(((AI))),

Most women struggle with their high sense of "nurturing desires". And that instinct can blind many of us to a point where if we don't successfully nurture we "self blame".
And right now all your hormones are on the setting of "high nurturing instincts". Any signal of "an unsafe environment" is very disturbing to any "expecting mother".

What we have that most other animals don't have is enough intelligence so we can identify these emotions and do our best to not allow ourselves to "feed into a sense that we are somehow personally failing". But this doesn't mean these emotions are not going to be present or that we are not going to be challenged by these emotions and sense of "something is not right, is this my fault". And these feelings you have that go from being angry with your husband and yet trying to feel like he needs some kind of nurturing is normal. This happens with so many women and so many women stay with disfunctional men because they "think" they can administer some kind of "nurturing" that will "make things better". We are just designed to be that way for our survival.

As I mentioned, his actions keep telling me that he is scared and the oncoming message in all of this that tells him he now "has" to be grown up and "in control" and "commited" is something he was "not truely ready for". As I mentioned, my huband put me through "his fear of not being ready" as well. My husband was good for a while but he too got cold feet in some deep ways and his answer was to go out and get drunk and try to escape that way. And I was left feeling much like you are feeling, caught between love and anger and very hormonal and frightened myself.

A ton of people can post a whole lot of anger and how much your husband is some kind of "scum bag" and "selfish and thoughtless". But I have not seen anyone who is pregnant post that they too feel the same way as you right now. There are many women that now have 20/20 hindsight that can offer whatever they ended up learning about their "exes" but none of us know "your husband" and can say that he "IS" actually a horrible scum bag.

How about thinking of it this way, if any person takes up a course in school or college and we are going along learning about whatever that subject happens to be and then get to a part that we can't seem to get and face some kind of exam we are not ready for, what do we do? As that exam gets closer we begin to get very restless and we look for a way to "not take that exam we are just not ready to take". This is the normal human brain AI. Any of us can talk a good game about "wanting to be something or master something somehow. But when it comes to that part where we have been trying but yet don't see ourselves "truely able to do whatever it may be" we all tend to withdraw and find ways to excuse ourselves from that experience where we were caught getting to a point where we could no longer see ourselves "succeeding".

When I read your post and recalled my own very troubled experience with my own husband during this same time your are at in your pregnancy, I wondered if he knew what he was thinking back then. He didn't remember or was not in touch with anything other than saying to me that he was just a "jerk". He gets angry about that time period in his life. However, our daughter is a grown woman now and he has a 20/20 of how he ended up managing that experience, that test he was somehow afraid he would fail is way behind him. And he also knows more about "who he is as a person" as well. And for any "young man" your husband's age, the truth is, that they honestly don't know "who they really are "yet"".

When his parents don't know and don't have an answer, when your husband "doesn't have an answer" and looks down or even gets glassy eyed, the reason for this is that he just doesn't "have" an answer. But what everyone doesn't see about him is that he doesn't have a degree, he doesn't have a job/career yet and all he really is right now is a young student that doesn't know "who he is going to be at all yet". And I think that the closer this reality of having a child got, the more he got confused inside because he truely doesn't know "who" he is as a person "yet". I think he just felt like everyone was putting him on a path that he is not ready for at all right now.

I think about how a lot of people watch how horses are ridden and it looks easy, but when they sit in the saddle themselves they begin to realize that it isn't that easy at all. My job in teaching beginners is to make sure they are "slowly" encouraged to allow themselves to do simple things on the horse/pony. I know that I have to have a pony or horse that will take it slow and be completely safe. I know that if that horse or pony does anything to take away that small sense of control in the rider, that student will never come back and be open to learning any more.

If something happens and a pony gets too quick and the child/adult is frightened, I have seen that very same glassy eyed look you are discribing along with not wanting eye contact as well, it is all about fear from what I have seen many times. That child or adult may get on one more time, but, they often do not come back to continue to try to learn how to ride. It all depends on how often in their life they faced something similar and eventually learned how to get past that complete sense of "fear".

Something to ponder and remember not to "self blame" for "his" issues where he is just not truely ready and probably doesn't really understand it himself right now.

Open Eyes