Hey Grey,
I can absolutely understand that you want to do you very best and try really hard for your baby to have a good relationship/family. It’s a drive/need you have to see this through. Be aware of yourself because this drive can me we put up with things we really ought not to. He could probably do something pretty awful or outrageous at this point on you would probably be twisting yourself in knots trying to find a way to overlook it/get over it, so you can keep trying to give your baby the family you envisioned.
I speak from experience with this. Many years ago I did exactly what I have just described. Like you I was strong, independent and didn’t need a man, but I was pregnant and that changed me somehow. The things I forced myself to get over because I was pregnant are things I would never have tolerated for even a moment not pregnant. What’s more so is the person I punished for this behaviour was not him, but myself...I came to hate how passive/weak I had become as I had never seen myself in this light before. I just did not recognise myself any longer, and it all happened so easily that the strong independent me was no where to be found and the respect I used to have for myself had all but vanished. You really are just at the start of this, you can at this moment still see the you that you are, but you really are putting yourself in a trap of your own making by trying so very hard to have this family.
Those that are on this thread who have mentioned just how very sinister they find his behaviour are those of us who have experience or knowledge of this kind of subtlety of abuse. I completely understand how insane the word abuse seems, honestly I get it I really do. That’s the whole point of it though, were you to explain it to anybody or even yourself abuse is not the word you would use to attribute to his actions. Indeed one would probably pass it off as him just trying to be affectionate and loving. It is in its very nature designed to be confusing, for you to question yourself and others before you question him, it’s what makes this so insidious. If he was to punch you in the face however, it would be obvious right? You would know what to call it, you would not what to do, you would know not to stand for it! Abuse doesn’t start with a punch or a kick, and for some it never gets to that, abuse starts with the erosion of your boundaries, and that’s exactly what is happening to you right now. Your boundaries are being pushed and eroded, and the reason your putting up with it is because you don’t want to hurt him, you don’t want to break the possibility of a family for your baby. I don’t buy for one second that he doesn’t know exactly what he is doing, he knows exactly how your feeling when he is pawing at you. Think about it, if you were doing the same to someone else don’t you think you would be able to tell, would be able to feel that they weren’t into it? Someone who is intelligent and thoughtful enough to tell you where the key to the door is on first meeting, is not so blind as to not know that his constant touch is not wanted.
Now I am not telling you what to do or what you should do. I can see your very determined to see this through so all I am going to say is to be careful, keep your strength, keep your independence and ENFORCE your boundaries and remember just that because abuse can appear as being nice does not mean that it is not still abuse.
I wish you all the very best Grey.