Post Punk Kitchen Forum

I am just having a shitty day, because pretty much the anniversary of my mother's death sends me into a horrible tail spin.

Of course we only know one side of things, but it sounds like he would rather do anything than spend time with you and Leela.

The fact that you're having to go through such a bad anniversary is all the more reason he should be stepping up and spending time with you!

It sounds like you need to see a lawyer or other professional about the house thing, so they can set up all the paperwork for you and you can make it happen quickly. It also sounds like it might be worth documenting the money you've spent on his debt and on your mortgage. I can't imagine a sweeter deal for Brett - you marry a woman who has the capacity to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on fixing your mistakes and ensuring you have a place to live forever and then also is willing to take on 100% of parental duties after you have a kid. What is he bringing to the table here? What's his role in this partnership?

Tofulish, I'm so sorry you aren't being supported. It must be so, so difficult. I don't think I have anything truly helpful to say; I just wish you were being given what you need.

i agree with both of these things too. It sounds to me as if it's time for a foot to be put down.

and big hugs. I know for me the birthdays and the date are really bad days, even with the passage of time. and even with the acknowledgment that grief=love and all that stuff, it is still really, really hard. hang in there.

Thank you. Its really tough right now. I do feel like he's checked out of the partnership and he gets his needs met elsewhere (emotional needs) as do I. We don't eat together (he refuses to eat anything I cook), we don't have a way of communicating without him shutting down, which gets me so upset, and we both are able to be superloving to Leela but can't get anything like that for one another. It really doesn't help that we're both tired all the time either.

Its tough, because we both have huge barriers up and we agree to do certain practices (our counselor had him agree to try being in gratitude) but he then just doesn't generate his side of them. I want to create a deep loving connection again, but he's not willing to do the work to get there, he just wants it to be magically fixed which means that I am not critical of him and very affectionate, but atm he hears everything as criticism.

Its very frustrating. Thanks for the empathy and advice.

Tofulish, I have been thinking about you this week, not sure what to say except that I feel for you. My mom died in 1990 and still the anniversary of her death is hard and makes all the other difficulties of life increase exponentially.

Mr. T's behaviour is so awful and is very much like Mr. Arisaig's. In our case, my not being critical of him (read "saying anything to him") made him forget everything he should be doing, and saying anything (like "what are you planning on making for supper" when he had agreed earlier to make supper) made him defensive and withdrawn and it was the children who paid, as he would withdraw even more from the family. He just wanted everything to be perfect for him without him having to do anything, which not only required me to not criticize him (I don't really mean criticize but that's how he saw anything I said to him) but to take on all the things he didn't want to do. I think he wanted the idea of a family which is unfortunately what he got in the end.

So I tried many different tactics over the years and it was a lot of stress on me - because I loved him and wanted to stay married - but none of them worked because he really didn't care about me. In your case, as worrisome as Mr's behaviour is, it sounds like he does deeply care for you and baby T and you could be a strong couple again.

I agree with others that you should just leave when you are leaving without baby T. If you had an MRI scheduled there would be no question that you would go on time and not come back until it was done and he would just have to cope, so maybe you have to treat your mental health with as much urgency.

Do you ever see the counselor on your own? Have you asked her/him for advice? It sounds like the suggested practices would work for some people but maybe not for him. I wonder about the trying to be in gratitude - it works for me but I could see how some people might think it is silly, even if they agree to it in theory. Something is blocking him from implementing the suggestions and hopefully it is something you can work through and not laziness and apathy.

Just after I wrote that ^ I took some sheets down to the washer in the basement (I am home today). When I came back up the stairs Mr. A was standing beside the side door. Shocked, I said "What are you doing here?" and he said "What am I doing here? I came to get some of my stuff." Of course I said he couldn't just walk in the house, he had to let me know first but he just shrugged and went out to the garage. Normally at this time I would be at work so he wouldn't expect to see me.

I sat shaking on the kitchen floor for a minute, waited for him to leave and then sent him a tersely worded email about entering the house. I don't want to have to get anything legal but will threaten him with it if he is a jerk about it. I also decided to push him to make a move on visitation as the upcoming holidays have me concerned for the kids.

I think I am calmed down now, had some almond yogurt and raspberries :-)

Oh yikes! I am so sorry, that must have been a huge fright! Plus a violation of boundaries in so many ways.

I don't think marriages typically fail from a lack of love at the begining, and I'm sure STBX Mr A loved you. I think there is just so much stuff that gets in the way of clear communication and all the little hurts and insults make us lose sight of what is there.

A dear friend of mine pointed out that we stopped sharing a bed at about my third trimester, because it was so much easier to sleep without him there and then with the baby we get nervous about him rolling over plus he doesn't do well when he's tired and being woken up even 2x a night throws him off. So we both thought it was a good solution. Except that on some unspoken level we don't connect and there is no space for us to be lovers and partners, I'm generally telling him what to do and he is annoyed by that and then I feel annoyed that he is annoyed and on top of that doesn't do what he says he will.

So we made time to snuggle and it was so nice. And it is kind of hilarious that our awesome friend picked up on something we and our therapist missed. I am so grateful to her for pointing it out.

I'm so sorry you're going through all that, Tofulish. I do personally feel like I wouldn't be able to feel close enough to my partner if we didn't sleep in the same bed. I'm sure it works fine for some people, though. I also definitely feel like we get annoyed with each other and start fixating on negativity when we don't have time for snuggling. If only it were as easy as, "Go get it on!" But hey, it's a start. (Not that we can do anything in bed anymore with a baby in there with us, but that's what couches are for, right?)

Yeah, sometimes when I'd have a fight with one of my exes who was easily inflamed by life and I was there to catch it (no baby obvs) and sometimes we'd snuggle when things would start to get bad, even if its a forced snuggle, how long will you fight?

:) Ah snuggles. What the world needs now, is snuggles, sweet snuggles.

I get so frustrated by B's insistence that L can't eat with a fork ("OMG SHE'LL PUT HER EYE OUT!"). And yet he won't listen to me about other real limitations she has because he is The Best Dad Ever. So today I caught her eating a piece of reflective plastic from a broken toy.

This all just means a lot more work and vigilance for me.

Oh my this reminds me of a discussion K and I were having about Freya touching (the blades and power buttons) the fan. I wanted to ask him if his momma dropped him on his head. Seriously, I am *not* a cautious mommy, but jeezus.

Also...
marbles left on the floor

playing with electrical cables, including several times the one to my computer that was plugged into the wall socket (now I hide my computer on a high shelf). Two days ago, she was holding a power charger that he'd given her to play with and trying to plug it into the wall, because she knew what it was supposed to do. Weeks and weeks of explaining that we can't give her these cords to play with because it sends a mixed message when we don't let her play with them as their plugged in.

Don't eat the blueberry that fell on the floor for like 4 seconds, but yeah..go ahead play with electricity. Oh, and leaving baby on the bed when you have to pee. Dude, it takes her about 3 seconds to get off of there.

Sigh. Didn't realize I had all that in me. :D

Oh man, I feel you! That is exactly what we have going on.

I don't go into your projects and business and tell you what to do, because that is your area of expertise. If we agree that I am the one who spends all her time with Leela and does all our research, can't you just agree to defer to me instead of making it all a fight every single day.

He still thinks I am full of shiitake about the lead. So he bought her two maracas from a garage sale that are souvenirs from God knows where. I was worried about them and he poopooed my thoughts. So then they broke wide open, scattering this gross dust on everything.... But of course if anything ever happens to her, it'll be because she's vegan.

Dah...he doesn't really pull the vegan card, does he?

It's really weird, because K was totally the more cautious parent at the beginning. Thankfully, his mostly wonderfulness makes up for the ridiculousness. :)

I'm sure I've mentioned it before (maybe in this thread) but solipsistnation went through a long phase where he told me E couldn't play with spoons because he'd put his eye out. With a spoon! A spooooooon!

My irrational fear as a parent was, for a long time, that E would somehow drown himself in the toilet. We never let him go in the bathroom by himself at that age, and we had a low flow toilet, so it was... extremely unlikely. Maybe more unlikely than him poking his eye out with a spoon. I did get pretty tense and snappy about the bathroom door being left open.

Ha! Okay, point taken that we all have irrational fears.

My husband who won't let Leela eat with a fork because she might put her eye out, thinks its fine for her to play with his giant multicolored pills. Because "I'm watching her and nothing is going to happen, relax!"

But apparently teaching her that pills are toys is fine.

ARGH! You know those days when it seems like your partner has no idea of your child's limitations?

Brett was arguing with me that we can totally take Leela to a wedding reception, at a fancy dinner starting at 5pm. She starts to melt down at 5 and gets ready for bed at 8 and the restaurant is an hour away. The argument only ended when I told him he should take her and I'd stay home and relax. Weird how he suddenly remembered the last time we went to dinner. We spent $50 and ate the food in the car on the way home. It was superfuntimes.

Pills B? Pills? Oy vey.

And good for you for making it clear that an evening wedding is not gonna fly at this point. there have been times I've declined things I really wanted to do because I knew E would be in a shiitake mood at that time... It sucks having to be a responsible person and make that call, but if you KNOW that your kid is going to be miserable, you also know you're not gonna have much fun so why bother?

Pills! What? I can't even.

Right? I just can't even. They were giant brightly striped red pills in their packaging and she was fascinated by them, so he let her take them and run around with them.

And the whole wedding is just a pain. I have already said I am comfortable going to the church for an hour of their wedding and then we will go home. Just be happy that I am not releasing a tired, cranky toddler on your special day. I am the person who is going to be wrangling her, while Brett and the wedding party sit far away and enjoy their meal, so stop arguing with me!

Heh. One of my dear friends (who is also good friends with my spouse, which is how I know her originally) really wanted E to be in her wedding when he was like 15 months old. I was like, you know he's going to cause a scene of some variety, right? and she was like yeah yeah no problem, it'll be cute. He started a fuss during the ceremony and was 100% clear on the fact that the only thing that was going to mollify him was nursing. So I nursed him. In a wedding-y sort of dress. In the front of all of my friend's husband's conservative family members. OH WELL. She wasn't upset about it and her husband still talks to me too, so everyone lived, but you KNOW that for some people that would have really forked up their day.

Nighttime wedding=babysitter in my opinion. Or a hell no. It's scary just to think about.