You’re not wrong about privacy, trust, and his unhealthy desire to want to control your behavior. He shouldn’t stop you from having friends or mess with your phone without your permission. Feelings of jealousy are OK, but they shouldn’t result in him crossing clear boundaries.

I did have a bunch of questions about your life and the relationship.

1. Is the controlling behavior new? When did it start?
2. How well does he know your friends? Does he embrace you having any other relationships?
3. How much are the two of you sleeping? (I’m wondering how well you’re both communicating while you get used to having a baby.)
4. Does anything good come from your fights? Do you feel like you know how to have healthy conflict that results in good change?
5. Are you both finding the help you need to manage your mental health?

My thought is that this is a big change (the baby), and that you’ll need as much guidance and support as possible. Again, I will not defend his behavior; it sounds controlling and immature. But it’s part of a bigger question about whether you can be healthy parents together. You need to learn how to communicate about so many complicated things. Please tell him you want to be in counseling together to talk about how the early stages of parenting have worked for both of you.

The thing is, it doesn’t matter if I think he’s wrong about the phone because he thinks he’s right. Instead of turning this into a “who will win the argument” conversation, make this about finding ways to be better at all of this. Then answer these questions with him, in the presence of a professional.

You know you don’t want to stay in the relationship as it is. That means you have to work to change it – or figure out how to be co-parents instead of romantic partners.

– Meredith

Readers? Seek help? End it now? Did the sleep question come up for you?