Advice time!!
My ex-husband, whom we will call The Leach, is totally draining my energy. He is just so helpless and I feel so bad for him, yet I feel that he is taking advantage of my kindness. Now The Leach and I have no bad feelings between each other. Our marriage simply didn't work because we were following two separate paths in life (I am ambitious and he would prefer to simply wallow in a living room full of newspapers and NASCAR). The Leach recently obtained custody of his 11 year old daughter, whom we will call The Brat, and ever since he has been playing the feel-bad-for-me-I'm-single-and-have-to-work-nights-and-have-no-babysitter game. Now The Brat is perfectly capable of staying by herself while The Leach is at work. She is going to be 12 in less than 2 weeks and it's about time she starts taking on some responsibility. The Leach is apparently delusional and thinks that I should be driving all the way to Hadley from Springfield (about a 35 minute drive from my house) to pick her up and then drive her all the way back there when he gets home from work. So I nipped that in the bud. But it doesn't stop there. My fiancee and I have opened up our home to The Leach (i.e. letting him using the garage to work on his truck, cooking him dinner because he eats, like, spaghetti-o's every night) and he continues to come up with problems he's having to obtain help. For instance, The Leach's truck broke down on the highway after midnight one night so he calls me up (while I'm asleep mind you) and tells me he's broken down and he has The Brat with him. Of course, Walter and I are such bleeding heart people that we went out and let The Leach use our Triple A so that he could get towed for free (oh yeah, The Leach is always broke...ALWAYS complaining about money).
So...
While I hate to be a bitch and tell him to leave me alone I also can't go on basically playing the role of Mom either. My mother thinks that I should just tell him to move on with his life and stop being a leach. But I wanted to open up the dilemma to you guys and see if you all agree on the way in which I should have "the talk" with him.
My ex-husband, whom we will call The Leach, is totally draining my energy. He is just so helpless and I feel so bad for him, yet I feel that he is taking advantage of my kindness. Now The Leach and I have no bad feelings between each other. Our marriage simply didn't work because we were following two separate paths in life (I am ambitious and he would prefer to simply wallow in a living room full of newspapers and NASCAR). The Leach recently obtained custody of his 11 year old daughter, whom we will call The Brat, and ever since he has been playing the feel-bad-for-me-I'm-single-and-have-to-work-nights-and-have-no-babysitter game. Now The Brat is perfectly capable of staying by herself while The Leach is at work. She is going to be 12 in less than 2 weeks and it's about time she starts taking on some responsibility. The Leach is apparently delusional and thinks that I should be driving all the way to Hadley from Springfield (about a 35 minute drive from my house) to pick her up and then drive her all the way back there when he gets home from work. So I nipped that in the bud. But it doesn't stop there. My fiancee and I have opened up our home to The Leach (i.e. letting him using the garage to work on his truck, cooking him dinner because he eats, like, spaghetti-o's every night) and he continues to come up with problems he's having to obtain help. For instance, The Leach's truck broke down on the highway after midnight one night so he calls me up (while I'm asleep mind you) and tells me he's broken down and he has The Brat with him. Of course, Walter and I are such bleeding heart people that we went out and let The Leach use our Triple A so that he could get towed for free (oh yeah, The Leach is always broke...ALWAYS complaining about money).
So...
While I hate to be a bitch and tell him to leave me alone I also can't go on basically playing the role of Mom either. My mother thinks that I should just tell him to move on with his life and stop being a leach. But I wanted to open up the dilemma to you guys and see if you all agree on the way in which I should have "the talk" with him.
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Sorry, this wasn't helpful advice at all. But take it from someone who had to be the caregiver for a decade: it never stops until YOU stop it. I wish I could give you advice, but the only way I was able to put a stop to it was to cut off all ties all together, and it sounds like you have a friendship with the 'ex.
ps: I think I deserve triple Scrabble points for using the word UTERUS in an SG posting.