need your advice pls... kid issue/thanksgiving

[Jena]

Jo

Good morning

Thanks for taking the time to respond, i hope you are feeling well as of late. I took some quiet time last night to reflect on the past week, the unneeded "drama" etc. I have alot on my plate, with difficult child and easy child and me and you are correct my ppl come first and me. I am not ever going to get caught up in this again like this and i will tell you why.

He came home from work last night at 11 the usual time, we sat and talked. I said i am so upset with what your ex has done, i feel bad for the kids, i feel badyour in a bad spot, and now im confused about how it is you are handling things. What is it you want??

He said well my ex this is just who she is, i care for her i think i always will, etc. He said you have to remember it's 18 years, and this is who she is and for some reason I just can't hate her or be mad at her for any length of time. I have something deep inside of me for her, i don't know what it is, i'm not in love with her anymore i'm in love with you yet it's there.

i said oh great!! LOL. I said so basically she acts this way because she knows this (the ex I mean) how he feels and she "plays" him and tortures us. He never puts the breaks on and says to her ok enough is enough this is my new life, your my past life back off. He takes the calls, answers the texts etc. This is not good moving forward adn he does not connect his behavior on how he handles her tothe ongoing torture and craziness she pulls.

With that being said i guess i'll need time to mull that over, to be honest no woman wants to hear that. he reassures me he's 100% into our relationship,etc ummm ok. ??

Anyway he feels it's better that his kids spend thanksgiving with their mom who doesn't really want them there instead of dragging them out with-my family. He said they won't sit well, they don't know your family well and i think it's better they spend it with their mom.

I said funny thing is i was more upset about all of this than you were i bet. You were at work pre occupied and doing your thing, not mad at your ex at all and i was home spewing. Wow, so silly and ridiuclous for me to waste my energy that way. So, supposedly he is giong with me and the kids to my moms. Yet who knows with this soga if it'll change yet again. i told my mom regardless easy child difficult child and i will be there

So, i've learned my lesson to no longer get caught up in "their" drama. Yet Jo i have to be honest with the way he says he still feels for the ex how is that giong to affect our future and the future torture his ex will do?? I'm not sure i'm up for a life like that. I mean is this normal??

thanks again!!

 

[hearts and roses]

Yet Jo i have to be honest with the way he says he still feels for the ex how is that giong to affect our future and the future torture his ex will do?? I'm not sure i'm up for a life like that. I mean is this normal??

Normal? Yes, I think so. There will always be a part of me that cares for my exh - simply because we were at one time close enough and hopeful enough to have two children together. Despite his personal destruction of himself and how it related to our eventual break up, he is my children's biological father. And despite the fact that he has only in recent years been a larger part of their life, I know that in his own twisted difficult child way, he loves them. Does he drive me nuts and pis.s me off? Yes. Have I ever laid into him about his actions and other stuff - you bet I have. Do I allow him and his 'stuff' to come between me and my H? NO Absolutely Not.

The task that your boyfriend has to tackle in therapy is how to put his feelings and respective past relationship with his exw into proper perspective and find a balance in his life without her being the #1 person.

He needs to come to the realization that just because they have an 18 year history, he doesn't owe her anything, especially when she's behaving badly and interferring in his personal life.

His life with you is his personal life. How he spends the time he has with his kids is his personal life. How his job is going, what he eats for dinner, and where he spends his holidays and vacation time is part of his personal life.

I sometimes can spend an hour on the phone with my exh discussing our daughters and then hng up and my H doesn't mind at all (unless dinner is late-lol) because there is no doubt in his head that I am in a life together exclusively with him and my dds and only him & my dds. Exh is not up in our business and I've never allowed him to be. A line was drawn. Yes, exh is in OUR lives for the simple reason that we have children together, but that's it. H and I decide on how much access we allow him into our lives. Several years ago (like 8-9), I laid a few things on the table to exh...he was being a jerk with the girls and their birthdays, I can't even remember it all. But anyway, I was upset and I wrote him a letter. I edited it for 3 days until I was finally satisfied with what I wanted to say. Basically, it spelled out what we have in common - the girls - and nothing else. I told him that despite everything, our focus has to be only on the girls and that if he wasn't in for that 100%, then there would be problems between us forever. He came through. It was then that my exh finally made a life for himself and became his own man - finally, at the age of 38. A transformation of epic proportions was made - in all of us.

So, your boyfriend needs to be able to acknowledge his exw's place in his heart but then let it go and begin dealing with her as simply the other significant person in his children's lives.

YOU and his kids are the family he must choose first and foremost in order to be able to be the man he needs to be - the grown up man - and treat you and your family together, with all the kiddos combined as his First Family. His exw comes last as another person in his life with whom he must deal with on occasion.

She will not change her behavior until he changes his first. As long as she knows she can yank his chain and make him dance the way she wants, she will continue to do so.

It is up to him to work through this with his therapist so he can move on in a healthy manner.

 

[Shari]

Hey, Jenn, I'm not a guy, but I can say that I have a strange "relationship" with my difficult child's bio dad.
***
We weren't married 18 years. We were together somewhere around 15-ish (married 9, I think).
***
I don't hate him. I get very angry about things he does and has done, but hatred is not an emotion I feel towards him. He was very much the way he is now when we were still married, and altho it drove us apart, I had learned to deal with it at some level, that didn't involve ugly feelings towards him. Sometimes, early on, I even mourned the fact that it didn't work out. Not so much because I loved him or missed him, but because it now meant me and my kids were yet another statistic on the "failed marriage" tally - and that's not the dream I wanted to live. I wish I could explain my feelings about him, but I'm not sure how - its very strange.
***
An aside from that, I am one who votes for the kids having a say in where they go, too. Altho she did need to talk to you guys, first. That said, we will probably be doing largely "nothing" on Thanksgiving Day, too. My siblings are considerabley older than I am, and when they got married and had in-laws who wouldn't budge, our family started celebrating holidays before or after-the-fact instead of on the day. This started when I was around 8 or 10, and honestly, I appreciate it - now much more than then. I watch as other families rush from house to house to make everyone happy and eat 2 or 3 huge meals on one day, grumpy kids in tow, and I realize, because of my parents' choice to not celebrate on the day, we get to spend entire days, if not weekends, as a family together, and the payoff is HUGE. The kids bring their friends (who can come because its not on the day!), we play card games and board games with each our family for hours on end, until the wee hours of the morning, the laughter and joy the comes from that house is palpable. So I usually spend Thanksgiving with husband and wee difficult child, doing chores around the house, like any other weekend day, and sometimes I feel a little bad cause we aren't celebrating the day, but never fails, when our day rolls around, I am always so very thankful for how we do it.
***
My .02.

 

[Jena]

hi

im running out to dr for difficult child but will read these thru more carefully later. the thing here or shall i say problem is he doesn't seperate he allows her intrusions, and it causes me grief and us upheaval that is unnecessary.

he thinks he "owes' her paying her bills, and her car insurance and us remaining in thsi ridiculously small place so she can live the way she does, he thinks he owes her a freindship, yet he does not. he thinks there is nothing wrong with any of it.

if he knew how to draw the line there would be no issue. yet he does not, he sits on phone with-her joking, laughing, listening to her personal stuff. Than he allows her to mess up our life, thats' my issue here. It's been almost 2 years now and yes there has been some improvement yet not enough. She does what she does because she knows she can because his boundaries aren't in place.

my therapist used to tel me all hte time he's still "taking care" of her. he has no boundaries yet. i can't survive in that where she can screw us up at any given time like for example this holiday thing.

thanks, i'll write more later.

 

[trinityroyal]

he thinks he "owes' her paying her bills, and her car insurance and us remaining in thsi ridiculously small place so she can live the way she does, he thinks he owes her a freindship

my therapist used to tel me all hte time he's still "taking care" of her. he has no boundaries yet.

Jen,
This is an issue you've run into before with boyfriend. It seems that he has a strong need to "take care" of women in distress, whether it's his ex, or a co-worker, or whatever. And he doesn't seem to be recognizing when that "taking care" crosses the boundary.

When your lives are being negatively affected, emotionally, financially, or however, because your boyfriend is busy rescuing someone else, then that's a huge issue.

It seems to me like your boyfriend's ex has his number. Whether intentionally or not, her neediness is driving him to want to fix things for her. Hence the paying of her mortgage, bending over backward to sort out the holiday plans, dealing with her nonsense, taking her calls, listening to her problems and giving advice...

I'm glad to hear that you, your easy child and difficult child will be sticking to your original holiday plans regardless. I think your boyfriend needs to realize that he can't be the hero at the expense of you and your family.

Just thinking about this, as this is another situation that is causing you unnecessary stress and grief because your boyfriend is rescuing...

{{{{{HUGS}}}}},
Trinity

 

[meowbunny]

I'm one of those who has always had great relationships with my exes, whether BFs or spouse. My ex-hubby has stayed in my home more than once with his flavor of the year so he could visit old friends, etc. Didn't bother me. Did bother a couple of his GFs. Their problem, not mine. Do I still love my ex-hubby? Part of me still does and we've been apart for 18 years and part of me always will have a soft spot for him.

That being said, I always made sure that his latest flame came first in his life. If she was uncomfortable with us talking, I wouldn't talk to him. However, my daughter is my daughter, not his, so kids were not an issue. I would always expect that if he had truly agreed to the adoption, he would put his daughter before anyone else and I do mean anyone else. That's the way it should be.

Your boyfriend is taking it too far. It is time for him to step back and pay child support but not the extras. One fact of life is that 18 years of marriage and 3 kids means that she gets more of his money than you do. Stinks, but that's the way it is. Since it is making you miserable and you're already insecure because of some of his past behaviors, he needs to talk to her about the kids but nothing more. No more friendly chats and the like. You really need to get him to see this, preferably in front of a therapist who can help him work through this.

As for you, you can't control him or stop his behavior. All you can do is control your feelings about everything. You need to decide if he is worth the pain you keep going through. It seems like there is always something he does to bring out the insecurities in you. I don't know if it is deliberate on his part but it is certainly hurtful. So, it really is up to you to decide if you think you can live with his behavior because it sounds like it will be a continuing circle -- either his ex or a female friend or an online chatter or something.

I am sorry you are not happy. We all deserve to be happy in our relationships. They should have some glitches so that we can appreciate our SO when the glitches are worked out, but we should not have to be insecure and unhappy all the time.

 

[Jena]

hi,

He does trigger me without a doubt. There's a whole lot of good in him, yet our views on certain things differ greatly. Parenting we seem to be on the same page, yet things regarding his ex we are not.

He'd like to see me be more secure in this so that everytime she calls regarding a kid, than goes into the personal realm even if just a little i won't flip out or dissapprove.

When I think back to how it was almost two years ago, and how it is now in regards to the ex yes there is def. improvement, hands down. She doesn't contact him on our "date night" anymore, he cuts her off when she goes into the personal realm with him when him and i are together, which is only 2 days a week. He does not play her "emotional" support anymore to the extent that he did. She used to call him for absolutely everything that has ceased somewhat. My Therapist told me just be patient with him, he went through alot, he's trying he really is yet 18 years of habits die hard and takes a while to re establish new ones. Yet his therapist tells him it's ok to have a friendship with your ex. So, the two don't match.

To be quite honest if all the past stuff hadn't happened I could care less if they talked on occassion yet being that this woman crossed boundary after boundary due to her uneasiness that he moved on i have those memories in my head and so i am careful and very guarded when it comes to her entering my zone in anyway.

Every relationship has boundaries to some extent. I believe when you are dealing with two individuals you decide those boundaries and that is also a part of respecting a person and their space. He never calls or texts her he honestly does not, only when she calls does he answer or responds to her texts when she does. She is aggressive and demanding needy and possessive. It takes a firm hand to handle her without a doubt i have soo learned. I tried in the beginning to be gracious and helpful, babysat for her many a time when boyfriend was at work and she needed a sitter, i even spoke to her at length a few times regarding her oldest because she was having issues with her and wanted my input. Well, all the while she was bringing me into her little "ex web" and i am so so naive lol, she was texting him ridiculous things, telling her oldest bad things about me, and just really poisoning minds.

There are times in which I am very happy with him, he is very caring and thoughtful is honest now with me which is key and it's the brutal honest at times that kills me lol. He has supported me emotionally through alot as i have him. Yet for the long haul i need to see more change. He says i'm trying so hard, I really am. I try to keep her at bay best I can, yet it's hard she uses kids as an excuse.

So, we shall see how the holidays go over this year. Last xmas eve we had his ex calling here at 3 a.m. woke me and my children and him because her oldest was up and giving everyone a hard time. Than she proceeded to text on and off all day on xmas day while we were all at my parents telling him how she missed him, and was sorry she did this to him, etc. blah blah blah. Alot of unfinished business. She was soo controlling last year she wouldnt' allow us or boyfriend to buy the kids gifts that we were giving them here she went shopping wrapped them and we picked them up a few days before xmas to give it to his kids!! He allowed her.

So, as you can see it was quite insane and there has been improvement yet we shall see how much quite soon i believe. I think that the paying her car insurance is a bit absurd, their also on the same cell phone plan (family plan) still. My therapist really feels as though everything takes time and this will as well. Yet i'm unfortunately not a patient woman and I can also be demanding in my own right. beleive it or not. so we shall see. He's made improvements in alot of things, yet she's a long haul situation she will never go away and the boundaries that aren't in place simply affect our lives, our plans, etc. he doesnt' see it that way. Why i do not know.

Thanks for taking the time to respond to me, i do appreciate it and your thoughts.