H made many references to ageing over the two days, how he was nearly 50 (he turns 45 next month, I am three months younger!!), how the backs of his hands look old, how he had a firm jawline (while looking at an old photo) and on and on. Another classic sign of MLC.
Also, the vanity. He was sitting there at one point, wearing a cotton knitted jumper which makes him look like a Breton fisherman, and complaining how cold it was. My heating was going full blast. I said, H, you need to wear wool in the winter, not cotton. Told him I had some old (but very good condition) wool jumpers of his still here. Went and got one. He looked at it and said dismissively oh that, I'm never going to wear that ever again! I said, why is that, because you don't look like a Breton fisherman in it (his current idea of cool) and he said, yeah.
I am the female here and yet H is far more worried than I am about ageing and looks. Go figure.
When he arrived on Friday, he walked straight in, no perfunctory kiss on the cheek even. Mentioned more than once that he had had an emotionally exhausting week. Made me feel like a hotel service, and yet I smiled and prepared and served meals and talked and joked as if this was all OK.
But back to our talk on Christmas evening.
I wanted to put him straight about the old 'Livnlearn never did anything in ten years of marriage' thing - I gave him a laundry list of things I had done, including money earned and how he had benefiitted from me. He was not able to refute any of them. But says that he always felt as if his earning money counted for nothing while everything that I did counted. Who said? This stems from the lawyers explaining to him that he needs to support me and D as I have been the main homemaker and child carer for the years of our marriage.
He said, if he could afford to come live down in the city, then he would take D off of my hands more. He seemed to not know that the amount he paid for D represented the whole cost of D's expenses, not just 'his half'. Said I was inflating the figure. When he was informed that it was the total figure, seeing as I was the one with full time custody, he looked outraged that he was paying for ALL of D's expenses. I don't know where that man keeps his brain. It's not in the right place these days. Anyway, he feels an even greater sense of entitlement now.
He empahsised how much he had worked in the marriage, I pointed out to him his own boast once of how he could do enough work to get by in six hours a day, and have the computer switched off by 2pm leaving him time to do other stuff the rest of the day, while my working week was always more than 30 hours with the house and D and him. Pointed out that just like the last two days, where I had shopped, cooked, served, washed up, done washing, cleaned house etc etc, I had been busy virutally the whole time while he was able to relax, have long naps etc.
And he replied, well, you wouldn't have been able to do all that if you had been working...
He admitted his own house was in a terrible state, dirty. I know his batchelor ways, he would not be able to run a HOME, as opposed to a pigsty, for D to live in long term.
He told me he had been so poor that once he had had nothing but rice and salt to eat for a number of days. I said really? but took it with a pinch of salt. He once told me ages ago that he had had no money to buy food while I was away visiting my family in other country (when we had less money than these days) and when I returned I opened the kitchen cupbaord to find loads of staples there - rice, pasta etc, that he hadn't been bothered to cook. What he meant was, he was too poor to go and eat out to eat or get a take away.
I know that D sometimes comes back very hungry from visits to her Dad. Yet, this man has bought expensive pieces of equipment this year, for himself.
I told him about the work on my website. He eventually took a quick look at it after I told him about it a couple of times, and set it up on my computer. He was again luke warmly congratulatory and told me to get it out and about more, in his patronsising way, like he's the one who knows.
(Talking of which, I have had some very, very positive reviews of my work (words like - breathtaking, outstanding, fantastic, beautiful, great, top, gorgeous, lovely, a treat, absolutely stupendous, deeply moving) - the only people who haven't been back to me immediately with any positive feedback after looking carefully at the site are -
1)H
2)my good friend here, she just said congrats in a gereral way and
3) my sister.
Is there something in this pattern?)
I told H that it was out of order to tell me that I had 'stolen everything he had', that if anything I was doing a fine balancing act of holding everything together in a holding pattern, waiting for his eventual awakening. Bad DBing I know, but I was working up to a LRT. I got tearful and emotional, told him I still loved him and held out hope that he would want to come back and work on our R, that I meant those vows when I said them.
He apologised for the 'stolen' comment.
H looked slightly touched/embarassed, gave my arm a squeeze and told me he was sorry but that it would never happen (him coming back).
This morning just before he left and we were having a coffee, I told him that whatever he thought on his side, I was telling him that I was prepared in my mind to wait till April before giving up and moving on. That would make it two years from the bomb. And since he is not deeply embroiled with an OW just now, he has some time and space to think things over.
I really am ready to do something. Cut the losses and grieve and get over him and eventually move on, or reconsile, but no more waiting around in this way. It is an untenable situation. And come April and he hasn't moved his position, I will take decisions that are totally selfish from my and D's point of view, won't take into account H at all, I can't afford to any longer. *If* it means D doesn't see her Dad that often, so be it.
I also said, I wanted his payments to me to be set up as a standing order so they were regular, and that I would undertake to pay nearly half the mortgage. I don't know where I will find it, but after that point, I know in my mind that he cannot harrass me a further minute about money, it will be what he HAS to pay for his D, full stop. No more whingeing.
He eventually agreed to that. Said we can do that next time he is down in town. At first he got angry and said, why should I trust you, I said, why shouldn't you trust me? I have kept the bank card because your payments to me did not arrive on time so I was forced to withdraw the money myself, I have not taken a penny more than the agreement.
When he left he gave me a hug (the first in ages, perhaps in about ten months).
I don't know if there are any positives here... this was no standard DBing stuff. I showed him my hand, but told him my deadline.
He stated that there was no chance he would come back, a couple of times. But he did smile at me, squeeze my hand once and give me a hug. Maybe just guilt, but better than being shouted at and having the place trashed.
He is not fixed up with a OW at present, though he will probably stay at OW 1's when he is town, he told me again he was my ex-husband.
Ellie, if you are reading this, I don't think he comes here to spend time with me, it is becuase he feels he is entitled to 'use' the home he pays for blah blah blah.
Now, I am left with a fridge full of uneaten food as I had catered for a five night stay, not a two night one. I gave some Christmas pud to H to take up. He will be reminded of me, ha.
To be continued...
Livnlearn
"The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates
