A
female
age
26-29,
anonymous
writes:Apologies for the long rant!From day one my partner has said he’s a “traditional” man with old fashioned values. However I’m not sure whether he is mistaking this for narcissism. We have been together for 5 years now, are engaged, have a mortgage and recently have had a child together.I feel like I have fallen out of love with my fiance and have been secretly looking at ways to leave him despite us having a mortgage and a baby together. I feel guilty about doing this and guilty towards my baby because I never had a father growing up and wanted him to be brought up by two parents who love eachother and love him creating a loving family environment. My fiance is good in so many ways, he is good with money, he always overpays the mortgage whereas I pay what I can afford (1K less as he has a better paid job than me), he bought me a car (cheap and old but still appreciated), let’s me buy whatever I want for the baby because his finances allow us to be able to afford it, I contribute a big chunk towards the finances but he contributes the most. Occasionally he will tell me to treat myself by getting my hair done using our joint money. We live in a lovely home which he decided we were buying because it has a huge garden and he wanted our children to have a lovely area to play growing up. The inside of the house is liveable but not to my standard, I am very house proud and a nice interior is important to me, our current interior is dated and every room besides the baby’s nursery needs decorating. However to him this is the least of his priorities as it’s liveable.On to the bad bits…my feelings are very much invalidated in the relationship, they always were dismissed even before we had our son, and I knew he was an emotionally unavailable person due to his poor upbringing. But since our baby has been born he has had hardly anything to do with him. He claims to have ‘bonded’ with him but I don’t believe he has. I am on maternity leave and understand that the sole purpose of my leave is to care for our new baby and recover from childbirth but I feel like he does the bare minimum. And I do understand that he goes out to work 4 days a week, but he also has 3 days off in the week. One day is allocated to me and the baby so that we can go out of the house and do something nice but his other days off are occupied with taming the massive garden or doing work on his many cheap and old cars (5 to be precise that I don’t think he needs!) that he insists on keeping. When I tell him I don’t think he does enough for his baby and doesn’t prioritise him he comes back with “well I don’t see you gardening” or “I don’t see you ever putting the rubbish bins out on bin day” or “unfortunately I have to go out to work”. I am not asking him to look after the baby ALL day but sometimes it can be tough. I love my son more than anything in the world but sometimes I just need 30 minutes away to myself. He also still expects me to care for our 5 pets, cook the dinner etc. A clean house is so important to me but means nothing to him so he tells me to leave the housework, it’s not important. It isn’t in the grand scheme of things when you have a new baby, but when you have hairy animals and a messy partner I kind of need to tidy the house, especially when he likes to spontaneously invite people around a lot. Again my feelings are dismissed, he doesn’t care that I like a tidy house so will never tidy. So it all falls onto me. I feel exhausted and like my fiance is a second child. He feels exhausted so when he does get down time he just wants to chill out on the sofa on his phone and not spend time with his son. I get it, but he doesn’t see that his priorities are all wrong. He never even comes to bed at night, he falls asleep on the sofa and comes up in the morning when I’m waking up for the day. Over time I feel like I have fallen out of love with him, I felt my feelings dwindling more so since the pregnancy and it’s got worse since our son has arrived. I can’t approach him because my feelings are invalidated so my anger over the month builds up and I end up exploding at him and getting upset. He NEVER talks about his feeling and never even seems sad. When I tell him I’m not happy anymore and want to leave, he says he expects these outbursts from me every couple of months, it’s just “one of my outbursts” and “i don’t mean what I say”. But should part of him not be thinking…why is she having these outbursts?? Is it something I’m doing?? He just seems to think it’s a hormonal thing and therefore my feelings are invalid, what I’m saying is not real! It takes for me to get like this for him to pull his weight for a day or two, he’ll take my son for half hour so I can go for a peaceful shower, he’ll bring me a cup of tea in bed…but this is short lived. He’s back to in his old ways in a few days and when I bring it up he rubs in my face the fact that he “looked after our son for 30 minutes while I had a shower the other day” or “I brought you a cup of tea in bed how can you say I don’t think of your needs?”I’m beginning to think he will never change. Deep down I don’t think he ever will, I think we have grown apart into polar opposites but he still thinks there are no problems. According to him we are in a happy healthy relationship, where he still loves me just as much “despite my outbursts” but we haven’t even so much as hugged in months, which reinforces my opinion that he is emotionally unavailable and that I am just “a familiar body”. I’m approaching 30 and really want more children and he has said he wants us to have 4 children together. The truth is I don’t know if I can have any more children with him because he seems so disinterested now with his only son. And I don’t feel like I even fancy him enough anymore, I just feel numb towards him.
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (30 May 2024): I think you have answered your own question. He's OK on the financial side but he's leaving all the childcare to you. That's old fashioned indeed as these days many men take a share in looking after the child.
You've said several times that he's dismissive of your feelings. He doesn’t believe you're unhappy and the only way he's going to realise is when you tell him you're leaving.
Why stay and complain? He's not going to change so why marry him. That would be a life sentence.
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (28 May 2024): So very sad and yet so normal for the beginning of a family.
It can be exhausting!
If you have this small amount of time and are not enjoying the childcare do you really think you should aim for a large family?
You both have much to be proud of but the reality of child rearing and housekeeping is provided difficult to meet.
Maybe you could afford a cleaner a couple of hours a week and possibly a nanny for a couple of days?
Many young families get quite a bit of help from extended family...grandparents etc.
But as your boy is so little still maybe that is even premature.
Try to stay focused on the good bits .
Many a lasting relationship is built on determination rather than romantic gestures to each other.
Seek help with the doctor if you feel you can't go on..
Quite possibly you have the baby blues (or so your husband thinks).
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A
male
reader, Myau  +, writes (28 May 2024):
 You two need to reconnect.
Are there any relatives that can help with the baby?
A date or two will do you the world of good.
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