Any advice (really long)?
MaggieF516
member
I thought I would post to see if anyone can offer any advice or feedback or had experienced anything similar. I feel I am well on my way to being a single parent unfortunately 
My boyfriend and I have been together 2.5 years. He is 40 and I'm 31, the pregnancy wasn't an accident and we thought we would just see what happened and I got pregnant pretty fast. My BF always had a lifestyle where he was out late with friends, did his own thing (never married), spent money how he wanted, etc. before we met. He bragged about having a "George Clooney" lifestyle, but we had a great connection though and did talk about getting married even prior to the pregnancy. We had an amazing sex life. He was amazing during the pregnancy, except for not wanting to be intimate. This was so hurtful and it did cause some fights, but I undersood his position I guess.
Things have been absolutely awful since we had the baby. We have fought CONSTANTLY. This weekend it escalated to where I said we should take some time off maybe, which made him really mad and hurt. We both work full time and my BF has a high stress job where he works 60-70 hours a week. Nearly 100% of the childcare falls on me. He is not homes most nights until 11 pm or later. We bicker about everything.
Our sex life did not improve after I had the baby. It has caused some major arguments, nearly every weekend. We have had sex maybe 4 times. He is NEVER in the mood. I thought it was about how I looked, but I have lost all baby weight plus 15 lbs. I am so depressed about it, I can barely eat. He always has excuses like he is tired, he has back pain, etc. Now he says that he feels like I don't "get him" which makes him not want to be intimate. We fight constantly about our lack of intimacy, amongst other things. I am so hurt by this and it is effecting my self esteem. He says that I used to be so laid back and "let him do what he wanted" and now he feels like he can't. Umm we have a 6 month old, we have obligations!!
I feel like it is not normal for a man to not want to have sex at all. I constantly wonder if he could be cheating on me. I found him watching porn online once which was incredibly hurtful and caused a huge fight. After this huge blow out, I looked in his phone and saw a text to a female coworker a few weeks prior asking her to get a drink. I've met her and she is nice, but not too attractive or someone I could picture him sleeping with. They didn't go, but I feel his asking was inappropriate given I am home taking care of our son every night by myself. I did not tell him I found this text. He was also "out with coworkers" until 2 am one night, which caused another fight. I just feel like something isn't right about all of this. In general, he is home weekend nights with me all but on a few occasions.
Am I just being incredibly stupid or can men really not want to have sex if they are stressed, tired, etc.? I know he works insane hours in a stressful job, but shouldn't there still be some desire to be intimate with you partner? He does spend all weekends at home and is a good dad in general. I am so unhappy in this relationship. I feel like I can't live in a relationship with no physical intimacy. I am so sick of the constant fighting (about anything and everything). I don't want to waste my time either if it isn't going to work. It breaks my heart to think of raising my son in a broken home though, so I am so conflicted. I am so scared of being a single parent, even though I do almost all the childcare myself anyways. I
Any advice or insight into this situation??
Re: Any advice (really long)?
:::Lurker here:::
Your story and mine have some similarities, so I can speak to some of those...My SO & I met (both 37) and things progressed very quickly. He brought up the possibility of trying for a baby (marriage was never really discussed at that time) so we too just sort of "went for it" and I got pregnant almost immediately! SO is an only child, never been married, never lived with a SO, etc. and while he is not a "go out with the guys for drinks" kinda guy, he's always just kind of done what he wants to do when he wants to do it. He was excited about the pregnancy, especially that we were having a boy. He, too, was not into being intimate during the pregnancy, but I was OK with that b/c my drive took a nosedive anyway.
After DS arrived, at first it was great, but then the fighting began. Big time. I knew having a baby was a huge adjustment, and going to be VERY challenging to our relationship, but I had NO IDEA. Fought constantly is an understatement. Between trying to figure out how the eff to be a mother, I was exhausted, hormonal, and also doing 80% of the work caring for DS. He actually moved out briefly TWICE before DS was 1. Sooooo many people I talked to during this time expressed similar situations, it is WAY more common than you would think. Even people with the most rock-solid relationships I know were on the brink during the early months of having a baby. So just know that you are not alone!
I guess what worked for us was finally being able to just have a serious discussion about our expectations, emotional/physical needs, etc. and just laying it all on the line about what we were NOT getting from each other. I learned that he was unhappy with the fact that I was micro-managing his parenting, and he resented me for it. He learned that I resented him for being what I perceived to be selfish (he still was "doing his own thing" a lot of the time but it was b/c of the above). I wanted him to WANT to help more, and he wanted to but didn't want me breathing down his neck. It was eye-opening for sure. Not saying that's what's going on in your situation, just letting you know that having a serious conversation may shed some light on the fighting. Maybe he's just having a harder time adjusting to fatherhood that he expected and it caught him off guard? And he doesn't know how to express what he's feeling? That could also be impacting his desire to be intimate. Guys have very different ways of dealing with things than we do.
Anyway, sorry that got long! But as you can see SO & I stuck it out, as incredibly hard as it was sometimes, and the intimacy thing, well, that wasn't a problem!!! LOL I hope you can work things out with your SO, but just know that you have to ultimately do what's best for you and LO! Good luck! Feel free to PM me if you want to chat more!
So glad you guys were able to work things out! Did he move back in?
Thanks...it's currently a work "in progress". My post was more about what happened after R was born, we had a whole new set of problems after H! (Don't be discouraged OP, but it's not just the first kid that can cause problems! But they CAN be worked out if you want them to be!)