Holding my boundary. Let him be mad.
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
Maybe. She might take my title as World's Okayest Mom. |
Anonymous
Gladd things turned around for your family, PP. OP still strikes me as a troll. The doling out of additional details, the refusal to entertain any suggestions, seems troll like to me. Jeff would only pick up sock puppeting. No talk about the demands of work, and how he does not support her career demands, odd for a lawyer? If not a troll, who does she obsessively vent to IRL? Maybe that is why no one hangs out with them? She does not seem to see the family piece at all, neither does. When the kid is a little bit older, wonder how much trashing the ex will occupy OP's conversations re: the dad? OP is so enmeshed that DTMFA just seems like it will keep the power struggle going. Parallel parenting can work when split but where is that sense oF RIGHTEOUSNESS going to come from? We all KNEW she had a martyr for a mom because who would choose to live like she describes? And his mom was cold and did nothing, so her doing things reads as caring to him and he checks out for the rest. Struggle to the death of the family and the only one who is NOT getting some sick needs met from it is a 3 year old. This pattern is likely to continue after divorce, OP does not want to let it go. Conflict can be a HUGE dopamine hit for some, your description of it as addictive is spot on. https://hbr.org/2013/02/break-your-addiction-to-being
This is why so many are helped by simple things like https://5lovelanguages.com/ |
Anonymous
|
Both are terrible parents and not great partners. They are not interested in creating a happy, emotionally connected home for DD or modeling emotional IQ and relationship skills.
OP cannot control her DH. She can only control herself. The options of making changes to the status quo - outsourcing and therapy to work on the real issues or splitting remain. The status quo will not hold, if he's not having affairs now, it's inevitable. They react to one another more like teens than grown adults. It's really sad that their kid has to live like this. I don't think OP has it in her to step out of the martyr role. So it will just roll on after the divorce. I think DH will move on and likely will end up remarried and possibly with a better job. It's the dynamic between them that is keeping them so entrenched. I think OP will just get more and more bitter with time and she will not see how she is choosing to live in a way that will repel people. Chores are a red herring to some extent, there will be endless things to power struggle over in separate homes. The way they use the kid to stick it to one another likely won't change either, divorce won't stop that. It's sick. Hopefully the kid will have a pet to provide love and fun at one home or the other. |
Anonymous
A gaggle of geese, a pride of lions, a murder or crows and a…picnic of lawyers |
Anonymous
|
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/contemporary-psychoanalysis-in-action/201910/4-reasons-we-fight-over-chores
The use of engagement/disengagement with a young kid to rile each other up is a really concerning sign that family therapy is warranted. That dynamic will not necessarily end with 2 homes, unlike chores. Those who are obsessively focus re: chores are missing a big piece of the toxicity. Not couples counseling, family therapy, they have to learn what the needs of the kid are and how to meet them rather than going for another chance to stick it to the spouse. OP, please address this before you file. Even in separate homes you still have almost 2 decades to co-parent your daughter. https://ifstudies.org/blog/how-parental-conflict-hurts-kids/ |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
|
DH is not emotionally connected to OP or seemingly to the kid, over under on him bouncing before kindergarten?
Doubt he's celibate on this trip given how it started. OP try to learn from this, how you picked so badly, someone with no model of engaged parenting or home care and not competitive enough to earn to outsource. Also learn from how non-strategically you played things once all of the above was apparent. Finally, learn to step away from the martyr role and break that generational curse, you and your daughter deserve to be happier than fake power by making those close to you miserable. |
Anonymous
Nah, DH is not into the family life and not into his martyr wife. Dad won't be around much longer. OP did herself no favors in picking this guy and her kid no favors either. We cannot control other people. OP might have outsourced or incentivized him differently or a variety of other tactics but this marriage is toast. And the kid is going to be messed up, it's inevitable. Sidestepping power struggles was possible in a few different ways. OP is going to HATE paying him child support. He'll have a girlfriend soon who will provide childcare, if there is not one in the wings. |
Anonymous
Blah blah blah. You’re writing more baseless fanfiction. Get therapy. |
Anonymous
| Some of these replies are horrible. So here’s the deal: get out. In your heart you know the signs you’re seeing are true: he’s an entitled child who will never ever be your partner. We can rationalize and call it weaponized incompetency, narcissistic behavior, etc. but at the end of the day this man has no interest in being a partner, he wants a parent. Don’t do it and leave, and don’t fall for any pity parties he might throw. |
Anonymous
|
Time to DTMFA, OP.
Stay single for a while and try to figure out what you missed or minimized. Good luck! |
Anonymous
| OP's DH should be back for another happy Saturday with the family. |
Anonymous
|
Op here. I haven’t been on in a few days. Dh got back from his trip, I had therapy, and I’ve obviously been busy solo with my dd for the week. I’ve been trying really hard to dwell on the positive and give him the benefit of the doubt. We had our normal day schedule today. I spent the morning doing things that made me feel good. Went to a Zumba class, went thrift store shopping etc. I had plans to take dd to a very cool
Playground far from our house and to make a nice outing of it. I asked dh if he wanted to join to make it a family outing. He said he wanted to but was too tired from his trip. He took dd to play in the sandbox at our neighborhood playground this morning. Looks like she had a good time, bc there is a pile of sand from her shoes that dh dumped out by the front door. I Like an actual small pile of sand. I cheerfully asked dh this afternoon what that was about. He said dd’s shoes were full of sand and he hadn’t gotten around to vacuuming it up yet. I cheerfully said ok, cool. Dh has spent the evening watching boxing and basketball. The pile of sand is still there. (No this isn’t me being petty about sand) It’s a microcosm. A part of me wants to clean it up (martyr?) just to be done with it already. A part of me says, hell no! He’s an able bodied adult in this home. Why should I clean up a mess he made? Another part of me- that incessant drum beat- is saying…this is never going to change. If I ask him to clean it up, he will accuse me of being a nag. I know it’s not even on his radar to clean it. He’s just waiting for me to handle it. We used to have a lot of fun. We used to be wildly madly into each other. As someone posted earlier, it’s hard to be that carefree easygoing girl I was at 21 when we met, when so much has changed. I miss the peace quiet and routine me and dd had while he was gone. I’m tired of walking on eggshells. Literally ruminating on whether it’s worth it to “disturb the peace” and mention that the sand again. I’d rather jsut clean it myself (martyr) than risk the blowback I’ll get from asking him to do it. That will fuel my resentful fire. Lather rinse repeat. |
Anonymous
OP, I'm a mom who needs a lot of "me time". I also have an only child, similar stage, and still feel overwhelmed sometimes. So I get some of your perspective. Here's my advice: LET THE SAND GO. It doesn't matter. |
Anonymous
|
But it DOES matter.
|