Many years ago...about 10 or more, I started writing down my frustrations and annoyances with DP. It was a way of venting on paper as I had no other safe outlets and talking to DP...my preferred option...was a total non starter. I'd try to have an adult conversation about problems we were having and he'd just go on a long rant listing everything I'd ever done that he didn't like but not actually listening to anything I wanted to say. Afterwards I was supposed to meekly carry on as though all our problems were now sorted. I totally wish MN had been a thing then as I would never have stayed, classic emotional abuse but I just though he was an arse and having been used to my DM being an arse I put up with far too much.
I still have all the paper and read some of it last night. It was really interesting both to see what has changed and, more depressing, what has stayed the same.
Well DP is still an arse. He and I have a surface polite relationship and spend very little time together. He will talk at me while I'm reading in the kitchen sometimes and I totally ignore him, to the point I would be hard put to tell anyone what he'd actually said. His conversation is still mostly about himself, as far as I can tell...the bits I'm ignoring could be fascinating insights into the world situation or illuminating critics of popular media....no of course they aren't. He will be wittering on about how clever he is and how much he is worshipped by everyone...except his family obviously.
What has changed is me. I no longer do any of his laundry, shopping, clearing away or washing up. If he leaves something in the sink it still there the next time he gets to it. I don't even wash up his plate after tea, even if I am washing up everyone else's. He also sleeps on the sofa full time which is wonderful. It means I never have to put up with his snoring or him invading my space. OK I frequently have DD but that is my choice as her mum. I no longer even mention his families b/days or make any effort to think of appropriate presents. I sort my family and he can sort his, or not!
He has no input into Xmas or b/days for any of the children. He never put any effort in but now he gets no credit as I don't get him to sign cards or even tell him what is being given. He will have no idea what DS1 got for his 21st. Even when DS2 changed his name by deed poll for his 18th DP had no input and was informed but only so he was aware of what DS2's new name was. Last Xmas he didn't even get to see the presents being opened as we all went into DD's room to do it so he had no involvement at all. given the effort he puts into the only present he actually buys...mine...he doesn't deserve any of the fun of seeing presents being opened. I got a pile of fruit teabags and some new tea towels...not even a style I ever use! I put them all in the bin...I put in little more effort but do actually get CDs and books he will have some interest in and do get them before Xmas Eve which is presumably when he wanders into the local supermarket and buy some random crap.
He still continues to ignore DD and her illness...he actually had the gall to say, this summer, that 'it had been very hard for him when DD became ill and he hadn't known what to do as he couldn't fix it'. I was so blindsided by the comment I couldn't respond at all, which is a shame as I would have loved to have told him to grow up and stop being a pathetic little baby. Non of us has found DDs illness 'easy'. We all struggle to deal with it and it is heartbreaking when she is sobbing with pain and there is NOTHING anyone can do to help, but we cope. We cope the same way DD copes...a day at a time and we just get on with it. Given he has done NOTHING for DD even before she became ill what gives him the right to play the victim G*d only knows. He really does feel the world revolves around him. Just as there is an autistic spectrum so there is a narcissistic spectrum and he and indeed DM are both further along the line than is healthy or attractive. DF's father was undoubtedly also a narc which is, presumably, where he learned to be such a perfect enabler. I certainly spent my childhood learning that I wasn't important and that my role in life was to be invisible but useful. Thank heavens DD finally took me in hand and shook some reality into me! I don't think I am such a spineless enabler any more even if I am still overly conflict averse...but then anyone who grew up with my DM shouting and being appallingly rude to my DF was either going to end up avoiding conflict of being as unpleasant as her!
One thing that DP has changed is that he no longer heaves and sighs and does his martyr act...stupid as he patently is even he has eventually realised that no one pays any attention to his dramatic 'oh woe is me' act and its a waste of energy. He still does lots of other stupid noises to try and get attention, like random 'singing' and 'jazz style' noises. All totally ignored unless DS2 tells him to stop being stupid. DS2 still gets endlessly shouted at by DP but he treats it as white noise and ignores it. He will occasionally complain to me about DP doing something particularly stupid but other than that he copes and the two of them still go off to rugby and gaelic football and stuff. They even cook, theoretically together, every weekend so they can the food they like but that I don't cook. They have a repertoire of about half a dozen meals that they endlessly rotate. Its boring a sh*t but as long as I'm not expected to eat it why should I care. They shop for the stuff and cook it and wash up so its less cooking I have to do.
I would still get rid of DP if it was financially feasible but its really not, especially with DD so ill and becoming less able all the time. But its certainly my ambition to get rid of him eventually. Will he expect it...I really don't know. I'm assuming he is aware we don't have a good relationship but does he know how utterly dead it is, I doubt it. I can't imagine his towering conceit can envisage him not being universally adored, that's going to be a fun conversation when it eventually comes!!
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