u/scubahana

Yesterday we told the kids we’re splitting up. It’s been long and slow, and under the guise (at least part of the time) of me setting up an Aspie refuge where I can focus on work and decompress.

We were at my flat, and the kids had been here the previous two nights. Both of them seemed pretty unfazed by the news, though DS said he wanted to go home (Dad’s) for a few nights instead of stay here. DD wanted to stay here with me.

No emotion, went back to their tablets to keep watching funny things.

Later in the evening I expressed surprise to DD about how she didn’t say anything, and she told me she was angry but didn’t want to say it in the moment. I asked if she was angry at either of us, and she said no. Just that life is hard.

She’s fucking nine years old, and she has this understanding of things out of her control and it just broke my heart so fucking much. I don’t want her to feel like life is so hard like that.

I don’t know what DS is thinking or feeling.

I’ve been swinging between knowing why we pulled the plug on this relationship and this immense guilt for hurting the kids, for bringing them into this situation, and I also feel like if either of them told me I didn’t have a right to be sad or sorry for myself that I would agree with them. I told some friends as well now that the kids know, and I also feel like I don’t have any close enough friends who will actually care enough to want to support me. I feel selfish for wanting someone to support me, because I chose this. I made this mess. Why should I go crying to anyone, or want comfort? I can’t even go to my therapist because she cancelled our last session last week and said it would be a longer sick leave she’s taking (a few weeks she wrote).

I know we weren’t getting any better as a couple, but I hate and regret feeling like I’ve betrayed our kids.

Twelve days ago I said I wanted to separate. Eight days ago I left. Weirdly enough the kids *still* don’t know. We framed it as me being peopled out from vacation and wanting to get back into the usual rhythm of life (yay autism as an excuse). The kids have been home all this past week and I said to them that they will stay with me at the flat this coming week so Dad can get a break. So we have until next week basically to break the news to them that we’re separated. Two weeks for us adults to get their shit together isn’t a terrible thing.

Today we are all at his mum’s because our eldest just had their birthday and MIL wants to show off her new pavilion. Good reasons to celebrate, but me not coming would raise suspicion. After we all retired for the night, I asked him what he’s said to his mum and others so I don’t drop surprises on his side of the family. He has said anything but deflected with ‘people can see and have asked questions’ but nothing about what he has shared. He then said he doesn’t even know what is really going on.

So I feel I must presume that he hasn’t gotten (or refuses to get) the message that we are at the last step before divorce. Not really sure what to do here now, since I also presume that when next Sunday rolls around and I don’t come ‘home’ that the kids will wonder why and one of us is going to be in a sticky situation of either deflecting again or letting the cat out of the bag without the other one’s participation. And why oh why do I have the feeling it will end up being me who would have to do so, and thus I end up being the villain?

This isn’t an advice request post per se, but what do you do when your partner is for whatever reason not getting the message that we’re splitting up? I think I’ve been clear enough, so I don’t know if it’s wilfully not accepting or he’s just truly not understanding the situation.

I have been using this comic as a driver of curiosity at home. My 11y mentioned it again today and it occurred to us that we don’t fit in the statistics because the original comic states ‘10,000 people in the US’, and we are not from the US.

My request is what this might look like on a global scale? I can understand if this becomes more nebulous due to differences in education, cultural references or customs, etc.

What would a global ‘10000’ be? A lucky million? Lucky half-billion?

Thanks in advance!

I’ve had the shittest sleep the last two nights and have been a hair’s breadth from literally just having a nervous breakdown. It’s compounded by other stressful shit that’s unrelated, but the biggest stress is telling him I can’t stay.

I used some analogies to step out of the ‘who’s to blame’ cycle, and managed to frame this as trying to remove the heat from the boiling pot instead of a ‘I’m fucking leaving you’ reason. I mean, we just went on vacation and had a good time. Technically all stressors were removed, and now I’m this kind of stressed? We are the problem.

The good thing is he is cooperative and the first thing he stepped to was making sure it’s least disruptive to the kids. I am fine with a weird-ass parental time split if it makes it easier on the kids. I just need time away from him in all the ways, as does he from me.

And I said as much, and he listened.

Tomorrow we leave for two weeks in the mountains, reduced screen time, and lots of ‘family time’. With the kids, sure. I’m down with that. But it’s ALL of us and I just really don’t want to go whatsoever. This will be two weeks of managing his shitty self and walking on eggshells. I wonder sometimes if he’s planning these big things so I can’t find a good point to really call it quits.

End of June? Ruins summer break. Mid July? Ruining the vacation for everyone. August? Starting the school year so stressfully.

It’s a sign that I’m certain something stupid is going to happen during this trip that will be a suitable catalyst to move out when we get home again.

EDIT: Good news! Public transit from where we’re staying is ‘only’ 15,5h to home if I quit in the midst of it all.

Hi all, and thanks in advance for any feedback. I have read the rules and promise this isn’t for promotion or traffic purposes.

I have a wee hustle doing SEO optimisation, but funnily enough haven’t had a web presence yet (too busy working on other people’s sites 😅). Through word of mouth I’ve had more enquiries and it felt weird to not have more than my personal email as contact and a ‘trust me, bro’ presentation. So I bought a domain for email only but the package includes a single-page site so I figured I would give it a go.

It is still very much a work in progress and more so an exercise in ‘how much can I get away with on a single page?’

Please be brutal, colour palette, wording, structure, content. I’d rather be told it’s 99% trash and tear it down than run around with a junk site.

The url is https://www.seao.eu

Thank you again to anyone who helps!

Sorry if the title sounds weird, but I had this thought after a mild family gripe.

I was at work yesterday (last day before vacation) and the rest of my family was home (already on vacation). While at work, I got a text from my eldest asking if he could have more time on his tablet through screen time limits.

Now, his dad was home at the time. I would reckon he was less than 10m away (albeit one in the family room and one in their bedroom with a hallway in between, in case this affects speed of sound considerations). He also has access to screen time controls.

Which would have been faster in a physics sense? Sending me a text message to ask, vs shouting through the house to ask Dad? For the sake of simplicity, assume measurement starts from pressing send on the sms, or starting to speak.

If it makes any difference regarding data streams, both my son and I have apple products so messages can also go over internet instead of the mobile network (and I was connected to WiFi at work, as was my son to the home WiFi). I don’t know if the mobile network would be faster or slower than internet service, we have fiber internet at home and I don’t know about my boss’s service.

Hej alle,

We’re a Danish/Canadian family about to spend our ferie in a Norwegian cabin. We’re aiming to reduce screen time and get out there during the day, but in the evening I had a crazy idea to get some children’s books by Norwegian authors/stories considered classics in a Norwegian childhood.

Our kids are nearly 11 and 9,5, but they still dig a good bedtime story.

We’ve got about two weeks to spend, so I appreciate any and all suggestions for Norwegian authors/stories/‘this was part of my childhood experience’ that we can look into.

Thanks in advance :)

EDIT: thank you for the suggestions, I will be writing every last one down and seeing what will resonate best with them!

Best of success on Saturday! Haaland scares the shit out of me, but I hope you all win the World Cup this year.

Mr. Sulk continues in his fuckery.

Last night was another phone argument, and again he seems to think I shittalk him all the time to the kids. This is a red line for me because his relationship with the kids is not something I would fuck with. If he’s going to ruin that then he can do it himself. Even when I’m severely pissed with him I don’t talk poorly about him to them.

But apparently I don’t do that?

My eldest is off to a kids’ festival and I just dropped him off. I was about to message him and remind him to message his dad to say he’s off and that he looks forward to seeing him when everyone gets back. But you know what? Fuck it.

If Mr. Sulk insists I’m not doing shit to encourage the kids’ relationship with him, then I want to ensure he’s right, yeah?

A few months ago I took over managing the finances. I bring in about 30% of our income, and Mr. Sulk the other 70%. While he has always been fine about tipping me up when my cash runs low, the lack of transparency was making it hard to budget and save. The new way makes it easier to pay for gas and groceries, and we’ve even managed to put 5% into savings every month since. Also we had a car repair last month that we actually had space in the budget for! Omg it felt so good!

I visited the accounts tonight to plan out our budget for next month and the house budget is 7k under what it should be (Danish kronor, so about €950). This also means that we’re 4k under what we need to pay the mortgage in two days.

There are 3-4 transactions from the house budget to Mr. Sulk’s personal account this month with no notation of why. We do sometimes pay for something from our own account that should come from a joint account and the understanding is to transfer that amount internally from the right joint account with a note of what it was for.

I said to him very chill, ‘hey, there’s been 7000kr moved from the house budget to your private account and there’s no note on it. What’s that for?’

His answer was weird: ‘I’m tired, it’s late (valid, it was late), I’m not trying to hide anything from you. I will tell you later’.

Well if that doesn’t sound horribly sus to you then I don’t know what would.

So now I’m spiralling. Wtf could justify withdrawing ANYTHING from the account with our fucking mortgage in it? Borrow for savings or the grocery account, fine. Explain later, or fucking don’t and lose my trust. But why the most important account and why this month? He has been cavalier with finances before but never outright malicious or any history of gambling or anything. What the actual fuck.

Stbx/Incredible Sulk and I had a bit of a shouting match last week. Correction: he had a fucking shouting match in which he was the only participant, because I said it wasn’t okay how he was talking to me. During this he also accused me of never doing anything around the house or for the family. Give me fucking strength 🙄

So I decided to get back into journaling in a granular sense and have spent a few minutes outlining what I got up to throughout the day. And what he got up to also.

Last three days all include him falling asleep by 18:00. He woke up 20min after me each morning, I got the kids sorted for school/clothes/teeth/hair while he got dressed and then drove the car. We’ve both been working at the same place the last two weeks and will continue the next two weeks, so I know exactly what he’s been up to during the day at work too. To his credit he has been busy, but so have I! We both have lots to do at work!

I orchestrated supper on Monday even though it was his night, and then we ran out of grill gas and he ended up ordering pizza for us all. Yesterday was leftovers but I led the charge, same with today.

I cleaned up after supper Monday and today.

Monday our eldest busted his knee and wrist so I tended to that before bed. Did bedtime routine all three nights as per usual. Made lunch boxes for the next day on all three days. Cleaned the kitchen (his job) Monday and tonight.

Set up the kids’ new phones last night. Showered last night.

Today I did two loads of laundry, hung one load to dry while the other went in the dryer. Cleaned the dishwasher because it was groady.

And murdered a spider tonight on my own.

But apparently he does all the work and I’m some punk-ass layabout 😑

So this is a little weird… doesn’t really fit in any spot but still bizarre.

I left to my flat on Monday with an inordinate amount of my personal effects. The kids have been here since Tuesday and they are of the impression that I’m having a decompression week and we’re ’giving Dad a break’ for a few days so he can also chill without kid routines etc. fun times all around.

I went back ‘home’ today to grab some extra clothes for one of the kids and noticed nothing has changed since Monday. Literally nothing.

He sleeps on a guest bed in the family room due to snoring. Since I’ve not been home the last three nights, one would presume that he would sleep in the nice bed. However it still has laundry baskets on it that I put there before leaving. No recycling taken out. No laundry done. I think he’s just eating sausages and Pepsi and playing video games.

It’s honestly a little creepy how much he put everything on pause for three days.

And also mildly infuriating, because when I’m alone for a few days the house gets stress cleaned but he still complains about the house being a mess.

Wtf.

Honestly I never really know how to introduce these posts, whether I should give a long preamble or what.

This past weekend I decided to move as much as I could to the flat without looking like I’d cleaned the house out, and informed DH (stbx? Jackass? Maybe he needs a nickname like Bob) that I would spend the week here, ostensibly for a decompression week before the job practical is expected to start. I mentioned it to the kids too in this way, since we’re still all in denial that this is a fucking breakup/divorce. They both thought it would be hella cool to come here and stay two nights, ‘so Dad can also get a break for a few days’. How sweet of them.

I left on Monday, spent the day making this place as mine as I could. Kids came today (Tuesday). They had a blast making a cardboard fort and helped a bit with supper. I asked for their feedback on where to put dishes in the kitchen.

We then chatted while we were eating and asked if they liked it here. They love it! I said I wanted them to feel welcome and that this is their place too, and framed it as us three having a certain kind of creative mind that Dad doesn’t, so they are welcome to be here and have creative projects going on so home can be more tidy. I then said to them almost facetiously, ‘I might get addicted to this place and not want to leave it’.

My youngest piped up with, ‘well we can stay here one week and home the other week, and take turns!’ ‘Well wouldn’t you miss Dad when you’re here? Or me when you’re there?’ ‘It’ll be fine’.

Whether it would actually fine for real or not I don’t know now, but the kids seem to think this is pretty neat. I’ve been doing my level best to not shittalk their dad, because there’s no reason to, and I haven’t said anything about us splitting up because that can of worms doesn’t close again with kids.

Thanks for reading, feedback, observations etc. are welcome.

Today is our 11th anniversary. Considering all the things, it wasn’t something we really made a huge deal of. Supper was homemade KFC and DH opened the bottle of birthday champers he got from our neighbours (who are the greatest neighbours we’ve ever had).

We both have *very* jokingly said numerous times in the past, ‘if I’d killed you instead I’d be out by now’ - which has further dark humour because his step mum was a prison guard her whole career. Obviously when we say this it’s out of humour and despite the stupid shit we’ve gone through together this is not a red flag.

That all being said, I was curious enough that I couldn’t hold back and have searched what the sentence for murder is here, and yes I searched ‘what is the prison sentence in {{country}} for murdering your spouse’. For the forensics teams or spooks out there who may stumble across this, I promise this isn’t a creepy foreshadowing of a future true crime episode on EWU or something 😂😂😂. This is my accountability that it’s sus as fuck and I have no intentions beyond a dark joke.

And for the record it’s 5y to life here but usually people are out in ten. So I’d have been out a year by now 🤣

(Small Steps)

I’ve moved much more into the flat, and the kids have been helping too. Still framing it as a place to chill and use as an office, but also discussing a lot about setting it up for them to stay a while and give Dad a break. DD especially likes being here, and came by right after school yesterday and today just to be here and help build IKEA furniture.

(🐈‍⬛)

Also been framing it to DH in the context of caregiver burnout relief, as he is the sole NT in a family of raging neurospicy people. Anything to assuage the sulky shittiness that could happen otherwise.

(Manipulative?)

Talking to the kids I haven’t mentioned any problems between DH and me. I’ve been saying things like giving Dad a break, or that the house is cluttered so bringing *x* to the flat might help clear things up, or suggesting we bring some board games there. Since I’ve been using the place more like an office, I rarely have a stocked fridge. But today I asked DD if we should think of some food to keep here so she doesn’t have to only eat from her lunchbox.

Is this manipulation, or am I just gently leading a transition?

There’s an IKEA desk I want to buy for my loft studio and am about to go out to get it. I lamented however that I will then need to carry a 24kg box up three flights of stairs. He said that when I get back I can pick him up and he’ll help.

‘But you’re heavier than the box’.

Thankfully he found that amusing.