For years I've tried to keep what DH does away from the kids. I've tried to keep it between him and I. If I had a problem that I wanted to talk to him about, I waited until the kids were elsewhere. He did too. However, when our youngest hit his teens, DH seemed to forget about keeping it away from them.
A long time ago I had to make a rule about feeding order. I would announce dinner, DH would come in and fill his plate. I don't mean get a serving of each food. I mean he loaded his plate up with a literal mountain of food. A couple of times he came back for seconds before the kids had all been served. I was astounded that someone could eat that much that fast. Several times I didn't eat, because there wasn't enough to go around. I had to make sure the kids ate.
So, I made a rule: The youngest is fed first. The eldest (DH) is fed last.
He didn't understand why he had to wait. I tried explaining to him that he ate enough food for 3-4 people and didn't leave enough for the rest of us. He said, "I do not!" I didn't argue with him. I just said that our food budget was tight, and I needed to make sure everyone got fed.
Thankfully, this worked until recently. Now, when I announce dinner, he is the first in the kitchen. He loads up his plate and leaves. Again, sometimes there isn't enough of something to go around.
Last week I called everyone into the kitchen and said, "I know you guys are hungry, but you need to eyeball the food. Figure out who has eaten and who hasn't, then gauge how much food you can have without taking from the next person. Our food budget is getting out of control since we've had to change over to organic. I don't want to have to portion out the food."
I did this so he didn't feel singled out, but it was getting out of hand again. It was also a true statement. The food budget exploded after the dietary changes had to happen.
This worked until tonight. I've been making a lot when I make my baked fries, because they are quite popular with the family. I always make sure I make enough for seconds. Even I'll get more of them, and I don't normally get seconds.
After dinner was ready, and I had eaten a sloppy joe and a small handful of fries, I walked into the kitchen, saw the almost empty cookie sheet and asked DD3 if she had eaten. She wasn't feeling well. Her throat hurt and she had said she wasn't ready to eat yet.
She said she had. I said, "Wow, you guys must have been hungry! Usually there is about a third left. I barely took any." DS3 came in and whispered, "Dad took them all after we got ours. We didn't get seconds." My jaw dropped. I know the kids restrain themselves to make sure that everyone has food. I had a general idea of how much they would've left. That was a lot for one person.
This is what makes me sad. The older three never really had to deal with this side of him, and now they are all out of the house. The younger three see his selfishness and lies. I never wanted them to see this side of him. I was naive enough to think he'd keep it hidden from them. But he didn't.
Each time he does something like this, he loses his children's respect. All of the ones that have seen this behavior are encouraging me to get a divorce. For children to want their own father out of the house is, to me, really bad. My youngest daughter says the stress is a bit much for her. If I am not divorcing soon, she plans on moving out. They love their father. They just don't want to live with him.
Now, I'm getting stories about how he's telling the kids things like how bad he wants a truck, but I won't let him have one. If he's in the car with them, and I'm not there, he will point to trucks and say, "I had one like that, but it broke and Mom didn't want to spend the money to fix it." (It would've cost over $3k and the truck had 200k miles on it), or "I want one like that, but Mom won't let me get one." It makes the kids uncomfortable.
It is so, so sad that his behavior has isolated his own children. It is so, so sad that he doesn't see it. He doesn't see that he's doing anything wrong. He thinks it's his right to do all of this.
It may sound like I'm ragging on him, but I'm not. I'm just explaining what we deal with in this house with him. There are things I don't even mention to him or anyone else. There are things I overlook on a regular basis just because I don't want to fight about it. But the kids see it. I can't hide it from them anymore, and he no longer cares if they see the real him.
The one thing I wanted for them was to see their father as someone they could respect. I wanted them to think they had a dad who loved them without restraint. Sometimes I can't help but think that maybe if I'd left a long time ago, they'd still believe that.
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