“Stop being so dramatic!”
“You are totally overreacting. Calm down”
“You need help”
“You are crazy!”
“You are used goods now. No one wants a single mom”
“You are so insecure and jealous!”
“I don’t have to explain myself. I’ll do what I want when I want”
“This is my Friday night, and this is MY time!”
“If you weren’t so controlling, I would treat you better”
“You are just so overbearing and always upset”
“You are just a mom now”
Why am all those things…oh, because I wanted honesty, respect, communication, loyalty and effort. I wanted to be treated with basic human decency, not worse than you would treat your worst enemy. I wanted plans kept, some reliability and for him to come up and participate in parenting and taking care of our home. I was a single parent, but with a partner.
The standard became not showing up, not speaking, not answering phone calls or texts, not helping with any of the cleaning or taking care of the household, not helping with our son or handling any parental responsibilities, not contributing financially beyond splitting the mortgage, not supporting any of my goals, dreams or passions while supporting his.
The standard became him not showing up to important events, not caring about my health and happy to have me work myself to death to keep money coming in while getting no help at home. It became not going out on any dates and being treated like a personal assistant. It became not having any alone time to leave the home without our son to simply go to a dance class or out with a friend. The standard became him furious and disgusted if I ever got sick because his robot servant wasn’t perfect. The standard became him changing the goalposts so no matter what I did, gave, tried, bent over backwards for, worked hard to please, I was always not good enough and talked down to.
The standard became him telling me any expectations of him, was-
-me being “too demanding”
-my begging for help “overbearing”
-me wanting him to come home as “controlling”
-me not being okay with him sexting other women and addicted to porn while rejecting my touch as “insecure and jealous”.
The standard became violent rages with verbal, emotional, mental torment if I tried to share my feelings and discuss boundaries. The standard became him never being around except to sleep, sh*t, and shave, all while telling his family how hard he was working at our relationship as he played the victim. It was him constantly criticizing how tired and crappy I looked, but never lifting a finger to help out.
He was living a double life taking women out on dates, on dating apps, preferring porn sites over me, and sexting and texting with exes. He was going to bed early leaving me with all the chores, extra work from my job and our child to tend to, or secretly up at night (while saying he had to go to bed) leaving me with feedings, dishes and bedtime routines.
He was living as if he was single as I thought I was in a relationship and had a family.
How many nights did I get up to feed, change and tend to our baby as he slept?
How many times was I left alone evenings, nights and weekends with my ex “taking a break”, “doing errands”, “working late”?
How many times did he promise to show up somewhere then backed out, went MIA or cancelled last minute?
How many times did he go out with “guys only” get togethers that had other people’s wives and girlfriends included?
How many social media pictures did he cut me out off pretending as if I wasn’t around? How many pictures did he post as an active dad that featured the 15 minutes he actually interacted with our son that day?
How many lies did he tell others about how he was supporting our family when it was me who paid for everything for our child, furnished the home, paid all my own bills, used my life long savings to keep things together, and split the house bill and childcare evenly despite me making half the income?
How many budget cuts did I make while he blew money on himself whenever he wanted? How many lunches did I work through and brown bag while he went out every day and to happy hours with women at work?
How many times did he use our son as bait to seem like a stable great guy to other women?
How many times did he call me names as he treated me worse than a pile of garbage?
You get to a point where you think- how many sorrys am I going to accept without changed behavior? How many times am I going to believe and hope things will get better? How much are my standards going to drop for the sake of keeping your “family” together?
As he took the spotlight off his actions by calling me names or judging my so called “crazy” reactions by getting lied to, abandoned and cheated on, here is what I have to say to him:
Maybe I am overreacting, or maybe you are a selfish, shady, integrity lacking, conscience missing dirtbag, who is a master of fake promises, fake apologies and manipulation. I’ve had enough.