Just as the title says really.
I have 2 DC and a dp. Love my DC sooo frigging much.
Before settling down I had my own small house (2 up, 2 down) and a professional job.
I dated like a hobby and waltzed around seeing friends, going on lots of holidays and daydreaming.
If a relationship went south I had no issues in ending them, deleting them and moving on. As I was on my own all through my twenties I had friends of all ages for adventures. A close friend in her sixties to go to Rome with. Other women in their twenties to go bar hoping with. Colleagues in their forties to go wine tasting with
Life was full of options and opportunities. If things didn't work out I could always book a holiday, change jobs, migrate abroad, join the circus or whatever. So much freedom.
I spent a decade living like this.
I always wanted a family. I wanted to meet a steady and stable man who was financially solvent with no children so we could marry, combine assets and have children with.
I met DP during my dating sprees. He sold me a dream that wasn't quite reality. He was steady and stable but not financially solvent. He hid debt from me and I didn't know until he moved in. Sex life was and is horrendous! Erectile dysfunction.
He then lost his job and I was about to kick him out but lockdown struck. Fucking lockdown. Sent me a bit crazy tbh. My dad died during lockdown. I nurses him for 4 weeks whilst he died from pancreatic cancer slowly Infront of me. Trauma.
DP was excellent during this time. Really a rock. Suddenly the finances didn't matter.
We were in this bubble together. Living together with no one else. It was like life would always remain like this in lockdown. With the absence of real life and just me and him, all flaws in the real world became irrelevant to our temporary lives. His debts didn't impact. We weren't exactly going anywhere. He got a new job and paid his share of bills. The fact we had nothing in common didn't matter either. For that time we had everything in common. All we had was eachother and netflix.
I then became pregnant. A baby to add to our bubble.
Then lockdown properly ended and the real world resumed. But it was different. We emerged from lockdown with me heavily pregnant and with a man I actually had little in common with and would never have chosen as a life partner.
Then everything happened so quickly. I bought us a bigger house for our new family. We had our baby.
DP got an IVA for his debts. We got a dog. I came off maternity leave and got pregnant again (whilst DP tried out Viagra). We were then juggling decorating a new house with 2 babies and a dog.
I am not the passenger in my own life but my god. It's like I just woke up one day with a partner, 2 kids and a dog. It feels like this happened in a blink of an eye, before I could even think through wtf I was doing. I feel like I've been asleep for the past 5 years and living on auto pilot.
DP has been a fantastic father. He really has. He is in his own words 'living the dream'. This is all he's ever wanted. He's 50/50 in child rearing and the mental load. He probably does more housework than me if I'm honest. He does the weekly food shop with the toddler in tow every week. He spends his weekends taking the toddler swimming, mowing the lawn, running errands and cooking family roast dinners. He brings me a coffee in bed Saturday mornings whilst I have a lie in with the baby and then heads off with the toddler for the morning of swimming, shopping errands. He'll then come back for us to do something as a family. He'll have the kids whilst I go out with friends no questions asked.
But we have nothing in common. Literally nothing. We don't laugh. We don't cuddle. We don't have sex. We have different sense of humour. There is little there.
Our commonality is shared family values but that's as far as it goes.
We did couples counselling when I was pregnancy with number 2 as I was unhappy with our relationship. It didn't do anything. There is no spark.
Now I feel trapped and I'm suffocating. We have two little ones. The baby is 6 months old. They are as attached to their dad as they are to me.
I adore them. I really do. But this is not the life I had envisaged for when I have a family. I spent my twenties having fun and really building a solid foundation to NOT be in this position when I eventually settled.
I am living a life I did not want or plan. Anything I do now is not the life I've wanted. It's the opposite.
I did not want to be a single parent but I knew life could happen. That's why I wanted a man also financially solvent. So if this shit hits the fan no one is dependent on the other and the kids would be provided for. If I end it with DP he's homeless. Nowhere to go. He has an IVA and countless other shit.
I then face a life of financial hardship as I'd have to pay for the house and kids and DP maintenance would be minimal due to his financial issues. So I'd have 18 years of juggling the books and raising 2 kids.
If I stay then I have decades of shit sex with someone I have literally nothing in common with.
If it weren't for lockdown this relationship would have ended. He'd have been a brief relationship from the past id barely remembered. I'd have continued to waltz around in my mini cooper visiting friends, holidaying in the sunny destinations and having hot dates with various men.
Now I'm looking at a lifetime of single parenthood or settling for an unsatisfactory relationship.
I can't waltz off this time. I have two tiny people who depend on me to make the right choices for them. But what is it?
This was very long winded but so cathartic to write. So thank you for anyone who's read this.