STBXH vent - How to get over people taking his side?

[ShampooForMyRealFriends]

My STBXH and I have been having trouble since our toddler was born and it became apparent that he's not able to put anyone else's needs above his own. I have made the decision to leave him and am "getting my ducks in a row" as the parlance goes. This post consists of a vent and some questions.

Vent
I used to teach undergraduates and used to marvel that some of them were able to take the bus to class on their own or tie their own shoes, given that they were unable to complete a simple Google search on their own or make sure they wrote exactly five sentences in an assignment requiring them to write exactly five sentences. Unfortunately, it has become apparent that STBXH is one of these people. He is just chronically incompetent and can't own up to his mistakes.

The most recent episode involved us having to buy a new emergency pump for our basement. This is normal where we live, to pump out water in the event of a flood. (We had to buy one because he ignored my repeated requests to check and maintain our old one when I was pregnant and had a small baby and couldn't get down to deal with it myself.) The new one arrived and needed testing. He announced he would test it in the bath. I asked him questions like where would the water flow out to (not sure, I'll find some kind of hosepipe), how will we know the outflow pipes are connected properly (it'll be fine), wouldn't it be a better idea to install it and make sure it works when it's installed (no, that's too much work). We couldn't come to an agreement and dropped the subject. Then, without warning, he went and tested it in the bath.

Turns out (who knew??) that a 1/2 hp engine designed to pump out an inundation can really pump out water! Our bathroom was drenched, from floor to ceiling via the half-tiled (and half dry-walled) walls. This includes framed artwork and everything in the cupboards which were of course open, and our toddler who was looking to see what Daddy was doing. He half-arsedly wipes down the inside of the bath and the mirror and says the job's a good'un. I went in to brush my teeth only to find everything soaked and made him come back in to dry up properly. The second time, he wiped down one wall and underneath the clawfoot bathtub. He insisted that everything else (cardboard boxes of toiletries and medicine, framed art, wooden trim, metal nail scissors, etc.) would dry fine on its own. I got pretty upset and made some comments about always having to clean up after his mistakes, as I was left to clean up 90% of the mess myself. But the whole time he was saying things like "you are an obsessive clean freak", "you're incapable of existing in the real world", "why don't you go to a hotel where someone will clean up after you all the time".

This kind of shit happens literally weekly. He always has some bright idea that ends up going to shit and I have to sort it out - even when I try to make him do it. Usually this involves saving effort for him. But the thing that gets my goat is that he can't ever see that he was wrong?? Like, he still thinks testing the pump in the bath was the best option and given the choice would do it again. I can explain until I'm blue in the face that quite often, when he's saving himself work, he's making work for me but he just doesn't accept it. As in, it's not that he sees it and doesn't care, he just thinks I have unattainable standards for not wanting my bathroom dripping with water.

So here are the questions

I am autistic and have a very rigid sense of there being a "right" and "wrong" way to do many things. I recognize this is my issue. But I really really struggle with him not being able to see that he made a mistake and hold his hand up and say "Yes, I messed up, I will not be doing that again". I would love to not let this bother me, but my concern is that if we are sharing custody, I will not be around to protect our child from STBXH's bright ideas and he won't ever learn not to do stupid and dangerous things (like letting DC play with a bottle full of pills which he then manages to open and swallow, or taking to long to lower the crib mattress so that DC falls out, or leaving DC unattended in the drive for five minutes, all of which have happened).

Is there anything I can do about this, either from the point of view of not letting it bother me or from the point of view of communicating with him better so that he gets it?

And additionally, we are both seeing individual therapists after failing at couples therapy (of course, it was me who researched and arranged all of the various therapies). It often felt to me like the couples therapists (there were three, due to internships ending, etc.) took his side in instances like this. I can see that as a one-off, an outsider might think I was overreacting about instances like this. But again, it happens ALL THE TIME and he never admits he made a mistake and I always have to sort it out afterwards. It went so far as in one session, the couples therapist told me I have to be ok with him interrupting me all the time (he won't ever let me get a single sentence out uninterrupted) and calling me names, because that's how he communicates. He has now started using phrasing that I strongly suspect is coming from his therapist that again makes me out to be unreasonable - having too high standards, being too rigid, not being able to see the bigger picture. And it is INFURIATING me that he has also managed to convince his own therapist that I am causing the issues.

Honestly, the idea that the couples therapists and his therapist all see me as being neurotic and causing problems is really really getting to me. I know I'm not perfect, I know I can be uptight about certain things and I'm working on it. But I have thought long and hard about how much of his shit it is ok to let go and I feel I have to draw the line at property damage and endangering our child. And yet all these trained professionals think I'm over the top. So the question is, how can I let what these people think go? Or maybe better, how can I get an objective view about how rigid is too rigid?

I know this is really long and thank you if you have managed to read this far. I appreciate any help or advice you can give, including about the process of leaving and how to deal in the meantime.

I dont think his therapist is telling him it's OK to call you names and not let you speak?

No, that was the couples therapist. She did say that, I was there in the room. I tried to push back on it and didn't really get anywhere - the discussion just ended up being between me and the therapist and STBXH was not involved.

I am similar to you in some ways (autism and very strong feeling of right and wrong) but - and this took me most of my life to work out - that doesn't mean I'm always right. I like things to be done to a high standard and in a particular way. It bothers me if this isn't done like this.

This is my problem. I would never have admitted that a couple of years ago. I wouldn't have even been able to recognise it in myself.

People are different. And the fact he might make mistakes or forget to do things must be really frustrating but I think you might need to accept that not everyone can live life in the way you or I may like them to.

Also, I'm in a similar situation with ex partner telling others things that are wrong that upset me but we have no control over that. Some things you have to accept and be the better person.

Life is frustrating and confusing.

Fuck that therapist off right now you don't owe anyone your voice

Hello OP, obviously we do not know you or your husband enough nor are we professionals to be able to say who is right or wrong, but to me the situation is very clear. It does not matter if it is you or your husband who is "wrong", what matters is that the two of you are "wrong" for each other. The way he is, what he is doing and how, is driving you crazy and you "do not have to" take it at all, you can and in my opinion, should leave, but this is your decision to make.

I have to say that from what you are saying to us, the therapists you are using are total asholes. Unfortunately, these days, everybody is therapist, this is not a profession that is properly licensed (at least not here where I live and it is not UK) and there are a lot of people who are doing the job but are not actually trained. This is very scary, I know.

Good luck and all the best OP!

I think a big part of my fear is that, if we can't agree on a custody schedule for our child, the dispute will go to mediation and possibly before a judge. Given how so far all of the professionals who have heard his side of the story have seemingly sided with him, I'm concerned a judge will also do so, despite my well-founded concerns about DC's safety (and no similar concerns against me).

I recognise that everyone makes mistakes (even me! 😁), but I think there's a difference when it's a mistake that someone else has already warned you about and that you've chosen to ignore the advice, which is the case with all of the instances I've mentioned. I also think there's a big difference when you can look at your mistake and say "Yep, that was a mistake, I won't do that again" vs when you just dig in your heels and refuse to countenance the possibility that you might be wrong. In other, more autistic, words, the "right" way to be wrong is to consider that you might be wrong before taking action, and admit that you were wrong after the fact 😅I also want to be clear that I don't gloat when he's wrong - on the extremely rare occasion he admits a mistake (probably fewer than 5 times during our relationship), I accept the apology and never mention it again.

And of course everyone messes up occasionally, but this is really all the time. In the last week we've had five major incidents like this, the most recent of which involved him losing £150 to an internet scam today that I had warned him about this morning. He is really just an embodiment of the Dunning-Kruger effect and can't admit when he doesn't know something in order to look up instructions or ask for help, so these things keep happening.

Ditch the therapy. You don't need confirmation that he's an arsehole. And I suspect therapists don't want to get into a "he said she said" discussion ans would sooner park the bus on that one.

However, I do understand your concerns that your STBXH could have shared care of your DC and that his laxidasical attitude could cause harm or injury to them. Just the water pump issue would have me fuming 😡.

Not sure what the answer is apart from having to (at first) trust the process & if anything does happen then deny contact & let him take you to court.

Do you think he might "pull his socks up" when you're not around ? I wonder if there is some power game going on with him and if you're not around to pull him up on things he might just have to step up and get on with it......without messing things up

Yes, I definitely accept that we are wrong for each other, and I don't think he's "wrong" in the sense of being abusive or malicious in general. It's just that in all of these specific instances he is making choices that unnecessarily endanger our child or cost us money. I am going to leave him, and have already spoken to an aid organization and have the name of a lawyer.

I find it deeply, deeply disturbing in a way I can't really explain that so many people can't see that he repeatedly makes very bad choices. I am especially disturbed that they are people whose job it is to adjudicate these situations (specifically, the therapists and potentially a mediator or judge). It makes me very scared that he will be given equal custody of our two year old, then decide (again) that it's ok to let him run around by the pool out of arm's reach without a life vest on, or leave him in the bath alone "just for a minute" while he goes in another room with his headphones on, or whatever else it might be.

Honestly, I don't think it's a power issue. I think he's always had his mum to clean up after him and sort things for him and where that wasn't possible he just went without. Some of the things he messes up are his own things (e.g. forgetting meetings with clients, leaving special books next to an open window in the rain) - he just really doesn't seem capable of foreseeing the obvious outcomes of things and working to avoid it. I do suspect ADHD or something like that, but he's not interested in investigating.

I guess another thing that's concerning to me is how to avoid coupling up with another one like this. Despite how black and white it all is now and how egregious some of the mistakes he makes are, before we owned a home and were parents together I think there was just so much less stuff to go wrong iyswim? So that there weren't enough opportunities to see him in action. We were together three years before we got married, and lived together for two of those so at the time it felt like we really knew each other, but it's like a switch flipped after I gave birth and I was totally blindsided.

When you became a mother you became, in his eyes, his mother?

This is exactly it. I expected a partner, not another dependent.

Unappealing and bloody irritating. I’d detach, anticipate one of his mistakes backfiring on him and do my best to keep the toddler safely away from him.

OP, unfortunately, a lot of therapists are just no good. Some of them still, even in 2024, invariably take the man's side no matter what he's like. Don't continue to see a therapist who does that to you.
The thing you should focus your energy on is the problem of custody, which is concerning. Couple's therapy will not straighten your STBX out. He's not normal, by the sound of it. He sounds irresponsible to the point of being deranged. He gives a child dangerous pills to play with? 😱
If he is a danger to your child, you need to gather evidence of this to go for sole custody and supervised visitation.

I fully understand autism and the 'right' and 'wrong' way of thinking
However, some of the examples of danger your husband has put your child in would cause me concern as well. Why was your child given a pill bottle to play with? And leaving him on the drive unattended for 5 minutes. Why? Both is pure stupidity and there is no 'right' there at all.

The pump and other examples I think can be moved on from

It seems like he just really isn't capable of predicting the likely outcome of a scenario, or at least like he doesn't give it any thought. Again, this even happens with things he cares about so I don't think it's malicious.

But at the same time, he doesn't accept that this is the case and will not accept advice or warnings about likely outcomes. In the case of the pill bottle, DC was small (I think around 6 months?). STBXH was giving me an extremely rare break and watching DC on my bed next to my bedside table where I kept my pills. As I walked away from them, I saw DC eyeing the pills and said to STBXH "don't let DC play with that bottle, probably best to put it away". Not five minutes later, DC had somehow managed to open it and swallow one. I wasn't in the room so didn't see how, but if he had just put it away as I asked it would have been avoided. When this came up in therapy it was just "It was one time! It was just a mistake! Could happen to anyone!" and the therapist seemed sympathetic to this.

I have started making a list of these incidents, but I'm worried that a judge will be as impressed by them as the therapist was i.e. not at all. I'm worried that I'm somehow not getting the danger across clearly, or the fact that he ignored a warning about the danger.

And yes, we have finished with the therapy. The "diagnosis" at the end was that we need to listen to each other more.

Only give your lawyer documentation on things he has done that had the that potential to endanger your child. Don't catalog his failings as a husband or the judge might think you are a bitter ex trying to make trouble. His failings as a husband don't count for anything when it comes to custody. It would be best if you can remember specifics; date of incident, approximate time, name of the medication she got into, etcetera.

You won't get him to see he's wrong because he won't admit it.

If you are genuinely concerned for your child's safety it would be reasonable to request he has supervised visits. But you may have to accept if it doesn't happen. When you split up you need to stop rescuing him. Leave him to figure out how to manage himself

It is standard human behaviour to not want to admit to a mistake.

A judge or other mediator will not be impressed by a list of mistakes that he has made.

You need to separate out mistakes that he makes that do not impact your child (as there is a perception that everyone makes mistakes) and the ones that do impact your child.

So the leaving your child unsupervised on the drive is concerning. The pills is concerning.

The other stuff you need to deprioritise or let go.

If you have a long list and it's stuff like "he got the bathroom wet" mixed in with the serious stuff it looks like you don't know the difference either.

You need to focus on dangerous facts and not add vindictive things they can't be that irresponsible or you would not have had a child with then

If if go into minute detai the judge may dismiss your concerns as perceived as trying to get your own back rather than genuine concern

Your incompatible some people just blunder through life surrounded by chaos and you’ve landed one of them

they will not change this is who they are

Yes, I fully accept that the safety issues are separate and much more concerning than the other things and the list I'm compiling only has safety issues. I do think they stem from the same source though.

With the other 'mistakes', I have two concerns: 1) HOW do I 'just let it go' in the moment? I feel like a doormat if I don't say anything and just clear it up afterwards (because he won't, and it's often my stuff or my money that is at risk), and I'm worried about the message that approach sends to DC. But anything I do say, regardless of how calm and objective or whether it's just an expression of my feelings, sparks a huge fight.

And 2) How do I avoid catching a similar one in future? I am a very clever person, but I still couldn't see all this stuff until it was too late. There just didn't seem to be the opportunity. I'm worried about making the same mistake again.