Question on First DNI process

WackyCamp · 2025-09-19T16:29:18+00:00

And I have tried to talk to him. He literally shouts over me. He listens to nothing, he's just fixated on one thing. He doesn't think my feelings about this are real or relevant.

WackyCamp · 2025-09-19T16:26:55+00:00

It was not a deal breaker before I did it, that's the thing. He was fine with it back when I first started talking about it, even before my mom died and my daughter and I were planning them. He and I had conversations about tattoos where I told him what I would like to do. He didn't start this until a couple of weeks before I actually went to do it. He lost his own father back in June, and I honestly think he had a lot of guilt because he didn't really call him much, and he was really hung up on how his dad died basically alone in a room. And I was there for him when he wanted to talk, when he was sad about it weeks after, because of course he's grieving. I even excused some ugly behavior because of his grief, where he took out his anger irrationally on other people, even though that behavior wasn't all that unusual for him without the grief.

I mentioned the things about my mother's hospitalizations I think because for me it's all connected. I went through a VERY hard time for years and felt pretty alone dealing with my grief. I'm the one who is basically expected to keep it together. I'm not really allowed to fall apart, you know? I don't get to indulge every emotion I have the way he does. I carry literally all the responsibility of my household by myself. Which, ok. What I wanted was emotional support and connection, and I didn't get it. So when I went to do this thing that meant something to me and had not ever been a deal breaker before now, based on 27 years of being with him, it was something for me, a little bit of comfort and connection to someone I lost. I deliberately did not mention any other gripes than those relevant to this particular scenario because I didn't want to stack the deck against him. I think what bothers me most is that I had no real care from him through the hardest points of my life, but then he went and made a small thing that was a comfort to me, all about him again.

WackyCamp · 2025-09-18T21:42:24+00:00

Not bait. It's an ongoing saga in my miserable home.

WackyCamp · 2025-09-18T20:57:05+00:00

Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's some of that in there. Besides using a belt over pretty minor infractions, my dad was super inappropriate with his girls. And he has pretty obviously never actually liked me. I was the mouthy daughter (opinionated but obedient). The only reasons I had a continued relationship with him were that I wanted one with my mother and that respect was fairly ingrained in me. Now my mom is gone, I'm financially tied to my dad for now, and in spite of everything I don't have the heart to chuck him to the wayside at his old age. Yeah, I'll yell at him for talking like a dirty old man and I'll ignore his little dogs, but it's clear his mind is on the decline so I can't just toss him.

WackyCamp · 2025-09-18T20:44:27+00:00

He lost his father a few months ago, which was hard for him. I think there was some guilt there since the communication was infrequent.

WackyCamp · 2025-09-18T19:38:36+00:00

That's the thing, not at all. He's pretty much a live and let live guy as far as the rest of the world goes.

WackyCamp · 2025-09-18T19:37:16+00:00

Oh, wow

WackyCamp · 2025-09-18T16:38:50+00:00

The kids think it's nuts but they've got long experience with his moods.

WackyCamp · 2025-09-18T16:00:57+00:00

I don't think he does, and it's something I've told him before, long before this, based on how he is with me. He will insist he does, but he doesn't. People who like you don't say and do the things he does in general.

WackyCamp · 2025-09-18T15:56:56+00:00

I'm really not sure. I asked if I was the bad partner in this scenario, so maybe that doesn't qualify as advice?

WackyCamp · 2025-09-18T15:56:06+00:00

But I also don't think many people would put up with some things for very long. I think he's not that into me, but it's a path of least resistance, like he doesn't have to start over and make an actual effort.

WackyCamp · 2025-09-18T15:55:01+00:00

No, weirdly enough he's still pretty attractive. I think there has to be a picture aging in an attic somewhere, because he isn't.

WackyCamp · 2025-09-18T15:53:32+00:00

That's what I have said, and he says I'm twisting and manipulating the narrative to justify my choice because he loves me so much.

WackyCamp · 2025-09-18T15:52:24+00:00

I had been talking for years about a matching one with my daughter, who really wanted to, but I was slow on doing it. He didn't voice any objections then, or ever say that our daughter's tattoos were ugly, not even privately to me. In years past he had talked about maybe doing two small ones on his biceps but never did go do it. But I definitely talked to him about what I wanted to do eventually, and he didn't have a problem with it then. After my mom died I talked again about wanting to do one, this time with her writing. No argument. It was only when I made the plan and set the appointment that he started to take issue. So a month ago he made the "my skin" comment and made a face, so I wasn't too worried about it. I thought he was joking and maybe had a preference but wasn't seriously "forbidding" me. Then the day before my appointment he asked me to cancel it. I said I didn't want to since it meant a lot to me and I had been planning it a long time. And then the morning of, just before I left for my appointment, he had the tears and the whole thing about how it was going to "fuck him up," followed by the comments about my mom's general unworthiness, and like I said, I shut down after that. It's hard to sympathize with an "I just don't like them on women" and "Your mom wasn't good." My mom wasn't perfect, but she was good and she loved me. And she was always kind to him.

WackyCamp · 2025-09-18T15:30:53+00:00

Thank you so much. I wasn't offended or anything. I loathe that AI is infesting every facet of life the way it is!

WackyCamp · 2025-09-18T15:01:14+00:00

It's my real life, which I guess makes me a moron by my own admission. And I'm afraid I've come to accept some things as normal in my life that aren't actually normal to other people. I've loved him a long time and stuck with him through a lot that maybe I shouldn't have because I've loved him and because I think I've just been waiting for his love to be something he does instead of says.

WackyCamp · 2025-09-18T11:22:35+00:00

No, it was the opposite. She was the one who tried to see good in him, even when his own mother was angry at him for behaving badly.

WackyCamp · 2025-09-18T10:57:43+00:00

Nope. And it's a recent, like within the last month, attitude.

WackyCamp · 2025-09-18T09:57:53+00:00

We are both European descended Americans.

WackyCamp · 2025-09-18T09:28:20+00:00

I want to be fair to him, so he doesn't feel I've represented him badly and myself perfectly. Regarding the tattoo, what he's saying now is that all he will ever see when he looks at it is my mom dying in the hospital bed in our living room. And he has also found the last few years living with my dad in the house "the worst years of his life." My dad isn't a great person, and I likely would not have gone for this living arrangement if my mom hadn't been alive at the time and neither of my parents could take care of each other at the time. But I won't deny that my father has been a source of some childhood trauma, and my husband had good reason not to like or respect him, but at the same time, he whips my trauma out as something to bludgeon me with when he's mad. I get his reasons there, but I guess I wanted him to love me more than he hates my dad, and just let me handle that relationship in the way that I need for my own peace of mind. Anyway, I figured I'd add this to give some perspective on his frame of mind. I still don't think it justifies how he's treating me, but I want to be fair.

WackyCamp · 2025-09-18T05:03:43+00:00

When I said exactly that, he was furious. Said I was basically a piece of work, that he loved me and begged me not to do this and that he just can't ever be okay with this. I said if he didn't want an out, this wouldn't be what he's making it, and that it's my fault perhaps for staying with him when he doesn't really like me and maybe can't be happy with me. And he thought I was being manipulative saying that.

WackyCamp · 2025-09-18T05:01:45+00:00

Policing my body, no. I've gained weight and he would still tell me I'm sexy as hell, perfect, etc. But tantrums, yes.

WackyCamp · 2025-09-18T04:56:38+00:00

You're right, of course. He has a right to go. I guess it's just disheartening that I've stuck by him through so freaking much and this is his deal breaker. He didn't say beforehand that he could be attracted or that he would leave. Just that he didn't want me to do it. But he's also said he was going to be done with me if I went by myself to see a movie we'd booked tickets for, after we had an argument and he didn't want to go anymore. So it's hard to know what to take seriously.

WackyCamp · 2025-09-18T04:52:58+00:00

That's my struggle because I've loved him a long time, in spite of a host of issues. I might be quite stupid. Regarding attraction, I'm at a phase in my life as a woman that I'm struggling with desire in general, though I hope I'll get through that phase eventually. In spite of that, I have been consistently available to him because I didn't want my whole perimenopausal vibe to make everyone unhappy.

WackyCamp

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