This is a lot of information. Lost story short, my bf and I had a daughter early in our relationship. Since then, ive had little support from him, have been horrible talked down to for minor situations, and have been carrying everything. I’m getting burnt out, idk what to do to fix it.
I \[21F\] and my partner \[23M\] have been together for almost 2 years. We met on Facebook dating, became friends, went on our first date after a few months, and started our relationship soon after. 6 months in however, I got pregnant. We found out on his birthday.
At the time, I was working at a daycare. I knew if I gave her up, going to work and seeing my 2 year olds would’ve destroyed me. We talked about it for a few weeks. At the end, I decided I wanted to keep her. I made it very clear to him that he wasn’t being forced to do anything. If he wasn’t ready or didn’t want to be a dad, he didn’t have to involve himself. I wouldn’t push for child support as I had good savings and support from my mom. I wasn’t trapping him in any way. If he later did decide he wanted to get involved, I’d let him. I also told him if he did stay that we’d do everything we can to make our relationship work for our daughter. He said he loved me and wanted to do this together. He wanted his kid to have both parents, both families, and he couldn’t walk away from her. So we agreed to keep her and build our lives together.
I had my daughter early morning via emergency c section on my 21 birthday. My daughter was very wiggly and managed to wrap the umbilical cord around her neck and arms. She would not had survived a vaginal birth. The surgery was complicated and I ended up convulsing and blacking in and out of consciousness. When they got my daughter out, they had to resuscitate her. Honestly, I still have nightmares about it. But, once she was back and stable, she immediately cried out for food, and that cry brought me back instantly. Mother instincts are wild.
I healed from the surgery fast, was able to walk short distances the next day. They sent us home 3 days later. She’s now 8 months. She’s strong, healthy, really big and heavy, and honestly just a complete blessing.
Ive suffered with severe clinical depression and suicidal ideations most of my life. My bf knows about it and used to be extremely supportive over it. I expected for PPD to affect me, and made plans with my bf and therapist. I was right, PPD did hit hard, and I’m now on meds for it. The meds make me tired and sometimes a little dissociative. However, I’ve still been able to raise my daughter. The problem and since having her, his support for my mental has vanished. In the early months he’d get mad at me for crying or getting frustrated at night or not understanding me being upset when I couldn’t produce enough milk. I brushed it off as I knew we were both working on adjusting to being parents, but it’s still going on. Theres times where I get overwhelmed or emotional and his immediate response is to stop cause it’s effecting the baby. Like it’s a switch I can flip off or on.
He also doesn’t help me. I do everything for my baby. All feedings, diaper changes, nighttime routines, mess cleanups, everything. He also still expects me to do all our cleaning and cooking and maintaining our part of the house. He doesn’t help with cleaning or laundry. He even constantly asks me to do small tasks for him. Like grabbing something out of his car, and getting him a water, and grabbing a blanket for him, when I had just laid the baby down and wanted to sit and decompress. Lord forbid I forget something or dont stay on top of something and it’s a whole fight. Lately it’s gotten worse too. He’ll get on me when I’m actively stressed and the baby is crying, shaming me, making me feel like I’m failing with raising our daughter or being a bad partner. If I defend myself, it makes it worse. All he does is work, eat, sleep, and play video games, and occasionally entertain our daughter when I’m trying to do something, but I’m failing, I’m not doing enough.
The worst part was our income crisis. He hadn’t gone into his last job for 3 days and got laid off. He kept up through contracting work, but I don’t like him doing that as we’re already behind on taxes and it’s not reliable or steady. Another factor was his suspended license. He liked to speed a lot before we got together. Before having our daughter, he sped a bit trying to get home and got tailed by a cop. He paid everything, just had to do the safety course. He kept putting it off. When he lost his job, I started getting more on him to take care of it. He still wouldn’t. It got to the point where I called him on a job telling him to reset his email. I then did his courses the next day while taking care of our daughter when he slept and played games in the living room. At the time, I was happy I helped him. Now I’m just exhausted.
I’ve been talking to him. Weve had talked about how I’m doing everything, about his anger and how he talks to me, how I’m feeling burnt out. He has gotten better at getting on me. And on his days off he’ll sit with our daughter till I wake up, but I still need to get up because he won’t feed her or change the dirty diaper she’s been in most of the night. Thats it.
Idk what to do. I know I’m not perfect. But I feel like I’m being held to standers I just can’t reach, and I have no help from him. I do have support from his sister and my mom. But I can’t exactly talk bad to his sister and I don’t want to stress my mom. I did stop therapy for a bit because of an insurance change, but I recently started it back up. He doesn’t want to do couples therapy, he doesn’t exactly believe in therapy. Hes told me he doesn’t want to change his mindset because it’s helped him get where he is and handle tough situations.
I don’t want to give up. I explicitly stated we’d work on our relationship. But I also feel like I’m fighting an endless losing battle. I keep talking and trying but it hasn’t been enough. Is there an approach I can try? Something I can say to get through?