@Anita: The real key word here is “indirect”.

He tries hard to cover up his tracks by dressing up an insult in a disguise. The disguise is usually a “joke”. So if I were to reply back, he would claim it’s only a joke. The contents of the “joke” can be on a variety of any of my weaknesses. (Weaknesses include: being too quiet, being glued to my phone, getting offended easily by his “jokes”, not having “amazing social skills” like his daughter, not doing any chores, leaching off of my mother, spending “too much” time with my mother, not getting a job within the first two months of being old enough to apply, etc). Those are all things he’s “joked” about. These “jokes” usually do come up in conversation between him and my mother, but he’s done it in front of me, many times.

There’s a big grey area, where some of his jokes lie. Sometimes I can’t tell if I’m being oversensitive, or if they’re just really not okay. There is no real rulebook on it. The only reason I dare justify any of it as the very loosely used term of “abuse”, is for the simple fact that my counselor has stated that it’s common practice for emotional abusers to make hurtful jokes.

He’s yelled at me too, from outside my closed door, when mother wasn’t home. Name calling. I might’ve mentioned it in the earlier posts, but he called me a failure. Can’t remember much more than that. In a time close to then, in an argument between them, he also went on about how I’m going to end up in my boyfriend’s basement, insisting that I’m just going to leach off of him. There’s nothing I could really say or do to stop him from going on about what he does. If I were to get a job now, he’d only mutter “finally” under his breath, find something else to yell about at mother, and suggest she force me to do.

And on the other side, I feel like I’m looking into it too deep, and it’s all just senseless “caveman speak” that I really shouldn’t be bothered by. Maybe I shouldn’t even consider the outcome of trying to live up to his expectations. After all, what would I get out of it? More complaining?

And before you mention it, I understand there’s way worse situations out there, and I’m very grateful I’m not in those. I can’t even imagine the pain of something physically abusive. I just dislike the situation I’m in right now, because he can get away with it so well, since mother deems it as “innocent”.