Need advice
I've been with my boyfriend for about a year and a half now. I don't have any kids but he has a 3 and a 7 year old. We are both around 30 and just recently divorced. Their divorce was bitter and ended with her taking the kids out of state. She got a restraining order against him, through him in court, etc. but that was a year ago and now they seem to have a friendly relationship. We have been taking trips to see the kids every few months. I just found out that they are moving back to her home town (which luckily is closer to us). However, now my boyfriend wants to move their also to be closer to the kids. I understand that he wants to be a "full-time" dad but I was raised here...my friends and family are here and I don't want to move. I love him, but does it make me selfish that I don't want to change my life to be closer to his kids? Every time her name is mentioned or she calls I get these feelings of jealousy and anger. Is this normal? How do I handle these feelings - because I just end up feeling like I am crazy. If I can't get past this there is no way that I could live in the same town with her. I want this relationship to work but I have been pretty depressed lately - need some advice on how to handle this jealousy and anger that I have ALL of the time towards her.
I will admit, I was jealous
I will admit, I was jealous of our BM until things between her and DH got really ugly. Up until that point, every time she called needing her car fixed or something in her house fixed, trash carried to the dump...whatever, he'd jump to it, and it pissed me off, and I felt like he cared more about making her happy than he did about making me feel good. I'm kind of ashamed to say that it took their falling out for me to truly feel secure about her being so close to him, but part of the change, too, was in his attitude and behavior toward her. He stopped catering to her and started putting our life together before hauling her trash away.
I don't really have any advice as far as the moving away thing. I moved from the midwest to the east coast when I married my ex, and stayed here even after we split up. I come from a large family and we are close, but we have slowly dwindled to different parts of the country. I miss my family, but I'm still in touch with them.
I guess it just depends on you and what your preferences are. Have you talked to your BF about your feelings toward his ex and the relationship he has with her? When they move back to her home town, how close will they be to where you live now? We live about 1 1/2 hours from DH's kids and ex. It was close enough to transfer EOW for visitation (when they were coming) but still far enough apart to give DH and BM each their own space, where they weren't runing into each other at Walmart or the grocery store or something.
Thanks for your reply! When
Thanks for your reply! When they move they will now be 7 hours away instead of 12 - which is still a pretty far drive! I know that I have to make the decision to move on my own but I guess I'm just aggravated. He talked about moving to the city they are in now so I'm glad that we didn't or we'd be moving again - basically following her around. Any advice on the anger and jealousy? I know that it makes everyone's life better if they have a good relationship but I feel bad because I want him to hate her like I do. I can't seem to accept that he won't since she is the mother of his children.
I guess most of the jealousy
I guess most of the jealousy I felt was due to the fact that I saw everything he was still doing for her that he wasn't obligated to do. He was simply doing it to save her the expense of having someone else do it for her. I felt that as a single parent, it was her obligation to have her dad or brother do car repairs, or take it to a shop. Call for trash service, or load it in her Jeep and take it herself. I just felt like he was jumping for her everytime she wanted him to, and it was hurtful to me. It was costing us gas and taking him away from "our" time. It wasn't the loss of money that bothered me so much, and it wasn't like we had big plans he cut out of to do for her. It was the fact that he was working on a whim for her. My car can go months without an oil change because when he gets home from work, he's tired and doesn't feel like doing it, but when she would call and say she needed one, he'd be off the couch and out the door.
Like I said, I got over my jealousy when they fell out, and I felt like he really hated her as much as I did. I hate that it took that for me to know for certain that I was the one he loved and wanted a life with. He just really sucked at showing me.
The fact that she's the mother of his children doesn't mean that they have to have a buddy-buddy relationship. It simply means that they need to be in contact with each other and keep each other up to date on things involving the kids. As much as I hate to admit it, it's nice for the kids that their parents don't have animosity between them, but conversation doesn't have to be drawn out over what she did last weekend or that her good friend is in the hospital and she's so worried about her, or whatever.
IMO, I believe a lot of the jealousy and hurt feelings can be resolved by him being made aware of and acknowledging your feelings, and making sure he does his part to let you know he is happy in his life with you and that his love is strong enough for you that he is willing to hear you and really listen to you and be considerate of what you have to say. Find out from him what he loves about his life with you that he felt was missing in his life with her, and remind yourself that you have that to offer him. Obviously, he didn't find what he was looking for in her...
I wouldn't move on the
I wouldn't move on the simple premise that you can't uproot your life everytime she goes somewhere. Think about it, what if she loses her job in this new place and has to move elsewhere for work? Now your whole move is useless. Are you going to follow her around everytime she decides to uproot?
~*~When you kiss ass, your breath smells like sh*t~*~