trust him. He is the typical “nice guy” - so polite and tries to paint a perfect picture of himself. But then behind closed doors he’s got no empathy and it’s shocking. He’s ignored me severed times over the years when I’ve been distraught or in a bad way, it’s like he can chose when to care.

We are about to move in together and I’m terrified that he’ll just totally lose interest in me and use me. He’s just got divorced and got a large settlement from it and I doubt he’ll want to get married again. This is something that’s important to me. I’m early thirties and he’s almost fourty.

He’s very jealous and possessive and sometimes makes a joke of it but there definitely a slight serious undertone.

I just don’t know what to do. I feel weak and confused. I feel like sometimes he doesn’t even like me and I literally do everything to please him. I feel like I’m always trying to please him.

OP posts:
sackrifice · 24/04/2019 20:56

Why haven't you got your things the fuck out of his house and dumped his ass?

Why are you doing everything to please him?

You need the Freedom Programme.

Jfizz · 24/04/2019 20:58

Because I really do love him. Our kids are like siblings and sometimes were really great. He’s good to me and when it’s good I feel really happy. It’s just so up and down all the time and he always gets on like I’m difficult or too sensitive :(

OP posts:
sackrifice · 24/04/2019 20:59

He is not good to you.

JoyceDivision · 24/04/2019 20:59

Run for the hills.

Leave,don't move in together. Life isn't supposed to feel like walking on eggshells.

Musti · 24/04/2019 21:02

He sounds vile. If he can ignore his little girl when her dog has just died (I'm an adult and would be distraught if my dog died) how do you think he's going to treat you??

Lollypop701 · 24/04/2019 21:05

Read your own post. Then explain ANYTHING Good about this man?

Jfizz · 24/04/2019 21:10

It really shocked me. I’m so close with her and hearing her breaking her heart made every motherly fibre in my body ache. He just wanted to stay and have a nice evening. Like it was no big deal.

OP posts:
Jfizz · 24/04/2019 21:11

He’s sometimes really caring and giving. He’s gentlemanly and we do have a great laugh sometimes.

OP posts:
PlinkPlink · 24/04/2019 21:22

I got halfway through your post and thought "NOPE! Not for me thanks"

I'd be running for my life. Sure the good times are good. But the shit times are really shit.

Totally loves himself
Runs straight for other women at the first sign of trouble
Lacks empathy for his daughter
Egotistical
Sarcastic
Demeaning

All of those totally outweigh any good and will grind you down until you put up and shut up.

I personally wouldn't be able to continue. The ups and downs would be too much. People who love each other dont do that to one another.

Lollypop701 · 24/04/2019 21:27

The only word I can see is ‘ ‘sometimes’ so from what you’re saying he’s an absolute twunt most of the time... as plinkplink covers, and you are happy with this? Really???

StayingWithAuntySue · 24/04/2019 21:27

I feel so sad for you. You know in your heart what you need to do, you will become a shadow of the real you if you stay, he isn't a good man, and you deserve a good man to spend your precious life with, please believe you are worth better than this.

Jfizz · 24/04/2019 21:33

Plinkplink- thank you. Sometimes I doubt myself and feel like I’m being mental and too sensitive. He calls me crazy and says that he has to walk on eggshells around me because I don’t trust him.

I constantly doubt myself and most of the time I don’t say anything now. I don’t even really confide in my friends or my sister about any of this because it’s been so much in the past that they basically hate him and I don’t like feeling responsible for that. I feel so scared. Like I’m losing my family. :(

OP posts:
sackrifice · 24/04/2019 21:35

Do the Freedom Programme.

Jfizz · 24/04/2019 21:35

Lollipop- it’s hard for me to rationalise what is meant to be normal at this point :(

Auntysue- thank you. I fear I already have become a shadow of myself. When we met I was a really successful personal trainer and had my own branded business that I created. I was making £4k plus a month and very confident. I feel like I’ve lost all my confidence in myself and that for my job is a train wreck.. I’m barely making ends meet and he helps me with money. I’m really grateful for that but I feel like a loser

OP posts:
LexMitior · 24/04/2019 21:36

Run away. You have all the information you need. He is treating you badly even before you move in.

You will not improve him

Love will not find a way

Your feelings for him do not define reality

Wake up. You are being used. You are worth so much more than this.

LexMitior · 24/04/2019 21:38

Trust me, your family would be delighted to hear of your doubts and help you. He has probably spent time trying to make you doubt this or say they don’t have your best interests at heart.

Jfizz · 24/04/2019 21:41

Lex- at this point I feel like a broken record. He says I always complain and that nothing he does is good enough. I hate that because I’m not a princess in the slightest. I just want to feel loved and appreciated and valued. I’m very easily pleased, some attention and niceness and I’m like putty. He calls me babygirl and darling and I melt. I feel like I’m trapped because I love him and our family so much. I just wish he would be consistent and nice to me all the time. It makes me feel like I’m a bad person or that I don’t deserve to be loved

OP posts:
pog100 · 24/04/2019 21:46

Please sit down and read your own OP as if it were a stranger, or your sister and see it as all we are. This is a terrible relationship for you, it has disaster written all over it and he is a shit. You have to split as soon as you can.

LexMitior · 24/04/2019 21:53

Believe me this sort of man enjoys making you feel like crap and knows you are hungry for affection. It gives him pleasure to do this to you - it isn’t rudeness.

Understand he gets off on it. Think about that

MsDogLady · 24/04/2019 21:55

Jfizz, it would be a huge mistake to move in with a controlling narcissist who lies, lacks empathy, disguises abuse as humor, deflects blame to you, violates your boundaries, treats your relationship like a cat and mouse game, ignores you when you’re distraught, is jealous and possessive, and has a history of cheating.

It sounds like he is using you as his narcissistic supply, and you feel under constant pressure to please him.

The way he dismissed his daughter’s grief is horrifying.

Why in the world would you expose your children to such a despicable man?

mushlett · 24/04/2019 21:59

He’s horrible, you’re not, leave him and find someone lovely

sackrifice · 24/04/2019 22:00

He calls me babygirl and darling and I melt. I feel like I’m trapped because I love him and our family so much

You need to grow up love.

You are in an abusive relationship.

You need to do the Freedom Programme.

Epona1 · 24/04/2019 22:01

Wow he sounds like a real catch, lucky you!!!!

Seriously, do not move in with him. Get your stuff and don’t look back. Don’t confuse love for infatuation or the idea of love. He says the right words when he needs to so you stay and he can play you a bit more - like a puppet, and he’s pulling your strings.

I’ve been where you are now. I walked and never looked back. I was horrified at the person I had become, I didn’t know or recognise myself.

Don’t let him do the same to you. You are worth more than that.

PlinkPlink · 24/04/2019 22:06

Hes been working very hard to control and squash you. Squash your independence isolate you from friends and family... all textbook.

Get out as soon as you can.

Be strong. You can do this. Get back in contact with your sister and tell her you need her support. You see him for who he is now. Maybe your friend will help. Call someone who can bolster you up when you need it. It's scary but you will be doing the right thing in leaving.

Dont see this as an ending... see this as a beginning. The beginning of getting you back, of getting your life back. It's a scary jump but once you taste that freedom you'll be hungry for more (so many cliches but they're all true).

Make sure you stay safe too.

Noimaginationxyzz · 24/04/2019 22:44

when you can say of a relationship that it's "sometimes awful", you can stop there really. It doesn't really matter what else happens, because sometimes it is awful..... I'm not being judgemental. I made a really bad decision in my early 30s, and it took a long, long time to unravel. My life would have been very different if I'd just held off and maybe met someone nice, who wasn't sometimes awful. If you can't bring yourself to leave him yet, then at least hold off living together. Nice, peaceful, happy times in your own home are to be treasured. Try and find some peace in the quiet time without him, see how you go. Give yourself a bit of space. It would be so nice for you to be more at peace than you are now.

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