Hi
This is going to be a long post, but I just need to get it out there as I find I can't talk to anyone about this and to write it down might help, usually I just say that I alright all the time.
I have been with my partner 18 years, so quite a long time, we are not married as that was something we were not intersted in but we have a 5 year old daughter. My partner has always been quite a sensitive person which I have known but that sensitivity has been getting more and more year in year out.
So going back 6 years, we had a lot of trouble trying to conceive and it turn out my partner has PCOS and quite bad which was misdiagnosed all her life. However once she got put on metformin and I forget the name of the other medication we conceived fairly quickly. Leading up to getting to that point we had a terrible doctor just say that we couldn’t have kids so that wasn’t great but we got round that. Not sure if I can say this in here but trying to conceive become robotic and not the passion which is what my partner wanted, so when we did conceive my partner was happy but a little depressed in the way it happened. Everything was going well with the pregnancy until our 20 week scan to which we were told that part of our daughter skull was missing and that she might have Edwards Syndrome. We got referred to St Thomas’s in London where we had another scan and an amniocentesis. Whilst waiting for the initial 3 big results it was 2 weeks, in this time my partner saw a physiologist who was terrible and encouraged her to have an abortion and was not sympathetic at all. After two weeks we had the results that my daughter was all clear on Edward Syndrome, and then two more weeks later we go the all clear on everything else and it was amazing. Then at 28 weeks exactly my daughter decided to turn up early. I am not going to go into too much detail on this as, but to say that it was the hardest thing we/I have ever been through. I understand why they do it but doctors and nurses never want to give you hope. My daughter was in hospital for 9 weeks, 2 of those in intensive care. We were told about 4 times that she might not make it, she might be blind, might be deaf, had a bleed on the brain, had a whole in the heart and few other I can’t remember. I was due to start a new job the Monday after the Sunday she was born. I delayed that start for 6 weeks so I could be there for my daughter and partner. I feel that I am quite strong emotionally and it pushed me to my limits and one day the noises and bleeps of the machines sent me mad I just had to get out the hospital one day. The last 3 weeks my partner had to do on her own with me going there after work every day. I should also point out we were not allowed to stay at the hospital. So we would always call 3 times in the night to see how she was doing. My daughter came home just before Christmas, we had to keep her in door for 3 months before people could see her. Bringing your first child home is scary but when she is still so small, and has very low white blood cells is really scary. But we got through it, my daughter still has quite low white bloods cells so picks things up easily, my partner gets so angry as it’s not fair that she gets everything and my internal reaction is not healthy as I always think the worst which is a hangover from the hospital days.
So before this becomes a book I wanted to get on the point of this post. Over the last 5 years my partner has not gone back to work and my salary is not great, we scrape by every month and I manage all the bills and keep on top of all of that. I was happy about this but hoped when my daughter went to pre school she might work part time which she didn’t want to do because she still wanted to be with my daughter and now my daughter has started school I thought my partner would now find some work part time, which she hasn’t really done. She thinks that she can just say that if it takes her away from my daughter she is not going to do it, so if she can’t pick her up or even at home she won’t do some cleaning because she wants to be with my daughter. But she doesn’t know how good she has it, I work hard, but I do enjoy my job. I get up really early so I can leave to get home to see my daughter just for an hour before she goes to bed (I have a long commute). When I do get in I spend a lot of my time tidying up and cleaning the kitchen. As my partner just gets things out and leaves them out. She says just to leave it but then when I do she gets the hump because she has to clean up. I would like to spend time with my daughter but if I do then general upkeep of the house and the list of things around the house needs doing. I would like to point out that I am not saying that it’s the women’s job to do these things. If I am at home I do all the washing, cleaning and all the DIY stuff. She does do some cleaning when my daughter is at school, but really not much, I keep saying that why doesn’t she look for work instead of cleaning but she always says she doesn’t have time. I always say that people work full time, have kids and still have time to clean and do all the things that have to be done. So that is point 1 we constantly argue about. My partners PCOS is something she blames a lot on, and I get it, it’s rubbish I have read up on it extensively to understand it. I am always suggesting things to try. She hates the way she looks as she keeps putting on weight, she has to exercise a lot to loose some weight she has given up on as again she thinks she doesn’t have time. I am also not telling her she needs to loose weight she just hates the way she looks and doesn’t feel sexy so that part of our lives she doesn’t like doing because she doesn’t feel it. We argue constantly now because she talks to me like a bit of crap, literally anything I say or we talk about she gets defensive over if when there is nothing to get defensive over. Yet she will talk to me in this aggressive and defensive way which is ok in her view. If I disagree with her she will get the hump, decisions about my daughters life again if I don’t agree she gets the hump that I am not supporting her. She never asks me how my day was yet if I forget to ask her how hers was or ask her about something she was doing that day she will get the hump. I enjoy my job but it is very pressurised and can be stressful. But If I come home and have had a bad day, instead of trying to make me laugh or get me out of my funk she will get the hump and make it about her and I end up apologising to her. From time to time I suffer from these spells for feeling really low and life is just kicking my arse. She will ask what’s wrong and in the past I have said that I am feeling low and she says that she wants me to talk about it, which I have done in the past. But it always gets turned into her problem and her getting the humo and me apologising again to apeze the situation. I now just don’t try to talk and she is so sensitive that it makes things worse. Also on the money side of things she is always buying new things not big things but toys for my daughter and I notice clothes creep into the house. She gets given money from her mum and dad, I don’t know how much but she now pay for most of the food shopping with it, but she still has money left over to buy herself things. I on the other had put most of my salary into paying mortgage, bills, my travel and never get to buy myself anything. Any money I do have I spend on my daughter usually. It feels like she has just detached from reality. My worry is if she ever does go back to work full time she either won’t cope or won’t do anything at home and I will have to do even more.
I have got to a point at the moment where I have been talking to her the way she talks to me, so we just argue and bicker constantly which is exhausting. I always wanted my home to be the place I can go to and be happy, I am very laid back and it takes a lot to make me annoyed but I have been dealing with this for years now and it is just eroding me. I am aware that she would have had/has depression from everything we went through in hospital with my daughter and I always supported her on that. I was never allowed to breakdown during that as my partner needed the support and I am still the support but she just needs more and more and when I don’t give it she will get the hump. There is so much more but just not sure what I can put in here and I have probably bored you and no one will get to this point. I just wanted to get this out, I just feel like a servant and my daughter obviously always wants her mum, especially when she is sick, and even when she is not I get told to go away a lot when all I want is a hug from her. I just feel that if I had spent all that time with her she wouldn’t be like that so she gets it all, yet her life apparently is so hard and she never has any time and moans that we don’t have money for anything.
I don’t know what I am looking for writing this, but please give an honest opinion, should I be doing more? Any tips please?
Thanks