those four little words

I don’t love you… anymore.

He finally said them, we decided to sit down and talk about our relationship, about the way he’s been treating me – finally I said I told him that I don’t love him as much anymore and he came back with “I have no more love for you”… I said fine! that explains why you’ve been treating me the way you have, and I told him I would go stay with my parents or friends for a while.  Like I said he’s a good dad so I’m not going to punish my daughter. He can see her whenever he wants… I will try to be friends with him – but for me that was the tipping point.  He had sex with me a couple days prior – if you don’t love someone – tell them, don’t be intimate, don’t use that person for your personal desires and then treat them like crap!

As soon as I said I would leave, he started apologizing, he didn’t really mean it… blah, blah, blah… except that he did. He doesn’t love me – I’ve felt it for a while – and more importantly, if he does love me, why would he tell me he didn’t? because he wanted to hurt me? why would you want to play emotional games and hurt someone that you love?  Why cause so much pain to someone?  so whether he meant it or not – he said it and he’s been saying a lot of things like that for a while – like he wanted to break my spirit or something so that I would be emotionally dependent on him.

I’m taking a break to get some perspective.  so we are getting seperated for a while and suprisingly, I’m not as much a reck as I thought I would be – I guess I could see this coming all along.

For my Daughter’s sake

For my daughter’s sake, I stayed in this unhealthy relationship for too long, for my daughter’s sake! that’s what I’ve been telling myself, but how is this for her? She is 13months, she loves her daddy, but how healthy is it for her if we are in a bad relationship? Eventually she will feel the tension, she will hear the words, she will see and understand the way my husband treats me.  This is not the example that I want to set for her.

so, for my daughter’s sake, for my sake, for all of us… I’m going to respect myself and not let anyone else disrespect me, for all our sakes I’m going to decide once and for all what I can and cannot live with. I will try very hard to make the relationship work, but not at the expense of my own self-respect and health… because stress is toxic and definately not at the expense of my daughter.  I never wanted to be a single mom, I never wanted my daughter to grow up without her father around, because I didn’t grow up with my father… but I grew up with a step-father who loved and took very good care of us.   So for now, if I have to I will just focus on being a great mom and just love and protect her.

A void caused by emotional abuse

In my last post I mentioned that I was ignoring  my husband and I got some emails saying that will not help anything… unfortunately, this is my last resort. In order to get myself and my life in order, to put some perspective on my days and to take care of my daughter the only thing that help was ignoring him. By that I don’t mean I pretended that he wasn’t there, but when he was rude, self-righteous, incosiderate, complained about things around the house, I ignored it… why? Because otherwise I would be a mess. I would cry about it, try to make him realize he’s being a jerk, try to get him to look at things through my eyes, but none of that happened and it never will because he will never change. 30 year old men don’t just change and being emotional will not help.

We’ve tried counselling, each time the counsellor told him something he didn’t like we switched counsellors.  Finally we went to a guy, my husband liked him, then the counsellor told him he was being verbally abusive to me, needless to say, that’s the last time that we went to counselling.  So what to do now? I don’t want to be with someone who is abusive “verbally” or otherwise. I don’t want my daughter growing up in that enviroment.  One day we are happy(super happy) the next day he treats me like he dispises me – then says that he didn’t mean it. Lets say I decided to tough it out and stay “for my daughter’s sake” well how long can I last like this? 

My husband is GREAT with our daughter, he helps with everything, he changes her diapers, he plays with her, he bathes her, he puts her to bed… he LOVES her… me on the other hand, he treats like CRAP!

Bottomline, my husband does not love me anymore, he doesn’t act like it, he doesn’t talk like he does… again, now what?  We were soooo good before the baby, but now we’re horrible. I get depressed some days because of it.  I know he would have been like this eventually even if we didn’t have her maybe five, maybe 10 years… but this side of him would have come out eventually.

Baby Changes Everything

I just read a post a post on www.lifewithababy.com. This lady was saying that when the baby is born that the men should take a leave and not come back for six months.  It sounds silly, but I almost wish that was possible. I would love it if my mom could come and visit for the a month and my husband wasn’t around at all. That way, I would get time to get things done, maybe get some rest and not feel like I’m expected to be supermom all the time.  I think the portrayal of motherhood on TV and in hollywood really gives people an idea that motherhood and family life is just one big bonding moment all the time.  I look at the magazines and all you see is moms who lost the baby weight in three months and everyone is back to thier fabulous selves… No one is pointing out that these people have a NANNY that watches the baby while they are at the gym, or getting procedures done and they get to sleep at night b/c the nanny is watching the baby or lets not forget the fact that none of them have to worry about money b/c they have it – so they CAN get the nanny and the personal trainers and the meals prepared for them etc, etc… 

The worst part of it all, is sometimes I see my husband looking at the magazine and then at me – and he’ll say things like “oh, it’s fine, you look fine, you just had a baby, I know when you stop breastfeeding you’ll go on a diet”… and I’m just like great! now there are more expectations of me – Sure I try to diet, but when you are constantly arguing, it’s hard to maintain a diet – I now eat to comfort myself, I know I do – but I can’t help it.

So what is the solution to the men problems? Honestly, I’m trying now to just ignore him. He’s an idiot right now… hopefully it will go away, either I will find ways of dealing with it or help snap out of it and go back to being the man I fell in love with, but either way – it will have to get fixed eventually so for now, I’m ignoring him… otherwise it’s just a waste of my energy.

I ask myself, “what do I value in life” Right now, most of all, I value my daughter – she is wonderful, she makes me happy and I feel like I have a purpose in her, I do value my marriage, but not  at the cost of my self-esteem and my health (because lets face it, the stress is not good for me) so for now I started going out with my friends again, so I don’t feel so alone and isolated.  I’m really just trying to take it one day at a time.

If anyone has any coping strategies that works, I would love to hear them.