Breaking up after having a baby advice needed

[BabyB22]

Hi,

So just like the title says, my little one is now 9 weeks old and we absolutely adore her. However, I haven't been feeling great about my relationship with her Daddy for sometime- started having some thoughts early into pregnancy which has now resulting in our break up which he 100% doesn't want. Note, we still live with each other, I don't mind this arrangement for now as I will never stop him from spending time and raising our daughter and will let him decide if/when he wants to move out.
When I first met my partner, he had some partying habits I didn't really agree with from a relationship point of view, as he wanted a relationship, I refused due to this but he eventually changed his habits, we moved in together, he had two promotions in work within a year, and was doing a course to further his career even more so. When Covid hit we had to move home and to try and cut it short I moved to his home area. He got a job quickly with a friend, and has been stuck in a job he doesnt enjoy since. What I'm trying to say is he isn't the ambitious man that I met. I understand the honey moon period is over especially after a baby but we used to do cute little things for each other and I feel like I continued to do so until I realised he had stopped. We had started to argue and it's gotten to the stage where I feel like I'm putting him down too much as he is a procrastinator and I feel like once you start picking on flaws, the relationship is over. I want to move back to where we met and have expressed many times but he has no desire to look into it and when I do he doesn't have much input leading me to believe we have different futures planned. Not to mention the raised voices in front of our daughter that I need to nip in the bud now as I don't want her listening to that. Now I have decided this break up, I don't have to ask him to do anything around the house, he just does it, we have had no arguments and I feel generally better in myself for finally making a decision. I'd like to add that I was really hoping for him to propose and he got my hopes up three times!! It never happened. I have asked family for advice but I'm just being told I'm stubborn and that this is normal after a baby, nobody is actually listening to my feelings, just trying to say i have anxiety and depression ... I don't, maybe some anxiety after birth which I'm dealing with but my family think every emotion is some sort of mental disorder. Also preaching about how good he is.. I agree but where is my support system!!

OP, I think this doesn’t sound irretrievable. He needs a job he likes and maybe he’ll feel more confident again and that will take him back to an earlier time. It also sounds like you could be nicer to him. No it’s not nice to put him down a lot and it’s not okay to raise your voices — but you don’t say this bickering is coming from him. Rather it feels like you are dissatisfied. My feeling is that perhaps you would feel this way with any partner in a rut, and LTRs commonly have ruts. So if you left, would you be looking to be alone? if so, go for it! But if you’d be looking for another relationship I wonder if you might repeat this pattern.

That said, it’s your life, and you should do what you want with it. If I had a baby and my boyfriend was as you described (ie sounds like you got on great and now he’s in a rut and you are frustrated with that) I’d try to get it back on track. Book a one off counselling session, get him to change jobs etc.

Im not saying your frustration isn’t legitimate but I am saying that I don’t think it helps you solve your problem if what you want is a good LTR. I think you might be leaving just because you don’t know how to communicate without shouting or how to understand why a person has changed and what might help get them back on track.

Remember too that your baby will not be living with you if you do move out. That would be a huge deal for me.

I think @NoodleSoup12 advice is spot on. Can you both work on your communication? It's helpful for coparenting in any case. Can you work with a therapist to determine what exactly about the relationship is making you unhappy and would you be open to giving him a chance to change (knowing that you also have some work to do in how you express yourself and that he may also have things that he thinks you should work on to make the relationship better)?

Also, and absolutely NOT to downplay your feelings, the hormones after giving birth and in the early sleep deprivation mo the are SO STRONG. It's really really common to dislike your partner after giving birth. If I could recommend anything it would be to just give yourselves some time to adjust to parenthood while agreeing to make a conscious effort to be as kind to each other as possible.

Did you think having a baby would 'change' him OP because it never does?
Also not sure if you are ending this in the hopes of a 'proposal'. WTF is the obsession with 'proposals'?
If you're done with the relationship, fine, move on. It's your choice. But if you are playing some kind of chess game, probably won't go the way you want. Be a grown up about it all especially now you have a baby 🤷‍♀️

Yes to some extent I thought it would change him, he is a loving caring man who loves children so I wasn't worried about that but I did hope to some extent it would push him to look into a career change and look towards creating a decent future for us and little one. Just to add that isn't the reason I had a baby at all.

At this stage I am not hoping for a proposal I was just stating that he gave me the impression on three occasions that this was going to happen, once when we went away on holiday and both times we visited my family and I just wondered why it never happened.

He has been ignoring our situation I can only imagine it's his coping strategy and refusing to admit we are having problems which is usually what happens so I end up saying this is what I need etc and he basically does it for a day then we go back to the same old. I'm a talker but when he puts up this wall I can't talk I need him to come to me with recognition of the situation then I will mention therapy as I think we need it.

I grew up with a single mother, this isn't something I'm taking lightly or something I really wanted but continuing like we are will be more damaging for her later on.

I did recognise before the toll this had on his mental health, made him a CV as I usually work in that area and have offered to look for jobs for him in my spare time but he wasn't too interested. I did lose that empathy after baby as I was all about me and the baby.

I will say we both start the arguments and if this is it in the longrun I will be alone.

I do recognise we have work to do as the last year has torn me down. I think first I need to work on my own feelings and control and recover from birth as I don't feel he gets it too much until I express I'm struggling but I need to get to that breaking point before he steps in which is no good.

Thank you for the advice it has helped alot. @NoodleSoup12

hi op - i’m a ftm, 12 days post partum and my current situation is almost identical to the one you describe here (adding the fact both my partner and i are disabled and at home full-time so ambition - or lack of - isn’t really part of the discussion for us).

i know it’s been a while since you made this post (hope your little one is doing well) and i’m sorry if replying after this long drags up painful feelings, but i’m just wondering how this played out for you in the end? what did you decide in the end? and how did you cope with your decision? would you recommend the same to me in a similar situation?

again, my apologies if you’d rather leave this dead and buried, i’ll understand if you’d rather not discuss it