OK bear with me here, please. There’s a lot of ground to cover.
I know she’s a redditor too and will probably read this. Nothing here is lie. No truths have been bent for effect
Partner and I have been together 11 years or so.
When we first started dating, she (F, duh. Now mid 30’s) was working in a job she hated. I (M Now mid 40s) was in a job I loved but didn’t pay amazing. We got by.
She was forced out of her awful job.
I’ll cut out all the filler. After just a few months I moved her in with us (myself and my 2 at the time primary school kids).
She wallowed, not knowing what she wanted. She started doing bootcamp, and loved pushing herself. After some time she did a course at TAFE and loved it, and did another related course to go further. Got a job as a receptionist and loved the work they did, so she went to university at night, spaced over a few years. (She’s still in the same job today, albeit the business was sold when teh owner retired).
I bought a business doing something I loved, which paid much better
Now. Fast forward a few years. We have a medical oops and she’s pregnant.
As expected, she developed a belly. Given covid was in full swing, we just thought she was a little pudgy because she stopped working out. No biggy. But she had a feeling, and a pregnancy test confirmed it.
Pregnancy was unremarkable, aside from teh fact that she was consuming ice blocks and soda at an astronomical rate because she couldn’t cool down. I’m talking a 30 pack of soda and 2x 40pk of iceblocks every 3 days.
Cue the birth. 4 days in hospital due to a complication (tuned out to be nothing but they needed to be sure).
Didn’t take us long to work out bub wouldn’t sleep unless she was laying on mum. If we put her down anywhere, she’d wake up after only 15 mins or so. She didn’t want a bar of dad mostly, I’d steal cuddles when I could but it didn’t last. I did, however, master the art of getting her to sleep when we were out shopping or when she wouldn’t settle. She loved back rubs and showers.
I’m waffling a bit here but it’s important to the issue.
Mum decided to sleep on the recliner so she could get some ZZZs too while bub fed or slept on her.
Every night, bub would fuss and I would wake, go out and check on them, make sure mum had food and water. Bub was boob fed and she was drinking 4-5litres of water a day.
I knew something wasn’t right with her. I’d seen this before. She had PPD. We spoke about it. I’ve always been as supportive of her struggles as I can possibly be, but she was in denial.
The way she treated me had changed. I was just a credit card now. I know, understand and fully accept she was exhausted, but I’d become nothing but a housemate to her. All forms of intimacy were just… gone.
She got even more into phone games during this time, she was bored and could only watch so much tv before she threw something through it.
We’d had literally dozens of discussions about getting our relationship back on track over the first 2 years of bubs life. All I ever got from her was “yes I want to fix it” and nothing else. She was my everything and she left me feeling worthless.
Now to the present.
Almost 4 years on now and nothing has changed. I’m in a different business now, which pays even better again. On a good job I can make 3 weeks of her pay in 1 day. They’re rare but they happen.
At about 2.5 years she started “snapping out of it” and feeling like herself. Yay finally! She’s sure she had PPD. Yes i know, we spoke about that many times. But when I tried talking about getting our relationship back on track it eventually came out that she resented me for not being there and supporting her, which is totally untrue. My teenagers, her sister and brother in law, her parents, even her best friend, all told her I’d been there all along. She totally blanked me out. But she still resents me. She’s downright lazy now. PILED on weight, looks like she feels terrible.
She was never a bikini model, but she was fit and healthy and looked happy. Until she didn’t.
She snores now too. I’m a SUPER light sleeper, just someone walking our carpeted hallway will wake me. And she snores. Even with ear plugs I was only sleeping 3-5 hours a night with her beside me. I would wake her to stop her snoring, which she hated. I was barely hanging to sanity.
She started sleeping on the recliner again a few months back, when she developed a lung infection.
First time I’d slept more than 5 hours in 2 years.
She stays out there now because it’s easier than fixing the problem. That’s her MO. Avoid everything that would require her to sack up. Not a new thing, just worse now.
There’s zero intimacy. We’ve slept together maybe 8 times since the now toddler was born. And every time it felt like a chore. She’ll stick her fat face in mine and demand a kiss (Which we’ve fought about hundreds of times over the years) and I find myself resenting her for who she became.
I just don’t feel connected to her. She feels the same of me, but flat out will not address it.
She’s still putting on weight. She’s still eating for the baby she hasn’t breastfed in 2 years. She still sits on the couch playing on her phone.
I know I’ve put on a little flab, I’m in my 40s now. But I’m at least active. I’ve tried reminding her how good she felt when she was moving. It really was the happiest I’ve ever seen her. It’s not about weight loss but she struggles to carry our 3yo 300m to the train station
I know I’m an asshole for feeling the way I do, don’t worry about that. But I just feel unimportant. Again, hundreds of conversations over the last few years (maybe not hundreds but it feels like it)
I think I still love her.
I want to still love her
But not like this.
This is torture
