Originally Posted by
Bolina 
It is, at heart, narcissistic as Jazzman says. And firm boundaries and consequences are what are needed. Have you worked out yours?
I'm working on it..
Come to find out he actually got a check and didn't tell me until today of course, after he had a chance to spend some of it.
As I mentioned, I've put "us" on a very strict budget because in spite of the fact I'm a high earner, his irresponsibility and my stupidity in terms of enabling have put us in a very vulnerable place financially. In short, I cosigned not one, not two, not three, but FOUR business and car loans for him since the time he relapsed 6 years ago!!! We went from being on a very upward trajectory to a nosedive in 3-4 years basically.
Well, now I'm absolutely focused on getting rid of debt while he plays King Baby and complains about the discretionary allotment for each of us that we both agreed upon.
To make a long story short, over the past 6 months since I've tried to put our financial lives into some semblance of order, it has become so clear to me that it's foolish to assume that we can be partners in this. Duh. I'm sick of the whining and complaining.
Point being, I have made a decision that I am absolutely simply doing my thing money-wise. If he wants to blow money he gets in one day and has no money for the rest of the month for cigars and alcohol, it's not my problem. Conversely, I no longer expect anything from him. That way I can't be mad. I'm going to split the account on our phone, because we currently are on the same cell phone plan, and if they turn his phone off for nonpayment, oh well.
The only bad thing is, because I cosigned on the loans, I am ultimately responsible for paying them back, which I'm doing. I could arm wrestle him for that money, but what good would it do? Most months he doesn't have it. I'm thinking of cutting my losses that way and chalking it up to my own stupidity in exchange for freedom from the entanglement in the financial part of all this dysfunction.
What would you guys do? Am I still being too enabling? Alternatively, I thought maybe I'll just stop paying those bills and let the house go to foreclosure (the business loans are secured with our house), and save that money for my own future, but I just don't know what would be right in general (in terms of living up to my obligation to the bank) and right for my own well-being.