Please hold my hand. I have no friends left, my family are sick of hearing from me about my relationship, and I feel completely alone. I’ve tried calling women’s aid 4 times and I can never get through.
From the outside my life looks great. It’s all a total lie. I am 2 months from a fairytale wedding costing a fortune, I have a gorgeous dd and a fiancé is seen as the best stepdad and partner, he’s very successful and generous and my and dd’s Lives in some ways are so much easier and more exciting as a result. I was a single mum for 3 years and it was incredibly hard as dd’s Dad left me when I was pregnant, I’ve never had any money from him. I’ve had to graft to earn enough to support us and build my skills but I did it. We were managing, just. Then I met dp and he seemed so nice, fun, involved, he proposed after a year, we’ve been on some great holidays, he buys us presents, our lives were supposed to be so great.
But it’s just a total lie.
I feel physical dread when it’s just me, dp and my dd. He is very moody and his moods are pervasive. Anything can switch them on, but usually dd doing something (the other day it was when orange juice on her face got on his T-shirt) and/or me intervening if he shouts at her or is too harsh in the telling off. I try to stay calm and diffuse situations like that but he takes it as me not backing him up. Tells me I have a problem with anyone else having authority over dd (I don’t- she has been in childcare since 6 months old). Then the sulk and anger will start. He doesn’t care where we are when we do this. It’s happened on foreign holidays, at some of the major London landmarks on days out, sunny picnics, even around my family he will do it. It’s got to the point where I have a physical response to him getting angry, shouting at me or stonewalling me in public. My heart races, I have had a couple of full blown panic attack when out, I beg him to just calm down and apologise but it’s never enough. Yesterday I was on a tube train crying and begging him to just calm down and I caught a girl watching us and I was so embarrassed and ashamed. I look pathetic and I feel pathetic when that happens. It is just almost impossible to function when we are out and he’s sulked through a picnic or a museum or whatever, while I am left to try and keep a happy face on for dd and mitigate how she feels about it, then he will usually at some point threaten to leave me, or to go home/walk off, saying he doesn’t know if he wants to be with me. It panics me so much and he keeps doing this to me in public. It’s like he cannot come down from anger.
I broke down last night when we got home. Begged him to see that I never want to undermine him around dd, that I love them both and wish that he could just relax around her and stop letting the stepfather role be such a sore point. I was devastated and he told me I was crazy, he couldn’t talk to me when I was upset, I need to back him up more with dd.
Dd isn’t the only trigger for him. He doesn’t like me questioning anything really. When I asked him (half jokily, trying to be diplomatic) to bring his dirty laundry from the bathroom he huffed and withheld affection and sex. When I asked him not to go away for a work trip a day early because it was my birthday and we had plans, he was furious. When I was upset about my job being put at risk he found it frustrating that I didn’t just resign immediately. My thoughts, feelings and actions are so frustrating to him and he has no qualms about ruining days, evenings, weeks to make a point. If I ever try and make up the morning after a fight he will jsut respond with nasty texts. He’s threatened to leave me so many times I’ve lost count. He admits this is something he does to “make me listen”.
I don’t know what to do. I feel like there is nowhere left for us to go. For a long time I thought he could relax into us and stop reacting angrily, i thought I could jsut make him see he’s loved and he would love me too. I’ve had all this hope for our future but our entire engagement has been full of panic, sadness and hurt on my part and I cannot bear the thought of days out and holidays anymore. If we all stay in the house and he can go on his computer game and not engage with me and dd, things are relatively calm. If we are apart, at work or on separate trips, things can be ok. Then I’ll think “oh let’s go for a picnic” or something on the weekend and it will quickly fall apart because of something dd or I say or do.
I will have to pay about 6k that I can’t afford if I cancel the wedding now. I know he won’t pay towards it if I leave him even though it was the wedding he wanted and I didn’t. I have dithered about this for too long and now I’m going to lose money and I’m terrified. All my savings will be gone and it will be back to me finding the whole rent and bills if he goes (though he has previously said the one time I asked him to leave, that he won’t leave as “he pays rent too”) and my job is at risk, I’m applying for jobs but have had very little interest in my cv. I’ve massively let dd down and I feel like I’ve been blind for so long trying to make it work with dp. On some tiny level I still think he is a good person underneath, he says he doesn’t mean to be moody or nasty, but he cannot stop. He cannot have a conversation partner to partner. He rolls his eyes, sneers, criticises. My panic is rising even writing this. He’s not physical at all, it’s all the sulking and silence and the snide comments and criticisms and the threats to leave or saying he isn’t sure he wants to marry me.
I know I need to leave but I feel utterly paralysed, ashamed, like I’m screaming inside. I’ve beaten myself up for months thinking I’m difficult, trying to find ways to be different or phrase things or keep him calm, but there’s no way. I am living in a state of panic and sadness and uncertainty under this facade of the perfect life. I don’t know what to do. I feel pathetic that I’m asking a forum of strangers because I have nothing real in my life (except dd).
Please help me. Even if just a handhold.i really need someone to tell me exactly what to do and that this is going to be ok. I’m so ashamed of myself and devastated about what has happened. I loved him so much. So many nice days wasted, so much potential wasted because he can not communicate or listen. I’m not saying I’m perfect but I’ve tried everything and I just live in fear of his moods.