Live together or apart?

[FairyCrystal]

Well, I hope you sort it out for yourself.
I don't know enough of the situation and him of course, but I also feel the roses are only a moment. His regret may be genuine, but if this is embedded in him it won't last.
I hope I'm wrong, but yeah...

Good thing you are starting to question things. A good sign. It means you are beginning to see it's not normal and you're not treated as you should be and growing unhappy with it.
For you, your children, and your self-esteem this is a very good step forward!
As for making the tough decision when it turns out this is needed... never easy. But trust me, you will get over that too. Because if you get to making that choice you know it's the right one to make.

I do hope he will change... I really do.

Lots of love

[asearcher]

Originally Posted by Ziusudra

When living with a stranger, those little day to day tasks can create an unnecessary stress and confrontations because of lack of communication, personality differences, and unknown expectations.

I like to suggest the followings:
First, sit down together and create a list of household tasks in writing.
Then decide together who owns each task and the expected completion timeframe. - in writing - enter next to each task.
(Negotiation and compromise are necessary.)
Post it where the entire family can see it.
Keep in mind that this list will have to be revised as life happens. (Kids may take on some of the tasks as they get older and etc.)
So, review the list together again every 3 to 6months to update it.

Most importantly, communicate openly about external and internal influencing factors. (ex, work stress, priority to spend time with kids)

The therapist will recommend the same things:
Clearly set expectation, Open communications, compromise, and Negotiation.

You two may have to hire some outside help- Monthly cleaning lady, Grocery delivery service, Food delivery service, child sitters, and etc.

If both of you truly love each other and want to keep the family unit together, then you have to run the household like any other organization/business.

Of course, if communication, negotiation, and compromise are impossible due to severe personality gaps, emotional instability, or psychological issues, then you may have to let him go.

In addition, let go of unrealistic expectations of each other.
Also both of you have to let go of the childhood "learning" from your parents because you two are not your parents and you two are living in a different reality than your parents.

So, start from a blank paper. Respect each other's boundaries and limitations.
Keep thing in real perspective, ask yourself, will someone die if dishes are not done on time? or if garbage was not taken out for days?

Hi Ziusudra! That is some great advice! :)
We've talked and so far what has come up is that while I take it natural to have open/direct communication (from my first family) his is more a guessing game and sudden outbursts about having been irritated about something, that is unsaid expectations. He too is someone that no matter if 7 things have been done he focus on the 2 things that has not been done. He sees things as start and finish while I see them clockwise, it just goes round and round as long as we breath, and this idea does not cause me stress.

In his first family his Mum was always home. I have had a different upbringing. Both my parents has worked outside the home,just like we do now.

I can't say if his parents both started out as pedant, but I can say that they both are. But to them this is normal.

I have notice with myself that I am customed to rush home after work before he does and try to do everything in a rush so that what ever mess there is or will be it will be gone by the time he comes home. Just recently I have noticed I get a small kind of anxiety symptome of this and go and check things - that is I want to avoid him becoming irritated about any of it when he returns home. I have never before truly acknoledged this and how it make me feel. I can understand that if someone is a pedant in the relationship it will sooner or later become contagious to the other one. Just today I had to remind myself that I do not have to do all that and it was a mix feeling or relief and small dose of feeling nervous not knowing if I could let it go for sure.

I have come to understand now that I have not been relaxed for a long time while I have taken for granted to be relaxed in previous relationship or living with someone else.

When I think of it this is not something that has been presented to me over night, his expectations, but something that has happened here and there over period of time. If only I had gone from start point to where I was now or yesterday it would have been a cold shower and I would have realized the impact it has had on me.

When we have compared some things it turns out that I am more in harmony than to get irritated by some of his traditions while he has less harmony when it comes to me. Even if I think we have had a deal of what different things to do and has done it this way for a long time he suddenly change the rules without telling me and then let me have it. So he has never told me you know what, I am sick of doing this thing, can you do it instead? I am much more natural direct. I tell him if you do this, is that alright with you? And I do this?
I think this is why it has not been the other way around for us, that I have been the one irritated first in secret, then outburst of it later on.

One thing he has not understand even if he say I am very sensitive is that I feel his irritation before he thinks he let me see it. So even before I am under pressure from it. I have just been trying to figure what it is exactly and if, when he will let me have it.


Thank you so much

[asearcher]

Originally Posted by FairyCrystal

Well, I hope you sort it out for yourself.
I don't know enough of the situation and him of course, but I also feel the roses are only a moment. His regret may be genuine, but if this is embedded in him it won't last.
I hope I'm wrong, but yeah...

Good thing you are starting to question things. A good sign. It means you are beginning to see it's not normal and you're not treated as you should be and growing unhappy with it.
For you, your children, and your self-esteem this is a very good step forward!
As for making the tough decision when it turns out this is needed... never easy. But trust me, you will get over that too. Because if you get to making that choice you know it's the right one to make.

I do hope he will change... I really do.

Lots of love

Hi FairyCrystal, thank you so much, I feel your compassion.

I am so sorry you have in the past fallen a victim of a narcissist. So happy the narcissist didn't win! You are someone very, very strong to have done this : )

My love is sadly the child of a narcissist.I have been told in numerous ways that I am not good enough for it's glorious son.

I think I have figured out something about myself. I can fall out of love even if it is a strong love and then it is because I don't dare to be vulnerable, relaxed (Safe).

This is when it has happened in the past in past relationship and no matter if I wanted to or not the in-love feeling did not return.

I can still love and care for a person, but it's over - the in love feeling - and there is nothing I can do about it. It's too late. I'm not there anymore. And that's really sad, if not tragic, but I can't help it. My dream too has died. I too have grieved.

The only reason why I said it to him if we should live apart instead is to save the relationship, the family really, to have me in a state where I am still in love, because something is happening to me and I can't hold back the processe.

I got the great sensation of relief of just the thought of me living in a household without him. It was shocking even to me.

I think he and the rest of the pedants out there in the world think they are doing a good thing and are surprised when being critiqued about it, I mean why, right? They're doing everything right - I'm the one less. But this is a priority lesson.

He has been brought up in household where his Mum was always home. We both work. It is different. Logically he seem to get that, but then there is something else - like he ain't getting it.

When I talked with the kids about a possible change in the moving arrangement one instantly hugged me and said "I wanna go with you!". I was kind of shocked by that. I tried to explain that no, that is not what I meant, we are going then, if it happens, to live in two different places close to each other so you will have 2 homes. The child just looked up at me and said "Yeah, but I still wanna go with you".

The one saying "I-want-to-go-with-you" is a child who I know loves and adores Dad as he do right back, but this child does too find it hard to adapt to his cleaning rules. He has been at her .Says she has to learn. She is too young to learn it his way. I try to fix away their stuff just so that they won't get in trouble with him. We help to try to have it done his way. It is pretty much the Führer's step I hear when he comes in the door and we're like little soldiers.

I have not told him what she has said because I think it will break his heart and I am afraid it will cause him to favorize another child maybe even if he does not want to. Maybe the child just said that in the moment to make me feel better, who knows. I did not make a thing out of it.

At the same time he is putting down this child as he has done with me too. I don't know what term of words I should chose to make him understand it is not just me this is hurting, it is her too. Just as I she can't live up to the expectations he has and it has just come to a point where one does not care anymore, one is done trying because it is never good enough anyhow, we are not good enough anyhow. And what make him think he is? This is terms he has not thought off before, that it can be seen as something bad. The way he looks at us and our home is as if we are slobs or something which we are not. It has to be his way.

Right now things has been vulnerable. He is careful now around me but it is not a stage where I want him to be at, inside. I just wants us back where we use to be before all this took over over time. This is not the only problem we have dealt in the past, mine or his, our our fault all together, or dealing with.

If we are able to turn this thing around it will be at the 11th hour. I know that now. I did not realize it before, but now I do. Once I fall out of love I don't fall back in. I don't know about him, only he can answer but I don't take any man's love for granted. Been left in the past.

I think one fault he has made and me too is that we have minimized the problem as it is just about things, right? Things to clean and things to put away - but it's not people. Spirits. That need to come in the first room, and not those dead things.

My family would, will not behave like some of the things someone, some has been on his side of his first family to me (narcissist-warnings), my love has never been treated like that in return. Just never. We would not even think of it. It has been said out in the open and in other ways that I am not good enough for their son. I am these days indifferent to such attitude but only care if a child gets hurt. I stand up for the child. I won't let it slide.

At gatherings on his side children are placed in the back where one does not have to see how they eat or what mess has been made. If a child drops something out of accident - the look in their faces - it is as if there is suddenly a dead body (murdered) on the floor instead of the object/objects dropped. It is such a big deal. Never mind one can just clean it up. I can still hear them in the background one time "Whaaat?! You clean it up! Right now! Right now!". Appauled, they are. Very strong reaction. And it is not as if they have kids around there often anyhow so it is hard to imagine why it would get on their nerves.

The kids behave overly well there and as soon as we get out they let their gard down and become emotional. I see signs that they have not been able to relax. Hell, I can't relax either. I try to. I also see that the kids are completely themselves, good and bad, with us, with friends and so on. Lots of their friends parents whish to have play dates with them, take them with them at home and they always go all went well .I mean they themselves are just normal kids, but the expectations with my love's circle are way up there. Everything is perfect on the surface but that is as far as it goes.

Needless to mention is that I don't have the same view as they do at times when it comes to raising children. I was told when an infant cried that it is good, they say, that the baby cries, just let it cry, just let it cry. they would try to stop me from going to my own baby to comfort it and find out what was wrong. Who the hell does that. Who interfers when a mother comes to comfort her own child? Well, they do. I did not let them stop me naturally and ignored them. I can't help but feel sorry for my love if they have just let him cry himself exhausted when he was a baby without trying to help and excusing this behavoir by some old saying that it is good for them. My Mum hated that saying. She said, firmly, if a baby cries it cries for a reason, it is either a diaper that need change, the child is hungry, or have stumach aiche, or is afraid or something else, or just need a little warmth and love. It is your job as parent, as the adult, to try to find out what it is and try to fix it. No child cries without a reason, what do they think? That it is fun to cry?

I would hold my baby close to me, skin to skin, and would and will hug my child and say I love you. The way my parents done with me. The narcissist said straight on to me not do that as if it was any business of theirs. Just because it happened in the narcissist presence. They try to make the rules, as you must too sadly have experienced... I can go on and on, but won't. It is just boring stuff. I try to not let those ways effect us.

I truly appreciate all the great advice given by you and ya'all in this thread. It is very much helpful. Lots of love right back at ya :)