Dear SO, you are the biggest baby!
Ongoing fight here since Friday. Someone tell me I'm not going crazy. Am I wrong here? My SO generally gets home from work on Fridays around 5-7 o'clock. He doesn't have set hours so the time varies. My kids had a half day off school Friday for conferences. I had a conference for my BS9 at 3:00. My BD's, 12 and 14 come home from school begging to go to Mockingjay. I didn't realize it came out this weekend but we've been talking about how excited we were for the release for at least a month. SO knew this.
We couldn't go to the movie Sat or Sun because those days were jam packed. So I tell my girls, yes, we'll go but it has to be an early movie right after the conference. In my head thinking I'll still have the evening to spend with SO. We decide on a 4:00 movie. *cue the I'm the best mom ever and my girls are excited for a girls time out, so am I.
SO texts me at 1:15 that he's leaving work, he'll be home around 4. Well, crap. He never gets home that early. I tell him I have the conference and that I told the girls I'd take them to see the movie, but it's early so I won't be late and we'll have dinner together. He freaks the heck out. He's mad because I won't be here when he gets home, mad because I didn't tell him ahead of time. I explain it was a last minute thing, I didn't realize it was release weekend. Also explain I purposely planned an early movie time for him. He gets all dramatic and says I won't be home until 9 (um ok how long is this movie?) and to eat with my girls because he won't be waiting for me. I have no consideration for him and could have asked him before making these plans. He also wants me to apologize for forgetting the movie was coming out. I didn't really even forget, just didn't realize that was the date.
We leave off tense and he's pissed. I get home Fri eve and don't go up to him to kiss him. (We're fighting) So now he's mad about no kiss. FFS. I took the advice from a poster on here from a previous post and said, "We're fighting, were you expecting a BJ?" I'm not usually that crude but the whole thing is ridiculous. And put a damper on my fun movie outing with my kids.
So I get the silent/cold treatment. He leaves for work Sat and says Bye. No kiss or I love you like normal. Fine, whatever. He comes home from work Saturday and asks if I'm ready to apologize. I say no. He says, "You really are a stubborn bitch." I say OK and leave. I had plans that evening with a friend because he had asked me for some alone time with his girls who were coming on Sat.
Sunday he's still mad. Says I'm acting different. That I could have a little consideration and be loving toward him since he's stressed. I ask why he's stressed and he says the Friday thing. :jawdrop:
I mean WTF? Am I losing my mind or is this crazy train material? This is how it goes with him all the damn time, he makes a mountain out of a molehill and acts like a baby.
Gift wrap a bottle of midol
Gift wrap a bottle of midol for him and give it to him as a coming home from work present today.
LOL...this is awesome!!
LOL...this is awesome!!
I actually did that to my EX
I actually did that to my EX once, minus the gift wrap }:)
Well crap! I think I
Well crap! I think I accidentally threw that memo away along with his balls!
I'm really thinking that's
I'm really thinking that's what I need to do to be happy in life. I feel safe with my ex, not attacked and bullied. Ironically our final divorce papers just came through. We've been separated almost 4 years. Neither one of us want to sign them. When I think about signing I get sick to my stomach.
I love my SO, really do. I just have no clue why. My quality of life has done nothing but go downhill since him. He tries hard but his best is not enough and his expectations of me are incredibly high.
It's true, love isn't enough.
It's true, love isn't enough. Just out of curiosity what did your dh say from a guy's perspective?
We have 3 kids together, and parent really well together. He's a great dad. We are still technically married! lol It would just be a matter of canceling the CS and figuring things out. He asked me if I would go to counseling with him. I'm overwhelmed thinking about the stuff here, I just signed a lease with SO in July so that would have to be figured out. And of course ending a relationship is not always fun, ack!
I've been thinking about you too and wondering what you decided about the pictures?
We do just co-exist in a way.
We do just co-exist in a way. We're definitely not one big family. He's good with my kids when SD's aren't here. Completely different when they are. When we're alone, which is usually a weekday while the kids are in school we get along well. The kids and BM is mostly what we argue about.
A couple weeks ago we went away to try and re connect as we've been so stressed. Planned a two night trip which took major hoop jumping to schedule with kids, work, etc. The first night there we got into a huge fight and he stormed out of the hotel room. I was thinking wow, we can't even go on a little vacation peacefully. It's sad.
I'm glad your DD is getting her own pics! Sounds like it all worked out with a good compromise.
No, and at one time I thought
No, and at one time I thought I could see myself marrying him but since we've lived together it's been downhill. I miss the days of just being with my kids, there was financial stress but it was a fraction of the stress I have now.
I had plans that evening with
I had plans that evening with a friend because he had asked me for some alone time with his girls who were coming on Sat.
^^^
And he got mad at you for being the coolest mom ever and spending some quality alone time with your kids? I'm sorry sweety but pig headedness is alot like stupidity..it can't always be fixed. Next time he asks for alone time with his girls, throw a fit, tell him he's a stubborn bitch, give him the cold shoulder and then ask him if he likes it.
He's an emotional douchetard
He's an emotional douchetard and you can tell him I said that. What an asshat! I would ignore him so hard he would begin to doubt his own existence. What a ball-less wonder.
I think it's my new favorite
I think it's my new favorite word.
Also Asshat is another
Also Asshat is another favorite of mine.
I also like douche-canoe.
I also like douche-canoe. Just paddling up dumbfuck river on his way to I'mashitzville.
My sisters and mine is douch
My sisters and mine is douch nozzle. It's so much more accurate than douch bag lol
I once told BF I was going to
I once told BF I was going to Goodwill on my day off (I'm off every other Friday) and he freaked saying he wanted me to be home when he got home. I didn't realize I was going to a Goodwill out of state and would be gone for 10+ Hours. Men are babies.
NO, YOU ARE NOT CRAZY!!! Your
NO, YOU ARE NOT CRAZY!!! Your SO is trying to manipulate and control you. Good for you for not apologizing! YOU DID NOTHING WRONG! I went thru that for 22 years with my ex. He complained and whined about everything I did that didn't include him. He twisted simple things around in his crazy head to make it seem like I was a cold, uncaring bitch. Even though it would be something as simple and innocent as spending time with our son. My advice, get away from your SO, run as fast as you can and don't look back.... I feel for ya!
Yup, exactly. I was like how
Yup, exactly. I was like how about, "oh honey I would have liked to spend the extra time with you but you had no way of knowing I'd be out early. Have fun with your kids, I'll wait for you to eat."
That's how I would handled the situation in reverse.
Seriously WTF is wrong with
Seriously WTF is wrong with this man child? You havent posted 1 redeemable quality about this guy. Sorry... but what does he do for you?
He cooks. He's good in bed.
He cooks. He's good in bed. He's supportive of my career.
That's about all I can come up with. Even the cooking one is iffy because he uses the opportunity to try and teach me how to cook because I do it all wrong.
Or the crazy money hungry BM
Or the crazy money hungry BM who hates my guts. If I never hear her voice again I'd be so happy.
Supports your career? Of
Supports your career? Of course he does, it benefits him!
Good sex??? You can find that anywhere.
Agree with tog, it's a little
Agree with tog, it's a little different.
Scenario 1: I get out of work at the usual time to find that DH has made plans to take the skids to the movies, without me. Not only did he not invite me, he didn't even TELL me until I'm on the way home. My reaction? Yeah, I'm hurt.
Scenario 2: I get out of work a couple hours early - earlier than I've EVER been home from work. I call DH to find that he's made plans to take the skids to the movies during my normal work time. My reaction? YAY, I get the house to myself for a little bit!
He knows I'm really against
He knows I'm really against the name calling, I don't like it. You can be mad and argue but it doesn't have to resort to that. We had this talk just recently too so he knew he was striking a major nerve. I haven't gotten an apology for that either so I guess he figures we're even.
LOL Sweet Pea! What you said
LOL Sweet Pea! What you said pretty much sums it up.
Did someone say wine?!?! Is
Did someone say wine?!?! Is Monday too early to start drinking, it is a holiday week after all?!
I agree with Ripley. If you
I agree with Ripley. If you want to have a healthy relationship then minor (and major) disagreements need to be dealt with empathy, as well as reasonably promtly. You are both in some ways to blame.
Even if you had gone to the 4pm showing and your SO had gotten home at a not unreasonable hour of 5pm, you still wouldn't have been there for another 2 hours potentially. How hard would it have been to send him a text saying "hey honey the girls and I decided to go to the movies, should be home around 7pm". Your SO for some reason got home early and decided that he would surprise you rather than let you know he was getting home early, when he found out he could have said "hey, I'm going to be finishing early today, should be home around 1pm, looking forward to hanging out with you this afternoon". A lack of communication on both sides is to blame for your argument.
If both of you are stubborn and no one ever makes a gesture to get over this argument then it will drag on for days as it has. And in my mind that shows that neither of you are particularly good at resolving disagreements. Your relationship will be full of minor disagreements turning into week long battles if neither of you work on improving your resolution skills. Personally that isn't the kind of relationship I would be happy in.
He texted her to tell her
He texted her to tell her that he was coming home early. She already made the plans. It's not like he came home to surprise her and she was gone.
Not sure though if she had planned on letting him know about her plans, just so he knew where she was????
Ok, maybe I missread the OP,
Ok, maybe I missread the OP, i thought he got home and 1 and then texted to ask where she was.
As far as her texting, I would expect my husband to let me know where he was if he wasn't going to be home at a time that I expected him home, with the added issue of being in the movie theater presumably her phone would be off/on silent so he wouldn't be able to contact her to check what was happening. If that were me I would start to worry and be annoyed that he didn't have the courtesy to let me know what was going on.
I still stand by my original
I still stand by my original post though, if you let a minor disagreement continue into several days then you need to work on your conflict resolution skills. That will not make a healthy relationship.
Edited to add: Just had the thought, it could also be that the root of the anger that you are both feeling isn't based in the trip to the movies on friday but on something else deeper that is bothering you both in your relationship.
My last text to him was right
My last text to him was right before the kids got home from school. We both have IPhones, the message was "How's your day going?" It was marked delivered but not read. That means he's with customers. He has a high stress job and face to face contact with customers so instead of buzzing his phone again when I made the plans with my girls, I was waiting to hear back from him to tell him. Instead of a break, he was surprisingly done crazy early so his text was leaving now, making the 1:15 bus. That's when I wrote back about the movie plans, and all hell broke loose on his end.
I did factor time in, choosing the earliest showing we could make after the conference. Figuring at most he'd be home alone without me for an hour an a half, if he got home at the earlier time. Plenty of time to enjoy dinner and some TV time together. We're used to eating late on Fridays.
So I did think it through, tried to do the best to make us all happy...my girls, him and myself! He refuses to acknowledge my effort to be home as early as possible and is still mad that I went at all. I'm getting more pissed off as I'm writing this. So I should disappoint my kids so as to walk on eggshells with SO and be sure I'm here waiting for him when he makes his grand entrance home? Maybe I should put an apron on, and have a cold drink in hand and wait by the door?? WTH?
no I am not saying you
no I am not saying you shouldn't have gone. I was saying maybe there was a lack of communication, but you did let him know asap it seems.
So now that you went to the movies and he got pissed, then you got pissed he was pissed, then he got pissed you didn't kiss him, you got pissed he was giving you the cold shoulder...and so on all weekend until monday...what are you going to do to help the two of you come back together after this disagreement? Or will you just stubbornly sit by and let this disagreement ruin the next week as well as the weekend?
How hard is it to say "Can we talk about friday? I am sorry that you felt left out by me taking the girls to the movies but I didn't know you would be home so early when I planned it. I know that the girls really enjoyed having some time with me as did I with them and I don't like going back on promises I make to them. Is there a way we can move on from this so that we can enjoy being with each other again and stop fighting?"
Yes, he could easily say something similar to you and who knows maybe if you hold out long enough he will. Someone has to step forward and start the peace negotiations, but if you both continue to be so stubborn then it will continue to escalate and you will have to live in the hostile environment that creates.
I don't know... I see what
I don't know... I see what previous posters are saying about communication and conflict resolution, and to some extent I agree with it. I think the reason my answer is different is because I don't see the root cause the same way BethAnn and ripley do.
Ripley said "this one is about WANTING to be with OP". But honestly, I see this more as being about wanting to CONTROL the OP - not necessarily be with her. (I mean, he specifically asked her NOT to be around for his kids' visit, if I remember a previous post correctly. So... he's not really going for the "happy family" thing here.)
Nope, this reads to me like what he was angry about was that she (*gasp*) made plans without asking his permission. That she left the house without checking with him first. That she wasn't going to be home for curfew, if you will. All of which just reeks of control issues, not love. And hell if *I* would apologize to someone for refusing to be controlled! (I have to say though, I also wouldn't be able to stay married to someone who tried to "parent" me.)
Okay, I do understand the
Okay, I do understand the responses about conflict resolution and not holding out just for the sake of being right. But there have been instances where the "rules" so to speak only apply to me and not to him. And how he can get up on a day off, announce he's going x,y,z and I say okay, when do you think you'll be back? Are we having lunch together? I don't freak out that he's leaving the house and not clearing it with me.
I want there to be some give and take.
And he does this often, provokes and argument and then gets upset with me if I don't act like my normal loving self. It's hard to do that. Heck I was still ticked off about this whole thing Sunday morning but I still woke up and texted him Good Morning Honey. And what did I get back? Hey hon. "Hon" is like the death word with us. It stands for being unhappy. So I knew he was keeping it going and that made me upset all over again as I was getting his two kids up to drive them 1.5 hours home like I do every Sunday for him. I'm tired of being taken for granted and no I won't be controlled.
I guess that's the deeper of it.
Then this ^^ is the
Then this
is the conversation you need to have rather than the specifics of friday.
"I know that we were both upset with how friday panned out and it made us resent each other this weekend, I want to move on from that but it did bring up some feelings with me that I don't appreciate. I feel as if there is a pattern developing in our relationship where there are different rules for you as there are for me and I would like to get to a place where we can work towards us both being treated equally. How do you feel about this?"
TY for the thought out reply.
TY for the thought out reply. I honestly roll with things much better than he does in general. If he tells me he has errands to run or whatever, I say ok see you later. When I do things he wants an ETA on when I'll be back. If I say a time and I'm 15 min later he questions me about why I said I would be such and such time and I got back later. It's gotten to the point where he'll say what time will you be home and I laugh and tell him I'm not giving him a time because it's a trap. lol
We often don't find out what the weekend plans are for the skids until Thursday, sometimes Friday morning. Are they coming Fri night..are they coming Sat morning...what time do they need to be home Sunday. All which affects me because he works weekends and I drive them home on Sundays. I roll with this as well. Am I frustrated at the situation some weekends? Sure! But not angry AT HIM. I guess that's the difference. I can say to him, wow, it's really annoying that we're finding out last minute about this but I don't show anger to him and ask for an apology. Things happen, schedules change, the BM is impossible. It's hard with the kids to have hard and set schedules with their changing activities, friends, etc. I get this. I don't take it out on him and get mad.
He's just a stubborn person and expects everyone else to think/act in the way he would. When you have a different way of thinking it throws him off. I'm tired of endless conversations with him about such stupid things. Last night it was why did my parents buy cooked shrimp for Thanksgiving and not purchase raw to cook it themselves because it's so much better. I was like really?! How about, oh how nice they're coming and bringing something! Then he got short with me and complained about other things. When I didn't play into it he pouted for 20 minutes because I corrected him on this. He did end up apologizing in the end and told me he has a lot of anxiety around the holidays but it's all so frustrating.
I feel like every day is a minefield I'm walking through, just never knowing what will rock his boat today. It's so exhausting and not how I want to live my life. He belittles me on the things he does better than me, like cooking. I've told him this hurts my feelings and his response is that he's joking around. *sigh*
He's really good with my kids, that's one thing I can say that makes me love him. He talks to them about their lives and seems to genuinely enjoy their company. They like him too. I try to correct things with them that bother him. Like my one daughter talks extremely loud and I'm always making sure to try to tone her down. My son is notorious for eating something and not clearing his place, I'm on him about that. For me too of course, not just SO. I want them to be doing the right thing. But god forbid I say one thing about his kids and he immediately gets defensive and "turns" on me. I was short with his daughter one day not long ago in a response and he got angry with me. I said I'm not always going to have the patience of a saint with 5 kids in the house! I would have talked to my kids the same way and he flipped out that "Well she's not YOUR kid!" No SO, she's not. I only feed her, wash her clothes, take her fun places, help with her homework, let her borrow my clothes, do her hair. But no, she's not mine so how dare I lose a tiny ounce of patience one time.
Ugh, how is this my life?!
"I feel like every day is a
"I feel like every day is a minefield I'm walking through, just never knowing what will rock his boat today. It's so exhausting and not how I want to live my life. He belittles me on the things he does better than me, like cooking. I've told him this hurts my feelings and his response is that he's joking around."
This is concerning; it's borderline emotional abuse. The claimed intent of his behavior doesn't matter. Its effect on you does.
I don't care how good he is with your kids. Sooner or later they're going to notice that you're a wreck trying to navigate the minefield he's set up. If he's not good with you, he needs to fix it or buh-bye.
You're right. And I am a
You're right. And I am a wreck already, high blood pressure. My doc put me on antidepressants. I've never needed them before this relationship but I'm so stressed right now with all that Steplife puts on me and keeping the peace in our relationship.
The Marrying Game Two
The Marrying Game
Two prospective mates are looking forward to spending an evening with you. They both planned to surprise you by stopping at your place earlier than usual. When they learn you've made plans to take your daughters to the movies, they're hurt and disappointed. Which one gets to make the trip to the registry office with you?
A. The one who rains hell on you, sulks, and provokes an argument that lasts for days.
B. The one who heaves a sigh, pulls up his big boy pants, and says, "Have a good time honey. See you later, with pizza."
Yeah, me too.