DH says I'm not doing "motherly duties" and last night drama
Sorry I'm ranting so much on here I don't have anyone to talk to.
So after getting the phone call right as I'm getting done with my 12 hour shift at work that my little brother is being rushed to the hospital via ambulance...I get home. It's a visitation night. DH has actually cooked dinner. After serving ss and spending about an hour on the phone talking to a friend (ignoring both of us), he comes up to me and says "I'm going to lay down, wake me up in an hour"...
Um...
I haven't heard anything from my family, it's YOUR visitation night, and SS has to be home by 830 and it's already 7pm and you want to TAKE A NAP??? I'm still baffled that I've been left on "babysitter" duty, dh goes upstairs without a word. I set an alarm on my phone for 7:50 to wake him up (I'm too confused and tired to even question it)
SS is on the couch playing games on his table, doesn't say anything about dh disappearing. We watch a few episodes of his favorite cartoon,alarm goes off, I go upstairs to wake up dh. He isn't very responsive and half-asleep. I tell him it's already 8p.m. and ss has to go home. He tells me "you bring him home".
No. I haven't even been home for 2 hours it is NOT my job to take your spawn home on YOUR time. Plus CO states parent has to be present for the exchange. BM hardly ever follows these rules, but I can just imagine the mayhem that would follow if I dropped off ss and not DH. Especially since he needs to be walked to the door. NO.
I tell him I can drive but he has to come with me for the exchange. He says "do your motherly duties FOR ONCE and just bring him home". This is when I realize there is a chance DH has been drinking but I DON"T KNOW THIS FOR SURE. I did NOT see him consume ANYTHING and I can't smell any trace of alcohol.
I KNOW I did not see him consume anything after I got home, but I also don't know if he picked up ss at school instead of the bus stop. He is supposed to get him at the bus stop but he complains traffic is too busy at that time so sometimes he uses ss as an excuse to leave work early, thus getting home WAY earlier then he normally would. At this point I realize there is no way dh is going to make the drop off time,(it is now 8:15, drop off time is 830) especially since I now have to clean my backseat our to make room for everyone. I be-line it outside and start throwing everything in my trunk, I hear DH auto-start his truck. I can't drive his truck, it's too big and the tires suck. I start my car to warm up and go back inside. Nobody has contacted me from the hospital, I don't even know which one my brother is at, and my DH is losing his shyt. He quickly drinks a large to-go cup of coffee, when the cup is empty starts screaming at me to "get out of his face" (I wasn't anywhere near him I was in the dining room, he was in the kitchen)then starts slamming the cup onto the counter until it breaks into four pieces. He grabs his keys and tells ss to get in the truck, I tell him he's not driving and all hell breaks loose. Long story short, he screamed in my face again and almost hit my car flying out of the driveway. When he got home (truck in one piece still) he took a shower and went to bed.
He apologized via text this morning and said he needs help, that his mom having cancer is too much to handle and the IRS problems and he can't cope and he wants help and he's sorry.
I still haven't heard anything about my brother and my head is spinning. I can't handle all my problems and DH problems. I have nowhere to go. I don't know if I'm ready to give up on my marriage but I'm getting so tired of this. I have enough to deal with without DH trying to pawn his kid off on me because he's stressed too. SS doesn't deserve to witness this. It doesn't happen regularly and it's never directed at ss or when he is in the room but I don't deserve this either. He does need help. I need help too. What do I do. I'm so mentally tired I could just jump off a bridge and smile. I'm sick of being everybody's "vent to". That's probably why I come on here so much. They vent to me and I feel like I have nobody.
I don't know how to fix this.
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Comments
What kind of help is he
What kind of help is he referring to? Counseling?
Although I do believe spouses should be there for each other, you BOTH have stuff going on and if he realizes that he needs help, he is a big boy and should get some.
I don't know. I haven't
I don't know. I haven't responded to any of his texts and I start work two hours before he does so we haven't spoken at all since yesterday. It better not be financial "help" because I'm so done with that bull-ish. And the "motherly duties" comment...I'm still on a slow boil on that one...I feel like I contribute MORE than my fair share when it comes to his spawn...he can take the "duties" and shove them....
If I were you I would put
If I were you I would put things into perspective for him. Don't yell, don't scream don't give him any ammunition. We fight to be understood, not right (which he's clearly in the wrong no objections there). State your case, set your boundaries and remind him that he is never to treat you that way again. You are his partner. Not his bank. Not his babysitter. Not his emotional punching bag.
Disengage. From DH and SS if
Disengage. From DH and SS if necessary. I'm sorry but it's HIS child and thus HIS responsibility. The "motherly duties" jab would have sent me into overdrive. I'm not sure I would have been able to stay in the house at that point, let alone drive SS anywhere.
I'm so sorry this is
I'm so sorry this is happening to you. What he said to you is not okay. An outburst, given the situation may be understandable but he had a full on man-fit. And an text apology after behaving like that is even less okay.
For right now, move yourself
For right now, move yourself into another bedroom of the home. Tell your DH that you can't mentally deal with both your issues and his, so you're going to handle your family and issues, and he needs to handle his family and his. Tell him a text apology isn't nearly good enough for his behavior, and you don't have the time, effort, or energy right now to deal with fixing your marriage. Don't talk to him, don't do for him or SS, and don't give in to his temper tantrums. Not your monkeys, not your circus, NOT your problem.
ONLY do this if you think you aren't in immediate danger. If you think he is mentally unstable, call a friend and stay with them for a bit. Tell him, via text, that you're alive but can't deal with it all right now. Then go radio silent until you figure out your family situation.
He is mentally unstable but
He is mentally unstable but he is all "loud noise, break things" never physical towards me other then getting in my face on occasion it's nothing I'm not used to. It usually happens about three times a year. He's real big on the "we" need counseling...um no honey you need counseling. I've tried solo counseling, biggest waste of money ever.
Hon, please be careful and
Hon, please be careful and take care of YOU. I was also with someone who was all "loud noise, break things"... until the day he jumped on my back and started beating my head into the floor. Luckily for me, the floor was carpeted.
BTW, a text apology??? Pffffft. This is high school poop. {{{HUGS}}}
While I was out of town
While I was out of town taking care of my dying mother this summer, my H lost his sh$$ at DS11 for reading under the covers by the light of a non-working game boy thing. He pitched it into the wall and put a hole in the wall. He never touched DS. This all happened because I called home to say goodnight to DS. BUT, I had to hang up just then because a home health aide came in and I needed to catch her up to speed with where my mother was with meds, fluids, and getting ready for bed. When I tried to call back there was no answer. I tried for 20 minutes and just kept getting voicemail.
I called the police and asked them to just check in and make sure everything was okay. I was 139 miles away and I didn’t know what else to do. The police informed my husband that because he destroyed property, it was considered a domestic incident.
So smashing a coffee cup in front of you or a minor child is not a “just.” It’s domestic violence.
In my case had I been home when he put the hole in the wall, I would have tossed him because I warned him many years ago that one more hole in a wall and he was gone. I couldn’t toss him from 139 miles away and it was stressing out my mother that this was going on, so I dropped it.
His excuse when I got home was that it had been at least eight years since the last hole. But he knows there’s a domestic written up on him and if there’s a next time it’s an arrest.
I agree you need al-anon. I think you also should have called and reported a possible drunk driver when he tore off out of the driveway. And you need to extricate yourself from this house, or boot him if it’s yours, until/unless he sobers up.
Get in your car or on a bus or find a flight and go be with your brother. Make your H man up and take care of his fatherly duties without pawning them off on you.
Agree with princessmofo. If
Agree with princessmofo. If he means he needs help parenting his son, you have enough on your plate and he's just going to have to deal.
Motherly duties? Um, you don't have any when it comes to HIS son. That comment would have pissed me off to no end.
I don't know where in the
I don't know where in the world you are located but, if there is an Al-Anon chapter in your area, contact them. You can't fix your DH. You can't cure your MIL or your brother. Focus on the things you can do, one of which is acquiring the knowledge and tools to deal with your DH. Al-Anon can help.
The worst part is I'm
The worst part is I'm seething on the "motherly duties" comment..I don't want to blow a fuse if I get home and he is home. DH actually made the comment "I feel really bad for saying this, but I wish everybody in our family that was sick would just hurry up and die so we don't have to go through this". He needs help. I'm overwhelmed too but I would never wish death on anyone gdamnit. Makes me sick. He needs help.
"I'm not his mother, I don't
"I'm not his mother, I don't have any motherly duties. How about you do your FATHERLY duties instead of expecting me to do them for you?"
If he means he needs mental
If he means he needs mental health assistance and is willing to see a psychiatrist at the earliest possible window, then help him do that.
If it is any other answer, you need to find a way to leave. He doesn’t have to physically hit you to be abusive.
I’m sorry to hear your
I’m sorry to hear your brother is in the hospital.
In regards to your DH, it does sound like he needs help. Drinking and lack of coping skills go hand in hand. I hate to be pessimistic, but it’s going to be a rough road for you, if you don’t remove yourself from being his emotional punching bag. And I agree with the others that if DH cannot handle fulfilling his fatherly duties, then he’s going to have to have a little humility and ask for some outside help. You’ve got your hands full yourself.
Something that nerves me to
Something that nerves me to no end is that parents that are divorced have a tendency to think that just because life might be challenging (self-inflicted a lot of the time) they can just pawn the children off whenever thy want and not parent. Having kids doesn't work that way.. You have a kid, you take care of the kid, end of discussion. Life gets hard, said kid still needs attention and to be cared for.
BM ditched the Skids with us because life is hard... Because of such, any time she tries to pop in for some selfish reason it makes me fume. You can't just decide when you do or do not want to parent. YOU MADE A CHILD. Children can't take care of themselves... So there's no checking out on a whim.
I wish you luck. I'm sorry you're going through so much!!!
I would go find a hotel to
I would go find a hotel to stay in for a week. Do some soul-searching on my own. This is not a way for you to live.
Tell him that you're not
Tell him that you're not doing your "motherly" duties because neither he nor SS are your children.
You seem overly concerned
You seem overly concerned about SS making it to the dropoff point in time. Even if you won't bring him there yourself, you seem to believe it is your responsibility to make sure that DH gets him there. There are no consequences for YOU if SS fails to make it to the dropoff point in time. Any consequences resulting from this would belong to your DH.
Walk away and let him deal with the consequences of his actions later. Its not your job to keep him in line, it only turns you into the bad guy for nagging him. Do not babysit, and do not push your DH to make sure SS is dropped off on time. You should have simply said you were going out as soon as DH said he was taking a nap, and come back well after dropoff. It would have avoided the entire conflict, and any issues your DH might run into because of it, well hopefully they will teach him to conduct himself more appropriately next time.
What you did by being the good stepmother here, is you protected your DH from all the real consequences of his behavior, and instead YOU became the consequences. Fighting with you, you nagging, you complaining, whatever. By doing part of your "motherly duties" you made yourself the bad guy. (You also acted enough like a parent for DH to believe he can continue to push you into parenting, which you certainly shouldn't do. Somehow DH has erroneously gotten it into his head that you have motherly duties. By babysitting SS and making sure he gets home on time, you have demonstrated motherly duties and reinforced DH's erroneous belief.)
Do not get involved with anything involving the care of SS that you do not want to do. Do not help DH, do not push DH. That way DH can recover from his fantasies that you are the parent, and the bad guy will be the BM, the court system, the law. No stress on you, and nobody is mad at you.
What your husband did is
What your husband did is verbal abuse. Abuse always escalates.
Aggressive driving and breaking property are huge red flags.
IMHO, it's time to very seriously think about an exit strategy.
Please stay safe.
sending you virtual
sending you virtual hugs...... and a bit of strength.
Now disengage and tell DH you have not motherly duties cause you are not a mother, he has fatherly duties cause he's the father and if he can't cope with it all it would be best if SS does not come for visitation for a while. And remind him if he ever talks to you like that again he will end up with a fork in his eyes...
Yowsers. My SO would have had
Yowsers. My SO would have had his balls handed to him if he ever expected me to "perform my motherly duties" with the SSs. The way your DH is speaking to you and treating you is not acceptable. Tell him this.
We have visitation again
We have visitation again tonight. It's for 4 hours but I know dh will pick up ss early again. He didn't work overtime yesterday like I thought he would, he shoveled/snow-blowed the driveway and took out the recycling while I cooked dinner. Then he spent the next hour yelling at his laptop because he was going to do some online classwork that his employer was going to pay him for and ss had broke his power cord so it wasn't holding a charge. I had to listen to him rant about his charger then rant about how he better make sure its a "good visitation day for ss tomorrow" since he feels bad about Monday. Um...nothing happened to ss you spent a few hours with him before you took a phone call and took a nap its better than nothing. Half tempted to not go home tonight. I hate watching him play "Disneydad" after treating me like crap.