Ai yi yi...my XH had that absence of responsibility thing when it came to the D big time...even well into the separation...he would forget himself and say how awful something was, and I'd suggest that it didn't have to be, and he would just sort of fade out of the conversation....
I think he has always been that way as far as responsibilities that he is going to shirk, or "assign" to me, but would like to pretend that he isn't. He has a certain strongly held image of himself (your high principles, jaybee), and whenever he was going to act in a way that contradicted the image, he would frame it as something he had no control over. Bleh. I didn't like it then and I still don't!
His other MLC common thread is the awful, awful childhood experience. And I have to still remind myself of that to have a chance at compassion.
