Tomorrow is a New Day

[Breakdown]

I have have been trying to work on not letting what he does affect me.

I think that's key.

One thing I struggle with is control....on both sides. I have a lot of fear of getting hurt, so I try to control things...pretty much by any means necessary. Sometimes I'd demand things a certain way, sometimes I'd guilt my W, sometimes I'd criticize...once you start recognizing it, you'll see how it comes out a bunch of different ways. If something doesn't work, you switch to something else. You can see this a lot in LA's posts in how her H behaves...same for me.

On the other side is letting someone else control you. I think it's the tougher of the two really (though both are difficult!). When you get frustrated, angry, sad, etc....is this because of you, or are you letting someone else's behavior control you? It's a struggle, but I just say it in my head "I'm not going to be controlled by W." Sometimes that simply means not getting angry, sometimes that means staying happy even when she's ignorant, sometimes it's simply ignoring stupid crap that comes out of their mouths.

Taking care of a disabled child is tiring and emotionally draining at times. I get mad that I am shouldering the burden.

I applaud you for being a strong woman and the strong mother your D needs. I realize this must be extremely difficult, especially when H isn't chipping in. But what if you got a D? Do you think he'd really have her 1/2 the time? This is kinda how I approached it myself. I just think, hey, it's all on me, and then I balance it out the best I can. Sometimes I take one of the kids with me when I do something for me (movie, happy hour, etc) and sometimes I simply let the W know I'm busy. I find being "matter of fact" helps with this.

I am not gone a lot........The activities that I've done in the evenings over the past few weeks are out of the ordinary.

This was not a criticism. You have to GAL, so nothing wrong with that. My point was only that an insecure person would probably struggle with the times you are gone, whether it's evenings, weekends or whatever. I just don't get that vibe from what I've read here.

I mentioned how I've been treated if I changed food, including one stupid brand of something. I've been yelled at, left at the table, had the food thrown out. One of the D bombs came on an evening that I had made something new that he didn't like. He's also told me that when I change brands of something I do it on purposed to make him mad. I don't get the double standard and don't care for it.

Again, I'm not saying it's ok for you to be treated this way, just that it seems like a silly thing to be having an argument over. If he's so shallow that he thinks you're changing BBQ sauce to make his life miserable, let him get his own damn sauce and don't wallow into the mud with him.

Abandonment - his dad died when he was 33 and going thru hell. His mom died when he was 40 and 2 weeks before our D was born. Both of his xW's were the plaintiffs. His brother is off on a drug binge and always is. D is his only child and it has been hard for him to accept her limitations.

Several years ago, I did threaten to leave. After I realized that was not what I wanted, I sat him down and told him it was not what I wanted, that I was stupid for saying it and that I was sorry. Since that time, I have never threated with D again. I think he is afraid that I will still leave him. Several times when we've fought he's said "Go ahead and tell me you want a D. I know you want to."

Perhaps all this anger he is throwing around is his way of protecting himself?

And as I mentioned in LA's thread, I'm just a little in front of you guys, so take my 2 cents with a grain of salt. I don't have a success story to tell yet and am in much the same sitch as both of you.