Hi there,
I'm looking for some honest, impartial advice and i'm hoping you all can help.
My husband and I have two children together, both girls aged 3.5 years and the youngest is 5 months old. Our eldest daughter was two when we got married in September 2010 and our youngest was born the week before our first wedding anniversary. Her birth was very traumatic and I nearly died.
My husband has always been one of the lads. Although our eldest daughter was planned (I suffered a miscarriage before her) and we agreed to try for a baby, he took the news of me being pregnant rather strangely and began to tell me how he and his best friend were thinking of getting motorbikes and travelling round Europe.
After she was born, he got better at helping to look after her- he was awful to begin with as he expected treats all the time because I had a baby!!- he got better by the time she reached about five months as I had to return to work full-time.
He's never been great around the house, i have to demand he takes a shower/ changes his work clothes/ brushes his teeth, plus he leaves things all over the house, but he is good at DIY and will help with chores if I ask him to.
I have always felt neglected by him as a partner, he avoided intimacy with me for years and only within the last year would I say we have a regular sex life.
When we got engaged, it was a very organised affair which essentially came about from me saying I had had enough that we had a child and a home together and I wanted the commitment- i think on reflection what i wanted was the romance. I ended up telling him he had until a certain amount of time to propose or to forget about it entirely and he got up from the conversation and went to the calendar and wrote on the 7 March 'Target'. In the lead up to the day he proposed to me he called me from work and asked me to book a hotel and restaurant for the 7 March. Let's just say it wasn't a surprise and i'm not even a high maintenance girl- i'd have been happy with a heartfelt proposal over a takeaway at home or similar but instead he proposed to me in our hotel room at the end of the night as I was taking my make up off. He crawled over and said 'will you marry me?' in a silly voice.
When we went on honeymoon he spent most of the day every day with the entertainment team at our resort or doing watersports which was out of the question for me as I cant swim. He wouldn't go on any of the trips I said I wanted to do and talked the whole time about saving our spending money so we could buy a new mattress when we got home.
When we returned home from our honeymoon, the very next day, my husband's supposed best friend- who had been sleeping with another of my husband's friend's mothers (you couldn't make it up!) and thought i had let slip about it, called me and told me my husband had been cheating on me although never gave any details.
My husband has always denied it and as I had no proof I never did anything about it but it has eaten me up all this time as I keep thinking why would his friend say it if there was no truth in it and secondly, why is my husband still good friends with this man without taking him to task over what he said to me?
When our youngest daughter arrived in September, I nearly died having her as my womb tore in two places in surgery and I suffered a massive blood loss. I thought my husband was my rock as he came into his own while I recovered from surgery- doing night feeds etc although I found out afterwards the whole time I was in hospital even though he was off work he sent my three year old to his mums!
Anyway, his mum and dad have always interfered in our relationship- when I suffered a miscarriage before the birth of our first child his mum came round straightaway and told me perhaps I could use more time to clean the house now. His father, whose own mother was schizophrenic, out of the blue accused me of attacking my husband because he cut himself shaving and had a cut on his face.
Well, his mum said she'd look after our kids for us so I could return to work- we dont want the money, we desperately need it- but a couple of weeks ago announced she would rather have the time to herself so i've had to resign from my job and am now going to have to look for evening and weekend work.
Since his parents basically decided for us that they couldn't help us with childcare- we cant afford paid for childcare- my husband has stepped back significantly from helping with the children and our home. During the week he makes plans for himself at the weekend, not thinking about spending time with us as a family, or thinking we need to prioritise and get things ready for the following week- instead he does things like goes and buys sleepers we can't afford to make a decking area/ vegetable patch when a) neither of us is a gardener and b) there are more important things we can be doing in the depths of winter.
This past week i've not been feeling well and my youngest daughter has not been sleeping through the night instead waking a couple of times a night. Not once has my husband offered to help, even though i've cried a few times this week because things have to started to get on top of me and i'm feeling overwhelmed by housework and looking after two small children. Unlike him i have no family nearby to rely on.
When I confronted my husband about it he firstly told me I need to go and see a doctor (as though he thinks there's something mentally wrong with me), then he said i'm lucky to have him as you wouldn't catch his friends being so helpful, and then told me to go and find someone else.
I feel like my husband doesn't care too much about me or seems to know me- I suggested there may be an opportunity for me to freelance so I can work around looking after the girls- he said what a good idea but when I was trying to use the computer after the girls were in bed to start working on what i'm going to do he came in and put the tv on really loudly and started an argument with me because i politely asked him to turn it down because i couldn't concentrate.
I've become so resentful of him lately I dont want him to cuddle me or try to kiss me and I get really annoyed and tearful when he sees me struggle all day and then get to breaking point and that's when he comes out with he's crazy about me, i only have to ask for help blah blah blah.
I'm sorry this is so long but I needed to get everything out and maybe it will help if you want to offer any words of wisdom on where to go next with this.
