This all so resonates with me, so much of this sounds so familiar.
I haven't had insight into a lot of what is going on in his "mind" because we have mercifully had minimal contact. I got some vicious spew early on when he was pushing for me to hurry and divorce, and crap along the lines of, "you think this is funny don't you?", "you enjoy manipulating me," and "I can see you are enjoying this," all in response to my unwillingness to consent to a settlement that gave him all of the assets and me all of the debt. You just can't make it up...
Since then, as I said, my conversations and emails with him have been relatively minimal, but what I have heard from his former boss, who is my friend, is that he proclaimed that he had "always lived his life for everyone else, now it was his turn." He even went so far as to declare this in a job interview when quizzed about the bizarre working condition demands he was making. Coffee ran through my nose when I heard it.
It's so far removed from reality of our marriage to be other worldly. Every move we made, every choice that was made in our marriage, every life change was precipitated by either his expression of "I want this" or "I can't do this." It's also so inconsistent with this humble and honest and earnest man that I married, that high moral plane you all were discussing earlier.
But you can see the connection to his childhood; I attribute it to "baby boy" speak. Pedro is the last son of four, and the child immediately before the only girl. He was essentially born and then dumped to be raised by wolves. His older brothers controlled his every move, which he both found comfort in and resented. His parents took no interest in him. His father was treading water to support this huge family on one income; his mother was obsessed with his baby sister.
It's just so sad, that someone reaches 50 and is completely paralyzed by something that happened so long ago, and more importantly, something they refuse to face head on and find a way to reconcile.
