I’d seen the hints of disinterest and the gap between our attitudes toward the baby and about what would happen next. But at the time, I had no idea what to do other than to wait for the craziness to die down and then get to working on it. I didn’t know what to do when it got worse. And it really did.
We started arguing all the time. If we weren’t arguing, we weren’t around each other. And I know my personality was part of the problem in that I didn’t want to ask him for help. I still didn’t consider myself that type of person. I wanted to be strong and composed and calm. Even though I needed him, I didn’t know how to let him know without sounding needy or weak. And frankly, I never thought I would have to spell it out. Forget about whether or not I could expect him to love parenthood as much as I did. There was a baby in the house. It was our baby. We were his parents. There were obvious things that needed to be done, and it was way too much to expect one person to handle.
I could have said that outright. But I didn’t. And maybe that was why he seemed to think it didn’t matter if he was around or not. Maybe he just didn’t know what to do, or he was afraid of screwing up, so he decided not to try. Maybe that was what fueled the distance between him and me and Bentley. It was possible. Unfortunately, we were both people who didn’t express our emotions freely. We didn’t communicate as well as we should have, and if that didn’t make it worse, it definitely didn’t make it better.
My parents had stayed together when they’d been in this situation. I thought Ryan and I could do the same. We were struggling, but they’d struggled, too. They had made it, so there was no reason we couldn’t come out the other end. It seemed simple enough to me. If anybody else could do it, couldn’t we do it? Wasn’t that obvious? It didn’t matter. I started to worry that I’d pushed all the fear and negative emotions aside for so long, I hadn’t been entirely realistic with myself. I wasn’t prepared for how much of a change having a baby was. I wasn’t ready to see it cause such an ugly reaction. Certainly not from the father.
There were a few months after Bentley was born and things had gone south where we had both acknowledged we weren’t in a good relationship, but we agreed we were going to work it out for Bentley. Unfortunately, things never got better. Eventually there wasn’t even enough of a connection for us to rescue. If we had still felt a bond and were still in love, I could have fixed things he didn’t like and he could have fixed things I didn’t like. But there was no mutual desire to build on.
It got to the point where I didn’t recognize our relationship anymore. I didn’t recognize him. He seemed to be a completely different person. And I had changed, too, drastically. Both of our lives had changed drastically. But no matter what, I was still Maci. Where had Ryan gone? Where was the nice, easygoing, courteous guy who’d shown so much respect and interest? I didn’t understand what had fundamentally changed between us, or within him. But we were miserable together. And when Bentley was asleep and I sat down on the couch to zone out in front of the TV, I felt so alone. It started to settle in: Now it’s just you and this baby, and you don’t have anyone else.
Whatever Bentley was doing, I was doing. I’d wake up and feed him, watch TV, and we’d just sit around. Babies sleep a lot. So it was just days full of feeding him and watching TV. I tried not to let myself get really depressed about it, but it was very, very lonely. Even when I did manage to see my friends once in awhile and hang out and do things, I just felt lonely. I had no one to share my experience with. I had someone I was supposed to share it with, but he was always somewhere else. There were times when I just sat there at night and thought to myself, “How did you get here? Why is this happening?”
I had no
We started arguing all the time. If we weren’t arguing, we weren’t around each other. And I know my personality was part of the problem in that I didn’t want to ask him for help. I still didn’t consider myself that type of person. I wanted to be strong and composed and calm. Even though I needed him, I didn’t know how to let him know without sounding needy or weak. And frankly, I never thought I would have to spell it out. Forget about whether or not I could expect him to love parenthood as much as I did. There was a baby in the house. It was our baby. We were his parents. There were obvious things that needed to be done, and it was way too much to expect one person to handle.
I could have said that outright. But I didn’t. And maybe that was why he seemed to think it didn’t matter if he was around or not. Maybe he just didn’t know what to do, or he was afraid of screwing up, so he decided not to try. Maybe that was what fueled the distance between him and me and Bentley. It was possible. Unfortunately, we were both people who didn’t express our emotions freely. We didn’t communicate as well as we should have, and if that didn’t make it worse, it definitely didn’t make it better.
My parents had stayed together when they’d been in this situation. I thought Ryan and I could do the same. We were struggling, but they’d struggled, too. They had made it, so there was no reason we couldn’t come out the other end. It seemed simple enough to me. If anybody else could do it, couldn’t we do it? Wasn’t that obvious? It didn’t matter. I started to worry that I’d pushed all the fear and negative emotions aside for so long, I hadn’t been entirely realistic with myself. I wasn’t prepared for how much of a change having a baby was. I wasn’t ready to see it cause such an ugly reaction. Certainly not from the father.
There were a few months after Bentley was born and things had gone south where we had both acknowledged we weren’t in a good relationship, but we agreed we were going to work it out for Bentley. Unfortunately, things never got better. Eventually there wasn’t even enough of a connection for us to rescue. If we had still felt a bond and were still in love, I could have fixed things he didn’t like and he could have fixed things I didn’t like. But there was no mutual desire to build on.
It got to the point where I didn’t recognize our relationship anymore. I didn’t recognize him. He seemed to be a completely different person. And I had changed, too, drastically. Both of our lives had changed drastically. But no matter what, I was still Maci. Where had Ryan gone? Where was the nice, easygoing, courteous guy who’d shown so much respect and interest? I didn’t understand what had fundamentally changed between us, or within him. But we were miserable together. And when Bentley was asleep and I sat down on the couch to zone out in front of the TV, I felt so alone. It started to settle in: Now it’s just you and this baby, and you don’t have anyone else.
Whatever Bentley was doing, I was doing. I’d wake up and feed him, watch TV, and we’d just sit around. Babies sleep a lot. So it was just days full of feeding him and watching TV. I tried not to let myself get really depressed about it, but it was very, very lonely. Even when I did manage to see my friends once in awhile and hang out and do things, I just felt lonely. I had no one to share my experience with. I had someone I was supposed to share it with, but he was always somewhere else. There were times when I just sat there at night and thought to myself, “How did you get here? Why is this happening?”
I had no
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