Advice...engaged but confused
I need help. It is hard to seek advice from family and sometimes I don't know the truth. I am engaged and the wedding is planned for June. My fiance was married before and has a 6 year old son. We got together when he was married still and I was in a relationship as well. So that #1 already brings guilt. I don't like knowing we started that way, but I have moved forward. We currently live together but because of his divorce agreement when he has his son we can't stay together. So, my bf goes to his mom's house(son's grandmas) I use to hate it but now I like it because I would rather not be around his son expect for short periods of time. His son is a great kid in everyone else's eyes but mine. He is spoiled, disrespectful, and reminds me of my boyfriend's ex which drives me nuts. I try to love him but don't think I will ever love him. I like him but it is not the same love I feel for let's say my nieces. My fiance and I have discussed the respect issue and have tried to work on it together. We have gone to counseling and I like to think we are pretty open. It goes well but I have found that I still do not like to be around his son. Our relationship is pretty good when it is just us two. But, when he has his son I feel like I am so unhappy and this may not be what I want. Sometimes my fiance will gives his son baths at the ex's house-sometimes she is there and other times she is not. This really bugs me and he knows it. He has always done this and I finally spoke up and said I do not like it so I think he would be fearful or just doesn't want to address it with the ex. Sometimes I feel like he will do everything to appease her and our relationship suffers. I feel like my fiances mother does not like me and still wishes he was with his ex. She will go to services with the ex and her family sometimes too. Her decision (petty) but awkward. I love my fiance and sometimes think it could work and other times just feel like I can't do it. I have a lot of trust issues and feel bad that he is the brunt of it but I still struggle. Then, I keep thinking about our wedding day...and his son will be there. He gets everything he wants and I am worried that my wedding night will be spent with him too. Sometimes I feel confident that I can do this and I am happy and others I don't know if I can handle it emotionally. Do I stay because I love him and we have a great relationship most of the time?
Think about it very
Think about it very carefully. I too felt that way but went ahead. Here is a snapshot of my wedding. Service went well, everything was good. We got married in St. Thomas and brought the kids and the nanny. After the service I thought it would be just us but DH HAD to get them dinner even though my nanny was with them and perfectly capable of getting them dinner. We were in an all inclusive for Gods sake! That was the start of my marriage. Momments after we are already fighting about the kids. He acutally left me sitting at the bar alone to take food to his kids. Needless to say that started the night off on a bad note and as I continued to drink more I got more upset and really went off on him at the end of the night, actually locking him out of our room. I have no excuse for what I did except that I was really drunk and don't even remember it but it was my wedding and to have it start that way was depressing and set the tone for the night. Really think about it and understand that once your married you will be around this kid alot more and it WILL NOT get better unless you can change your feelings about the kid. Good luck with whatever decision you make. You only get one wedding night make sure yours isn't spent fighting or with the kids. I don't think I will ever get over that but we have moved on.
Thanks for sharing your
Thanks for sharing your story. I wish I could change my feelings... I keep telling myself I will change them or with time it will get better(my feelings) but to no avail. Here I am with the same feelings and with a wedding planned I now see more danger. Scary. I do not want a wedding night that is spent fighting.
thank you.
Oh dear! In my experience
Oh dear! In my experience (more medium term relationships than I care to share), problems never go away on their own. I just made the mistake of waiting until I had so little love left that leaving was easy.
I'm now in the best relationship I've ever had. Although if I knew then what I know now about dealing with Skids I hope I would have just walked away. Then again, I've learned a lot about myself - and continue to do so, and there are good times. They are just very very painful lessons, and I'm not so sure that I'm turning into a better person because of them.
My advice would be to walk away. Then again, I never took my own advice either.
It does sound like you have more than enough reservations to tip the balance in favour of freedom. Have a very good think about what you want from life.
If you do stay, you might want to think about protecting yourself (e.g. financially) for the future possibility of wanting to 'get out'.
All the very best - neither decision is going to be easy.
Sounds like what I have done
Sounds like what I have done in past relationship. I want there to be a reason so it is easy to leave. In my heart and gut I really think that breaking up and walking away is the best decision for everyone involved. I must admit that I am so scared! so so so scared. I think he already knows... he says he is always fearful that I am going to decide that this is not what I want. Here we are. The initial heart ache and break up is so hard. But, I am sure after time I might be able to look back and know that I made the right decision. I think I have made my decision. I am scared. Thanks for your advice. It is nice to have honesty from people with similar situations.
If he hasn't already,
If he hasn't already, eventually your fiancee is going to pick up on your feelings about his son and its not going to be a pleasant situation for anyone. Some kids have personalities that you are never going to feel comfortable around. This doesn't make either of you bad people. Some personalities just don't mesh. You are having reservations about some very serious issues. Wanting to appease the ex, DF's own guilt, and a child you don't really like are matters that are going to get worse with time, not better. I know you envision a beautiful wedding day, and future happiness, but it is possible your future stepson will be a major part of that day and night. Your fiancee is going to want to appease his child and ex even more because of any disruption your marriage may have caused them. He is going want to reassure his child more than ever that your marriage isn't going to affect him in a negative way, even if that means spending time with him on your wedding night. Are you prepared for that? My ex H and I spent our wedding night fighting. He was so distraught his teenaged son wasn't spending 1 night with us, our wedding night, that he wasn't interested in having sex. He felt instead we should be spending our honey moon coming up with a formal plan on how to be better parents for SS. Ah the memories. Fun times huh? This pretty much was how our marriage went after that as well. Your fiancee may not be this extreme, but you should still be prepared to deal with the worse.
"There comes a time when you have to surrender the idea of what your children could be to the reality of who they are."
Well, we talked and have
Well, we talked and have decided (mostly my decision) that it is better for us to break up and move forward. It is so heartbreaking! It hurts so badly. I have been packing all of his stuff and he will pick them up another day. I know in my heart it is the right thing for everyone. Sometimes the right decision is the hardest decision. I appreciate everyone's stories. They are real and honest. I will be reading these blogs a lot to help me get through this and know that I am doing the right thing for everyone. It has been easier to stay in the relationship. I want to make sure I don't cave in based on emotion. I have really benefited from all of your advice. I have needed it more than anything right now. Thanks.
I've been in love with
I've been in love with someone who would have had to leave his family to be with me. I have considered how his parents and siblings would have viewed me, how his sons would have, how his wife would have once she was the ex.
Then I let him go and moved on. I am now happily married to a man I love, though we are in a very rough patch at present due to blended issues and his daughter's and her BM's psyche issues. I have seen first hand how difficult it is, and I met him after their marriage was over, and the divorce was final a few weeks after our first date (which I didn't know wasn't final btw, or after my heartbreaking relationship prior I wouldn't have gone out with DH at ALL!) But BM had already moved a new BF into her house at the point I started dating DH.
Anyway...
I also have friends who made it from affair to wife and blended family, and through them I have seen how incredibly difficult it is. And I don't think their DH's were doing things like stopping in to give the kids baths at the BMs. But, in my opinion based on my and my friends' experiences with relationships that start as affairs...
Once a man has juggled his feelings for his wife/ending his marriage/choosing another woman over his family, WITH keeping the relationship with his other woman and eventually marrying her, that the pattern for this has been set. It really seems that all too often he continues balancing both and stays overly enmeshed with his prior family unit, out of guilt, or those same feelings of obligation that kept him unhappily married for so long that he connected with someone else.
In other words, you may in fact be sparring yourself a world more of hurt by making this decision. Think about how it felt when he was deciding who to choose, because that pattern/feeling etc may be set for your entire marriage.
I know when I was involved with my married but wanting to leave man, that I put his needs above my own, above the health of myself and the ability to parent my own sons and focus on them properly. For nearly 2 years I was on hold waiting for him to decide to choose one of us already. When he called I ran to see him. I never turned him down because I couldn't afford to. It was highly unbalanced due to the situation, and now that I've seen a crazy BM, and heard tales from others who started out as an affair, I see it's nearly impossible (it happens but rarely) to stop that pattern of his needs, his kids' needs, his ex's needs, trumping yours.
Goodluck, and I promise you if you do decide to follow through with moving on, you will learn and choose someone who is free to be with you and will never let you forget it.
HUGS,
Sita
"Parental love is unconditional, relationships are reciprocal." ~Zen