He won’t be there and it’s breaking me, not slept a wink

[Brikemye]

Hi, I posted a couple of months ago on the same thing, hope it’s ok to post again, im feeling so low and sad.

my Due date is in two weeks. Around 11 weeks ago DP left me. We’d been arguing but after counselling (mine), chats with very honest friends and family, all have said that his response has been extreme. He didn’t say he wanted nothing to do with the baby, in fact he didn’t mention them at all, but hes not replied to any of my attempts to contact him since. I suggested talking, meeting to chat, asked him which names he liked, it all went unanswered. After a few weeks I gave up. People around me said he’d get in touch and come to his senses at least concerning our baby and his involvement, but he hasn’t. I text last weekend to remind him of due date and said I will text to update him and he’s welcome to be the first person there afterwards. Still no reply.

I just saw another post on FB with a birth announcement and they’re all there together, the norm. I just can’t believe he hasn’t been in touch or even wants to be there.

He works long hours and is very career focused but outside work has limited social contact and his family are (even in his words) very dysfunctional. They have not been in touch either and seem like they have no intention of ever being.

i think I was always less confident that he would get in touch than others around me were, mainly because he is quite socially awkward and he is good at diving into work and forgetting anything else exists. This is a man who told me having a baby was the thing he wanted most in life and that he had always wished for it. I know on some level he is sentimental and loving and the absolute cut off I can’t understand. The only relevant factor was he was due for a huge promotion this month, biggest in his career that will ever happen and he will definitely be obsessing over that. There’s no other woman and no other kids so no other distraction for him.

I had to order baby things online as I was so sad about doing it all alone. I have a friend to be with me in a couple of weeks but I just cannot get my head around why he would do this. It’s been so long now and honestly, had you said ‘who out of everyone you know would want nothing to do with their baby’ he would genuinely have been so low down the list! I know it can be any man who does it but genuinely i cannot understand it at all. Neither of us are young and of course a man in his 40s can go on to have kids whenever but it’s still unusual I think at this age to do this compared with say 25.

just feeling sad and want to cave and call him, I just want him to know his son. It all seems so sad.

@Dotcheck that should say ‘is this WHY’ not ‘is this way.’

I agree that it would feel like a form of abuse. Cutting you off like that.

consider emailing his work email but from a new email account but personally I would show up at his house.

I would personally also show up with the baby to see if it triggers.

I do think you need at least one meeting to create peace of sorts

do apply for maintenance- he’s made his bed so he can bloody well lie in it!!

I wouldn't have anything to do with him. I wouldn't message him now or tell him about the birth. I'd contact CSA and that's it. The thing is that he knows you're OK because you are contacting him. He knows the baby hasn't been born yet as you would have said.

You could never trust him again after he's behaved so badly - he's coldhearted and cruel. There's no point in thinking "If only..." now because he's shown you his true colours.

I think he's seeing someone else - he wasn't keen on having you on his social media before - that is very telling. If you could be bothered I suppose you could pay for a private investigator to look into it, but I would save the money and not bother.

How long were you together? Did he live with you?

I think it takes practice to stop yourself from thinking that you caused it.

In my life, I had to understand why I was OK with being blamed for things. Once I understood that, and worked on genuinely loving myself, I became increasingly intolerant of anyone treating me poorly. Some still try and I suspect always will ( again- some people are just assholes), but they instantly get cut from my life.

NO ONE deserves to be treated the way you have. No one! It doesn’t matter if you accidentally didn’t ask about his day, or were preoccupied with work for a bit- you don’t deserve it. Well- unless you were abusive, but I’m assuming not.

So- what did you learn about self worth growing up? Work on your sense of self worth and as that goes up, your interest in why this man is an asshole will decrease. I can practically guarantee it.

You know what though, your baby will be so much better off without this prick in his life. You'd always be on tenterhooks wondering when he'd go AWOL again. Once you have healed, i hope you'll see this as a blessing in disguise. I wouldn't let him back in ever but I'd damn well get his attention by claiming child maintenance. The one useful thing he can provide for a child he helped create.

It sounds so so awful for you. I can't imagine what you're experiencing but I'm wondering if it's better that he's shown his true colours now instead of years of being a terrible father and partner which would damage both you and child ?
You have time to pick yourself up and get your head around it before baby is old enough to feel the drama x

His behaviour is quite simply unforgivable.

There’s no coming back from this. He has shown you who he is. Please believe him.

I would try your very best to accept that you will have lots of unanswered questions about why this happened and what the he’ll is actually going on with him, and look forward to your future with your child.

Unforgivable nasty piece of work. Don't contact him. Apply for maintenance. Do not tell him anything. Don't tell him when baby is born. He hasn't earns that privilege.
Let him come to you instead, and even then any contact should be bare minimum.

He will not ever be a good partner for you or a good father to your child.

As shocking as his behaviour is you are painting a picture of a man who does not sound a very nice person. Your relationship with him left you in a fragile state you say, so why would you want to continue a relationship with someone like this?
You deserve better, stop wasting your time analysing his personality and what went wrong. Concentrate on yourself and look forward to meeting your new born, but make sure he pays financially for his child. Good luck.

You have all the answers. Him ignoring you is the answer - he doesn't even have enough integrity or respect for you to not ignore you during such an important time.

You've been shown who he his - no decent person would leave their partner & ignore them when they're carrying their child and at their most vulnerable.

You deserve better and it really doesn't matter why or what he's upset about. You'd never be able to trust him. What he thinks really doesn't matter.

This is my take on it as well. If you want to try to talk to him, I would do it in public at his place at work as he won’t be able to avoid you.

You will get through this. One day you will look back and realise his not being part of your life is for the best. It is better to know now that he can be cruel and slcallous now rather than later so that you can do your best to protect your baby.

As for a senior position in a charity, not very charitable, is he?

People around me said he’d get in touch and come to his senses at least concerning our baby and his involvement, but he hasn’t.

I wouldn't sit around waiting for him to decide what he wants. Your baby is due imminently and you need to make sure you have things set up for that.

Do you know that he is still working at the same place of work?
Another thing I wondered is how long were you together. Were you living together and was he there every night or were some nights he was away, or you didn't even live together? The fact his family aren't in contact (I'm assuming they were before and you had met them?) and he has cut so abruptly is if he already has a family?

Or it could be when he suddenly realised this was it decided this isn't actually what he wants and has just left and is in fact just a complete asshole.

OP, 💐and I'm so sorry, but you need to let him go.

Stop wondering why he left, because knowing why won't change anything, and no answer will be good enough. You need to accept that he is an arsehole, he abandoned you and your child, and stop listening to 'friends' who say maybe he'll come around. I know this is much much easier said than done, but listen to those giving you coping strategies.

Do not contact him again - not even to announce the baby's birth. Do not spoil the experience of being with your newborn by wondering if he'll show up. Don't offer him the option. Don't keep him updated.

You should put in a claim for child maintenence. He needs to pay for his child. But you do not need to chase him or contact him yourself, especially while you are feeling so heartbroken.

If he wants a relationship with his child, he knows how to contact you.

File a claim with CMS . Ok? Make sure to do that.

There could be various reasons for his behaviour - an affair, a massive wobble due to his dysfunctional childhood causing doubts about his ability to cope with parenthood, something else - but you could drive yourself mad wondering and trying in vain to work it out, and the reasons are irrelevant, really. The fact is that his behaviour is completely unacceptable and unforgivable. Even if he somehow decided that he wanted to get back together and be an involved, loving husband and father (which seems very unlikely to happen, sadly) he's still caused you a huge amount of pain at your most vulnerable, and personally I wouldn't feel secure with him after that - wouldn't be able to trust him to be there for me and our child and not abandon and hurt me again.

I think as PPs have said, you need to do your best to stop thinking about him, and focus on yourself and the baby. Continue with the counselling and practical preparations. See if you can put any support in place for immediately after the birth, family/friends and/or a postnatal doula. See if there's a Home Start near you and if they could assign you a volunteer.

Some practical points:

• do you have your husband's surname? consider whether you want to change your name back to your own and obviously give baby the same name


• you can and should claim child maintenance as soon as baby is born, whether or not he's on the birth certificate


• depending on finances you might be eligible for Universal Credit or become eligible if/when your income and savings fall below the threshold


• if he's moved out you can claim single person discount on your council tax

Also, in the longer term, don't put pressure on yourself to try and persuade him to have contact with his child. That's his responsibility not yours. And your child will probably be better off with no father than with an uninterested, unreliable one.

PS Also this is probably for further down the line but if you're married you will need to look into divorce and financial settlement - if he's on a high salary he probably has a decent pension and that should be included in the marital assets, plus equity in any property you own together or separately, and savings. I think it might be time to get the ball rolling on cutting all ties legally and financially, since he's effectively been ignoring you for months, you probably need to contact him via a solicitor now, or at least write to him and say you're seeking legal advice.

Waiting for inevitable deletion