Changing Directions

[mamabird]

Sorry Breakdown, I guess I'm just not seeing it as poking the beehive. Help me figure that one out - because I'm having a lot of trouble here. I suppose I can accept that losing my temper when he was about to leave with the boys maybe was...but in a way I feel like he was poking my beehive pretty considerably.

Sometimes I do get cooperation. H does help with things around the house. He went to the store for me last night. He is dropping something off for me tomorrow. He helped me fix my mixer tonight. Etc. It is not always 100% awful.

Priorities - ok, maybe it was MY priority to get the laundry finished. And, as it turned out, it didn't get done b/c H put his foot down and said we had to leave. The fight was not about the laundry. He just wanted to fight.

Furthermore... when H started in with me, I was just minding my own business. Was not asking for help - just asked for a few more minutes to finish up. When he said no, I said that's unreasonable, and then he opened the floodgates on me. So me saying he was being unreasonable was the provocation? Sorry, but isn't it NOT ok for him to pull that crap? It feels not ok for him to be so rigid.

All of a sudden I'm reminded of the "closet night" - a night in Sept 2011 when H asked me to come home early. I told him I couldn't but he wouldn't accept that; called when I was on my way and then there was more traffic than usual. When I got home he was in a foul, cold mood - completely rejecting - and I broke down and sat in the fetal position in my closet. I have written about this night before. It was his rigid stance that reminds me of it now. Maybe he wanted me to prove my love by dropping everything and running home from work, but I couldn't see that then. Maybe now he wanted me to prove my love and loyalty this time by being ready to go at 11 am on the dot. That doesn't feel like a loving act. That feels like manipulation. As spineless as I have been in the last 6 months, I can still see the writing on the wall.

Breakdown, I don't know if you can't see it but I really don't have any hope of H changing anymore. As much as I need to change, he does too if this M is going to work. Our M feels very abusive and I can't play this game anymore. It is going to kill me the same way my old boss almost sucked the life out of me. I stayed in that job for money, security, and fear of not being able to find another job, even though I hated it and wasn't being respected. I am in this M now for money, security and fear of not being able to find another man, even though I dislike my current sitch quite strongly and am not being respected.

We are not friends. We are not partners. We are roommates and co-parents; we are "associates" as a friend of mine puts it.