Dear momstrength:

There is a long list of his wrong behaviors. The top two on the severity scale are: (1) neglecting his 18-month old daughter while you are at work, especially knowing that she is behind on her development (because of neglect..?), (2) repeatedly telling you that you are crazy when you confront him with undeniable evidence, aka gaslighting: making you doubt reality/ what you saw with your own eyes. You shared about three such incidences, first: “I was shattered and confronted him. He said that I’m crazy and misinterpreting what I read”, second: “I confronted him.. with him calling me crazy saying that I am misinterpreting again”, and third, with a raised voice: “He dared raise his voice and say that.. I am crazy”.

The fact that before the third time you “held this in for a week and yesterday confronted him”, and that during the third time he raised his voice, suggests to me that on one hand, he now feels stronger and more comfortable about lying and gaslighting you, and on the other hand, you are feeling weaker, having been weakened by his repeated lies and gaslighting.

The bottom two of his wrong behaviors on the severity scale is that he never cooked or cleaned your home. This would be a big deal for any woman who works 9 to 5 while her partner is at home, but compared to  his other very wrong behaviors, these two are not as bad.

As far as his character goes, his dishonesty and irresponsibility are troubling not only because of the things you found out on his computer and observed in person, but for the things you don’t know about. For example, maybe he smokes cigarettes while you are at work, being okay with harming your daughter with second-hand smoke for as long as you don’t know about  it.

What are you  going to do?

anita