I have a 4 yo DD with my ex, whom I split with when I was pregnant. So single mum since the start.
He was very against the pregnancy, really wanted me not to continue with it.
Although he has always been in regular contact, this has never really resulted in him being particularly proactive in parenting. In the grand scheme of things he actually does fuck all. He has her every other weekend from late Friday evening after she has had dinner until Monday morning before school. I work part time shift work so he sometimes has for the night during weekdays and drops her off at school but really all he has to do is put her to bed and then wake her up in the morning.
Anyway, I love my DD and can manage all this. However what I really struggle with is his arrogance and hostility towards me. He is very passive aggressive, rolling his eyes, making snidey comments. When he discusses something about our DD, he talks to me like an employee who he has to reprimand. He will for example sit on my kitchen counters while talking to me which I find extremely irritating and make comments about my home which he thinks needs improving (btw I am quite house proud so always have a nice tidy home, but he always manages to find something that needs 'amending'). He gives me 'advice' about what he thinks my DD needs whilst doing absolutely nothing about it. He has mentioned a few times that he would like DD to do some extracurricular activities, which I would like too, and he mentioned it again asking what I had done to look into it. Essentially in the end he wants me to research it, fund it (apparently I can take it out of the £180 he pays me a month in maintenance as surely I would have enough left over for at least half it to go on classes for something), work out how to get her there etc. Why the fuck can't he do it? Oh, that's right, he is too busy and he 'never wanted this in the first place, remember?' (a line he says quite a lot).
I find it frustrating and it angers me... If he chooses to only do what he is currently doing I could live with that but what I struggle with is his almost delusional belief that he actually does so much more than he does. He cannot possibly know what goes into raising a child because he has never done it - the endless rounds of chores, shopping, food preparations, school runs, studying (I'm doing quite a full on course at the mo), dealing with a 4 yo full of beans etc. He truly believes that he contributes the same if not more than me and that he knows best. I do believe sometimes he has delusions of grandeur, thinking himself above his station. He is very arrogant, talks himself up despite being 37, working in a shitty call centre as a claims handler who failed his uni degree.
Arguing with him, or raising to the bait just doesn't work so I just tend to ignore him, try to detach and just smile and nod when he speaks. But I still end up getting really annoyed with him. Sometimes it gets to me and we end up having an argument. I wish I knew how to shut him down or make him see how he treats me.
Any advice?