Work from home

[Depression = 72% of members]

Ugh, it’s been a rough day!  As background, my uBPDh  currently lives at both our house and a townhouse that is actually one of our rental properties. 2 weeks ago, he would stay at the townhouse and only come over on Tuesday and Thursday to pick our s7 from school since I was at work. If he was in a good mood he would stay the night, for however long that lasted and would leave when he was in a bad mood…that could be a day or a week.  Over winter break there was a fire at our kids school making it so they had to go to a different school. My h works full time from home, I work part time as well as 2 PRN positions.  My h has decided that I need to work more, so he just doesn’t pay for anything any longer, until he is in a good mood and then he pays for everything for that time period, meaning dinner, groceries stuff like that, I still get left with all of the house bills.  So I picked up the 2 prn positions as I can’t afford life right now. But…of course he doesn’t like it when I leave for work, accuses me of having affair after affair at work, etc and makes it close to impossible for me to work. There has been numerous times that he has backed out watching the kids with less than 12 hours before I have to work or he makes it so that it’s miserable for me to leave saying “have fun with you man” etc or freaking out making it so he knows I won’t leave my kids at home with him as they are all afraid. . I finally found a babysitter that can come to our house and is willing to pick our d5 up from school and our s7. Meaning, he could sleepover when he is in a good mood, take the kids to school, then he can go to his townhome to work, let the babysitter pick the kids up from school and babysit until I get home from work then he can come back over once he finishes work and be a part of our lives, dinner, sports, all activities. Instead, he told me today, that he is going to work from our house and be at the house when the babysitter is there, which I specifically told him no to earlier…and he agreed!  Now, he wants to take the kids to school, go to the gym come back to the house to work, pick our d5 up and bring her back to the house where the babysitter will watch her while he works there. Then the babysitter will leave when he picks out s7 up from school and then he will leave when I get home and then come back at 10pm in the night and do it all over again. It makes no sense!  But he is so dead set that this is an amazing idea, and just keeps telling me that I am not being considerate of his time, as he doesn’t have time to drive back to his townhouse to work so must stay to work at our house. If he was a normal person, that would e fine, but since he is not, I am sure this will be used as control. He has done this before and ended up getting fired from his job and the babysitter quit in 2 weeks!  How do I point this out to him that this is a horrible idea!  His comments are so far from reality that I had to tell him that we needed to end the conversation for the time being and refuse to it when we could do so productively. I just want to scream right now!!! 

[dtkm]

Ugh, it’s been a rough day!  As background, my uBPDh  currently lives at both our house and a townhouse that is actually one of our rental properties. 2 weeks ago, he would stay at the townhouse and only come over on Tuesday and Thursday to pick our s7 from school since I was at work. If he was in a good mood he would stay the night, for however long that lasted and would leave when he was in a bad mood…that could be a day or a week.  Over winter break there was a fire at our kids school making it so they had to go to a different school. My h works full time from home, I work part time as well as 2 PRN positions.  My h has decided that I need to work more, so he just doesn’t pay for anything any longer, until he is in a good mood and then he pays for everything for that time period, meaning dinner, groceries stuff like that, I still get left with all of the house bills.  So I picked up the 2 prn positions as I can’t afford life right now. But…of course he doesn’t like it when I leave for work, accuses me of having affair after affair at work, etc and makes it close to impossible for me to work. There has been numerous times that he has backed out watching the kids with less than 12 hours before I have to work or he makes it so that it’s miserable for me to leave saying “have fun with you man” etc or freaking out making it so he knows I won’t leave my kids at home with him as they are all afraid. . I finally found a babysitter that can come to our house and is willing to pick our d5 up from school and our s7. Meaning, he could sleepover when he is in a good mood, take the kids to school, then he can go to his townhome to work, let the babysitter pick the kids up from school and babysit until I get home from work then he can come back over once he finishes work and be a part of our lives, dinner, sports, all activities. Instead, he told me today, that he is going to work from our house and be at the house when the babysitter is there, which I specifically told him no to earlier…and he agreed!  Now, he wants to take the kids to school, go to the gym come back to the house to work, pick our d5 up and bring her back to the house where the babysitter will watch her while he works there. Then the babysitter will leave when he picks out s7 up from school and then he will leave when I get home and then come back at 10pm in the night and do it all over again. It makes no sense!  But he is so dead set that this is an amazing idea, and just keeps telling me that I am not being considerate of his time, as he doesn’t have time to drive back to his townhouse to work so must stay to work at our house. If he was a normal person, that would e fine, but since he is not, I am sure this will be used as control. He has done this before and ended up getting fired from his job and the babysitter quit in 2 weeks!  How do I point this out to him that this is a horrible idea!  His comments are so far from reality that I had to tell him that we needed to end the conversation for the time being and refuse to it when we could do so productively. I just want to scream right now!!! 

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members are welcomed to express frustration but must seek constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[SuperDaddy]

Hi dtkm ,

I think your negotiations with him will only work out if you are in a position in which you can confidently say "NO." Since he has free access to your house, you are not in this position anymore. As a result, you will get stressed out, and then there will be no way to have a productive conversation with him since he will pick up on your emotions. Living in separate houses is not much of an advantage in this situation.

I finally convinced my wife to leave, so we are living apart now. She is in her mom's house, where she lived before we met. I would like to bring her in for the weekends, but I am quite scared about that going wrong, so I won't do that. Not until we are really having zero conflict and she is 100% ok with the fact that this is MY place now and that everything here is my property. Currently, she still has minor angry moments and does mild offenses, which I'm always pointing out.

So I think you are giving away a setting that could be quite valuable and constructive for your relationship, the living-apart structure.

If he says that your place is better than his place, maybe you can offer an exchange. If he wants more time with the kids, give him that time. Make sure he doesn't have a good reason to say this new setting is unfair to him.

[CC43]

Hi there,

I understand that your relationship with your husband has you wanting to scream out of frustration and unnecessary stress.  If I read between the lines, I see that you have had to take on some additional part-time work to pay the bills.  I see thay your partner considers bill paying to be optional, only when he's in the right mood.  I also see that your partner wants to come and go as he pleases--not according to any schedule, and regardless of whether it's convenient for you or the other members of your family.  I see that his employment situation appears to be precarious, as he's lost a job in the past, and he seems OK with working in a suboptimal situation (such as in your home while he has kids to look after--which means he's probably not getting much work done). 

It sounds to me that, at the end of the day, your partner is unreliable.  It's very likely that his BPD is contributing to his unreliability, as his volatile emotions hijack his thinking and day-to-day functioning.  The people in my life with BPD and NPD are similarly unrealiable.  Though they appear able to "pull themselves together" when they want to, they are not consistent and have the sorts of problems you write about--getting fired, missing payments, cancelling at the last minute or simply not showing up, without notice.  They have a million excuses--feeling unwell, oversleeping, forgetting, not being reminded, car trouble, lost keys, too much traffic, the phone was turned off--but the record shows that they are unreliable too much of the time.  I'm not talking about occasionally running late from over-scheduling, or missing an appointment once a year.  It's pervasive, and you can recall off the top of your head several instances under-performance in recent history.  The only predictability is his unpredictability, correct?

Meanwhile, you have been reeling from trying to accommodate your husband's whims.  I guess my advice is, you need to plan on him being unreliable.  He just can't be relied upon to drop off or pick up kids at school, and you can't afford to leave your little ones stranded.  He can't be relied upon to babysit every day.  He can't be relied upon to pay your living expenses.  Once you except that reality, you can go from there.  I think you have already, sort of, because you've arranged for a babysitter.  I'd say, keep the babysitter.  If your partner hangs out at the house all day, fine.  If he picks up kids from school from time to time, fine.  If he decides to pay a bill, great--better late than never.  But you can rest easier knowing that the babysitter will be there, the primary caregiver whenever on duty.  You could frame it that way to your husband:  "I know that you're working hard, so I've arranged for a babysitter.  That way, you can concentrate on work when you need to, and you can get some me-time when you need it as well."  I guess my point is to frame the babysitter as being about HIM.

If your partner complains that you're working too much, I think you should ignore him.  After all, he isn't helping out enough, and you have to take charge and take care of yourself and the kids.  The thing is, if he's throwing a fit or making false accusations about you seeing another man, I think that's yelling/disparagement in front of the kids.  If you do what he asks and stay home to assuage him and to "prove" you're not seeing another man, you're basically rewarding your partner when he acts out and makes false accusations.  In his mind, doing what he demands of you might only "prove" your guilt and feed his delusions even more!  I might suggest taking a harder line and say, "That's not true and you know it.  I won't let you disrespect/disparage me in front of the kids.  You can leave now."  If he won't leave, then maybe I'd take the kids out of the house, for a walk or to run an errand.  I don't think it's good for them to hear their dad speak to their mom this way.  The boundary is, when he does this, you ask him to leave, or you leave yourself.

[SuperDaddy]

One more thing...

In the US and most countries, you can request child support without divorcing or legally separating, because child support is a right of the child, not of the spouse, and it can be ordered while the parents remain married and living apart.

The usual procedural vehicle is a standalone child support action, sometimes called a support petition or petition for child support, filed in family court, often alongside or independent from a domestic violence protective order. The court will apply state child support guidelines based on incomes and custody time.

Note that the probation status or domestic violence findings do not suspend the obligation to pay.

I know a couple who were married and both worked, but he had a severe issue with gambling, so he would spend all of the money. Because of that, she got a court order to get 80% of his income transferred directly to her account. And they lived together until his death from Parkinson's disease. I'm sharing this for you to understand that the courts will interfere when there is a financial problem affecting the kids. I guess in this specific case they would interfere even if they had no kids. They just need the proofs.

[SuperDaddy]

I thought about some hypothesis on why does he want to work from home while the baby sitter is present:

1) Baby sitters are expensive and some people have a hard time trusting them, especially if kids are small. If my wife said she wanted to hire a baby sitter and I had the option of working from home, I would also be inclined to work from home to say with the kids. For my work it's not a problem at all.

2) Another possibilty is that hiring a baby sitter is being seen as you getting total independence from him, which could trigger his abandonment fears. If that is the case, then one possible workaround would be you to add some dependence, such as asking him to pay the baby sitter, and perhaps to watch the baby sitter from the camera.

3) Or would he be afraid that you could bring someone else to your place instead of a baby sitter?

4) Hopefully, it's not him wanting to flirt with the baby sitter. Well that's a ridiculous hipothesis but just saying.