Please feel free to ignore this, I just need to get it all off my chest. I do lurk here under a different name but my Ex H knows it and I don?t want him reading this. Skip to the end for very abbreviated version if you don?t want to read the epic!
First of all, I am hell to live with, I know this. I m selfish and value ?me? time a lot more than I probably should do. I?m also scatterbrained, disorganised and in some ways, can be very childish, doing things like sulking when I?m not getting my own way or deliberately not doing something if I?m told to do it. I also adore organised chaos. I simply cannot stand a home that is so clean you could eat off the floor and like the chaos of things piled up around the edges until I feel like getting to them. I also have a phobia about ironing after being burnt as a child so I don?t do that without getting seriously bitched at.
That?s not to say I don?t clean up or do normal day to day stuff like cooking and helping them with their homework or just having mummy and minion time (our favourite time!) and generally we have a good time even when I do get shouty at the children when I?m being interrupted for the tenth time. I also have a tendency to sleep?.a lot, although no medical reason for this has been found.
I am also still unsure as to who I am because of an abusive childhood, going off the rails as a teenager and then being thrust into a ready made family with no idea of what that entailed and had no time to figure out just who it is I want to be. Now that I?ve got a little about me out, I can write about where I am in life and the choices I need to make.
I met my Ex H when I was 16 and he was 36 and pretty quickly started sleeping with each other. At the time, I didn?t know that he not only had a common law wife but also 7 children as I only saw him once a week at a club we both attended. As soon as I found out, I dropped him like a hot brick and resolutely ignored him for as long as I possibly could. Some time after I dropped him, he got in touch with me again and asked me to help him with some research for a book he was writing and although I had misgivings, I said yes with strict boundaries in place about what could and couldn?t be said or done.
I was in for a shock though when I visited him at his house as his common law wife, who I?ll call W for this, entered the room in which I was sat and asked me straight out if I?d slept with him. It didn?t occur to me to lie and I told her the truth thinking I was about to get the kicking of my life and yet, she didn?t. In fact, we had a very bizarre conversation as to what my Ex H wanted to do and I said that I would quite happily cease all contact with them if they wanted me to so they could work on what was wrong with their relationship.
It didn?t work out that way though, somehow the conversation changed so I found out that not only did she have a boyfriend who lived with them (at Ex H?s insistence) but that they also still continued to sleep with each other besides and if I wanted to, I could try and make some sort of relationship with Ex if I wanted to.
To cut an already long story short, I ended up doing just that and moving in with them I know, I know! I was only 16 though and not really in a good position to make choices that affect my life so much). It wasn?t long before my 17th birthday though that my Ex H?s wife legged it with three of the children down south to try and make a life with her boyfriend and leaving me as a suddenly unwelcome intrusion into the family life.
I see now what his Ex was doing and commend her for it although I couldn?t understand it at the time. So anyway, there I was, trying to comfort 4 children who thought they weren?t good enough for their mum to take with her, deal with his breakdown and keep a family that wasn?t mine running and all at the age of 16. Lord knows how I managed it but I did and shortly after my 17th birthday, I found myself pregnant with my DD. To add to all this upheaval, he then got a job in a neighbouring county so at 8 months pregnant, we moved there with the kids who were still in the resentment of me stage, trying not to be sick the whole time and not having any support from him as he was still trying to get his head around all the changes.
Cutting out a lot of detail, when I was 19, we decided to get married although, when DD had turned 2 1//2, I left him to come back to my home town because I had, had enough of being treated like another daughter by Ex and an unpaid skivvy by the DSD?s.
Ex H followed me though and eventually wore me down enough to make me give him another chance with promises that he would change, that he would make it more about me rather than his own problems and give me more support. It was during this period of giving him another chance that my son was conceived and everything seemed to be going well. Then he started being the way he was before and I wasn?t going to stand for it so I tried to throw him out again. Again, I took him back (I must?ve been on something to think that was a good idea). this was in 2003.
Now for some pertinent information.
During the whole of our relationship, he wanted me to see other men and yes, sleep with them. I resisted a lot the first couple of years but eventually began to do just that thinking that eventually he would just give up on it. I was wrong, it only made him want me to do this even more.
I only ever saw 4 guys but this was the beginning of the end. Fast forwarding to last year, I met a guy who was very intense and I saw what was missing in our relationship, spark. Ex H saw I was suddenly happy again and got very, very jealous culminating in him yelling at me in the middle of our local shopping centre and demanding to know if I wanted a divorce. Without thinking I just said, ?Yes, please?.
I think he thought I wouldn?t stick to it as I never did before but I?ve held out against him for a year and a half and now he talks a lot about when we get divorced.
Now comes the WTF?! moment.
Throughout our 13 year relationship, I was talking to another guy (nothing happened!!) who lives in America and I would help him with his relationship problems and he always urged me to work with my Ex to see what I could do to help him. We became almost like best friends and knew each other so very well and would always know what to say to each other to make it feel better even when we were struggling with partners who weren?t right for us and we weren?t right for either. After I split with Ex H, my friend, who I?ll call J, kept an eye on me to make sure I wasn?t too down in the dumps and stuff and eventually I asked him if he would have a long distance relationship with me.
Here comes the WTF. I am a very highly sexed person and so is Ex H and we get very, very evil if we don?t have sex regularly (not an excuse, just the truth) and we decided that it would be a good idea to be friends with benefits (before I asked for LDR!). However, once I asked for LDR, I didn?t know how to stop the friends with benefits thing with the Ex H.
So we?ve muddled along until last week. Ex H has found a woman he would like to start a relationship with and I find that I?m jealous! I don?t like Ex H as a husband but get along fine as friends, I hate that he still treats my house like his and the kids as he always did (DD hates him because DS is his favourite and he never bothered to hide it), still tries to tell me what I have to do and I never want to be married to him again and yet, I find myself feeling like I?m a wronged woman and jealousy is eating me inside.
On the other hand, I?m starting to develop real feelings for my long distance man but am scared about how that will pan out because he has some serious health problems, has depression and has a really crap home life (he moved back in with his mother a while ago after his last relationship deteriorated). Plus he lives so far away that I don?t even know if this will work but want to try anyway.
NM says I am the only girl he really felt a spark with, the one he can connect with the most, always, always tells me he loves me after I said it to him the first time and always makes sure that I am okay, even if he?s had a day from hell and will listen to me before sharing any problems he may have. In short, he?s the complete antitheses of my Ex H.
So what do I do? Do I tell Ex H about how jealous I am (I think it?s a combination of old feelings, missing the spark with him and not wanting him to be happy without me. Told you I was selfish!). In a way it?s like I don?t want him, but I don?t want anyone else to want him either which is destructive to both of us but it?s getting harder to keep my anger and resentment inside.
I also realise how unfair this is to NM (who doesn?t know any of this by the way) and while I want to try to make a go of it with him, after reading so many threads about how LDR?s don?t work out and saying we love each other before we?ve even met face to face will lead to disaster, I?m terrified that he?s going to turn out to be a nutter and I will have tried for nothing.
I realise I deserve no sympathy and ask for none, I just really needed to write this down, in black and white so I can see clearly what I need to do or at least, begin figuring it out. If you?ve actually read this epic, I salute you and ask, what would you do?
ABBREVIATED VERSION
- Met Ex H when 16 and moved startlingly fast into a situation that was bizarre to say the least.
- Pregnant at 17 with DD and coping with ready made family whose mother had run off with only three of the 7 children leaving 4 who couldn?t understand why they weren?t good enough to go with her.
- Being treated mainly like a daughter (being told I couldn?t manage finances because I was stupid about money and not being allowed my bank card, given an allowance instead is an example) leading to moving back to home town on my own.
- Back together again, conceived DS and split again, back together after a few months promising all would be better
- I went to university, grew up, realised that we were wrong for each other in many ways (not least being nagged constantly to sleep with other men although, he always says now that it was my choice and I could?ve said no).
- Split father?s Day 2009 after massive row in town centre with him screaming ?Do you want a divorce!?? and me saying yes and sticking to it.
- Became friends with benefits after lack of sex was making us nastier to each other and everyone else than was normal or healthy. Things settle into routine.
- Started LDR (he lives in the US me in the UK) with old friend but couldn?t figure out how to stop the friends with benefits thing.
- Ex H found new woman he really likes, I?m jealous as hell even though I don?t actually want him as a partner any more and am terrified that NM and I won?t work out due to home issues with him and all abovementioned issues with me.
I have to say, counselling doesn?t work for me, and I just clam up or cover what I?m feeling with humour and therefore, never get anything resolved. The one time I did go to counselling, the counsellor said I had to deal with the unresolved issues from my childhood (DV, Rape by so called family friend and going off the rails), but that I am a bottle. I will just keep things inside until I go off on one completely and when the day comes that the ?big one? hits, it will be ten times as nasty if I don?t get past everything first.
So, I don?t want to go to counselling as I?m beginning to resolve this all internally but it?s the jealousy thing that?s hit me hardest. I?m just so screwed up in the head that I don?t know what to do any more and just had to write it all down.
Thanks for taking the time to read :)
my life seems so straightforward!