This post was originally about not knowing how to engage with my ex's sense of humor during my flare ups, but it turned into a post about almost everything. It's all over the place and my head hurts, so sorry for the poor editing/disjointedness.

There's a bunch of stuff I didn't mention that probably matters because this got so long. I live with my parents and my brothers lived here too for a while. A lot of not good things happened in my childhood and in my 20's while we lived together. My boundary-setting attempts happened in this environment.

The conversations I had with my ex about my boundaries felt more personal sometimes, because he knew how hard it was growing up, and how hard it continued to be with us living with my family for so long.

My ex and I currently live together while I sort out the next steps.

______

​

My ex has a job that he says requires him to have gallow’s humor. His humor is pretty blunt and roast-jokey. He speaks impulsively, which I try to understand. I'm not a stranger to having a neurodiverse brain that misfires and does goofy things. Lately, I've been thinking more about why this continues to be our dynamic.

His jokes are pretty consistently about the same themes, and it's hard not to feel like they're him revealing his inner feelings. The jokes will include observations about my disabilities or he'll be joke-aggressive.

It wouldn’t be a problem if I felt like he empathized with me when I brought up how hurtful his jokes feel sometimes. He denies or deflects the majority of the time. Sometimes he does feel bad and will apologize, but it's like he forgets. The next time it happens, we start at square one with him again deflecting/denying that he said anything hurtful.

He confuses me a lot emotionally. He can be very sweet and gentle, so it confuses me why he laughs at my hurt reactions. I think that messes with me the most, is that I'll look hurt that he said something about how I talk, and he'll laugh even harder when I look shocked.

I got diagnosed with MS pretty recently. That changed some things, but it's been difficult to still be taken seriously. It primarily revealed that the problems in our relationship had a profound effect on my health. The main issue was that he wouldn't cook or clean or respect my boundaries, and it would get so bad that I couldn't physically get out of bed trying to keep up with so many jobs, dealing with my family's issues, and trying to navigate how our relationship made me feel.

He’s been there for me recently though my MS diagnosis. It feels like he's trying to make up for not cooking or cleaning throughout our marriage. After figuring out that I had MS, I went through a big mourning period over my past relationships, and how much the way they perceived me was affected by having MS.

My last two relationships viewed my MS as me having a mental illness, because of how much it affects my behaviors and speech. My nervous system would get overwhelmed easily. It wasn't a big leap for them to write me off as being dramatic or a hypochondriac when I said I wasn't feeling well. I only found out I had MS after it became too severe to be able to function.

For 10 years, I tried to set boundaries about chores, but he'd tell me he didn't feel like doing it or that he was tired. I'd try to tell him that I could barely move or talk anymore and that I needed his help. I had pretty intensive tutoring jobs at a college. I helped run the tutoring center at my college, and I was a TA for two professors.

He thought I was just going through a mental health crisis whenever I couldn't clean or cook anymore. I understand how that might be the case, but I didn't get why I needed an official diagnosis saying I was severely disabled for him to see that I just needed some help around the house.

One thing I've felt guilty over is being so bothered by his sense of humor toward me. He's a very funny guy, but he doesn't believe in having a verbal filter.

His sweet gestures are confusing, because one of my boundaries that I’ve been attempting to reinforce is that I would like for him not make abuse or my disabilities or my appearance the theme of his jokes. The things he says when he's being vulnerable don't translate to how he talks to me when he jokes.

He often make jokes about my MS “accent”. He mimics how I talk. I have a slow drawl when I'm going through a flare up. He laughs at involuntary noises I make, or movements I do. I've told him it makes me uncomfortable but some days he'll laugh his ass off and say he "can't stop". He says this with a big smile, and I feel like the bad guy for raining on his fun.He makes fun of my physical traits, like my thinning hair or hirsutism (I have PCOS as well).He jokes that I’m crazy or a bitch (something I’ve asked him to please not do because it’s what my abuser would call me often to avoid accountability).

The comments about being crazy come in when my MS is making me lose control of my facial muscles, he doesn't see it as mean to make a joke about it.He knows about my history of being forced to live with abusive family members for a very long time. One of his main bits is pretending to be an abusive person?

I think he’s going for a wrestler heel type of character, but it just feels like being bullied, but it’s a joke. it’s a daily bit he does. He does it more when he's stressed, and it's usually every response.If I make him food, he says “it better be good” as a running joke. The other day he told me I should have had his food ready for him by the time he got home because I knew what time he was off. He swore it was a joke, I just don't get what the punchline is. He jokingly says violent things. He’s not physically violent, but it does make me feel weird that he knows about my past and that he’s okay with making jokes that remind me of how my brothers would talk. He calls me "bitch" often, and my brothers would use that word quite liberally with me.He does this joke-aggressive voice when he says all this and that’s how I’m supposed to know he’s not serious.He’s a good guy, but he gets defensive about his sense of humor. He says he’s just “saying words and seeing what sticks”.

I’d believe it came out of nowhere but I’m baffled that his jokes are so consistently critical. I didn't even realize that wasn't the norm until I started dating someone else who was funny, and I realized his jokes didn't make me feel bad.

My ex husband doesn’t see my point of view, and he often forgets we’ve had these conversations. That also confuses me. He can be understanding, but it doesn't last. I don't know if he just forgets, or if he sees me as his adversary during these moments.I’ve set this boundary more often than I’d like to write. At this point, *I* feel like the asshole.We have to live together. I’m disabled and living with my parents while I sort out getting on disability. I don't have a job currently, so I'm trying to keep the peace while I figure out my living situation.

My ex can’t afford to move out. I have a pretty traditional Mexican family that actively encourages us to try to stay together because they see me as too disabled (I have MS and autism) to have many choices in life. It's one reason I've felt weird about this living situation. They see me as the bad guy for not wanting to be with him anymore. When I had a bf, they would guilt me for making my ex husband feel bad, even though he was the one that didn't want to move out. He only wants to move out if he can afford his own house because he says he doesn't want to live in an apartment or with roommates.

​

I ended up moving out to Oregon for 2 months before I had a major MS relapse, and he continued to live with my parents while I was gone. Now I'm back, and we're trying to figure out how to work together.I’ve been living with my ex for a while post-break up. We broke things off in 2019, and I thought by now we would have figured out a way to move through all of this and find a way out. I dated my ex bf from 2022 to 2023. My ex husband made me feel terrible about that, like I was betraying him the entire time.

It’s a very confusing situation because my ex husband continues to want to be together and I frequently have to remind him why we need to focus on just learning to work together.

He hasn’t accepted that we're not together, and that's another "I'm an asshole, aren't I?" moment. I feel like I'm doing this to myself because I've been so permissive.

My ex husband would blow up my phone while I was with my ex boyfriend or tell me “I love you” when he'd hang up. My ex would hear it and be more annoyed with me than with him.

One time I admitted to my ex bf that my ex husband crossed my boundaries physically, and he asked me what I did to encourage him to do that. My ex boyfriend sometimes even took my ex husband's side saying he felt bad for him. My ex husband drove over to my bf's house, and that was one of the moments that led to our relationship ending.

My ex bf couldn't believe that my ex husband was that distraught after years of not being together and told me that he didn't believe we were really broken up for that long by the way he was acting. I didn't have a clear answer for him. The clearest answer I can get is a 10 mile long post. When I'd tell my bf about what was going on, I couldn't articulate it well enough and I just came across like I was losing my mind.

Imagine me trying to say all this to him but I'm forgetting words often and talking in disjointed ways. The way I spoke when I tried to explain something complicated was hard for him. The way he acted makes me think he saw me forgetting things as me lying.

This last relationship was devastating to me. I fell in love with him pretty hard. I could write an entire post about what it was like dating him during this time. He saw me have my most severe flare up to date, and I saw how that changed his perspective of me.

He met me when I was "normal" and then saw me go through the scariest symptoms yet. He came away thinking I was schizophrenic, and I haven't even reached out to tell him the truth or about how I feel about any of this.

Wow, this got so off track.

​

Tldr; MS made everyone think I was losing my mind and I felt like the worst person on this Earth