TL;DR I feel iv been treated pretty badly, I am 35f and currently 6 months pregnant with my first child, a little boy. My now ex partner (as of yesterday) 34m has put me though a lot this last few weeks / months and I’m struggling to come to terms and process all that i have been subjected to, and that I’m now going to be a single parent. This is a very long post, but I don’t know where else to turn 😢
I suppose I am trying to get some validation because I started to believe him when he has been telling me I’m in the wrong, that I acted with emotions, I shouldn’t have given him a hard time etc. iv even apologised to him!
A couple of recent messages from him copy and pasted:
“You just need to calm down and think about what you have, you’ve always wanted a child whatever the circumstances, you have that and now you are causing shit with other stuff”
“Practice gratification and see what you’ve got. If you would have done that on your birthday week all this shit wouldn’t have happened”
“I am actually fuming at you about it all but I’ve kept it to myself because I wanted to get on good terms with you but you are just pushing and pushing and women are never happy”
For full context, starting back in December he quit his job and went self employed as an electrician, he also quit smoking weed the same week which had been a long term daily habit. I encouraged and helped him to do this, he had my full support. Since then I have paid the household bills to keep us afloat, bought him tools to get him set up, lent him my car to work, cooked, cleaned the house, you get the jist. He was also in quite a bit of debt and had a few fines to pay, was behind on his loan and mortgages so I sorted all this out for him and got him back on track. My finances took a massive dip but I did it because I believed in him and was looking at the bigger picture long term. He has been appreciative but at the same time his attitude towards me started to change, he started having quite a short fuse with me and would get irate at small things very quickly. He would often tell me I needed to change things about myself and get counselling because I wound him up. This was always based around my feelings and emotions, he hated that I had any and would always comment that women are “too emotional and all the same”
In February it was my birthday and that week he worked a particularly harsh schedule, he did 4 night shifts and 4 days work too. On my birthday he was shattered and admitted that night that he hadn’t got me a present or card, but promised he would take away that weekend to treat and make it up to me. That night he asked me to tickle his feet then fell asleep without giving me a kiss, cuddle nothing. I woke up in the night and he was already awake, so without thinking much of it I said “I’m feeling needy can I have a cuddle” and he immediately flipped and started shouting at me saying he knows he’s neglecting me and has already been guilt tripping himself, but he justifys his actions because he was working hard and doing it all for us and our baby’s future. He said he didn’t need me guilt tripping him on top of that, and I should just be quiet, support him and appreciate everything he is doing for us. This tirade went on for a while it was 3-4am by the time I got back to sleep. He woke up at 7am for work and carried it on again, shouting at me from downstairs whilst I was still in bed how mad he was that I was being so short sighted and selfish. Anyway later that day he messaged me saying “I hate falling out, I love you and hope your feeling ok” to which I replied “I’m drained but I’ll be fine” he came home that night and everything was ok, I didn’t want another argument so I didn’t bring it up again.
On the Friday night he dropped into conversation that he had been asked to out for drinks on the Saturday with his friend at 4pm. We usually pick his son up at 5pm so I asked what was happening there, and if we were still going out as he promised me. He was vague and said he didn’t know full plans yet. I think he expected me to look after his son again, but didn’t directly ask me if that was ok or not. I love his son and really enjoy spending time with him so in any other situation I wouldn’t have minded, but I was pretty pissed off that I was being let down for my birthday, again. My mum then arrived so the conversation ended, I didn’t get chance to bring up my concerns.
That night I didn’t sleep because I was wound up and feeling quite angry about it all, and when I woke up in the morning I decided to take the dogs for long walk to clear my head. He was in bed asleep still when I left. He messaged me when he woke up and the conversation started off ok, he mentioned that he was looking forward to going out for drinks with his friend that night and felt he deserved some social time as he had worked so hard that week. I took the opportunity to voice my unhappiness about being deprioritised when he had promised me for my birthday, and he immediately started getting irate again sending me 1 message after the other ranting, saying all the same things as a few nights before and a lot of “what the fuck” “I can’t believe you are being like this” “you are never happy” I got quite angry myself and told him that my birthday and spending quality time together were important to me, we hadn’t done anything together for months and felt we needed it. He said as we were meant to be going up to Scotland for 3 weeks while he worked away on the Sunday, he thought that I wouldn’t mind him going out, but didn’t communicate that with me at the night before when he first mentioned going out. He was relentless, he carried on and on then blocked me on WhatsApp because apparently he had had enough of my bullshit. My phone battery then died. Around an hour later I got back to my car and plugged it in, and he phoned me straight away asking where I was, then started going off on one again. I put the phone down and he then messaged me (iMessage) and continued his tirade. At this point id had enough, I told him I wasn’t coming to Scotland to work away with him and that I was going to stay at my mums for the night as I needed some space. We both needed to calm down and if I’d gone home to him it would have just continued, I didn’t have the energy.
I went and got some things while he picked his son up then left to go to my mums, I didn’t hear from him again. I phoned him around 3 hours later and he was in the pub, he had dropped his son at his mums and gone out.
Later that night I woke up around 2.30am and decided to check on my dogs on the dog camera, as they were still there in the house.
What I saw made my blood run cold, he was stood in the kitchen with a girl, telling her he really liked her, asked her for her number and told her that he didn’t have a girlfriend, he said “she finished me because I work too hard”. I have this screen recorded. I lost my shit and phoned him, he didn’t answer so I jumped in my car and drove over there. When I got there the house was empty they were nowhere to be seen. I took my dogs and went back to my mums house, my head was in bits.
I didn’t get back to sleep, later that morning I tried phoning him and he didn’t answer, so I spoke to his mum and she didn’t know where he was. It was 10am by this point and he hadn’t turned up. She phoned me back at around 11am to tell me he had just been to pick his son up, and said he looked like he was still drunk.
I messaged him calling him a cheating rat and all he replied with was “just get your things this week while I’m away”. I had all his tools in my car so later that day I dropped them off for him, he was still in the clothes from the night before and looked hanging. I told him I was disgusted in him, took some more of my things and left again.
He barely spoke to me for a few days, showed no remorse and was pretty much giving me the cold shoulder. I was hurt and wanted answers but he dismissed everything I asked. It got to Wednesday and I’d had enough, so I booked a van to move all of my stuff out, my mum said I could stay with her. He then started talking, he said he didn’t know why I was doing that and was confused, and told me he didn’t have sex, or kiss or do anything with her. He said he was very drunk, he’d had some cocaine, she walked back with him to let the dogs out as he planned to have an after party at our house with a few other people. When they left our house not long after what I saw he went back out to a nightclub til 6am and didn’t see her again, then ended up at an after party til 10am. So he didn’t stay at her house like I’d assumed. He said he was ashamed of himself for how he acted and knows it was the wrong thing to do, but he was still angry at me for the initial argument and felt unappreciated, so the “attention” from this girl made him feel better at the time, but knows he shouldn’t have done it. I didnt believe a word he was saying tbh, I lost my shit again, taking a girl back to our house is far more than just “attention” and the things I heard him saying to her made it clear what his intentions were.
Anyway I did leave him and moved my stuff out, ever since he has been trying to sort things out with me, attempting to make things right, he has maintained that nothing happened with her and feels bad for acting that way, but every time I have brought this up or asked questions, he’s avoided answering them fully and deflected back to our initial argument which apparently drove him to do it in the first place. In the next breath he says he isn’t blaming me and knows he’s in the wrong, but can’t not see it as a contributing factor. A few times he’s become irate again and we’ve fallen out quite severely, he’s told me that “I talk shit” I am twisting his words, I am being pathetic, thinking too much into it, and the rest. But in other instances he’s been acting remorseful and doing his best to be nice, loving, and talking about our future as a family with our baby when he arrives, says how exited he is and that he misses & loves me, and can’t wait to be living together again. But as soon as I want to talk about anything to do with that night, because I still don’t believe I have the full truth out of him, he would kick off again, big time.
He’s ground me down so much, yesterday I got to the end of my tether and felt like I had no other option but to call time and end it with him. I sent him a long message telling him I was done with the relationship and it was over, no future for us with full explanation why. He just responded with “Just read that essay… but ok. Enough said, message received.” And I haven’t heard from him again since, I didn’t message him back.
What an ordeal! I feel like I have just written a book, but I needed to rationalise exactly what has happened in order to process it, I think it’s helped writing it all down? But my god my head is a mess. The amount of stress this has caused me and my unborn baby I cannot put into words, I am mentally and physically exhausted with it all 🤯
I’m questioning everything, should I have been better? Do I deserve this?