Sometimes it's like being a single parent

I have one son and one partner. In an ideal world I would have mutual support from my partner and mainly support our son.

My world entails a lot more support for my partner Richard than I ever anticipated when we got together. I knew Richard for a few years before we started going out together. He was one of the most dynamic people I knew. I felt motivated by his passion for so many activities. He had lived away from home (which my previous boyfriend never had).

He was diagnosed with a mental illness, different from his current diagnosis, a couple of years before we hooked up. It didn't bother me. He was really well, lived a normal life, held down a full time course or job.

He still does. He works more hours than I do on a full time contract. He holds down several extracurricular activities. He manages to squeeze in some family time. So why is it sometimes like being a single parent?

Richard can be rude and aggressive. He can absolutely refuse any responsibility for anything to do with the house. He will promise to pick up the clothes littering his office but leave them for several weeks, he will promise not to pull all the clothes from his wardrobe onto our bedroom floor but forget, he expects me to know where every item he possesses is located despite being the most untidy person I have ever met.

Every time something goes wrong I am meant to bail Richard out. Every time I refuse to or can't I am berated and blamed. Every time I lay responsibility at his door he tells me I lack responsibility. Richard really is a teenager in a grown man's body.




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Abuse in the Middle of the Night

Last night I couldn't get to sleep. So I went downstairs to the office to work on my blog. I finally went to bed at 4am.

Just before I went to bed I discovered (in the fridge) that Richard had opened a new packet of cheese. The old packet was still half finished and he hadn't bothered to wrap the new pack in cling film. I was irritated because this is not the first time and I have told him it is a waste before.

Richard woke just as I came into the bedroom. In a brief chat I mentioned that I was annoyed about the cheese. Richard responded by telling me I was causing an argument and that I had woken him in the middle of the night regardless of knowing he struggles to sleep in the early hours.

I told him that I had not woken him and that I was telling him something that was a problem to me so that he knew it was an issue for the future. I apologised for perhaps raising it at the wrong time.

Richard did not take my apology seriously. He was in a rage and I was unable to talk to him. He started to take it out on me telling me I am useless, lazy and that everyone hates me. He repeated over and over, "You are an animal, like your dad."

I tried to ignore him. I rolled over and put my fingers in my ears. I thought about going downstairs to sleep, or in our spare room but I was too tired to be bothered. I stopped talking, when he's like this there is no rational conversation. Trying to get my point across is futile.

He pulled the cover off me several times telling me that because I woke him and I know he struggles to sleep that he would not let me sleep. He pushed my head and back several times (without hurting me) with intention of preventing my sleep.

Eventually he grew tired of it. This morning he apologised as if that undoes the damage he had done to me emotionally and through sleep deprivation.




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