starzlookdown
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not around to see what I do
Warning: this is a major rant.
I had a big blow up with my spouse just before Christmas, when it was suddenly revealed that as far as he is concerned I do nothing around the house and he is getting "nothing" while supporting me. I held my ground and started telling him that I clean up after him as much as I clean up after the boys, but one person can't keep on top of the mess created by three males (who don't even do little things, like rinse their stubble out of the sink, or put away condiments before they go eat a sandwich they've made), plus three cats and a dog who sheds grey fluffy undercoat with every breath. I had a lot more to say too -- about how my opinion about anything to do with the house is ignored by him, and anything I've ever bought that needed muscle and tools to be installed, ended up sitting around for years until I gave it away to Goodwill -- but of course he walked away like he always does when its time to hear MY side of things.
The fact is that I am treated with such disrespect at times, yet other times he acts like a decent guy. I seriously have wondered if he might have a split personality to some degree!
We avoided each other and I didn't talk to him for a week, except on Christmas day with the kids, we faked it so we wouldn't ruin their Christmas. I started talking to him a few days ago because I realized that there's no way I can move out at this point, so we'd better try and get along. I'm starting a course next week so I'll probably have to live here for another 2 years, at least.
It really hurts me that just when I thought I was doing better, it becomes clear that someone who is out of this house 6 days per week just assumes I'm doing nothing. He doesn't notice what HAS been done, he just notices what HASN'T been done. It's easy to see dishes waiting to go into the dishwasher. It's harder to understand that the previous load had to be run twice because someone didn't soak the pans with baked on food first, so I had to do it and put the same things back in again. It's harder to notice when garbage bags have been replaced and the cat litter only had one pee in it because I cleaned all four boxes 2 hrs ago. It's hard to notice that I swept the entire house yesterday because the dog has already shed some more hair the next day.
(Yes, we brush her, but she's just not a breed that should be in as much as she is. I can't let her out to run a lot because its too easy to get out of our yard and she likes to explore.)
We all have our weak areas and there are things that I don't do as often as I should, especially cleaning old stuff out of the fridge, and I used to let the basement litter boxes get a little too poopy between changes. I had already improved on both those things before this insulting blow up.
I truly believe that something else set him off and I was just the whipping post, but its also possible that the asshole really believes I don't do anything around here. He makes a point of NOT cleaning up after himself just like he makes a point of NOT doing anything I ask ("Please don't put your feet on the coffee table. That's why I bought you a recliner." "Could you install those new light fixtures for me?" "When you guys put in the new tub, make sure you add a hand held shower nozzle. It makes it easier to clean the shower." "Could you park in front of the restaurant instead of on the side street?") Those are just a few examples of the MANY things he's totally ignored. It's like he figures he should MAKE extra work for me because he wants to believe I don't deserve any cooperation or consideration.
He has also stood in the way of me trying to make improvements to this house so that I will hate it less. I tried to get large area rugs to cover the damaged floor in the family room. He insisted he wanted to put in hardwood, even though we can't afford that and we CAN afford a couple of area rugs. I need him to pick up the carpets because he has a pick up truck (its standard transmission so I can't drive it), unless I spring for the cost of delivery -- and I probably will someday. He had a face like a thundercloud when I tried to get a contractor lined up so that after 11 years we would finally have a useable master bathroom, then the money was spent somewhere else so THAT never got done. Then there's all the things I've bought that had to be given to Goodwill because he wouldn't install them. I couldn't even get him to take an old sofa to the dump. It sat in my way for 8 months before my son's girlfriend borrowed her mother's van and moved it for me!
Down the basement there are baseboards that were cut to the right lengths and painted when we moved in 11-1/2 years ago. I've had them brought up so my son and I could install them. He insists that they are too warped to use now and had the boys take them right back down again when I was out. They are thin and could be straightened simply by being nailed on for pete's sake.
When I bought matching bedside tables for our room he wouldn't move his old table out and put the new table in its place. I asked him to several times and he got snappy and said he was too tired, he'd do it another day. I gave him a week, then gave the bedside table to my son. At that point I'd be damned if I was going to do it for him, especially as its a tight corner. (We have a king sized mattress stuffed into an old waterbed frame, so the damn thing can't be shifted.)
Life with him feels like some stupid power struggle. He doesn't want to do anything to improve the house because that would mean doing something that would please me. Of course if I said that to him he'd look at me like I was crazy and accuse me of being paranoid, but its been an isolated and rare occasion when he has ever done anything I asked. We renovatedthe main bathroom a couple of years ago. He got an employee to do it and I'm afraid it one amateurish looking job. The ceramics are uneven, not quite finished, and the tub creaks when you stand in it. They also bought the taps that are close together and hard to clean between -- which I expressly asked them to NOT buy. That was my mistake I guess. I should have asked them to buy that style and then he would have gotten the ones that are further apart and easier to clean around.
---
Lo's Road (at Multiply blogs)
The point of the journey,
is not "to arrive"...
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1/2/2009, 10:12 am
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Blue Jeanz
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Registered: 04-2006
Location: Pennsylvania, USA
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Re: not around to see what I do
That totally sucks. You are living with a man that sounds very much like my own father was. I hate to tell you this but he will never ever ever change and things will only get worse.
You say you can't move out and go on your own. Bull****.
Just do it. There is always a way. Unless you do you will never be happy. Who could be happy with a man who treats you like that?
My mother divorced my Dad when I was 18, and we kids always wondered why she waited so long. She said she stayed with him because of us - don't do that to your kids. If you are unhappy and living in those conditions I guarantee you are not doing your kids any favors by staying in that awful situation.
I would have been gone long ago. Even if I had to live in a one room sleeping room for a while.
Your goal in life should be to be happy. You don't sound very happy. How happy are you? How happy is he? How happy are your kids? Why should life be a miserable existence?
When my stepmother married my Dad I warned her, seriously, I did. Then throughout their marriage she would call me and complain about him. He did similar things to her that your husband is doing to you. I told her the same thing. Leave that marriage for your own sake and find something or someone who will make you happy. She never did and lived a pretty miserable 25 years with him. He was verbally and emotionally abusive. He made her feel worthless and her self-esteem was as low as it could go.
Those kinds of people seem to dedicate their lives to making other people miserable and the bad thing is, the longer you live with him the more you will be like him, and so will your children. Do you want them to be like him? Do you want to be like him?
I fight with myself everyday to NOT be like my father. I find myself being critical and rude and saying things that he would say, and I recognize it - I hate that about myself. I am always trying to change that part of myself. It's hard to do when you were raised with it your whole life.
Get out now for everyone's sake. Leave him to his miserable self and get on with your life before it's too late. Before something happens that traps you into staying and traps you into a prison that you can't get out of until he dies.
Yes, this is a harsh post. Reality is like that. I saw this happen with my own eyes and I feel very bad for you to be in this position. You are probably at your lowest right now and that makes it harder to imagine changing your life. But I would make a plan, right now. Set a goal. Start saving some money. Start looking for an out for yourself. There is one. Nobody has to live like that, nobody. It's not the way it has to be unless you continue to want that for yourself. Stop punishing yourself. Move on. You can do it and when you do, you will wonder why it took you so long, and wonder how much better your life could have been if you would have woke up years ago.
I'm so sorry that you have to live like that Starz and I only wish the best for you. But you have to want a better life more than anything else to be able to escape. Don't let him shackle you to that life - there is so much more.
You can tell me to mind my own business and I'll understand. I'm not sure if you wanted my opinion or not but I had to unload all that anyway. For my sake as well as yours. I'm still emotionally scarred, it doesn't go away - it's always just under the surface, but you can work on changing your life in a positive direction. Never stop doing that. 
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1/2/2009, 11:05 am
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starzlookdown
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Re: not around to see what I do
Hey Val, I'm not going to tell you to mind your own business because I did bring the issue here. Yes, it is a harsh reply but it is also an honest one and I appreciate that.
Regarding the idea that I can leave right now, though, I really don't have anywhere I can stay nor any money to pay rent. I've thought it over and no one I am related to has an extra room, and I'm afraid I have very few friends offline. I know I could probably force him to pay rent if I get to a lawyer and I HAVE started looking up local ones. I read in a book somewhere that you should get the divorce thingee written up and just hold onto it till you are ready to use it, and I think I will do that. In the meantime my nursing course starts in about 9 days and I have to rely on his earnings to pay for gas, and whatever other fees they spring on me at the Orientation next week.
Another problem: I really don't want to leave my youngest son with him because they never did bond and it would all get taken out on him, so wherever I go, there has to be room for him too, and he's not a little boy, he's a full sized teenager.
I have started putting some money aside (wish i'd been doing that for the past 23 years, but it was often hand-to-mouth around here) and I am thinking of making an appointment for marriage counseling so that I can put all my cards on the table in front of a professional, and he will be forced to listen to my side instead of walking away. That way he can't come up with any BS about me when I sue for divorce, because I'm sure he would otherwise.
Unfortunately we have a guest borrowing my daughter's room - a girl who got kicked out of her home because she can't get along with her mother although she seems fine to me - and if her live-in nanny job falls through she may be needing that room for a few months longer. Otherwise I would already be sleeping in there.
The matter is made more upsetting by the fact that I think he really has been making an effort to be a better man over the past 7 or 8 years, and this bad side of him only emerges about 5% of the time now, but that 5% is devastating to my confidence and self-esteem, and has completely destroyed my trust. I agree with you that I should have left back when he was worse, because who knows how much of that was imprinted on the kids -- even though I had four kids and he wasn't making as much back then. He's never been physically abusive or even verbally abusive, but he is emotionally abusive by doing the things I described and making the assumptions he obviously makes about me in order to rationalize them.
---
Lo's Road (at Multiply blogs)
The point of the journey,
is not "to arrive"...
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1/3/2009, 10:05 am
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Blue Jeanz
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Registered: 04-2006
Location: Pennsylvania, USA
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…
In the states we have an organization called The Haven, and there are others too. You may have some kind of organization there too that's similar. It is for women in abusive situations. You can take your children with you. You leave him and go there. They protect you and keep everything confidential about your whereabouts too. They help you find the answers, housing, government assistance, medical and legal assistance. It is a wonderful organization. You should find out about that in Canada, and keep their number handy if it ever comes to that.
One thing you may want to do is this little ploy. Only do housework when he is AROUND. That way he can actually SEE you working. If you want to relax, do it when he's not there. As soon as he walks in the door start doing the laundry, the supper, the floors, the bathroom, whatever. Be a total workaholic when he's around. Gotta do what you gotta do!
My husband isn't a handyman by any stretch of the word, so I can feel your frustration when you say you want to improve your home but he won't do the work and refuses to pay for it. There really isn't much you can do about that except learn to live with what you have. I've had to compromise in that department too. If it makes you feel any better, I have friends whose husband ARE handy around the house, and they start lots of projects all the time but they go on for years and years without getting finished! So maybe we should be glad ours don't do anything! I can't imagine having to walk around building materials and cleaning up the plaster dust all the time!
I hope you can figure it out for yourself. My post was angry and I apologize. It's just that I'm remembering what I went through with my Dad and all those emotions came out on you.
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1/3/2009, 11:12 am
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