How do you have a conversation with someone who doesn't see their own behavior?
He picks and pokes and mumbles the most hurtful and aggravating things. Being antagonistic while chanting how I am the one being antagonistic and pokey when in truth I am deflecting his abuse.
Projection 101 - classic tactics. I know them all.
Name calling. The b-word. C-word. Calling me lazy. Lousy cook. Pathetic. Sometimes to my face, most of the time when he walks away, thinking I cannot hear him. I am learning more and more to ignore him - be neutral (as much as I can). And he wonders why I have pulled away because, in his own words, he has been nothing but loving, supportive, patient (of my many flaws) and understanding. It's unreal to my mind how someone can be this way.
He asks when dinner will be done and I said I wasn't sure - because I wasn't - the timer showed a certain time but that's for me to check on, as I said, to which he said "it doesn't matter does it" - another go-to chant of his. He has many.
Passive-aggressive. He won't stop. He won't see. I don't care much if he won't see - I just want him to STOP.
Today he's at it again. He began yelling at me earlier when I was in the other room, both of us looking at the same website, but my page was showing up a bit different than his, to which he used to throw his anger at me, accusing me of not doing my research, not doing my "due diligence" as he likes to say to figure it out (the difference). He then said I was being argumentative, and he wasn't going to play that game - when all I said was my page was not showing what his was. No big deal - to a normal thinking person. He takes trivial things and blows them up into conflict, then accuses me of being argumentative - for simply having a different perspective.
Lately he's resorted to talking gangster-like lingo that, apparently, he is picking up online. It's - embarrassing - to see someone his age - talk like a teenager. And an obnoxious, cruel one at that.
Sometimes, like today, I can't take in one more ounce of his energy when he's in this space. My brain can't. It is hurting today - literally feels like my brain hurts. The anger I finally feel - that's been in my body for far too long - has risen to the top. He has to go. But he won't. And my income isn't enough for me to be self-supporting. If housing were affordable - food as well - I could do it. So I feel stuck - and that isn't right - I feel so alone in this - screaming for help - reaching out. I just feel so f'ing alone. Having a child makes me more determined - and drives the emotions of frustration I feel even higher.
So that's why I am busting my behind doing what I can to increase that income, which includes this page. Please if you are reading this, please help me. Buy me a coffee. Share my work with those you know. Thank you!
M.E.