Feel so stressed, so manipulated- wise words please?

[NoFun21]

STBXH - departed 1,6 years. Previous threads on out “ birds nest” arrangement where he visits my young kids at home ,‘one with asc.
If I am angry or visibly frustrated when coping alone all week and then accommodating him at weekends he then starts talking about how he just wants to get on with divorce and see his kids and everything is my fault etc etc. Called me a cunt in front of my kids as we were arguing, I’m ashamed but my son had insisted I go out with them in car ( hard to understand unless you understand asc) and I was exhausted and frustrated and got Crisis’s with him.

If I am nice and accommodating and not angry he makes comments about how nice I look.

He sent me flowers today as it was my daughters birthday.

He came to house - all had nice time. Huge effort on my part as children unwell. I then said “ goodbye to daddy” etc to draw an boundary. I thenMake mistake of texting to thank him for flowers.
Texts followed1:you deserve them.

1. I’m so low and so horny. I tell him I’m not interested in him being horny and it makes me feel the nice things he has said and flowers are not genuine.

I then get a barrage of texts about how genuine he is and how he won’t lmention anything sexual “ henceforth” 3 to please let him know about my child’s illness ( have been telling him all week how he is) and that I am not to text him before he arrives about anything as he will not be given orders etc ) with my autistic son things change moment and moment and with a 2 year old things also happen last minute and if I talk to him about kids’ needs once he arrives he gets angry!?🤷🏻‍♀️)

I texted him to say that I am
Exhausted and he knows the kids are sick Etc and apparently I deserve flowers but not to have an evening free of texts like this trying to make me feel bad!?

I get awful anxiety when these texts come through. I want to get on for my kids but I find him so difficult to manage. What is going on here please? How do I manage this? I’m damned if I’m angry and I’m damned if I’m nice and normal.

But you've allowed it in the past and he may feel a residual right over you.

The thing is, he is angry and spiteful, so there's no point saying "when he's not" because then you're not looking at the complete person, just his best side. My OH is never spiteful, never calls me names, always has my back, no matter what's going on in his life. You deserve the same level of treatment. It seems from your messages that you want him to decide if you're together or not. Why not decide yourself that you're worth more than all this?

Any little thing, like you texting him to thank him for the flowers makes him think you'll be up for a shag. I hope you can disengage with the unnecessary pleasantries, view him as your DC father only. Communicate only about the DC, don't engage in his 'horny' talk. Shut it down by not responding.

It’s so depressing that this is what it amounts to, I think I find it hard to except that someone so clever, so knowledgeable who has seen me go through so much could still be just trying to get his leg over with an empty heart and no care for what that does to me.

You were confusing the slow divorce for “he still loves me and doesn’t really want to get divorced” instead of what it really is, expensive. For him , so he’s trying to save money. It’s a financial transaction. He doesn’t love you.

You were confusing flowers for “he DOES care about me” when actually he was just trying to manipulate you into sex.

You confuse sex with love. Sex is sex. He’s thought “she’s convenient and we are still married so why not take advantage of that, I’ll just buy her flowers, that’s cheaper than dating another bird as she’ll want a dinner date first and that will be dear and she may not even put out, yeah il try and jump my ex. She may want it too, she’s single so bound to be horny”. That isn’t love. Men can easily detach the two. He won’t know that you aren’t like that. He won’t think his treatment of you would have left you feeling dirty and used after as he wouldnt have felt like that.

Sorry OP you’re looking for love in the wrong place. Crack on with the divorce and you find a nice guy in due course who treats you well and is worthy of you. You deserve better than that using swine you had before. You’re worth ten of that arse.

Are you not angry at the way he speaks to you?

Who started the divorce process?

I started the divorce process. Yes I am angry at the way he speaks to me. It was me that asked him to leave after being sworn at one too many times.

Quite right, too.

So that's the reason you're divorcing him and he's clearly done nothing to change. That shows you that he doesn't love you!

A friend of mine came to me in tears not long ago saying her relationship was all over, she was going to leave her H. Her DH, though, realised at this point how seriously he had fucked up and has never behaved in that way again. He saw how upset he'd made her and was devastated. They're together and fine now. He's a changed man.

Compare that to what you've got. I'm sorry, OP.

Press on with the divorce and minimise the headspace you allow him. He's manipulating you.

When we did have sex he told me my problem was that I never believed he loved me and I never trusted him!

He most likely does feel love for you sometimes. Why wouldn't he? He married you, you gave birth to his children and you sound like a lovely caring person. I think you can assume he does love you, because you are lovable.

Why try to fathom his feelings though? What do YOU want? Do you love HIM ? He sounds like an awful, selfish partner. That should be the deciding factor. He is very unpleasant to live with. So, push on with the divorce and just view the home visits as a necessary evil. Insist he communicates by email so that he doesn't invade your headspace so much or train yourself to only open messages when you are feeling resilient enough. Things sound really hard for you at the moment but there's every reason to believe they will improve.

He rang to apologise today and said that I mustn’t take it too seriously he was just upset but I told him what you say is serious ( it all has ramifications for our children ). What he means is “ you are not allowed to be Angry with me”

He sounds awful; controlling and manipulative and selfish. Keep reminding yourself it's great that you are on the path to freedom. He's not going to change and it's possible he will escalate the manipulative behaviour as he senses losing control. Just hold your head up and keep walking through the storm.

mustn’t take it too seriously Oh, that's all right then.

I told him what you say is serious Well yes, but that's what you'd tell a child. Or maybe a partner (but any adult ought to understand that already). He is neither.

See how much he's in your headspace? He said this, he means that. Who cares? Practise your eye roll and think "I'm so glad I left him."

Then move on with your life. How is that going? Tell us something positive about your unrelated-to-him life.

I rarely lie awake at night so stressed all my muscles ache and I can’t sleep after some awful row whilst he lies on the couch downstairs laughing at some comedy show.

He rang to apologise today and said that I mustn’t take it too seriously he was just upset but I told him

You give him far far too much access to your mental energy and your time. I wouldn't have picked up the phone. If I did I would have at most listened to a handful of apology words, hung up at the first "but" or the first minimisation. I might have said "I'm not having this" immediately before hanging up. I wouldn't have waiting until the end of his sentence. I wouldn't have waited for his response.

Stop jumping to his tune. The way to stop losing the game is to stop playing the game. There is no game. Exit the game.

I can’t do that as he would respond by not picking up my calls when I needed to tell him something about or make arrangements for the children. As my son has additional needs and my daughter is young and he has ever done intensive parenting I need for their sakes to be able to talk to him. He is massively childish I his responses so this is predictable. He has a senior job in nhs but is massively childish in his resoinses I just don’t get it . Think this sort of thing: me: you’re frightening me!
Him/ you’re frightening ME!
Me: you just so t understand what it’s like being a woman with a new baby trying to breastfeed, having an older sibling trying to breastfeed too, being called a cunt by your husband etc etc
Him” you do t understand what it’s like to be a man!”

he would respond by not picking up my calls when I needed to tell him something about or make arrangements for the children

That's his decision, but as a consequence the arrangements wouldn't be made and he wouldn't see them. Or you pass over the information in a note when he picks them up.

Anyway, don't call him. If you need to communicate, text/WhatsApp/email. Whichever is your preferred! They're all better than calls, because you decide when you are strong enough to look at them and when you really need to switch off. Also you can keep conversations on track now easily if you practise ignoring anything that's not about the DC.

more easily

Thanks. If I ignore messages he can see I’ve read them and will send more like “ are you serious?!”
It’s fine for him to ignore my messages but not for me to ignore him. I do understand what you are saying though.

Hold up, I saw further up that you had sex once with him, you didn't want to and it hurt. That's rape, love. He's a nasty piece of shit.

It wasn’t rape- I consented but I think it hurt because I didn’t really want to I was just going along with it because deep down I thought maybe it would enable a reconciliation. I know that sounds bad but I have always been quite easily coerced into sex since I was a teenager. It hurt because my body didn’t really want that I think.

Let me fix your statements for you

In his mind It’s fine for him to ignore my messages but not for me to ignore him

If I ignore messages he can see I’ve read them and will send more like “ are you serious?!” because he knows I will eventually react if he sends enough messages

I can’t do that as he would respond by not picking up my calls when I needed to tell him something about or make arrangements for the children.
Send him a text, then you know he got the message. If he chooses not to act on it, so what?

What are you dependent on him for that is optional for him but mandatory for you?

Reassurance because he KNOWS I can look after my kids and knows I
Can handle any given situation with my son but I do not know he can. When we were together I would always have to deal with anything difficult and he moved out when my daughter was 6 months old so is a bit clueless. I need to communicate my sons preoccupations, interests, habits etc which it’s vital he understands. He knows that I know all this and can handle all this but because he’s so selfish in many ways I do t trust him. I don’t think he takes other people’s feelings they seriously except his own.

It is tough handing DCs over to somebody you don't trust. I have to do that and now they're older it's easier, but when they were small it just felt wrong. Very anxiety-inducing.

But. You send the messages, conveying the information you need to, and then you've done all you can do. No further communication needed.

You really do need time to switch off from him. How much of that do you get currently? Just the weekdays when you're at work?