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March 28, 2016 at 1:36 pm #100296NikiParticipant
Hey.. I’m hoping someone can help me sort through and make sense of my feelings about my relationship. My partner and I have been together almost 4 years. Not our first rodeo, I’m in my mid 40’s and she’s in her late 30’s. She has 2 kids from her previous marriage and her ex-wife is very involved, we have the kids 7 days on 7 days off.
We met right after I got out of a very emotionally destructive relationship, like maybe 3 months after. I know I was still reeling from that and didn’t think I would jump right into something new, but.. needless to say about 9 months after we met, she and the kids moved into my house.
The good.. she is my best friend. I can talk to her about anything and we laugh together a lot. The bad.. We have absolutely nothing in common and we fight about everything. I love to be outside, she hates it. I love to travel, she hates it. She has a problem with anxiety and that makes a lot of things hard. I make a good salary, but she works part time so that she can be home for the kids after school. I’m ok with this, but where we live, it’s extremely expensive and she wants to have more kids. I love her kids. It’s always hard to be a step-parent, but we make it work. However, I don’t want more kids. At one point in time I did, but we have 2 beautiful kids, we don’t need more and more importantly, we can’t afford more. This has become a sore spot for us. At one point she said it was a deal breaker for her, but yet she’s not willing to leave.
The last important thing that makes me doubt our relationship is that I’m constantly working on improving myself mentally, physically and spiritually. There is so much to learn and do in this life and such a short time. She has no interest in anything. She has no motivation to ever try anything new. She is comfortable in her little world with her family and me. I want more and I feel guilty for it.
If I left today, I would miss her terribly, but I can see the rest of my life the way I’ve always pictured it.. traveling, meeting new people, going to new places. Staying with her, I think I will be resentful that she’s not more willing to do things with me. But I love her and the kids. Just watching them grow and being a part of their life the last few years has been wonderful. I’m afraid to lose them and I worry that I would be throwing away the best thing I’ve ever had because I’m being selfish.
Any thoughts would be appreciated. I’ve been going over this for quite a while now and one day I’m sure I’m going to leave when we have a wonderful day or I’ll be sure I’m staying when things fall apart for a week or more. I just don’t want to do something I’ll regret later.
Thanks..
March 28, 2016 at 6:22 pm #100312AnonymousGuestDear geekgrrl70:
My thoughts:
* Stop fighting. If you can’t or won’t stop fighting, separate. It is not good for the two children to observe the two of you fighting and of course, it is not good for you or your partner.
* Both partners need to want (more) children before deciding to bring more to the household, so if it is a deal breaker for her, well, the deal will need to be broken.
* If you can stop fighting, and it is okay with her to not have more children, then what about if you do spend time outside away from your partner, maybe with the children…You can even travel without your partner, while she stays home…?
* About your self improvement work, what I am currently working on in the area of self improvement is patience and acceptance- patience with your partner and acceptance, radical acceptance of her ways as you described them, can be part of your self improvement…?
anita
March 29, 2016 at 4:45 am #100379MattyParticipantHello geekgrrl70,
You do seem to be hitting an emotional dilemma. I think you are trying to leverage something that cannot be actually measured. You are measuring and comparing two ‘what if’ scenarios. The problem with this is that the future is not some mathematically equation with a neat little number at the end. Yes you could live your life the way you want to, this is not selfish, it’s your life. Your partner is also living her life the way she wants to, so by this definition she is also being selfish. It all seems complicated, doesn’t it? What happens if you do break up, how will the kids react? They have already been shifted from one place to another. How will your partner feel? you most likely will feel guilty and feel that you have lost a friend that you can pour heart out to.
Anita raises a good question, why not start to do things separately? My aunty has been married for 45+ years now, she does everything she wants to do by herself, and my uncle does likewise. It actually makes them happier, because at the end of the day they still have each other plus richer experiences. I think the contrast with your situation is that you are growing, whilst your partner has decided that she has reached her potential. And that is her prerogative. If you decide to travel, learn more about yourself and improving then your partner might ‘catch the bug’ too. If you both value each others happiness then sacrifices can be made, as long as you know they aren’t going to be in vain.
If you are fighting, once again as Anita pointed out, this isn’t great for the kids. They already been a part of one relationship and most likely seen it, now they are going through it again. THis may impact and influence how the perceive relationships and love.
If you have no common interests with one another, besides being a person you speak to and who understands you, what do you love about her? What makes you look at her that way? what makes your heart flutter when she walks into a room? It’s okay to have divergent interests, as long as you both have similar morals, values and beliefs then i can understand that. My mother and father have nothing in common in way of physical interests (mum = gardener, dad = economics), but both love each other because of the experiences they have shared, the children they have raised and the beliefs that they share. I think it comes down to what you see as a deal breaker in this regard.
I just don’t want to do something I’ll regret later.
This goes 360 back to the notion that you are dealing with a lot of ‘what ifs’. You are deterred by the fact that you won’t find happiness, love and a relationship ever again. Have some faith and confidence in yourself. Believe that you are good enough, and that if others can’t see you as you see yourself then that’s their fault, not your own. If you are having these thoughts, your partner must as well. Maybe share a talk with one another, ask some questions. Be realistic about the direction of the relationship. Tell her how you feel. I think because you have a pattern, when things are bad i want to leave, but then they get better and i can see myself with her forever. This pattern is a distraction, it is providing stability, it is in a sense the structure of your relationship. Of course a relationship isn’t meant to be smooth sailing, but it isn’t meant to be hard work, after all you don’t get paid! 😉
You can continue to sacrifice your position if you love her that much. But you will end up regretting the you didn’t do more when you had the chance. If you go travelling, your doing it because it’s what you want to do, it’s not because you don’t love her. If you go outdoors and live in your own moment, it’s not because you don’t love her, it’s because you wish to discover something new. Both love and self discovery can work together, but it may be that you do such things end up feeling a sense of loneliness, but you are not alone.
I hope this helps, if you have questions or comments, please feel free to post again,
Sincerely,
MattyMarch 29, 2016 at 10:33 am #100395NikiParticipantMatty, Anita,
Thanks for your input and suggestions. 🙂
After reading my original post and your responses, I realized I kind of came off like an ass-hat. lol.
Anita, working on radical acceptance is something I’ve been trying to work on for years. I think that’s part of why we have lasted this long. We are such different people and accepting her for where she is in life.. her fears, faults and beliefs that are just so different than my own, has been a challenge, but I know that I’ve grown from it. At what point do you decide that radical acceptance isn’t the answer because where you are headed just isn’t where you want to go?
Matty, my comment about not doing something I will regret later isn’t necessarily about not finding love in the future, it’s about losing the love that I have. While we have lots of issues, she is still one of the most caring and loving people I have ever known. You did bring something up that I didn’t mention though.. that feeling, that heart flutter you speak of.. I haven’t had that for a long time with her. We very much live as caring roommates. She is not very affectionate and half the time when I try to hold her hand or kiss her, she acts like I’m a nuisance rather than her partner. We’ve talked about it and she is aware of my frustration with this. She admits it’s a problem and has tried to be better about it, but it doesn’t change much..
Ugh. I feel like I’m just whining now.
Thank you again for your input. You definitely gave me some things to think about.
March 29, 2016 at 12:46 pm #100402AnonymousGuestDear geekgrrl70:
You asked: “At what point do you decide that radical acceptance isn’t the answer because where you are headed just isn’t where you want to go?” My answer is Anytime. You wrote such positive things about your partner that I thought it might be worthwhile for you to (continue to) practice radical acceptance of her. It seemed to me that her lack of desire to travel, for example, was minor in comparison to her being loving and decent.
In your last post you wrote something more important, in my view, about her that is a problem and that is her lack of affection for you on an ongoing basis. That is a problem because her not being into traveling, well you can travel alone. But if you travel alone, the payoff is that when you come home from a travel, you come home to an affectionate partner-
If that is not the case, then it is more serious, the problem in the relationship, that is.
anita
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