more from H. So, it's Youngest's birthday in a couple of weeks and he wanted to discuss the party. What usually happens is that we have a small party with his school friends in the garden, and when they leave all our family comes around for a barbecue. He wanted to know if I'd discussed it with Youngest and what the plans were - which is fair enough. And I have, and Youngest wants to have things as usual this year.
I suggested we split it over two days - that the friends party and the family party one after the other had always been quite stressful and busy and a lot of work, and that I wasn't really up to it, and given that things were so fraught and fragile, perhaps making it a bit easier on ourselves would be a good idea. He wasn't happy about that. A rant about how it was about Youngest's needs and not mine, and as I'd not been able to put Youngest first for our whole lives together, I might as well start doing it now, and I clearly just didn't want to see his family because I was embarrassed and ashamed that they knew our problems.
I said it's nothing to do with that, and I told you what it was to do with, and this is my home and I am telling you what I need and what I can do.
It is so exhausting. We can't even have a brief conversation about practical matters to do with Youngest without him bringing the past into it. I have been living like this for a long time. I asked him to cut me some slack, and he said I was in his emotional debt. I said relationships don't work like that and he could either leave the past in the past and concentrate on the present, or sit in the past and his blame on his own, but there was no way I could 'work off' what he saw as my 'debt' by absorbing his poor behaviour any more and I didn't plan to.
It went on like that for a while, then he went. I wish I'd never got into it with him. It was a really really rubbish attempt at going dark. He seems to be able to bring the attacking into any conversation - even the ones that we really have to have, about the kids. It's not unreasonable he wants to know what the plans are for Youngest's birthday and to be involved in them, but the conversation ended up not being about that at all. We weren't raising our voices but it was upsetting and stressful and brought us no nearer to deciding what to do for Youngest. I don't want a packed day where we're both having to fake some friendliness or I'm having to ignore his behaviour so that Youngest doesn't pick up on it. I would like to be able to give Youngest what he wants, but I am not sure either me or his father are in that place yet.
Either way, there will be the children's party and I will decide on the day and send the invitations today. I won't do anything about a family party because I don't want one (I'm not close to my family, so it would just be my in-laws, none of which have made any contact with me since the separation, despite us being reasonably close before) and H can handle that if that is what he wants. I guess I could just leave and let H have that party on his own with his family and the kids, but it's my house and H said I couldn't avoid his family forever, and I suppose he's right. It's not really about that though - I'm perfectly able to be civil for a few hours for the sake of Youngest. It's just I don't trust him not to use it as an opportunity to make me suffer, knowing that I'll just paint on a smile and tolerate it for the sake of Youngest.
