my dp has told me he hates me for getting pregnant and having our dd

[veryunhappychappy]

I am devastated.

Everything is crumbling around me and I do not know what to do. dd is 5 months old today and since she was 4 weeks old he has been viciously nasty to me, very critical, scathing comments every time i speak/ do anything. he is unwelcoming to my friends and family and pretty controlling at times. i feel totally paralysed by him and it's at the point where i do nothing but try and stay out of his way when he is at home.

i found out about a month ago he has a codeine addiction, on top of a problem with cannabis -which i knew about, but have always been supportive of his efforts to stop, and have always remained hopeful that he would. all my hope is going. not just for that but for absolutely everything. he spends hundreds of ££'s a month on his addictions (this has become very obvious since i went on maternity leave and am unable to plug financial gaps).

i feel i am treading a very fine line at the moment and am not sure if all this is making me depressed.

i am so sad for dd. she is a lovely, bright baby and he is so detached from everything that he shows very little interest in her - not because he isn't interested, but because he is absolutely full of self loathing and anger.

He has stopped eating and has lost lots of weight. he won't eat anything i make because my food is 'shite'. he had developed control issues to the point of neurosis which means he wants to do everything himself, meaning he spends even less time with dd. at a rough estimate i would say he takes sole responsibility of her for less than 30 mins each day.

He ignored my 30th birthday in favour of buying and smoking cannabis -and completely ignored valentines day too. since then i have not kept quiet to keep the peace but have been responding to his criticisms and actually wrote him a long letter outlining my fears (that his behaving this way is making me depressed and is putting everything at serious risk). He broke down and confessed to the codeine addiction and is now getting drug counselling.

i don't want to sound like a complete wet rag, but he is not a wicked person. i know this behaviour stems from him being deeply unhappy and confused about his parents messy separation when he was a child (he has a deep mistrust of women and i have put myself right in his firing line for becoming a 'mother' i think). i am finding it harder and harder to see him. i miss him so much. it is like he is just slipping away right in front of my eyes and there is nothing i can do. he won't let me help.

Today he told me he hates me for getting pregnant and trapping him. i have devastated his life by doing it. dd was not planned and he says he has no trust for me as a result. He is lived that we didn't discuss an abortion (at the time I said it was something i could not do).

Please help, I do not know what to do.

Sorry, long. (am a namechanger btw)

Good post, not-a-monster

It's very useful to get a man's perspective.

The anger is the problem, I'm sure. It sounds pretty similar to my situation, and I was consumed by my anger. If my mind was not fully occupied, that's what my thoughts would turn to. What I wanted was some acknowledgement that regardless of the fact that a) I had behaved unspeakably and b) I was destroying our marriage, it wasn't entirely my doing - that if you take someone's choices away, then they will react badly. Once DW accepted that, it was far easier for me to face up to my grotesque failings.

I never said I'd been trapped, but I said some things I regret enormously, things that had DW's friends saying she should get out. She's glad she didn't take that path - it's not just me who feels our marriage is amazing now.

Where I agree with most of the posters here is that he needs to really face up to everything he is doing, and needs to understand that it is his rage that is destroying the relationship, that it's long since ceased to be about DD. It sounds like he is, and I really, really hope you both come through this.

I think you are being harsh on OP - as newtopost is saying - it is her choice and if she is somewhere insider thinking that this can be sorted out, then maybe it can be - it's worth trying that's for sure. Better to try etc.

I think the first year after having a baby is hard on any relationship, and if there are unresolved issues of any kind they will be magnified when the pressure of the adjustment kicks in.

Counselling is probably a good thing to try.

Good luck

By the way, VUC, and this is in response to Dittany's post above. Just as no one except DW and I knew the truth about our relationship, even as they were advising her to leave me, no one except you knows the truth about your relationship. Now, the truth may well render what I have to say irrelevant - but I don't know. No one except you can discuss your relationship with any certainty.

Please just put your daughter first- what you may be teaching HER is that a morose, angry man is better that no man at all...you really don't have much time to play around with here

than

dittany 'terrific with dd' was about my dad.

i'm sorry but it's more complex than the simplified version you've summarised and reacted to there.

i'll say again - i'm not some idiot who is going to go through this and wither away under all the stress of it. we are both under a lot of strain at the moment precisely because we have started to try and tackle the problem and sort it out. that's why i am posting i suppose.

DD is absolutely not at any risk at this stage - she is extremely well looked after and loved..she is sociable and happy. I want her to stay that way which is why i know things have got to change fast or we separate. I want to give change a chance before i walk away, taking her with me.

Why is that the wrong decision?

Crush - yes you are right.

that's exactly why we are not leaving things as they were.

newname thanks again, you sound as though you understand me a bit. we have been together for five years and yes, there are some problems but we love each other and we both love dd.

i think that is worth trying to salvage but some hurtful things are being said in anger and as a result of simmering resentment which has built up over a really difficult year (where we achieved a lot, but at 100 miles an hour - no time to think really).

Can you explain to me about the smoking?

Run away! get to a refuge, he is not a fit partner or a father, this type never change and it will just get worse.
You owe it to you and your DD.

Please everyone - listen to VUC. Her partner is not harming her or their child. He's being an angry wanker, but no one is in danger. This is about her, not you.

VUC ... explain what about smoking? How to skin up? I'm sure that's not what you want to know!

ripeberry, thanks but not black and white as i said.

no thanks!!

i just want to know why that really - and from what i can see in front of me i think this is the reason for the 'detached' thing. i just want someone who has been through this to talk to me really.

i am very glad you have pitched up btw.

i've got to go out to the shops but will be checking back later this evening. thank you again everyone.

I smoked (and still do) after kids have gone to bed, and only in the garden, because I like it. Simple as that, really. It's the main reason anyone takes any kind of drug. I don't drink at all at home, unless we have people round, so a spliff at 9pm is my equivalent of a couple of glasses of wine. I don't cane it from morning to night, I nevefr smoke it when there is something I have to do, and I go months without. But I like it, and when I have it I smoke it, and so long as it does not impact on my family I can live with it, though I increasingly feel it's time to think about stopping for good (especially as kids get old enough to start wondering about smoking themselves). I know a lot of people here despise smokers, and that's their right, but there's a gap between someone who likes to smoke dope and someone who can't live without smoking dope.

But yes, being stoned does make you detached. Not going to argue with that. I like the random thought patterns I get while stoned ...

"Her partner is not harming her or their child. He's being an angry wanker, but no one is in danger. This is about her, not you".

You wanted ultimately to change for the better and deal with the root causes of your anger.

I would argue that being in such a situation is no good emotionally for this lady and her child. Emotional harm is just as bad as any physical harm (I realise this has not taken place).

If a poster posts such a problem then that person must be willing and able to take opinion because on such a sensitive subject there will certainly be strong views held.

Why is it necessary to seemingly tiptoe and kow tow to Mr Angry W?. Why should his behaviour be somehow excused by a "poor childhood". Many, many people have crap childhoods but they don't all turn to drugs to cover up their own pain and misery. He has no right or justification to inflict his guilt/anger/whatever issues he's got on two defenceless females; one of whom is far too young to make her own choice. The mother ultimately has a choice, the child has no such recourse.

Again there are no guarantees that this man will have a realisation and get clean. He could take many years to get clean and have numerous relapses in the meantime. If he is not willing either to completely forgo his former lifestyle he could easily drift back into what is known and "familiar" to him.

VUC has commented that she does not understand the addiction. I think she needs to start educating herself and talk with the various drug support agencies as well as talking to people who work with addicts. She will need a lot of support too as well as he.

I hope that both these people will come through unscathed but I personally have doubts that this will end happily.

Babies start understanding what is said a long time before they start verbalising.

The moment she understand what daddy is actually saying when he says that he hates mummy because she exists, that her existence has ruined daddys life. That is when she starts questioning herself. That is when you get a depressed child who is sad she is even on this planet. That is when she wishes she was dead. Or she runs away, to solve the problem, or as a teenager she commits suicide. I dont understand how you can not see that you are scarring her for life.

How can you say he is not harming her when he is spouting all this venom about her to you, and he is blatantly wallowing in his hatred for you?

You are committing a social experiement on a little baby because you dont have the guts to leave this monster.

At the moment only dd is what bind the two of you together, for as long as he is able to muster a few minutes of gazing adoringly and stoned at her....
What when he finds somebody else? Somebody who has not ruined his life bringing his child into this world? 5 years is not such a long time together.

You are so WRONG when you think staying with him is best for her.

If you want to stay and see how it goes while he's getting help, fair enough. Bear in mind that you're not going to be able to help him in any way with his addictions or mental problems. These are things that only he can tackle. You can be as loving and supportive as you like and not have any impact on his behaviour if he doesn't want to change.

I speak from experience, by the way. I'm not some random pitchfork-waver!

Yeah-But, I dont think any of us are just random pitchfork waver. Is that how most of us come across?

I know of X and have met his sister. X primarily blamed his chaotic childhood for all the problems he has now concerning drink and drugs. He now has a long time to think about his life as he is now serving a long prison sentence in the USA. He got into his car whilst high on drugs and drink at 3am and killed a mother of two on colliding with her car. He walked away from this accident unscathed.

His family have bent over backwards over the years to support him. It has backfired on them badly. A person has to want to help their own selves in order to change, it cannot be done by others for them however kind or well intentioned they are.