Single parent..only I am supposed to have a partner.

I have three children. My oldest is twenty one and chronically ill with a degenerative condition, she is sufficiently ill to require full time care. Not always physical care, though I have had to take off her bra and knickers more times than she would care to think about...mostly its emotional care. Supporting her when she is in loads of pain or when her emotions are out of control and she's needing to offload, or just cry!
My eldest boy is twenty and away at Uni so doesn't need a lot of care as such but still needs his Mum when it comes to getting written work done, he skypes and dictates and I type. Its a system we worked on all through his High School career...though without the skyping then and it works for him. He also needs stuff sending, not just money, I also send him his comics down to London.
The youngest came to us when he was six and has lots of behaviour problems even now...though he is the loveliest, sweetest, most charming young man you could wish to meet most of the time. He is operating as an eight year old in a sixteen year old body which does cause problems and he still needs full time care.
Having a partner you would think all this caring responsibility would be shared, if not 50:50, I would get some support and not be doing it all. Well my partner does take the youngest to the gym and rugby and judo, which sounds good but he only takes him to the gym because he wants to go and he wants to do what he wants to do but still feel self sacrificing and noble. A win:win for him. He also loves the glow of self sacrifice he gets, and control as he can tell the youngest what to do, when he takes him to his other activities. Now don't get me wrong the youngest loves all this activity but doesn't really like my partner taking him places as my partner is too controlling and does, endlessly, shout at him. Its not just me who is offended by how the youngest is spoken to, a friend has noticed it too and finds it hard to hear. My partner will do the total Jekyll and Hyde thing where he is foul mouthed and unpleasant to the youngest one minute, calling him an animal and then two minutes later he will be all smiles and being 'best friends'. I almost find that the creepiest aspect of all! The way my partner treats the youngest is more reminiscent of how you would treat a pet or a toy than a teenager, as long as the youngest is doing exactly what is wanted everything is fine, but the second he suggests he has his own views or even worse wants to something his way all hell breaks loose. Not healthy or normal.
He doesn't speak to my daughter, I would say 'our' but he has made it very clear he wants absolutely nothing to do with her. He totally refuses to discuss her illness, if I bring up the topic he ignores me, abruptly changes the topic or walks away. He prefers not to be in the same room as her and, quite obviously, finds the fact that she sits in the living room intensely annoying....she is sitting on 'his sofa', in 'his spot', watching 'his tv'. When he decides she has been there long enough he will stand in the living room and hover, saying nothing to her, maybe speaking affectionately to the snake, in order to make my daughter feel uncomfortable enough she will leave and go to bed. Unluckily for him she is not so easily intimidated and ignores him back. He ignores when she is spasming, or struggling to breathe. The youngest has come to the kitchen to get me as he can tell when she needs more help than he can give but her dad will just ignore her and make no effort to offer any support at all.
The older boy has as little to do with his dad as he can manage...basically my partner will try to control him, telling (well more laying down the law) what he should do in any given situation. He doesn't ever have conversations with his son, he just talks at him, often being quite unpleasant as he dictates how his son should live his life.
Obviously, you are thinking, if he does no child care or support he does masses of other stuff round the house like shopping, cooking, cleaning. No he does nothing at all...he would cook but the children all begged me to stop him cooking as they dislike his food so much. I could hardly refuse such a heartfelt request so I cook all the meals...except 'make your own' on Fridays when my partner cooks up a large pan of what look like diarrhoea in a pan...not appetising at all! He has also been banned from doing any laundry as he ruined so many clothes...never his strangely enough but everyone else has had clothes destroyed by him. He seems to think wool can be boil washed and tumble dried...he is either stupid or nasty. I think a bit of both.
The only thing he contributes to the family is money...he earns about the same as I do, so really not a lot, but without the two incomes I would struggle for money, so he stays. If we split up I would need to move my daughter...not really a good idea given how poorly she is unless I could move her somewhere better suited to her needs. Without money that's not going to be possible. Also having children over 18 would mean I was entitled to few benefits which would make money just too tight to be readily doable.
I cope by emotionally divorcing him, the only way to survive as he has very narc tendencies and, if I let him, he would rule the house with his temper and moods. He did for too long as I tried to keep him happy. Then I realised his happiness or otherwise was not my responsibility and started disengaging from him. It means I can cope with having him still around...helped by the fact he is out virtually every evening until my bedtime and even when he is around in an evening I am busy sorting the oldest and youngest to bed. So I have to spend almost no time at all with him. I never attempt a conversation, I occasionally pass the time of day with him...the sort of nothings you say to someone in a bus queue. He knows very little about me or my life and even less about the older two children. He thinks he knows the youngest but he only knows his version of how his pet 'should be' rather than who he actually is.
He is the loser as he has no relationship with older two, they both despise him and he is loosing any relationship with the youngest. Its a shame as they are all amazing people who are enormous fun to be with and I am beyond proud to know them never mind be their mum.

Mumsnet...totally addictive in a weird way

I have tried Mumsnet before and not really found it very interesting. But I went back...boredom drove me to find something interactive and involving people I could read. As an aside I read all the time, I will read anything but prefer novels about real people. This can be sci fi, historic, anything as long as I can recognise the characters as real people and I can't hear the author all the time. My favourite novels include Lord of the Rings and my favourite authors include Heinlein and Jane Austen so as you can see my definition of 'real' is wide. I also read news/ political blogs and the headlines from online newspapers but there is never enough 'human interest' for me so I do go trawling the internet for more stuff to feed my addiction.

To get back to Mumsnet. Its a bit hit and miss to be honest, sometimes there are threads that are very compelling...like a good book when you just want to know how the story ends, but it happens in little bits and you have to wait for the 'story' to unfold. Sometimes its all a bit slow and dull. But its really interesting how reading the threads affect how I view my life.

I have always known my mum was hard work but I would now say she was verging on narcissistic and best kept away from. I had pretty much done that before reading all the threads but its helpful to read other peoples stories and see how they cope with parents way more toxic than my mum.

I have also come to the conclusion that partner is a verging on abusive...or rather he would be abusive if  I hadn't emotionally divorced him and so removed myself from trying to meet his needs/demands. He uses his temper as an attack dog to try and keep us all in line doing so he can stay in charge and we all have to do what he wants. Only I ignore him pretty much totally and certainly ignore all his huffing and puffing, which kind of takes his power away. Its hard to use the threat of sulking and making everyone's life miserable if you don't get your own way if you are being ignored and everyone else is taking you at your word that you are too tired and going out and having fun without you. He does plenty of other stuff...always having to be right is an annoying one. But reading Mumsnet shows me that he is a long way from as bad as he could be and really is liveable with. Not at all what I expected as many of the threads I read are about women saying how their partners behave and being advised to 'leave the bastard'.

Not that I wouldn't leave in a heartbeat if  I had the cash. Even harder now my daughter is chronically ill and needs stability and I need access to cash to make her life as easy as possible. So I stay and Mumsnet kind of validates my choice. Also some of the threads are fun and its good to share and the others are like the best kind of gossip....a real insight into someone else's life but as its all anonymous so I need feel no guilt for being nosey.

As I say totally addictive...at least for the moment.