#partner vent

I've been feeling really itchy about the thing with partner since his email. I think in part because he hasn't replied. But idk there's something I still need to process and I'm trying to figure out what.

Something that got me itchy was reading threads on deadbeat dads. Particularly memorable was a video of a dad calling to his wife who was in the middle of running a damn marathon to ask her where the girls' clothes were. She yelled back that they were in the dresser in their room. Sometimes it feels like that with him. They say what would you do if I died right now? Well they'd figure it out, they reply. Then why don't you do that while I'm alive? Idk he isn't nearly as bad but it's like. He's pretty bad at this stuff and like is that something about his own personal limitations or is this learned or chosen helplessness.

And I want to believe that he isn't like. An absolute shit. But if I described the situation no-nuance to most people they'd probably say to leave him. It's not pretty right now and makes me feel like 🤡

His email was disappointing because he 100% knew what he was doing on some level and didn't take photos at the arcade for that reason, among other things. He really did prioritize living in a fantasy world for a few days (reminds me a lot of the Single Time Tumblr partner has been mad at him before). Which only goes to show how cooked he is and how he needed to care for his mental health on this front years ago. That's the nice interpretation. Seeing this side of people pleasing makes me think it's a very selfish instinct, at least for him, and I just wanna throw something at him.

I took the opportunity to very frankly tell him his own business, cause fuck it. I was really nice but I told him he needs to take his mental health and people pleasing seriously, he's sicker than he thinks and needs to start acting like it and listening to us, that he needs to set a good example for our child, and that he can't journal with the intent of sending it to me because he needs to say nasty, unfair, messy things. I think holding them in is what got him in this pickle, because he never processed them and moved on to solutions.

Like, it's probably unreasonable to expect him to thank me for psychoanalyzing him to the level I did but it would have been nice to hear back and know he got it and respected the attempt? I don't think I was very far off the mark, more synthesizing what he wrote and combining it with my own gripes and advice about Existing.

But for some reason he sent me a summary of the bed shopping and I'm like hi I don't want to be involved with this at all. I'm not gonna say it because it would be a slap in the face but I'm definitely not gonna reply either. Weird fucking call. Weird for him to send me that journal entry but at least he prefaced with a "read or don't." Idk like. Part of me is enjoying the level of freezing him out that I'm engaged in, but I'm also only freezing out to the degree I need to to get some space. Idk maybe there's a little punishing vibe to it but listen, I earned this one 😭 all pet names and contact and I love yous are cancelled. Logistical and co-parenting communication still on.

To be honest I wonder if I want to just break up with him and be co-parents. I feel like at the very least I'm emotionally broken up with him right now. I don't know what I would need to be back together with him but it is a lot at this point. Probably need him to build back a certain level of trust. Which is going to take a LOT of therapy for him.

I don't know what this looks like long term. Maybe that's why I'm perseverating. I can't get the satisfaction of moving out, and there's not much model of how to do this right.

Our mutual partner is very ill. Bedridden. Trying desperately to scrape up the energy to go in a trip in two days with out daughter, who has been talking about said trip nonstop for literal months.

We are a masking family. When I walked into a restaurant without a mask by accident a few months ago, I ran out and immediately reported it to them so we could decide if I should mask around the house for a while after. We have to protect my partner's health. Their immune system is trashed. We work together and communicate to manage risks like this.

He took our daughter on a trip solo. Forgot her mask and "didn't have any others" (fuck you there are backup masks in your glove compartment for this exact situation) so let her go into a public building without one.

And even that would be some kind of fine, but he didn't tell us and let us make whatever adjustments we needed. We heard it from our kid later.

He's really apologetic but like. It's done. You did it.

And we can't leave him. It's financially dodgy (although my folks would help with that if things got bad, fyi to Partner On Tumblr, if you're reading this), but above all it's extremely logistically dicey. It would make illness vector logistics worse and make it extremely difficult to give our daughter the care and support she needs.

It was an act of service expression of love thing and I never got an ounce of that back.

Luckily he followed through and went out to the bathhouse and got laid, very grateful for this in terms of what it will do for me and tumblr partner. He was really excited and I was mostly pissed I couldn't enjoy the compersion and gas him up cause I'm still too mad. He gave me way too much info given our current leave me alone status and that irritated me cause again, in a normal situation I would wanna hear everything. He apologized that he just really wanted to tell someone like pick someone else bro. This is the second "I did not need to be party to this," next one is getting shut down. I'm being too nice. Still.

Giving some thought about division of labor. Our therapist asked if better division of household labor was the goal and I said nah I'm trying to get better communication so we can assess the situation and level out our relative levels of suffering (his job is miserable and I can handle more cognitive load if need be). I'm feeling much less inclined to level out the suffering at this point though. Thinking about a lot of the favors I've been doing for him out of kindness and how the kindness has run dry. Idk where to draw the line between better boundaries and punishment, and again I don't know if I just want to go ahead and fucking punish him. The shit he has put us through.

But that's why this 2 week trip is good, I can get a little space and vent my most vindictive inclinations before I have to see him regularly again and can make less emotional decisions. Can't wait for next couples therapy, I wish it was sooner.

He did end up talking to me, but only because I guess me dropping the emotional labor of shielding him from his constant mistakes by giving him direct and neutral feedback was excruciating for him.

He's so fucking terrified of Doing Things Wrong and receiving my ire and I explained I only ever needed to know what the fuck was going on with him, as he was just doing, and 99% of my issues just disappeared. Your meds are making you insanely forgetful? Hell yeah I can work with that. It's scaring you? Dude I've been there! I just need information! I need to feel like we are a team!

He tapped out and hasn't continued the conversation the last couple days though 😩 I was really nice too? But I suggested we might do well with couples counseling as a buffer and I wonder if I gave him a scare

But also, and this took me a bit to clock, he mentioned an incident where I had asked him to put the clothes on the dryer if he didn't have time to sort them, versus throwing them in the hamper. Apparently he HAD tried to sort them and was so miserable to hear he had failed that badly that he is just going to not even try, and put them on the dryer from now on.

But hang on, sir????? You could have fucking said "oh I tried to sort them, did I screw up? Let's go over what you need." But instead he just said yeah ok and decided to throw in the towel and I only heard about it when he got so miserable he had to say something. (Like I guess he only did it for the time being because he figured he was doing harm but like. This is something we can work together on omg)

Sir...... do you realize that puts more work in my lap............

We already have a problem where he doesn't know how to do half the tasks I do, while I can do pretty much anything he can do.

We're already experiencing task creep where I'm taking over the shit he can't bring himself to do.

...and now we're just giving up on sorting the laundry because of an easily corrected misunderstanding/missing information????

Anyway I'm mad all over again >:(