Venting venting

[socksinbed]

I'm just coming on here to vent.

2 years ago, while pregnant with third child, partner starts being aloof, difficult to talk to, removed, he rejects me sexually and moves into the spare room. I'm devastated, and post partum and it's rough, very rough. I have really low self esteem and I feel incredibly alone. I question him. He says everything in fine. 6 months later tells me it is not fine, he doesn't love me. Says his life is upside down, work is hard etc. We have two other children already.

We separate of sorts, living in different homes. Still very close due to children. He comes out of the stooper he was in, and is ostensibly a better person emotionally. There is some sex between us during these two years when we go away on holiday with the children, but not much, largely because of the way he treated me when we had sex. He would say unhelpful things like 'I need you to know this doesn't change anything between us', which I found demeaning and insulting. Eventually I feel so turned off by it, I tell him that I can't have sex with him anymore. He apologises. I'm in a helping profession, so I find I have lots of empathy and compassion, which is generally good for relationships, but I still can't have sex. Last time was around 10 months ago.

We are still quite close, we go on dates, we share our lives, but no sex. I recently broach the subject by saying 'look, it seems like we are in a relationship, but not, what is going on?'

He comes back and says during the periods of no sex or physical intimacy between us he's been thinking that our needs cannot be met by one person. He has developed into thinking we can both have other sexual partners.

I'm completely fucked off by this, I feel bloody awful. I tell him NEVER! I tell him that he lacks courage to actually address his wrongs in the relationship, he lacks the strength to try to fix what he has broken, and that he has damaged all of us in what he has done for two years (we live separately and the children cry about this, not understanding why daddy doesn't live here anymore).

I feel so pissed off with myself for choosing this man and having 3 children with him.

My youngest is 2 so I have 16 years of having him somehow in my life.

Thats it. I had to tell someone!

I think you've been in a weird in-between place for too long with different expectations. End it properly and formally, including divorce. Move to genuine co-parenting rather than being a single family. Accept that you and he are both single. Stop considering him your friend.

"He has developed into thinking we can both have other sexual partners."

Code for he already has.

☝ this.

I don't even care.

I'm just so consumed with bad feeling towards him. I'm not jealous, I just feel stupid and humiliated. i feel partly to blame for being treated badly. It's so sad for me and the children that we're stuck with this imbecile in our lives, even more sad for them children.

You will be OK OP.
You were strong telling him no sex.
Put some more boundaries down so that your break up becomes official and your DC are less confused.
Gradually grey rock him - no personal conversations - just factual exchanges about DC arrangements etc - so he can’t hurt you anymore.
You can’t change the past. Time to focus on what you want from life for you and DC.
💐

Time to grey rock him
Discuss nothing with him other than the needs of your children
I would put every penny I have on the fact he had met someone else when he started acting aloof .
Scum bag

OP I am so sorry, you deserve so much more. The feelings of stupidity etc will pass and you will learn to forgive yourself.

I too would work on setting some strong boundaries, communicating only about the children etc. No more 'dates' he doesn't deserve you.

He really has been having his cake and eating it hasn't he
No more

That's exactly what my mum just said when I could bring myself to tell her. It feels so embarrassing. She said little by little.

We were together 12 years before this and it felt like a really good relationship. I feel like he's turned into someone I don't even know. We've had our moments over the past two years, and I have ben very blunt with some things I have said to him. This time I really said it all. That he says he's a good father, but putting no effort into fixing the relationship he tore apart is not being a good father, that we should have told teh children 2 years ago, and didn't because he couldn't, that eh lacks courage to face what even he has admitted were skeletons he brought into our relationship from his childhood and his father's infidelities. He thinks he is being a great father because he hasn't left me in the dump financially and he has the children twice a week. But what does he propose he shows them about adult life? To not commit and just walk away and have happy Saturday night dinners with the family but have sex with other women and have no committed relationships?

It's all put me off him so much, and it makes me feel so small. I've given the children a bad role model in a dad.He just seems so weak and feeble and ridiculous to me now, I feel stupid for starting a family and life with him.

You are all right though.

I've started y day feeling so much better after sharing on here and with friends.

Looking forward.