I asked RAH for a separation last night
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: Florida
Posts: 6,780
Also, I'm not even sure logistically how this can/will all work out. We do not have the money for him to just run out & secure a rental. I offered to be the one to leave, but we all know that is NOT in DD's best interests. (I think that is part of what made him realize how serious I am, that this is not a punishment or a case of Codie Quacking.)
I'm not necessarily saying that I'm pushing for divorce ~yet~ and I don't feel good about sending him packing with no plan & just a duffle bag of clothes so suddenly. That doesn't seem completely fair, and I don't want to create a chaotic stressful homelife for DD while we figure out how to transition.
He has intermittent employment at this point & can in NO WAY support himself fully, but I can't control that & I can't wait for that to improve to see if I feel better about things by then. I support us pretty much 100%, but there's nothing leftover at the end of the month & if there was our debts will continue to exceed any surplus of cash for a long time to come.
He's also on probation following his relapse/DUI/etc last fall, so he has to be able to show a home address for their records & they will likely insist on doing a home visit right away. There are a LOT of factors to consider here.
I know I've got great support on my side. A good job, understanding boss who fully supports me as an employee AND a woman, an AMAZING child that gives me way more than she takes, even at such a young age. I have family, friends, clients & SR members that love me & will be there for me to lift me up when I need a boost, and thankfully, I'm no longer afraid to ask for that kind of help.
I'm not necessarily saying that I'm pushing for divorce ~yet~ and I don't feel good about sending him packing with no plan & just a duffle bag of clothes so suddenly. That doesn't seem completely fair, and I don't want to create a chaotic stressful homelife for DD while we figure out how to transition.
He has intermittent employment at this point & can in NO WAY support himself fully, but I can't control that & I can't wait for that to improve to see if I feel better about things by then. I support us pretty much 100%, but there's nothing leftover at the end of the month & if there was our debts will continue to exceed any surplus of cash for a long time to come.
He's also on probation following his relapse/DUI/etc last fall, so he has to be able to show a home address for their records & they will likely insist on doing a home visit right away. There are a LOT of factors to consider here.
I know I've got great support on my side. A good job, understanding boss who fully supports me as an employee AND a woman, an AMAZING child that gives me way more than she takes, even at such a young age. I have family, friends, clients & SR members that love me & will be there for me to lift me up when I need a boost, and thankfully, I'm no longer afraid to ask for that kind of help.
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Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: PA
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Sometimes, it's just time to grow up and I think now is a good time for him to grow up and realize it! Like you said, you ain't his Momma! No reason why you should have to support a grown ass man. He can work at McDonald's for crying out loud.
My ex husband never worked after we got married. Can you tell where my bitchiness comes from? lol
My ex husband never worked after we got married. Can you tell where my bitchiness comes from? lol
Bunnies!
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: Florida
Posts: 1,905
When you're done, you're done. I realized I wanted to leave the exhole while in line at the supermarket checkout. We had been separated for a few months, but I was thinking about reconciling. We went to do grocery shopping together for our respective houses and when the total rang up, he mentioned that he had "forgotten" his wallet at home. Instead of offering to take his things back, he just stood there and looked at me with that expectant look of "Well, aren't you going to pay?" I knew right then that things were just as they had always been, and that I couldn't tolerate another day of his crap. I told him the following day that I was filing for divorce. Just happened to be Independence Day, and that was not lost on him at all. My exhole isn't an A, but he's still a pretty selfish jackass. Sometimes the circumstances are just right for showing us what we would otherwise brush off and ignore. You'll get through this. One day at a time.
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: Florida
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It’s been a couple of weeks, so I figured I’d update this for anyone interested. I know this runs long & rambles - I've been trying to update for days but I keep getting interrupted & at this point I figured posting any update was better than no update. 
We have not separated yet, it’s been a lot of ongoing conversations which have been fairly productive in terms of my feeling more understood & gaining more understanding of his “side of the street”
I should also explain my term “pink flagging”…. Lol….. For me, that is a situation where my internal alarm stirs but doesn’t fully go off. Either it’s because something seems “off” but by staying on my own side of the street I don’t get “confirmation” of any wrongdoing…. OR I can’t tell if the penalty flag is on MY side of the street. I think in this situation it was a combination of both of us losing traction at times.
In a nutshell here’s what I think is going on with us. For Him:
1. He still has horrible communication & it creates huge problems. Part of it is using general terms – when he talks about “that guy” or “this job” it tells me nothing unless I take the time to play 20 Questions… which I no longer do. Again – not his mama here, he needs to grow up & use Big Boy Words. Since using broad, general terms like this is (to me) what he did as an active addict trying to cover his BS, I pink-flagged a lot of stuff based on this alone because it comes off like “white lies” a lot of the time.
2. He internalizes EVERYTHING until he is so overwhelmed that reacts like a cornered animal…. Also reminiscent of his active A behavior. He somehow thinks he is protecting me/us from stuff by not sharing the things that bother him…. which boggles my mind. All it does is isolate us away from each other & makes me feel abandoned.
3. Part of my aggravation is that he hasn’t been able to find regular, dependable work. I felt like he was stubbornly only pursuing what he WANTS vs. what he CAN HAVE. It turned out he’d been applying everywhere & just wasn’t sharing it because it was too much rejection. Hello!? I can’t know what you don’t TELL ME. There’s a big difference between trying & failing & not trying at all, but I was never getting the benefit of the knowledge.
Part of the issue here is that his back has gotten so bad over the last 10 yrs during his drinking & ignoring known health issues that he has ongoing pain 24/7…. So now he isn’t able to do the type of work he has always done. (Construction) While he had been moving out of the field & into the management side of things, there just aren’t a lot of those kinds of jobs available at all anymore. He could go back to the field at his choice of companies, but can’t handle the work & at piece-rate pay scale, it would be like working for nothing, literally. With all of his legal problems & not having a current DL due to his DUI, it is also limiting him from even simple stuff like Walmart & 7-11. His ego is battered & he does not know how to handle it.
As a result, he keeps accepting small side job work from people he has worked for on & off for many yrs that are undependable & difficult to get paid from…… which makes me pull my hair out from the roots. In his mind he was “doing everything he possibly could” to provide for his family but all I was seeing was “accepting unacceptable behavior” from others, to the detriment of his family.
4. He has struggled with depression & ADD for as long as I have known him but he has REFUSED to address it medically. I’m all for any solution that works, but continuing to ignore it is not something the rest of should have to deal with.
All in all, there are many things he can choose to do to manage things better & these are KNOWN issues, not NEW issues. The silver lining is that he has definitely not relapsed with alcohol.
On my side I have to own:
1. After our initial discussion I did go a little Codie – I did start looking for “proof” of my assumptions….. after the 3rd or 4th dead-end I just stopped looking. I wasn’t turning anything up, I was embarrassed that I’d gone that far & it was obvious that I wasn’t finding anything. I knew if I kept pushing & searching I would eventually find SOMETHING that I would maybe be willing to take out of context just to have something to justify my own bad behavior.
2. I have been digging through a LOT of ACoA stuff – I have also had a lot of suppressed memories surfacing randomly & they are bringing a whole slew of new triggers I hadn’t been as sensitive to before. Some of the “pink flags” really WERE mine.
3. I strive to not make assumptions (I really live by the Four Agreements
) But sometimes I was forced into making assumptions based on what I could de-code through his non-communication & internalizing & I was wrong more often than not.
4. I need to be more aware of HALT for myself – I can trace a LOT of my own missteps back to reacting due to hunger, anger, loneliness or exhaustion.
As situations have come up over the last couple of weeks I've tried to use them as examples..... "See, this happening right now? THIS is a decision I shouldn't have to be impacted by..." and he's been a lot more willing to hear me without taking it as an accusation.
I haven't rescinded my original request, I'm keeping my options open & actively looking for solutions. I've also made it more clear than ever that this isn't manipulation, this isn't quacking - this is REAL LIFE & I need & intend to do what is right for me & DD first & foremost. Changing on his side of things is up to him, but I'm not waiting on him to make changes in order to move forward for myself.
Thanks if you made it all the way through to the end of this!
We have not separated yet, it’s been a lot of ongoing conversations which have been fairly productive in terms of my feeling more understood & gaining more understanding of his “side of the street”
I should also explain my term “pink flagging”…. Lol….. For me, that is a situation where my internal alarm stirs but doesn’t fully go off. Either it’s because something seems “off” but by staying on my own side of the street I don’t get “confirmation” of any wrongdoing…. OR I can’t tell if the penalty flag is on MY side of the street. I think in this situation it was a combination of both of us losing traction at times.
In a nutshell here’s what I think is going on with us. For Him:
1. He still has horrible communication & it creates huge problems. Part of it is using general terms – when he talks about “that guy” or “this job” it tells me nothing unless I take the time to play 20 Questions… which I no longer do. Again – not his mama here, he needs to grow up & use Big Boy Words. Since using broad, general terms like this is (to me) what he did as an active addict trying to cover his BS, I pink-flagged a lot of stuff based on this alone because it comes off like “white lies” a lot of the time.
2. He internalizes EVERYTHING until he is so overwhelmed that reacts like a cornered animal…. Also reminiscent of his active A behavior. He somehow thinks he is protecting me/us from stuff by not sharing the things that bother him…. which boggles my mind. All it does is isolate us away from each other & makes me feel abandoned.
3. Part of my aggravation is that he hasn’t been able to find regular, dependable work. I felt like he was stubbornly only pursuing what he WANTS vs. what he CAN HAVE. It turned out he’d been applying everywhere & just wasn’t sharing it because it was too much rejection. Hello!? I can’t know what you don’t TELL ME. There’s a big difference between trying & failing & not trying at all, but I was never getting the benefit of the knowledge.
Part of the issue here is that his back has gotten so bad over the last 10 yrs during his drinking & ignoring known health issues that he has ongoing pain 24/7…. So now he isn’t able to do the type of work he has always done. (Construction) While he had been moving out of the field & into the management side of things, there just aren’t a lot of those kinds of jobs available at all anymore. He could go back to the field at his choice of companies, but can’t handle the work & at piece-rate pay scale, it would be like working for nothing, literally. With all of his legal problems & not having a current DL due to his DUI, it is also limiting him from even simple stuff like Walmart & 7-11. His ego is battered & he does not know how to handle it.
As a result, he keeps accepting small side job work from people he has worked for on & off for many yrs that are undependable & difficult to get paid from…… which makes me pull my hair out from the roots. In his mind he was “doing everything he possibly could” to provide for his family but all I was seeing was “accepting unacceptable behavior” from others, to the detriment of his family.
4. He has struggled with depression & ADD for as long as I have known him but he has REFUSED to address it medically. I’m all for any solution that works, but continuing to ignore it is not something the rest of should have to deal with.
All in all, there are many things he can choose to do to manage things better & these are KNOWN issues, not NEW issues. The silver lining is that he has definitely not relapsed with alcohol.
On my side I have to own:
1. After our initial discussion I did go a little Codie – I did start looking for “proof” of my assumptions….. after the 3rd or 4th dead-end I just stopped looking. I wasn’t turning anything up, I was embarrassed that I’d gone that far & it was obvious that I wasn’t finding anything. I knew if I kept pushing & searching I would eventually find SOMETHING that I would maybe be willing to take out of context just to have something to justify my own bad behavior.
2. I have been digging through a LOT of ACoA stuff – I have also had a lot of suppressed memories surfacing randomly & they are bringing a whole slew of new triggers I hadn’t been as sensitive to before. Some of the “pink flags” really WERE mine.
3. I strive to not make assumptions (I really live by the Four Agreements
) But sometimes I was forced into making assumptions based on what I could de-code through his non-communication & internalizing & I was wrong more often than not.4. I need to be more aware of HALT for myself – I can trace a LOT of my own missteps back to reacting due to hunger, anger, loneliness or exhaustion.
As situations have come up over the last couple of weeks I've tried to use them as examples..... "See, this happening right now? THIS is a decision I shouldn't have to be impacted by..." and he's been a lot more willing to hear me without taking it as an accusation.
I haven't rescinded my original request, I'm keeping my options open & actively looking for solutions. I've also made it more clear than ever that this isn't manipulation, this isn't quacking - this is REAL LIFE & I need & intend to do what is right for me & DD first & foremost. Changing on his side of things is up to him, but I'm not waiting on him to make changes in order to move forward for myself.
Thanks if you made it all the way through to the end of this!
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Join Date: May 2010
Location: USA
Posts: 13,560
Oh FS....I wish I could be even a fraction of how self aware you are in this post. You should be proud, it sounds like some positive communication is happening. Question, if he does side jobs in construction, could he not start his own handyman sort of business? I work in the insurance field, the liability insurance is not too expensive for that sort of thing. I know when I got divorced I hired a handyman and in the course of the past few months have paid him out a couple thousand dollars, that's just me. He has not even had to do that much work in reality, stuff that was really hard for me but really easy for him. Just a thought.
I hope things continue to improve! Thank you for the update!
XXX
I hope things continue to improve! Thank you for the update!
XXX
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: Florida
Posts: 6,780
He has been doing a lot of that Hopeful, but it goes beyond his specialty a lot of the time (he fabricates aluminum structures, screen cages, lanais, etc.). He has done a lot of smaller handyman kind of stuff but it's been really random & he's gotten burned a couple of times already. He's had to file work liens on 2 separate jobs already (& found out that one of the clients was already in the process of trying to sell the house without paying him!).
Plus, locally he has to incorporate in order to avoid paying high work comp - they changed the way they handle this in our state/county a few years ago so he can't qualify as a sole proprietor. Restarting a corporation is NOT an option right now; I'm the one that has the knowledge of forming & running the admin side of things to keep it all on the up & up & it was such an enormous contention between us in the past that I will NOT go through any of that again.
I told him he's very "Anne Frank meets Pollyanna wearing rose-colored glasses" with the way that he trusts people....... he believes everyone will be honest & gives them too much benefit of the doubt. That leaves US high & dry - I'm out the time it takes him to work & not get paid, don't get that extra help at home, he gets po'd at being yanked around & having no $ to show for his hard work & around we go!
Plus, locally he has to incorporate in order to avoid paying high work comp - they changed the way they handle this in our state/county a few years ago so he can't qualify as a sole proprietor. Restarting a corporation is NOT an option right now; I'm the one that has the knowledge of forming & running the admin side of things to keep it all on the up & up & it was such an enormous contention between us in the past that I will NOT go through any of that again.
I told him he's very "Anne Frank meets Pollyanna wearing rose-colored glasses" with the way that he trusts people....... he believes everyone will be honest & gives them too much benefit of the doubt. That leaves US high & dry - I'm out the time it takes him to work & not get paid, don't get that extra help at home, he gets po'd at being yanked around & having no $ to show for his hard work & around we go!
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Join Date: May 2010
Location: USA
Posts: 13,560
Wow...that stinks! I am sorry. In this state you can exclude yourself from the work comp in that type of situation and do not have to Inc. I can understand why you don't want to do all that!
My boss also runs senior housing. They have guys that work for them who do general stuff and make pretty good $, paid health ins, etc. Maybe something like that? I'm sorry, I realize that is his side of the street! Butting right out!
No matter how it all goes, know we are here for you always my friend!
XXX
My boss also runs senior housing. They have guys that work for them who do general stuff and make pretty good $, paid health ins, etc. Maybe something like that? I'm sorry, I realize that is his side of the street! Butting right out!
No matter how it all goes, know we are here for you always my friend!
XXX
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 2,349
My mom goes through this with her husband. He's not and A but very ADHD and they own their own HVAC company. He trusts everybody, he doesn't count all the costs and gives these ambiguous quotes to people who take it to heart, and then they find out that the costs are nearly doubled because of parts/labor, etc. It drives my mom crazy to keep him on track and to keep them afloat financially. He is 71 years old but acts younger and looks great for his age and they both stay fit taking care of their farm, but his ADHD drives her crazy sometimes. They've tried taking people to court but the costs, both in time and money, sometimes out weight the amount they are trying to recoup.
Thanks for the update, it sounds like you have so much awareness.
Thanks for the update, it sounds like you have so much awareness.
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: Florida
Posts: 6,780
You're not butting in Hopeful, lol. His arrest record (again, HIS consequences) is what is holding him back from getting positions like that. He can't even volunteer at DD's school with a felony on his record. It sucks, but nothing I can do anything about. The insurance thing is due to rampant abuse of the system over so many yrs, lol. Years ago you were able to exempt under a sole prop, but no longer.... and going full-on corp, no thanks. BTDT & I am not fighting over biz receipts, quarterly taxes or payroll reports EVER AGAIN.
This is EXACTLY it Liz. He's perfectly fine & highly profitable within his area of expertise but once he ventures out into other areas he runs into these exact kinds of issues & that's one of the things I'm not supporting any longer. Staying busy does not equal making money.
DD definitely made me smile - the day after the initial crap-hitting-the-fan-day, we had a lot of running around &shopping to do. When I got out to the car she had preselected the 1st 3 songs on the songlist "for you Mom, it's what you need to hear right now".... It was Taproot's "Poem" (this song is a poem to myself.....) POD's "Set it Off" (Let your spirit fly, stand up for yourself, hold your head up high) and TLC's "No Scrubs" (a scrub is a guy that can't get no love from me,) and just for a bonus we rounded it off with Fergie's "Big Girls Don't Cry" & TLC's "Unpretty". Oh, this child KNOWS ME.
Thanks guys!
Originally Posted by lizatola 
My mom goes through this with her husband. He's not and A but very ADHD and they own their own HVAC company. He trusts everybody, he doesn't count all the costs and gives these ambiguous quotes to people who take it to heart, and then they find out that the costs are nearly doubled because of parts/labor, etc. It drives my mom crazy to keep him on track and to keep them afloat financially. He is 71 years old but acts younger and looks great for his age and they both stay fit taking care of their farm, but his ADHD drives her crazy sometimes. They've tried taking people to court but the costs, both in time and money, sometimes out weight the amount they are trying to recoup.
Thanks for the update, it sounds like you have so much awareness.
Thanks for the update, it sounds like you have so much awareness.
DD definitely made me smile - the day after the initial crap-hitting-the-fan-day, we had a lot of running around &shopping to do. When I got out to the car she had preselected the 1st 3 songs on the songlist "for you Mom, it's what you need to hear right now".... It was Taproot's "Poem" (this song is a poem to myself.....) POD's "Set it Off" (Let your spirit fly, stand up for yourself, hold your head up high) and TLC's "No Scrubs" (a scrub is a guy that can't get no love from me,) and just for a bonus we rounded it off with Fergie's "Big Girls Don't Cry" & TLC's "Unpretty". Oh, this child KNOWS ME.
Thanks guys!
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Join Date: Sep 2009
Posts: 3,707
Originally Posted by FireSprite
You're not butting in Hopeful, lol. His arrest record (again, HIS consequences) is what is holding him back from getting positions like that. He can't even volunteer at DD's school with a felony on his record. It sucks, but nothing I can do anything about. The insurance thing is due to rampant abuse of the system over so many yrs, lol. Years ago you were able to exempt under a sole prop, but no longer.... and going full-on corp, no thanks. BTDT & I am not fighting over biz receipts, quarterly taxes or payroll reports EVER AGAIN.
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