OK,
so this weekend I finally just lost it completely with DP.
Previous posts from me on here (and the very helpful advice provided from many on here in response) I won't repeat.
Typing this, it all seems very silly, petty, selfish and just that I look like a vile bitch but on top of all the previous issues (lack of date night, access by proxy when DP wants to go out on his bike and leave me with DSD etc etc) but this weekend:
- he suggested going out for a curry on Sunday night (hurray - he finally suggests treating me for what I thought I was supposed to be, his new girlfriend of less than a year), but no, it transpires that by some miraculous coincidence one of his friends will be going there too. It is IMPOSSIBLE to try and suggest nicely that I would like us, just the two of us, to be able to go out without being usurped by any other better offer that comes along (mates, deciding he'd like his daughter for extra night that week) usual stuff I have posted before. In the end I said fine, I'll drop you off there so you can have a drink with your mates, and we ended up not going out.
- I had the nerve to suggest that I found it difficult 'integrating' into the house (note house, not home, as it doesn't feel like one to me) because of little things like it's still the old voicemail message on the phone, it's still the old code on the burglar alarm (combination of his and the Ex birthdays). I know this will seem utterly daft to many of you but it's all these little things just drip, drip, drip that make me feel like I do not and never will fit in.
- I don't have my own kids so this may be contentious / inflammatory to some of you but there are bloody hundreds of DSD photos (quick count and I got to 27) around the house, including the scan pic / birth pic (DSD is 9.5 now) and nothing that says anything about the two of us. I could be paranoid but he uses Facebook daily (counted in terms of hours it seems) but I don't think I've ever been mentioned once in his posts. I said nothing about the ordinary pics of DSD but mentioned the scan pic and said I felt uncomfortable about it - pic of Ex womb on display on the bookshelf in the lounge and perhaps that was better for his private collection. He went nuts and said 'have you any idea what you're asking me to do'. Well no I haven't - I didn't ask him to chuck it out, just said I felt uncomfortable having to look at it every time I walk across the room to switch the TV on, or shut the curtains.
I have tried gentle persuasion previously to change very minor things around the house, not even to 'put my stamp on it' a phrase I think some people use, but more to make life a little more efficient / bearable for me. Te last time I tried to do something - swapping the contents of a couple of shelves around in the kitchen to avoid stuff cascading down on me as I try to cook - he got really annoyed and said that DSD would probably be 'very traumatised by the changes and have you any idea how difficult this is for her - she wasn't sure where the tissues were'. Yes, he used the word 'traumatised' IN THE SAME SENTENCE AS FINDING SOME TISSUES (which, btw, I had put on the bottom shelf, next to her things, and told her where they were). I felt like shouting back (re being traumatised) 'didn't you think of that when you split up with the ex' but bit my tongue... We're not talking about me redesigning the whole fcking kitchen while he's out, just me suggesting IN ADVANCE and saying I was going to move some herbs/ spices and the contents of the first aid shelf FFS (so it was on the top shelf right out of DSD reach as with her little step she could reach the lower shelf it was on previously).
I tried (not in the same 'discussion' this weekend, just earlier the other week) to bring up the thorny subject of holidays and how it would be nice if he could find time for the two of us to take a holiday together, as we might do in the early stages of a 'normal' relationship. I would pay for all of this. He's basically said he doesn't think so as he'll need to take time off for DSD during school hols. He gets 30 days a year and this last annual leave year had to do the 'use it or lose it', taking days off for no reason thing, using up the last 3 days entitlement (we'd only need 5 for a week off, 4 if it was a bank hol) apparently he needs to keep them spare for some racing as well as DSD hols. He managed it all last year with room to spare, I don't understand. He also wanted me to go away for a whole week with him and DSD. I said it was too much for me in our first year, and first four months of living together (we'll have been together a year in April, if I make it that far). I get 20 days annual leave. I can't see how it's OK for me to be expected to give up a quarter of my entitlement to go on holiday with a child that isn't mine, but he can't spare a fifth of his, for some time with me. Even a long weekend or two would be something!! There is a thread on here in which pretty much everyone seemed to think it was absolutely not a problem for new coupld to go away leaving kid behind. It's not as if DSD doesn't have decent holiday she had Rome with DP and Ibiza with the Ex in a year.
The arrangements this week are that DSD will be here on Friday, he doesn't 'do' Valentines Day apparently. He's never asked me if I 'do', for the record.
I am about to walk away from all of this because I cannot deal with this any longer.
Please post me in the direction of a single man from mid 30s to mid 40s WITH NO FCKING KIDS!!
And my massive apologies to anyone I have offended with any of above rant as you've been amazingly kind and helpful to me.