You are so much like me you really are - LOL. And it is all about our Dads, we didn't get that fix of unconditional love from a male early on that would have let us know what it felt like. The yearning for that leads us to supplicate ourselves and be confused about boundaries. I was a total Daddy's girl as a kid and the apple of his eye, it all suddenly changed in adolescence and what I now finally realise is that HE couldn't handle me turning into a woman. He couldn't handle the stength of his feelings - some would have been sexual - so he distanced himself in a very aggressive way. I felt the loss so keenly I can remember falling on my knees in my room after an argument with him, sobbing and saying to myself *my Dad is dead*
To return to your sitch: H has boundaries about what he is NOT willing to do for you. But it is obviously more comfortable, more convenient etc for him to live under your roof.
OK he does not have a romantic R with you - he is a roommate. Start looking at it that way. It is clear in my opinion that that is what he wants. There are an awful lot of men who would just disintegrate and become winos without a woman around to attend to the practical stuff so he has sneaked back under your roof to get his dinners cooked and his washing done - or whatever other choresome aspects of everyday life that men appear to think women were put on this earth to perform. We *stupidly* go along with it because we want a relationship - a connection with an adult human being - a life partner - a sex partner - someone to hang out with etc etc.
OK now imagine H was gone and you needed a roomie. What would be your ground rules for good behaviour on the part of the roomie? These are your boundaries. If you still want him around and don't want to kick him out I mean. You like having another adult presence in the house and you like enough about him to regard him as a friend. He also happens to be the father of your son but that is kind of by the by. Can I ask you a personal question - this is the SSM board after all - do you and H share the same bed? Because if you do I think it is time to kick him out of your bed and lay down the room-mate ground rules. Everything he is doing and saying indicates that that is the way he wants it to be. Your R is about co-parenting, sharing bills and living under the same roof. It is not about being a couple.
Quote: But I *can't* require anything from X. Or at least I can't see how I can. He does what he wants. Example: I had a friend and her kids over for dinner tonight. X refused to come down and eat with us, saying he felt "sick." ... "That's just the way I am, Landica. It's not my problem that you're not happy with it. If you don't like it, leave."
This exactly indicates what I mean, Landica thinks of L&H as a couple, H does not. If he thought of himself as part of a couple he would have made the effort, if you thought of him as a roommate it would not bother you that he did not eat with you.
You have to get happy with the fact that he does not see himself as part of a couple and be his roommate or accept the fact that you cannot handle the confusion of living under the same roof with a man you were once in a R with and show him the door.
Fran
if we can be sufficient to ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs Erica Jong
