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I don't know who I think I'm fooling

Miss Know It All's picture

Submitted by Miss Know It All on Wed, 11/09/2011 - 9:00pm

I managed to stay away for maybe a month before opening up communication with ex-FDH. I lasted maybe another month after that before "slipping" into a more intimate role with him. Then he threw out the ultimatum that we get back together or we stop being intimate AND stop speaking, forever.

That, thankfully, came with an apology, an admission of the myriad ways he fucked up the relationship, fucked up his parenting, and then rage-quit on me in the depths of his depression when he SHOULD have been seeking help for his depression and cutting me a fucking break as his partner and equal. He's changed jobs, cut back on the drinking, and started sporadically exercising again to manage stress. He thinks, in short, that things can and will be different the second time around -- the we could end up happily married with kids in a house that WE bought together.

So... we got back together. I wanted that future very much and I wasn't the one who wanted to quit the relationship (I've learned form my work in video games that rage quitting is a last resort). But, despite the happy reunion with its makeup sex, I've refused to see ex-FSD3 (almost 4) again. It's not that I don't love her or want to be with her -- quite the contrary. But I don't know how to be with her and NOT parent her, which makes ex-FDH really angry and insecure. And when I weigh a potential chance at seeing her for a short time versus a very temporary relationship with him that collapses when we can't agree on my role in her life... I choose him over her. Every time.

I don't feel guilty about that, necessarily. As my boyfriend, he should be my primary concern, not her. But... I wonder if he understands that I don't believe him when he says it'll work out. I wonder if he, too, feels like this relationship has a timer on it counting down to the day when we have to admit that I won't change and he won't back down. I wonder if he'll ever understand how much it hurt to earn those "I love yous" from ex-FSD3 and then have her torn away with zero consideration for how that would make me feel.

"You weren't her stepmom," "She didn't know THAT well," "You were just another adult," "Come on, you couldn't be THAT involved" is about all the "support" I got from everyone around me when I tried to talk about how I felt. From ex-FDH I get only uncomfortable silence and a hollow "I'm sorry."

Why aren't there resources out there for breaking up with kids?

Comments

Ifeeya's picture

Submitted by Ifeeya on Wed, 11/09/2011 - 10:04pm

You are treading on very dangerous territory. Why hook back up with him? Are you that desperate? Find yourself a new man!

Auteur's picture

Submitted by Auteur on Thu, 11/10/2011 - 3:45pm

Dont' get back together with him. And don't beat yourself up either. I caved over a couple years ago and boy am I sorry!! He just got WORSE and more violent when it comes to anything even MENTIONED about his spawn from the previously enjoyed industrial sized uterus or HER f-ed up BM, the dreaded battle axe of an ex-MIL, the Wookie.

We should have split eight years ago!! But instead I dug myself a deeper financial hole. It's tolerable right now since all three skids have PASed out but it certainly isn't a real "relationship."

I can't even look at my own email at home without him snooping through it and trying to "FIND" something derogatory about him, the Behemoth or his spawn (which there hasn't been as of eight months) but he'll still try and "read" things into whatever I say or do. I feel like a prisoner in my own home even though his dreadful "angels" dont' come around anymore. . .knowing they could come back at any time.

Miss Know It All's picture

Submitted by Miss Know It All on Thu, 11/10/2011 - 8:22pm

Thanks for the comments, all. Auteur, I am so lucky that I've never had to deal with a privacy Nazi who went through my email. If THAT boundary were crossed, I think it'd be easy to pull the righteous indignation card and walk.

I think that's the real problem here. Things aren't bad enough for me to leave and they're not good enough for me to stop thinking about leaving. I read about "relationship ambivalence" in this book with a "Too Bad to Stay/Too Good to Leave" type title and I think I've got it pretty bad. I'll dig up that book and reread it to see if I can get some clarity.

But the ugly truth here is that I'm trying to wring the last drops of happiness out of this relationship before abandoning it. I'm sure that makes me a bad person in so many ways. But at least I'm not dragging a kid into it. Especially one that I love.