Let Women Tell Their Stories part 3

As I relay my story of my ex forcing me into a mother/servant/savior mode over the years, I seem to be going backwards in time.

Early in our marriage, I was able to stay home and homeschool our children. I also did all the housework and household chores including mowing.

But then there came a point where I had to go back to work. And when I went to work, it became completely impossible to keep up with the continual mess making by Captain Chaos and his rambunctious offspring. So I had to pick and chose what was important to me as far as cleaning was concerned. There were some things that I just had to let go. There wasn't enough time in the day.

We went along this way for a few years. Then suddenly, one day, my husband decided to be mad at me about that state of the house and started yelling at me about it. One of the things he said was that I was a "terrible homemaker." 

And with this intended insult, I had a clearer understanding of his insanely unrealistic expectations.

Proverbs 26:2 Like a sparrow in its flitting, like a swallow in its flying. so a curse without cause does not rest.

It was impossible for me to feel insulted or shamed by his remark. What was clear was that he had no clue what a homemaker even was. Instead of defending myself, I explained to him that the day I went back to work fulltime was the day I stopped being a homemaker.

But he wasn't having it. I was a wife and mother. I lived in a house. Therefore that made me a homemaker. Thus he was demanding that I be his mother/servant/savior.

But neither was I having it. There was no way on God's green earth that I was going to let him get by with misusing that word without a fight. Because he was a volatile man, I carefully chose my battles. And this battle was very much chosen. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You either have a homemaker you support or a fellow breadwinner you partner with.

He showed that he couldn't partner with me. He could only be demanding, demeaning, and incapable of understanding basic time constraints. In other words, he can only understand life in terms of his needs and whether or not I was meeting them to his satisfaction.

One time, I was trying to go back to school to get a new degree in my field and this really put a cramp in his style. Even though he initially agreed to me going to school, when it took away time from me taking care of him he started to really complain. One of my responses was, "I need for you to not be so helpless." This just made him angrier and he yelled louder.

I learned a long time ago that I wasn't allowed to have needs. And because I was low-maintenance anyway, I could live that narrative for a little while. But it was not a healthy or sustainable narrative for either of us. I was never designed to be his mother/servant/savior.

Edited to add this link: Narcissists use WEAPONIZED INCOMPETENCE

She just posted this today which I thought was fitting. I didn't have the phrase to use then. I only saw it as helplessness.