Thank you Anita for your in-depth response, I really appreciate the time and effort you have put into your reply.

I am trying to form an appropriate answer…

I think you have voiced what I am unable to admit to myself – my relationship is doomed. If one of my friends was having the same experience I would likely advise them to think of their daughter and leave. I don’t want her to grow up with a fear that we, as parents have created. I guess I am trying to find the good in him so that maybe we can stay together, but I am coming to the realisation that if we did stay together it will always be a struggle and a stress and like you say have a huge detrimental effect on my daughter.

However, I want to understand him and his situation more so I’m not throwing away my daughters relationship with her father. I guess I’m not quite willing to let him go without giving him the opportunity to change. People make mistakes and I’m not perfect. I’ve grown as a person throughout my life and I hope I give space for other people to make amends and grow.

He is well educated – went to private school and later in life (after his head injury) gained a degree in Politics. I think he struggles a lot more with his head injury – with communication, patience and tolerance of other people. He says he is unable to get another job and truck driving is the only thing that pays okay that he can do. But even this he struggles with and makes simple mistakes that infuriate him. He has managed to loose two jobs in the last year because he couldn’t deal with being told what and how to do something. I think he finds general day-to-day life very frustrating and challenging.

I’ve also noticed he finds being around successful people very hard. I see it when my friends visit, who are successful in their field of work they often make him feel inferior to them. I assume this from the side comments he makes to me and how he describes himself to them, ‘I’m just a truck driver’ etc. So yes, he is very unhappy in his work. He’s exhausted every day. It’s interesting that you highlighted this, as only last week he said he wished he owned his own business and I saw the first ever sparkle of ambition. As much as I would try and be supportive in any new venture he decides to do, if I am really honest I don’t think he has the patience to deal with people with his argumentative nature.

So, I think he does have ambition, but doesn’t have the confidence in himself to follow through with anything, or maybe he knows that he isn’t capable with his head injury? He has never been to see any Doctors regarding how the accident affected him and I don’t think he ever will. It’s such a complex thing and difficult for me to know the difference between his personality and the way his behaviour is distorted by his head injury. But does this really matter why he is the way he is? The outcome is the outcome and it is not to be tolerated on any level.

In July our relationship went through a really rough patch and I asked him to leave. And he said he would go and see someone about his anger issues. He asked me to write down all of my issues with him to discuss and I did – brutally and honestly. He called it a character assassination. I didn’t name call and I wasn’t nasty, I just listed all of the lies and the behaviour I found inappropriate. He took the document to a life coach. For a few weeks he became a different person, he was calmer, more understanding and we managed to talk about the things I found unacceptable in the past. This was a huge improvement as before our communication was very limited with him always getting angry and defensive. He said he found it really useful to vent some of his issues and that the guy challenged him. He was supposed to reply to my ‘character assassination’ but to this day never has and everything was brushed under the carpet. He had seen a life coach and I stopped bringing up the past promiscuous behaviour. He bought me presents and tried to make me feel good about myself. After about three or four weekly sessions for some reason he stopped going. I have tried to subtly encourage him to see him again but he always makes excuses – he’s working, it’s too short notice etc.

He does work hard, he often works 60 hours a week and he pays the rent and most of the bills – he keeps a roof over our heads. He works even though he finds it demanding and very difficult.

Now as I write this I’m wondering whether when he was trying really hard I didn’t give him the praise or encouragement he needed. I was very unhappy at the time and I was trying to process how he had treated me and bring up my daughter at the same time. Maybe when he was trying really hard to save our relationship I responded not with love and forgiveness but with apathy and resentfulness? He did things to make my life easier – cooked for me, did the dishes, tried to give me a break from looking after my daughter. But because I found him difficult and stressful, he didn’t get a good feeling from doing it therefore gave up trying to continue?

You’re completely right – he refuses to take any responsibility for his actions and words. When I said that I don’t deserve to be treated like that (when he recently got aggressive and pushed my shoulders down) He says that I could see that I was upsetting him and that I continued to ridicule and shame him and now we know what happens when I do it. He blames me because it was clear that he was getting upset and I went on and on, when he was trying to leave the house to calm down. That’s what he does if he gets too angry – he leaves the house.

There are so many things wrong with our relationship and his behaviour. But I have given you a one-sided very biased view on it. He does love his daughter and genuinely wants to spend time with her, care for her and treat her right. Unfortunately his impatience and frustrations take over. But that doesn’t stop him from trying. He does her bath time even though he struggles to dress her with his clumsy coordination. He feeds her, even though it’s difficult for him to patiently wait for her to stop getting distracted. He spends every weekend trying to think of somewhere cool for us to go as a family – a new forest walk or undiscovered beach. I feel I’ve only given you examples of his most horrid parts and there is a side where he wants to be a better person and a better father. Saying this I agree that my daughter is not in a healthy environment, the fact that I could count on one hand the amount of times I’ve left her with him alone – never more than an hour – in the past seven months does not bode well. I know that the experiences she has now will stay in her sub-conscious for life and from two years she will actually have a conscious memory of it. I try my hardest to ensure her life experience with me is a happy and loving one. Although he consumes a lot of alcohol he is rarely ‘drunk’ and never out of control. I cannot bring myself to think that he will one day intentionally or unintentionally cause harm to my daughter.

He still hasn’t apologised for what happened in our most recent argument – he won’t admit he’s done anything wrong. But what he has done is try and arrange for us to see a counsellor together and taken a day off work to go to the appointment. I guess this is progress and shows he is again trying to fix things in his own way. I feel it’s a shame it has to hit rock bottom and for me stop talking to him before he actually does anything about our situation. And I wonder how long will the change in behaviour last this time?

I feel that I am at a crossroads. I still haven’t processed everything and need some more time to think about what to do. You put everything into perspective for me in your last reply. Thank you for listening to me, I don’t feel I can talk to my friends or family about this and reaching out has made me feel heard. I’ve been reading TinyBuddha for years and it’s got me through previous troubled times. Reading the inspiring blogs helps me focus and think about what I want and it’s nice to read some people have similar life experiences to me. However this is the first time I have ever opened up on the forum and I am sorry they are so long…