He puts his elderly Dad before me....Always.

Today was the last straw. I am so, so sick over this. If you know my user name, I have posted before about trying very hard to take small breaks away and always feel a backlash because we are away from his father.

YES, he is 85. YES, he has a dormant form of cancer that we just discovered has gone into remission. We have TWO BABIES together. We live in a 10x10 room in his father's house to care for him, serve him meals, etc.

He is not a stupid man (the father). He has a doctorate and is a retired professor. But, D*MN. He is so anxious, clingy, needy, and almost seems to think that this is "old school" and the way people do it...suffer to take care of the parent's needs, even with adult children when that child becomes a new father to two.

Our 5 month old has been waking at all hours of the night. WE ARE EXHAUSTED. We spent one beautiful night just cuddling with clothes on, surrounded with our children and falling asleep to the TV. It was magic.

We woke, had coffee, read the local and the NYT, came inside, and I was in such bliss that I was honestly was surprised to hear the labored shuffling down the hall. I said, "Oh! It is your dad!"

His dad seemed ready with a script. "Where WERE you? I was so worried and upset because you both seemed to leave (yeah, to our 10x10 palace). I was SO UPSET!" He did a self-depricating laugh and then said, as he glanced at me, "It was just AWFUL for me. I had nightmares about it!"

My reation, when I sensed he was actually going there, was to probably give him some serious side eye and look down because I know better than to say anything. MY partner, his son, just leaped out of his chair and fell over him with hugs and kisses and sweet nothings, over this person who I knew was passive aggressive because we did not bring him his dinner and he actually had to choose from the massive stock of nice food and prepared meals to do something for himself.

I was so, so immediately just disgusted by my partner's reaction. It was so over the top, so overly demonstrative, in my opinion not relating to his dad as a mature adult but as a little kid wanting his affection. MY stiffening, and exiting the room several minutes later (my child and I were in his favorite sedentary spot) so I could just be alone with my feelings didn't matter.

Though I didn't say a word, he barreled in the room, accusing me of being so, so ungrateful and hateful to what I HATE, the dad being the benefactor. Sometimes he gives us 1000 a month, sometimes two thousand, which is also supposed to provide all meals in the most expensive part of the country and give him round the clock care.

TWO CHOICES:

Either I am the terrible "Taker", as he called me today, for having to live within his father's house, with the father having the run of the house, and I have put up with this for three years.

OR, HE is the boy who won't grow up, loving this prolonged interlude to responsibility (my thought) so he can work on plays and concepts and take whatever his dad offers and often suffer towards the end of the month. Nothing else gets done (IE: a workable budget for our family, things we need, etc.)

Am I the person who is wrong, or were my expectations normal? I NEVER was told that, after creating a family, this would be the tar patch that we could never extricate ourselves from. ALSO, his love for me seems predicated on the love I show for his dad and how little or much I cajole him.

To me, this isn't love. This is a man who wanted a caretaker for his dad without telling me. His love for me is not based upon me or him, his dad rules it all.

And I am NOW, after three years of this, resentful as all hell.

What would you do?