in

England

Narcissistic partner

I’ve come to realise that my partner is a narcissist. I don’t know why I was blind to this before but I feel so trapped.

Our son is 18 months old. We don’t live together as his flat is too small for all of us, and he refuses to move to mine. He comes up with any excuse possible not to come over and help, and even when he does, its like he gets bored of ‘babysitting’ after only 20 minutes, while I do household chores. I never get chance to do these when I’m home alone, so on the few times he does come round, I need to make use of the time. He then blames the fact that I go to some baby classes for 1 hour, twice a week, for the reason he never gets to see his son.

Currently, we all have a stomach flu. He didn’t stay at mine last night so I was up with the baby all night. He called this morning and asked how we were. I explained I had been up all night and asked if he was coming round to help me. He said ‘I just need a few more hours sleep, I’ve only had 6 and I’m shattered’. No regard for me whatsoever?

I always thought I would end up with this guy and having more babies, but now this scares me (but I desperately want a second child). I can’t imagine him prioritising me during a c-section and allowing me to have skin to skin etc (he was not present at my first birth due to disagreements during pregnancy. Every time I said anything to him about me needing more support, he would give me every excuse under the sun and say he was ‘defending himself’). He constantly goes on about things being ‘fair’ when he’s here (as in, when our baby was a newborn, he wanted to come round and hold the baby for the whole time, as ‘this was the only time he got to see the baby’, which was his own fault and meant I missed out on this experience. He also used to come round for a few hours in the afternoon after he’d had a lie in and NEVER stayed for a night to help with the feeds😊😊😊). When it comes to Christmas and Birthdays etc he insists on being present and me making sure the plans line up with his sleep schedule etc (he doesn’t wake up until 11-12 most days and my baby is up at 6. He wants me to hold celebrations off until he is awake which is unreasonable, but then says things like ‘you always make me miss out’).

I feel so trapped. My son has my surname as a double barrel and he constantly goes on about this being unfair as baby should have the dads surname, yet he shows no interest in actually helping. When we are on good terms, he makes every excuse not to see our son, but whenever we argue he says ‘maybe we should just go to court and agree 50/50 custody’. Then we are on good terms again and he doesn’t come and see him for days/weeks at a time, and is perfectly happy to go on holiday for 2-3 weeks at a time with friends. He doesn’t even have much of an idea how to care for our sons needs so this scares me so much. When he comes to see the baby he can’t seem to keep him entertained, and always ends up putting on a show for the baby to watch. He also constantly berates me about the fact that we don’t have sex much. But I don’t understand when he thinks this is possible when the only time he is here is during the day when the baby is awake. He says he is always lonely because I don’t make the effort for our relationship.