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I finally blew up at the A last night. I do not do that on a daily basis anymore. I had asked him at least 101 times to get the lawmower from the landlord. He always belittles my needs, my issues, my requests come last. But his requests, oh his requests have to come first.
For a month I have been asking him to get the lawnmower from the landlord. Every day he has a new excuse. By now our lawn is looking like a total mess. He does not care. I get pleasure from gardening. Does he encourage no. All my energy is supposed to go into his issues, his needs, his demands. And he always has a demand. If I am on the computer, he needs it, if I am in the bathroom, he needs to be there. Whatever I am doing he needs it more. and of course I am supposed to smile when I yield.
Finally last night after he had demanded that I go get a gallon of milk from the expensive corner store, I had had enough. I am not speaking to him or taking care of anything he needs till he gets the lawnmower. Of course he does his usual threatening saying he is going to leave. Of course he does his latest withdrawal "sulk" of his needs are not being met. While neither are mine. In fact mine are never even acknowledged.
The irony is that I have been working in therapy on how in my family of origin, there was so much withholding and so much jealousy and so much anger. and here I am with a person who totally replicates what I dealt with in my family of origin 24/7. The A takes it all out on me. I am supposed to listen for hours on end while he goes on about a work problem. Does he have time for my problems, not one second. Whatever my problems are they are mine alone to deal with. in fact he regularly, totally adds to my problems. If I have a need, it is seen as total sacrilege. How could I be so selfish as to have a need when he has so many more?
I am tired of being the only one giving in the relationship. This Sunday is Father's day, normally I would make an effort to give him stuff from the pets. This year I am not. What did I get on mother's day, zilch. I stopped giving as much to him, now I am going to start putting myself first. On my birthday he did not give me one fraction of what I gave him. There was no cooked meal, no party, no nothing. He went to the take out to get me a salad. Yes that was something, was it a carefuly prepared meal. No. But then I am not supposed to expect anthing from him. For him to breathe is supposed to be a miracle isn't it?
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the only person he thinks about is himself. I asked him 101 times for the lawnmower, every day for a month. Every single day. Yesterday I called him (which is a difficult thing to do from my job) twice. The lawn looks terrible. Is it an issue for him. Nope. Well now his needs, his concerns are not going to be an issue for me. That's it.
Please keep in mind that he gave our lawn mower to one of his friends (who come above everything always) to break. So we have no lawn mower. He takes zero responsiblity for that, he is totally innocent. Of course he is only a victim. None of his behavior or putting everyone everyone, even some stranger before me has anything to do with it. Its the friends fault, its the world's fault, its never his fault. He did not contribute to it one bit.
This weekend I am going to for once go to a face to face meeting. I put them off because I don't have the money or resources or time. I put so much energy into keeping going with the house, the pets, the home. Why bother? I am tired of giving till I bleed and bleed and bleed. I am tired of my needs, my concerns, my wants never even getting a look in.
He can clean up his own mess. I am not going to cook, clean or do groceries till the lawnmower comes. I will eat out and feed the pets and take care of my own room, that's it. He can be ignored the way he totally ignores the 101 requests I made.
Right on! I don't blame you one bit. I would put your needs first and let him take care of himself. If he sulks, oh well. A's are so selfish and everything that goes wrong is everyone else's fault. If we decide to do something for ourselves, then WE are the ones being selfish. Your situation is almost exactly like mine! My A will do anything for our neighbors, but if I need something, I'm being selfish. I get tired of cooking what he wants and listening to him go on and on about how everyone has always wronged him in some way. He has the neighbors believing that everyone has ripped him off or done something wrong to him and he's never done anything wrong in his life. That's a buch of BS. He doesn't threaten to leave, but he knows that if he does leave, I'm probably better off so I wouldn't really care that much.
I have had to keep asking my A, begging my A and demanding that my A fix something or do something. Over the winter our furnace was broken. My A was laid off of work, but made very little attempts to fix it. We live in Minnesota and it gets pretty damn cold here. He didn't care; as long as he could drink himself into a stupor, he could care less about the heat. I called a friend who could fix it (which wouldn't cost our life savings), but he was afraid to go to the house to fix it.
Anyway, keep taking care of yourself and your pets. I'm sorry your lawn looks so terrible. Is there a neighborhood kid around that you could pay to do it? Good luck.
Wow! You go girl! I know how you feel and I realize the point you are trying to make. However when I tried that with my AH it backfired. Is there a reason you cannot get the lawn mower from the landlord? I only ask because so much energy is spent trying to force his behavior. When I am thinking maybe you could just get the dang thing yourself?
I do applaud your standing up for yourself though. They are selfish and thier needs always are more important than ours. I just hate to see you go through the drama I went through.
I know exactly how you feel and what you are going through. My first husband was an exact replica of your A. Stick with your plan and you will grow into a new person. Stick to going to a face to face...you will find so much support there too. Mind you, it doesnt cost money to go either...just a small donation of a dollar or more if you can spare it. I know it's hard sticking to the plan excpecially when you have an A that threatens and belittles when you try to do the right thing but the bottom line is this: They are very weak and they are afraid of us growing because that means they are exposed so they try to bring us down to their level which in many, many cases I fell victom to!! But when I started playing as if I am worth something to my past A he in turn became to so ridiculous to me with his pouting and belittling that I eventually started seeing that I was not a lazy person, that I was not a stupid person like he would say, but that I was a person who was in a very bad relationship with a person who was very sick.......they can get better but in the meantime just remember that they are going to want it....and we can only move on and make our lives better with or without them.
