bitch.

one of the many, many, MANY problems with my ex was that he insisted on creating this mother/son dynamic, where i had to make decisions and enforce laws, and if i wasn't looking it was to be expected that he wouldn't do any of what we discussed. the way you would expect a 9 year old to throw everything in the closet when you told him to clean his room. i was also supposed to dole out positive reinforcement and put a gold star on his forehead because he went grocery shopping. i was not, however, to speculate as to why someone who needs to suck on praise lollipops constantly kept it completely off his own lips when it came to me. that was not encouraged.
since he embraced the abusive lifestyle with the zeal a swinger from the 70's bonds with a velour jogging suit, the more i pointed out this dynamic the more he enforced it. as the marriage began to break apart it escalated to a surreal moment where he was yelling at me to tell him whether he should go to leggo land with some of his friends as he had originally planned. there was no way i was going to leggo land, although i could definitely been talked into a bouncy castle place. 
i told him i didn't like what it turned me into, having to mommy him and a 3 year old at the same time. literally every word out of my mouth had that little upswing, that lilt you use with children to soften the mundane because if you repeated the same phrase 400 times in a human monotone it would activate a self destruct aneurysm in your brain. that little "can you take your hand out of that dog's mouth and focus on eating please?" "no, i told you in the car i would NOT buy you a toy, please take the knife away from the salesman's throat." and the same way i ultimately just had to suck it up when my 3 year old didn't listen despite my repeated warnings that he would celebrate his fortieth birthday in his room, my ex was the same way. 'don't expect more of me,  my brain is small and i drank too much apple juice!' except he was never going to grow out of it. and it was not cute. at all. but i also couldn't stand watching HIM prostrate himself in meaningless ways, kissing my ass like doing the laundry made up for his apathy and his cruelty, and then wanting the customary pat on the head. my anger escalated and my behavior became ridiculous, crying out for him to stand up and stop it. he bought me a drill because i was fixing up the house, it was cheap. i threw it on the lawn. he scurried over, picked it up, ran to the store and got me a new one. one gold star please, mommy! my goodness isn't that sexy!
"there are women who like to nag and browbeat and have nagged and browbeaten husbands. you should have married one of them" i say. "i'm one of those who just asks and then treats you like an adult" i say.  "but if i hate being your mommy, that is all you're ever going to give me, you'll be a baby to make sure i never get what i want" i think at his blank stare. "well fuck you, baby." i think to myself, as he had already walked away. 
but now, now that i swam against the riptide, now that he's out and i'm trying to hold down the house and my son and my life, now when he looks for the gold star he's on the front stoop for his visitation, the mom thing works for me. i keep the overwhelming anxiety and sadness and fear and rage behind the door  and when i see him i tell him what happens next, i tell him how things are, i tell him to sit up straight and eat his vegetables. i become the awful bitch i never wanted to be because strangely it's the easiest persona to don to keep my boundaries in-tact and be able to co-parent at a distance without compromising what's best for my son. and all i have to do is slowly turn into nurse ratched from "one flew over the cuckoo's nest" to make it happen. meh. i've been worse.