Don't get me wrong -- it's clear to me from the way you write about that you know that having a baby isn't a walk in the park. I know people who thought having a baby would be easy, and you are nothing like them. I say what I did because although I managed to dodge the bullet of postpartum depression (I did have the "baby blues" for about 2 weeks, but thankfully it lifted after that), having a small child was strikingly similar to being depressed in a way I hadn't thought about before, despite having cared for younger siblings, cousins, neighborhood children, etc. Not leaving the house. Not sleeping. Constant physical pain (breastfeeding was very difficult for me, and I injured myself during delivery). Being too exhausted and frazzled to have visitors, but desperately lonely from being exhausted and frazzled. It's all worth it, and I am certain you'll do it all and then some when the time comes, but just think about being persistently in a depressed-like state, and then your F acting up in whatever way it is he usually acts up.

I make no assumptions about whether he's the right man to have baby with, particularly since there was a time I would have gotten the same response you did given the way my H treated me. I'm in a glass house, which is why I am taking the time to respond to you. However, what I *am* saying is -- and it's free advice so you can take it or leave it -- it may be a work in progress, but make sure the progress is at a point where you trust this person to check himself when you are as vulnerable as you can imagine yourself. I say this as someone who is also with someone she should have left at certain breaking points, but has stayed and turned it into a stable relationship. It was worth waiting for the stability.