FarmGirl's Story

MORE (remember this was written in 2010): 1. Tonight I was driving on the freeway to pick him up from work & a semi dumped enough water on my car that I lost all visibility and then began to hydroplane (at 60 MPH w the 2 yo in the car), luckily the car is heavy and slowed quickly and steadily since the freeway narrows there and I was socked in with traffic... I was about 3 mins away from his work when it happened so I was still shaking and nearly in tears when I got there. He acknowledged us and got in the car to drive. I told him what happened and he said oh scary. Then proceeded to READ the words on the brightly colored panel truck next to us...and talk about what we were having for dinner. 2. Toddler started choking seriously tonight while daddy was getting him ready for bed. Lucky I was standing there because he didn't even react...he just kept changing the diaper and talking to me... 3. When we got home tonight, he went thru his mail routine while dinner sat getting cold on the table. Mail routine = examining each piece of mail thoroughly and reading the advertisements. 4. This morning I was fiddling with a hangnail and drinking my coffee when he comes and says I have a sore nail too look! And then shows me every scuff and snag and crack in his nails... MORE: His XW told me that when he came back to get his stuff that he stole a bunch of her stuff. Like half the silverware (which he still has & we use...now I know why it's a partial set...), her grandmother's buffet, towels, books, etc... Leaving him may be a bit of a mess. Sigh. MORE: I hardboiled some eggs with Turmeric to dye them naturally for the 2yo for Easter. He actually SCOLDED me for using all his Turmeric up (I did not, there are about 3 cups left...& that goes a loooOOOOoong ways)... My reply was after 8 years if you still think some spices are ****ing yours / mine you're more warped than I ever imagined. He shut up. MORE: I'm really trying to find the oomph to want to leave. How can I live like this for 8 years and just not have it in me to run as far and as fast as I can away from this guy? He's made me into a shell of myself and I'm dead inside, yet all I do is keep rationalizing staying. I just want to be myself again and hear myself think w/o wondering what odd thing will wake up the "odd side" of him again... Every night when I pick him up from work (my car is still broke down) it's always a game to see how sweet & distracting I can be so he won't go into one of his moods. I'm worn down from play acting like everything is so cute and fun with him when we have no real relationship or meaning to our life together. The only thing we really even talk about is the 2 yo & what's for dinner. What is it about this that makes me feel like I can't just turn my back on it? I feel like a traitor to him. I feel responsible because I know he can't keep all the pieces of his life together if I go (or so I tell myself)... Agh. You on the outside see this as so easy... Me? I feel like there is a huge jungle between me & the truth right now. MORE: I spent an hour at the babysitter's tonight after going to pick the wee one up (in tears)... She needs paid & I need to fix my car...so I asked the SO to pay daycare last week - it was due Friday the 9th. The amount of what I (WE) owe her is $500 which is about what it will take to fix my car. Today I got chastised by SO for not *budgeting* better. Sorry but my car only has 62K miles on it, who knew it would suddenly need work. He also still makes 2.4 X what I do...and I go into the red every 2 weeks paying the bills...so asking him to pay daycare for his OWN son 1x every 6 months or so really shouldn't be THAT much of a hardship. Especially since he pays less than his share of the bills if you split it by income... Anyways so I was discussing with the babysitter how I will probably just pay her tomorrow and fix my car later. Which still leaves me with this problem of not being able to drive myself ANYWHERE still... I honestly think the SO likes to have me use his car & pick him up etc...since it keeps me all neatly tied up into one spot. No running off for any social activities or otherwise when I have to commute with him and pick him up after work all the time...seems awfully convenient eh? I ramble but I need to vent...so bear with me or stop reading whichever suits you hehe. Last week I had 4 days of migraines so by Friday I was at the end of my rope emotionally and physically. The SO was keen enough to perceive that I was about to snap so he was extra SUPER sweet all weekend (not to mention I had emailed him about the daycare monies on Thursday). He cooked, cleaned, fixed my chicken coop roof all weekend etc...which in turn kept me busy and happy outwardly. But when it came time to pay the daycare he can't affford it, blames me, chastises me, etc... Keep in mind that we are going on 3 years of me having to weasel my way into having him pick up the daycare tab just a couple of times a year (for 1/2 a mo bill). Lord knows he could use the tax breaks from paying it, but he can't be bothered... I've read everything I can on Asperger's (not it), Psychopathic tendencies (maybe), Emotionally Distant Men (yes), Borderline Personality Disorder (maybe) etc. Should I even bother reading anymore? I feel like I am going to have a breakdown from walking on eggshells and not knowing if I am picking up Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde tonight. The only constant in my life is the love of my little 2 yo son. I do have a place to go and my mom may have cancer (she's extremely ill) so her & my dad really need me to come keep house and cook for them so this may be a good time to make the break. But I just don't know how to leave. All of my stuff is just tangled up with his and some of it is precious family heirlooms or I just can't part with it...but that said, I don't even have plates, or couches, or a mattress. I do own this house though and I'm thinking that even in this down economy it may be worth a nice little chunk more than I owe which would be probably be the only support I'd ever see from this relationship anyway. Anyone have any good thoughts about extricating myself from this horrid situation I am in? How do I leave with minimal confrontation? This is going to blow up on me if I am not careful. My XH & 1 grown boy can be around when I make the break, but I have to have my stuff sorted first or he'll glower over me and have fits about anything he thinks is his... I'm rambling to keep myself from totally losing it over the enormity of my situation. MORE: SO at first was such a self-assured man. I used to say that I liked him because he knew his own mind. But actually that was an incorrect assumption on my part...he changes his mind like people change socks (maybe even more frequently). You can bet if he tells you he HATES a restaurant one day; a month later it will be his favorite place. Or if he doesn't like a movie or a song, if I do, soon he will like them. It's not a case of immitation being the sincerest flattery, it's more like he just has no idea what he likes and has no control over what he says or thinks (or?)...it's really hard to buy him something or do something for him as he has no definite long-standing likes or dislikes... Here's a silly annoying thing - I always wanted a COEXIST sticker (yeah I'm a hippie ;o)). I wanted one for years, used to have it as my avatar even...so we go to a Saturday Mkt & there was a hippie guy there selling a bunch of bumper stickers like that...so I bought 1 & another political one. SO bought the exact ones and came straight home and put them on his car. Awww cute, matching bumps you say...I say NO. I've always wanted a Volkswagon Van. SO knows that of course. Today on the way to work SO says (upon seeing a fully restored Aqua colored one) HEY there's the car I want...(uhm?? WTF??). I have a hairdresser that I no longer go to because he started going to her. This was the SECOND one he did that to (I left the last one too). I bought some special lavender oil last time I went to my now ex hairdresser & a month later SO came home with the same thing. Is this just weird? I feel like my whole world is colored over by him and his big fat markers...hehe But wait, there's more... SO feeds the 2yo CANDY and/ or Nutella sandwiches for breakfast. Yes...you read that right - breakfast. Now if you knew me you'd be shocked...I am an organic farmer & big into local foods & super healthy eating. The fact that my SO does this (& he knows all about nutrition & healthy eating) is crazy. I've begged, pleaded, threatened etc...just saying please don't create a candy monster 2 yo. Please think of his growth & health...but nothing doing. He still feeds him total processed crap. Which if our customers knew they'd think we didn't walk the walk...ya know? I realize that my organic tendencies do not have to be his, but at least no candy for breakfast eh??? Ugh. SO's bday is coming up. He never bothered to help me with the daycare this week...so I told him today that his present was me paying the daycare. LOL. I'm horrible I know. Ahh here's another fun fact: I need to go out to the farm & work, but SO makes it impossible by either guilting me into staying home, not letting me drive his car since mine is still broke down, or just making me miserable if I want to go (ie not getting up until 11 AM which means I don't get there until noon...and then he wants me home by 5 PM so I drive 2 hrs to work for 4 hrs)... I needed to use his SUV this winter (when my car still worked) to deliver some farm goods...but he wouldn't let me borrow it even though he would have had my very nice clean car... ((Now he let's me drive his SUV every day cuz of my car situation))...so I had to make multiple trips in my small car and it took all day in the rain so I ended up soaked from loading and unloading the car so many times. It was a miserable day that would have been somewhat easier had I been able to make ONE trip in the SUV. All these things I just do not understand. How can someone just be a total jerk like this? Do they even have a conscience? Or a soul? MORE: Agh here's another one - when my teen boys lived at home my SO would purposefully leave the bedroom door open when I was just coming out of the shower or otherwise undressed. These aren't little kids, these were nearly grown men...who have no business seeing their mother naked. This went on until I started wearing PJs (which I do to this day thanks to that) & dressing in the bathroom. Such a mean violation of my privacy! He never respected or cared to stop it. He also has a problem sharing his stuff...if you borrow something he hovers until you give it back. If you use something he thinks is his (ie we had 2 GameCubes -purple (his), silver(ours) & he had a fit over us using the silver one...it took me SHOWING him a receipt to prove it was ours to use. Same with our Nintendo 64, we had one - he did too. He freaked if he thought we were touching his, and/or his games or controllers. You don't touch his computers, phone, w/o him having a fit...both of which make me think he is hiding things...but whatever...who cares really at this point. We can't have company because he clams up and makes everyone uncomfy and then makes me pay for it by snide remarks and passive aggressive things for the next month. We never have friends over. Who am I kidding...I have no friends now. Don't read one of his books and let him find out...(he has 5000+ books). He will hound you until you put it back. His main words are "me, my, I" - never WE... I may have written this before (sorry)...but this is my therapy thread LOL... He hid my 19 yo son's clothes in the garage because he left them in the laundry room too long. He put the garbage from the downstairs bathroom IN my son's room scattered in the doorway (because he didn't take it out soon enough...). Etc etc...total passive aggressiveness on his part. MORE: Thing #457843835 He takes a giant crap in the downstairs bathroom (aka my 19 yo son's bathroom). He purposefully does not flush, leaves both the lid & the seat up and a hunk of nasty TP drug up and over the edge of the bowl. Whoever uses the room next is in for a disgusting surprise. His reasoning when confronted? My 19 yo son leaves the lid up so this is his payback. His bathroom habits leave much to be desired in the cleanliness department so it's a bit unbelieveable that he goes so overboard on my son like this. Thing #87575959500 If we buy 2 large pizzas (for 3 of us, with some intended to be leftovers for the next day), you can bet there will invariably NOT be enough left for the next day. SO will eat 12 or 14 SLICES of pizza at a setting. He wolfs all food too. He eats like he was in prison at some point LOL. I usually buy a Canadian Bacon with Black Olives and Tomatoes & a Meat Lovers pizza. I can't eat the Meat Lovers because it makes me sick. SO will devour all of the Canadian Bacon one first then move on to the Meat Lovers. If my son & his GF are home on pizza night I have to RUSH them into the kitchen to make sure they actually get some...and I rarely get very much pizza which is probably a good thing. But really? I have ordered 2 Canadian Bs instead but then SO gets annoyed that I didn't get the Meat Ls too. 3 pizzas are too expensive & I am usually ordering them for delivery before he gets home (back when we had 2 cars). He will also eat up any take out leftovers in the fridge regardless of whose ...or no matter how much you make for dinner (4 sausages, 8, 10 - he will eat them ALL so there are never any leftovers). He has a weird feast and famine thing too where he won't eat for 24 hours and then eat everything but the kitchen sink...I know these all sound so trivial, but add these into this entire package I have been living with for 8 years...it's AMAZING I'm not going postal. Thing #2264385858 He holes up in the basement for 6 or more hours and later will come up and accuse me of harassing him and bothering him all day if I called down the stairs to him once...no joke. I am not allowed in the basement and he doesn't like me to look at or touch his books or things down there, then he accuses me of not wanting to spend time with him when I refuse to go down there a different time when he asks me to (so. confused. LOL). Thing #857584354647 Picks his nose in public. Wow. No need to say more. None of these things manifested themselves early on, although there were warning signs...I just didn't know how to read the language.