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I agree with KML.....

But one thing I would caution you against..... I know you involved the kids already. But if you are having fun and seeing where it’s going and have no plans for the future yet, I would pull back on the kid thing and sleep over when kids are home thing. My daughter is your kid’s age. She’s happy for me to date. She loves my boyfriend and his son. I waited until 5 and a half months for introductions.

I dated a guy for 3 months who was younger than me and it didn’t work out because of that. He was 28I was 37 at the time. He wanted kids, but not for a long time, and I was done with having kids. She knew about him because we went to the same gym class thing together and my D came with me. So I thought there would be no harm having him around. She got somewhat attached and was really sad when we ended it. I decided I didn’t want to subject her to that. They feel it when it ends too, even if you think they aren’t attached . They get used to the routine of them coming over.

I say date, enjoy yourself, see where it goes. Enjoy YOUR time with him . You may find that your lives will be compatible. You may find out they are not. In due time. But until that time.... keep it between the 2 of you.

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DejaVu6 Offline OP
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Thanks Ginger. My kids don’t really interact with him a whole lot. They are very involved with their neighbourhood friends and are quite busy when they are home. I honestly think it would not bother them if he stopped coming around unless they saw that it made me sad. But you are right...if I could start over, I would wait a while longer to introduce them. If this doesn’t work out, I will definitely do that with anyone else in the future.

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Hello DV

Jack not texting you. Yeah, that would upset me too.

I think Jack has a little difficulty confronting others - like his friend. Your assessment of differences has him with little experience in serious relationship(s). His friend may have pushed for Jack spending time with him not you, and Jack might have to figure out how push back.

There many be lots of different possible reasons as well. At any rate, an open honest discussion of your and his expectations would go along way in letting him know. Guys aren’t all that aware smile Lol. And he might just need a few more reminders to get it to stick.

Back to that list. Yes quite some differences in there.

Originally Posted by DejaVu6
On the positive side... we have a GREAT time together. He can be really silly and makes me laugh. Sex is great and sometimes I feel like I can’t kiss him enough. I am super comfortable with him and happy when he is around.

IDK... Am I just fooling myself or getting carried away because it feels so good to be with someone who is so into me and who is so affectionate with me? I was emotionally starved in my marriage so am I just responding to him in this way because of that?

Perhaps you are fooling yourself, perhaps you are not. Ah those irrational emotions.

The differences are mostly rational ideas. The positives mostly irrational. Why would you expect different? It’s love. It doesn’t need to make sense.

He is fun to be around and makes you happy. You are comfortable being around him. There is something about him...

Those are the important qualities. In truth, most other stuff can be taught. Being compatible - can’t really teach that.

So are you just responding due to an emotional void from your marriage? Who knows. Does it matter? You are responding. You have feelings. And I think he does too.

For what it’s worth, I believe you to be levelheaded and clear in thought and heart. Have some faith and trust in your feelings and thoughts. I think beliefs, deeper ideas and feelings, are forming and you are just settling into them.

Super comfortable and happy. Everything else is everything else.

DnJ


Feelings are fleeting.
Be better, not bitter.
Love the person, forgive the sin.
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DejaVu6 Offline OP
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DnJ... You have such a way of getting to the heart of things... no pun intended. You are right. Rational vs irrational. Both have merit. I think I just need time to sort it all out and figure out what I want. In the meantime, I am just going to go with the flow and have faith that what is meant to be will be. Having been through what I have, I know that no matter what, I will be fine one way or the other.

I was laughing today thinking about Jack. On Sunday we were lying in my room and he said we should play 20 questions. So he picked something and I did the questioning thing. At some point, I noticed that he was shaking so I asked him why. He said it was because he was excited that I was going to guess it...reminded me of how a little kid would react in anticipation. It was so funny and goofy it made me laugh out loud. I love that about him. He is just really playful and fun.

I had my sister and BIL over for dinner tonight. It was their 24th wedding anniversary on Monday so I wanted to do something for them. I kid them every year telling them that when they got married, I gave them a year...lol. They bicker like crazy but it works for them. At their core, they love each other a lot and both are fiercely loyal and committed. I invited Jack over as well but he was here for five days last week and only went home on Monday so I didn’t expect him to come. I know he had a lot of things he wanted to get done and hadn’t planned to stay as long as he did so it wasn’t a surprise that he asked for a rain check. Will probably see him on the weekend. smile

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Had an unexpected FaceTime call with SD19 last night. She says she misses me and the kids immensely. She’s here for one night next week on her way to a camp out with her mom and sisters and then is planning to visit at the end of August. She told me she has not talked to her dad in two months and doesn’t want to see him when she is here as she is “not ready”. She also said she is finding it difficult living in the city with all of us living here. She plans to stick it out until the end of the year but asked if she could come live with me for half a year so she could save up enough money to possibly go to Australia to work for awhile. She has been there before and has connections so it is a viable plan.

I am sad for her and STBXH. Their relationship has been significantly damaged by everything that has happened. Unlike her younger siblings, she is old enough to put two and two together and has realized I wasn’t the only person being lied to by him. She has thought about all of her events that he missed because of his fake treatments and is understandably angry and hurt about it. Conflict-avoidant STBXH, of course, has done nothing to repair their relationship except to send the periodic overly cheerful text that makes it appear that he a) hasn’t noticed that she is upset with him [he has] or b) that he has noticed but thinks she will just get over it if he continues to ignore the elephant in the room [this is his go-to approach - shows he hasn’t changed a bit. In the past, I would have bent over backwards to try to fix this for him and force him to do something but that is no longer my job. OW can have a go at it although she really won’t be much help in that regard as SD19 wants nothing to do with her either. My prediction is that STBXH will just let things go with the hope that she will eventually start talking to him and he won’t have to do anything. That is how it works between him and his dad. However, SD19 is not him. She has much to be angry about and is not just going to let it go without some sort of apology or grand gesture from him. Sadly, I doubt either of those things will ever happen. frown

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Quote
. She has thought about all of her events that he missed because of his fake treatments


Fake treatments? I don't remember that part of the story - what was that?

As for SD19's relationship with her dad - that's hard. My youngest hasn't spoken to his dad for almost three years (even though we were divorced ten years ago, this is not directly about the divorce). I fear that as it takes on a life of its own it becomes a bigger and bigger deal (oddly, my ex and his siblings have a history of not speaking to their mom, who was a WAW, for years.Still, I can't argue with my son's reasons for why he doesn't think having a relationship with his father is helpful in his life right now.

I was actually the one who got my exH to reconcile with his own mother when our first child was born. It was definitely less weight to have a polite if distant relationship with her, than to carry around this burden of not speaking to her. Over time their relationship improved and became much closer.I am hoping that eventually I can get my youngest to reconcile with his father but right now it's still too painful for him. (And since in their final argument my ex apparently badmouthed me in some vile way - I still haven't asked the details because I don't want to know, but it was bad enough that son's girlfriend at the time felt bound to jump in and defend me - I must admit I haven't been in a super hurry to make that happen).

About a year in exH did email son trying to get him to go to therapy with him - but in the next breath telling him his phone contact was running out and that he wouldn't keep paying the $30 for unemployed son's cell phone! Needless to say that reconciliation didn't happen.

I'm hoping to get youngest son further along in his mental health recovery before he attempts reconciliation, so that he's better able to deal with ex's narcissistic stuff.

But as for SD19 - you might point out to her that a polite distant relationship with her father may weight less in the long run than outright not communicating with him.

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Hi KML.

I thought it easier just to copy and paste that part of the story...

Originally Posted by DejaVu6
December 2014...he developed Shingles which became somewhat chronic and necessitated a lot of treatment that had him staying away nights in a local hospital. Unbeknownst to me, at some point during that time, the treatment slowed down but he went back to his MLC ways only this time, he was camping out at various places pretending to be at the hospital for treatments almost every night and avoiding me and his “life”. Looking back, I recall that he seemed quite depressed but I chalked it up to the Shingles and his painful "treatments".

Fast forward to 2017 with this strange life of being home for short periods of time and gone for long periods of time but all the while working full-time save for one month in 2016 when he took a medical leave. It seems like a long period of time to live like that and honestly, I think there were many times when I questioned things but he would always have an answer that seemed plausible and there was a part of me that was just too tired dealing with everything and really didn’t want to know. In 2017, my mom was dying of cancer and I got the idea that we should move closer to my family which was in a much less expensive area to live. I found a job posting within my organization that I felt I would get and approached him with the idea of moving. I kind of expected him to balk at the idea but to my surprise, he was super enthusiastic and within three months, I got the job, he found one too, we sold our house for a ridiculous amount of money, paid off every debt we had and bought a beautiful ocean view dream home for cash in the new community. I thought we were home free as many of our stresses just went away. For the first eight months we were here, he was like a different person. Happy, engaged, present, pain well-managed, future-oriented, and satisfied with his life. We bought a boat (he had always wanted one), spent time fishing and boating together and just basically enjoyed our new reality. We even took our family on a trip to Mexico which is something we hadn’t been able to do since our kids were 7 months old... they are almost 11.

Then...without warning... his pain returned in March 2018 and he announced to me that he had to go back to the hospital. And he did this... for awhile... and, like before, when the treatment regimen stopped being every night, he continued to act as if it was still continuing and spent almost every night away from home... but continued to work and come home until around 5 or 6 when he would leave. I know now that he wasn’t going to the hospital but was spending alone time on our boat (my key went “missing” around then so I would have to borrow his if I wanted to go down there) and then in June he sold his beloved car that he had been restoring and told me he was going to use the money to restore a different vehicle. I later found out that he has been using the money to rent a suite for himself where he continued to spend his evenings isolating from the world. All of this eventually came to a head almost a month ago after my suspicious brother-in-law decided to put a tracker on his car and found out where he was going.


TBH...I'm more than a little embarrassed about how naïve and trusting I was over those years. I am sure his current OW is not his first but he will never tell me. I have accepted there are many things I will never know. What I do know is that I was, for all intent and purposes, a single parent and alone most nights. I was depressed but I did my best to be there for my kids including my SD whose performances and major events I attended...usually without her dad. If he did put in an appearance, he would always leave early because he was in "too much pain" or had to get to the hospital for his "treatment". Throughout that time, I would also have to periodically reassure our children that their dad was not dying as they, of course, would make this assumption based on how often he was gone. He missed everything...birthdays, two Christmases, New Years, anniversaries... You name it, he was not there for it. How I put up with it, I do not know. The best way I can describe it is to say I was like that frog in the pot of water that burns to death because he never notices the temperature gradually increasing until it is too late. I was on autopilot for those years just trying to take care of my kids and support my "ill" husband without allowing myself to have any resentments because, after all, it wasn't his fault [insert eye roll here]. His daughter is old enough to remember all of this and knows he was faking most of it. The twins were young enough, thankfully, that they still think he was sick and I bite my tongue whenever one of them mentions it...for their sake, not his. Needless to say... I am much better off now. smile

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Hahahahaha - there is no treatment for shingles that requires an overnight stay in the hospital btw. Ok, so he's a pathological liar to boot.
Let SD19 make up her own mind whether she ever wants to see him again.And how great that she wants to live with you for 6 months!

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You might want to read the book The Sociopath Next Door, you might recognize him in there.

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DejaVu6 Offline OP
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KML...I would agree with you about the sociopath diagnosis except my STBXH has a lot of guilt which sociopaths tend not to have. I just think he is a weak and broken person who has been desperately seeking happiness in other people his whole life. He has deep-seated insecurities and lacks an internal sense of self and a solid moral code. When times are tough, he just doesn’t have the intestinal fortitude to stick it out and take responsibility for himself. I think our situation got away on him and he was likely relieved when he was finally caught. Since then, he has consistently tried to be a good dad to our twins and has been reasonable and generous in the negotiation of our separation and divorce. Does it make up for the years of gas lighting and lying? No it doesn’t. Not sure he could ever do that. But he is trying to move forward as best he can. I am grateful for that and grateful to be free of him. He is not the man I thought he was...not sure he ever could be...and I am at peace with that. As long as he does not hurt our children any more than he already has, we will be fine.

Pathological liar? Yep...he has earned that title for sure. Hopefully he will do better with that in the future but it is definitely a well-established habit of his. He’s so good at it, I think he fools himself much of the time too. I am happy that he is no longer fooling me. smile

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