Relationship after loss advice

[Ljones101]

For background- I have 2 kids, he has none, we dont live together.

We weren't trying for a baby. I had no idea I was pregnant. I had a ruptured ectopic pregnancy when I was home alone. My partner had to smash a window to get into my house and found me passed out. At the hospital they told him I could have died if he hadn't found me when he did.
It was really traumatic for him and he has really struggled with it. He doesn't want to let me out of his sight and worries whenever I'm home alone. He was quite controlling before, but now it's on a whole other level. He was also completely devastated about the pregnancy loss. Although we weren't trying and didn't even know I was pregnant, it really hit him hard. It breaks my heart to see how much it's affected him.
I don't have the same feelings about it as him and it's tearing our relationship apart.
I have a completely different view about the loss. To me- I was ill, went to hospital, had an operation and now I'm better. I wasn't aware of the baby before and there is no baby now. I seem to have processed it completely differently to him.
After it happened he felt I wasn't being honest about my feelings and accused me of not opening up to him. We had awful screaming rows and he just wouldn't accept that I didn't feel the loss like he did. He was really angry. I am sympathetic to his feelings and would never expect him to 'get over it', but it seems like he can't move on from this. He has this massive issue with me now for not confiding in him about my 'true' feelings. Like some trust has been broken between us. If we argue, he refuses to leave and give me space. If I leave, he'll phone me up crying, telling me to come back, saying I know how it upsets him when I leave like that.

Maybe I'm being completely selfish, but I cant go on like this. Maybe it's me that's broken. Maybe there is something wrong with me and I should feel differently about it all but i dont and I cant share feelings I dont have. He is not the same anymore and our relationship is not the same. I know we cant go back to how things were before as something has changed, but I feel I cant go on with this relationship if this is how things are going to be between us now. I dont know if I need to give it more time? I don't want to leave him, but right now I feel so suffocated and unhappy.

Bumping post op x

I think I've come across as some awful heartless person. I guess I am. I tried to talk to him last night but yet again it turned into an awful argument. He wants to try for a baby. Like that will make it all ok again. We don't even live together. I told him to leave. I needed space. I didn't want to end the relationship. But he said if he left that would be it. He'll be gone for good because he can't be there waiting and worrying about me. He needs a clean break. I said fine. So he left.
I'm so sad and really hate myself right now. I dont know why I couldn't just be fucking sad that I'd lost a baby. I'm not normal. I can't believe that this is happening. I wish he hadn't found me.

He's angry
He won't accept your feelings
He refuses to leave when asked
He won't give you space
He's controlling

This isn't about the ectopic pregnancy/loss

This traumatic event has accelerated your relationship and shown him for who he really is

You are better off without him - run for the hills and don't look back

It sounds like it has given him an excuse to further control you and abuse you.

Don't stay with a controlling man. If he's like this now, when you're completely independent from him, can you imagine what he would be like if you were living together or had children together?

You're not coming across as heartless.

You tell us that this man is controlling and now he's reaching new levels. You need to stop feeling sorry for him, and leave the relationship. You know its not right, and not good for you.

In some ways, it's very fortunate you lost the pregnancy. You're not tied to him that way. Take it as the universe telling you to get out.

Have some self-preservation. Break it off.

I agree with pps. This isn't about the pregnancy loss. He was controlling before and it is getting worse. This may have accelerated things and in sure it was very traumatic for him. I feel for him, but that doesn't mean I would tolerate him in my life. It is possible to both feel bad for him and to empathise with him, while also making yourself safe and getting him out of your life.

You're entitled to feel however you want regarding this event. Your feelings are valid. You don't have to feel the same way as he does about it at all. His feelings are valid too but it's horribly controlling of him to insist your feelings are "wrong" or that you're covering up just because you're not matching him.
What's in this relationship for you OP?

Sorry, misread and the relationship is currently broken up.

You're not heartless. You aren't obliged to feel any sort of way about a pregnancy you didn't know about and that nearly killed you.

Speak to a counsellor or the Samaritans about how low you are feeling, but don't take him back. This is a chance to get free of a toxic relationship. I'm sure it's really painful, but that will pass in time. Being in a controlling relationship will ruin your life.

His using a traumatic experience as a plausible reason to be even more controlling. This is who he, it’s time to end it.

Why are you heartless? I don’t see it that way at all. You are who you are. Nobody has the right to dictate how you should feel. He sounds hard work

OP, you are not heartless - of course not. I am sorry for everything that has happened to you and the pain you are feeling over this break up. Assuming this has been more than just a week or two (during which folks can have extreme reactions then pull themselves back), then I do think the way your partner is behaving is a big red flag. You are better off without him would be my instinct.

The thing that strikes me most is that he has made something awful that primarily happened to you, all about him. YOU were the one lying bleeding, passed out, almost dying, rushed to hospital etc..... of course it was hard for him too, but how did it all become about him? How did your feelings afterwards become all about you not doing enough/ communicating enough/ feeling enough for HIM to feel ok?

I am also really worried by his 'elastoplast' instincts around soothing himself with a new baby (again YOU going through a huge thing his way in order for him to feel better).

You have no obligation to feel any loss - what you are feeling sounds perfectly natural to me. That said, I would also not be surprised if dealing with HIS distress has locked down your ability to surrender to any shock or sadness or trauma from the whole event that you feel.

When I have those feelings inside me, I can let them out when lying in the arms of my partner, when he is grounded, calm, strong feeling.... if everything you feel is serving a purpose for HIS feelings, many of us women just lose our own to cater for the other person.

I hope you can find a space to get breath away from that consuming, gravitational pull.

It sounds like you experienced a traumatic event which has clarified your true feelings about him. Try not to feel bad, things just didn't work out between you two. I'm worried about him trying to manipulate his way back into your life.. please be careful xx

Sorry for that last post. I'm really tired and being overly emotional.
Thanks for your comments.
He's not controlling in an abusive sense, I probably wasnt using the right word or being fair on him. He's authoritative and likes to get his own way. He likes to know where I am and what I'm doing- that kind of thing. But not in a way I'm not comfortable with. He's very protective. And the grief and trauma has just magnified that aspect of him. Its like he's become paranoid something bad is going to happen to me. He would get upset and cry that he couldn't stand to loose me. And now he's walked away! So I don't know what to think.
He's not a bad person, he's just in pain. And I seem be making it worse. He's frustrated with me. Maybe we are better off apart. I do need space from him, I just wasn't expecting him to want it to be permanent.
Interesting you say he's making it about him. He has said to me a few times when he's trying to get me to 'open up' that it's not just about me, the baby was a part of him too and that he's the one that found me passed out etc and don't I understand what that was like for him.

Sorry OP, but being determined to get his own way and policing where you are and what you're doing are not protective or loving behaviours, they're controlling as you rightly described them originally. You might have found that appealing in some sense for reasons of your own, but it tends to escalate over time. This event has advanced it into something really destructive really quickly. You need to recognise these are red flag behaviours.

What sort of relationships have you had previously?

OP, he sure sounds controlling in an abusive sense. Coercive control is also abuse. You aren't comfortable with him and the way he acts and he isn't backing off. How long before he comes back round?

His feelings don't over-rule yours.

It might help to call Womens Aid or talk to someone you trust, but this doesn't sound like a healthy relationship or one to continue with.

It sounds like, as you said, he's quite traumatised by the event. Understandably so. You can't fix that for him though. He might benefit from some counselling for that?

So you're feeling guilty because you don't feel bad about something you lost when you didn't know you had it in the first place? I lost a baby at 8 weeks, after I'd only had a positive test the previous day. I didn't feel bad, and neither should you.

Yeah, this has control written all over it.

We did speak to someone together and he completely broke down. I got upset and was crying, but he mistook my crying to be me agreeing with his feelings but I was actually upset and crying about his pain. So I suggested he continue to speak to someone about it but he thinks I'm the one that needs to speak to someone because I'm the one holding it all in. He thinks because he's open about it, that means he's ok. But he's really not.
He was my rock. Always there for me. Would try to fix anything for me. I was the one that would go crying to him and he would make it better. Now it's the other way around and I feel like I've failed him. I'm sad that he can't comfort me and accept my feelings. And I'm sad that I can't help him.
He seems to have so much anger towards me about it that comes out when we argue. He has said he doesn't blame me, but I don't think that's really true.
Then last night he suddenly brings up this 'let's have a baby' shit. I feel quite hurt about it now that he would suggest that. That he thinks bringing a baby into this relationship is what we need right now.
I thought I would hear from him today, but I haven't so far. He says it's a trigger for him when I run from an argument and need space. He wants me close and hates when I push him away. And with the way he's been obsessing about where I am lately...I really thought he would be in touch by now. I'm getting worried that he really did mean he's done.

@gettingfedupagain

He's angry He won't accept your feelings He refuses to leave when asked He won't give you space He's controlling

This isn't about the ectopic pregnancy/loss

This traumatic event has accelerated your relationship and shown him for who he really is

You are better off without him - run for the hills and don't look back

This!!

Please never have a baby with him. Please leave him.
He was quite controlling before, but now it's on a whole other level.

You don't seem to want to accept that his behaviour is abusive but it really does sound like he is from what you have said. He has made it all about him when it is you and your body that has been affected most. Neither of you knew about the pregnancy so it wasn't as though he was mourning a loss as essentially it never existed for him prior to him being told your collapse was due to an ectopic so it didn't exist before it was gone in real terms. Also the fact that he refuses to accept your feelings and is basically accusing you of lying because you don't feel the same way as him is awful.

I don't think there is hope in this relationship. He was more affected by the loss than you; I don't think he can get past that with you. He also senses he's losing you hence how he is acting. You mention he wants to try for another baby. For him that would keep you linked and force some relationship. I think you should let him go.

He is controlling "in a bad way". There is no "good way" to control or police another adult's behaviour or feelings. You are, even at this stage in the relationship, conditioned to frame his controlling nature as "over protectiveness" and you are conditioned to feel guilty and sorry for him now that you have voiced your gut concerns, hence the back pedalling in your subsequent comment. What you are feeling is very normal and absolutely fine, but you are questioning yourself because of him. Don't ignore your very valid, very real concerns. Please, please do not be another woman stuck in a toxic relationship and co-parenting with an unsuitable partner. Do not do that to your children. Do not bring another baby into it.

If one of your children came to you one day and described themselves as being in a relationship like yours, what would your advice be? Is this the relationship you want to model to your children?

You are extremely fortunate to have a chance now - before there is a baby or a marriage or a house that you both own - to see his behaviour as it really is and to protect your children from the fallout of their mother being embroiled in a toxic relationship. Don't allow yourself to be fooled into accepting that he is displaying love or protection. This is not how you show a person love.

You care about his feelings but he doesn't even believe in yours - he thinks they must be the same as his and that you are unjustly holding them in. How could someone with so little empathy ever be a good partner? It sounds like he feels you belong to him and he can't see you as a separate functioning human being.

By the way, you are not heartless. Your feelings are yours and no one can judge them. For what it's worth, I has an ectopic and was in a similar situation on terms of possibly dying (though not passed out and had asked my DH to take me to hospital). We had been trying for a baby and I did know I was pregnant, but though sad, I wasn't devastated by the loss. I was glad actually, that my body had showed me we could make a baby and was optimistic for the future.

For the most part, on a day to day basis, we have a great relationship. But on occasion he has done some questionable things that most people would have walked away from. Some of them abusive...

But he looks at me like I'm the only person in the room.
He buys me little gifts and surprises me.
He understands that my kids come first.
He makes so much effort to see me, working around my life with my kids.
He will stay up all night listening to me and holding me when I'm having a meltdown about something.
I feel like he understands me and knows what I need (often even before I know myself).
He would do anything for me, without question, without wanting anything in return.
Until now.
This is the thing that has finally broken us.