I feel jealous of DP's life

[BertieBotts]

I know how ridiculous this sounds, I really do. I'll try to fill in the background so it makes sense, sorry if this is long.

DP and I have been together for about a year and a half coming up to two years now. I have DS from a previous relationship who is 3.9 and DP is very involved with him, thinks of him and treats him as though he was his own son. We are both young, I've just turned 24 and DP is about to in a few weeks.

Back in February, he told me he'd applied for a job in Germany. He stressed that it was very early stages, he'd put the application in on a whim, and he asked what I thought. He said that if I didn't want to go/him to go, he would not take the job if offered it. I was a little apprehensive at first but I told him he must apply for it, definitely, and we'd see what happened - basically I couldn't see a good reason to refuse the opportunity. It's not just that the job is in Germany, either - it's in a field he'd always wanted to work in and he was unhappy in his current (unrelated) job.

Anyway, so as the application process went on and he got through the various stages he allowed himself to get excited about it more and more, and shortly after he'd first asked me, I had been looking up stuff online, talking to MNers in Germany etc, and I was really excited about the possibility too, because it's always been a dream of mine to go and live in another country for a year or two, and in my fantasy, I've always imagined doing it with small children, before they started school but old enough to take it in and gain something from it. So it's the perfect time and a fantastic chance to take something that I'd mentally written off when I had DS so young. We planned together that if he got the job, he would go out first, as there is accommodation provided by the company but it's more for singles than families, we had no spare money at the time he was applying, so no chance to save anything up to all move out together. The plan is he'll stay in this temporary accommodation for 2-3 months and save up for a small one bed or studio apartment, get a six month lease on this which will last up until about February time, and we'll go out after Christmas so that we can househunt together for a bigger place. This also means that DP can spend Christmas here which we hope softens the blow for all our families as we can spend Christmas together.

Now to the actual point of my post - he's staying in this shared house and working in an office full of other young 20something people. Which means, inevitably, he's being invited on nights out a lot, and I'm finding this really hard as a contrast with my life, where I'm now a single parent with precious little childcare and everyone at my work is in their early 20s as well, and hardly ever ask me to come out with them even though I'd love a night out. And I know that I made a choice to have a child young, but I feel so cheated, because at the time I made that decision I was in a horrible abusive relationship which so distorted my thinking that I thought that I was done with all of that.

But anyway. I haven't mentioned this to DP because I feel so horrible that I am jealous of him getting to have a life, but he has mentioned to me that he feels he should turn down invitations and stuff, because when me and DS come out, he will have to stop going out "and that will suck". And I said of course he wouldn't have to stop going out, I'm not a monster who will stop him from having a life, as long as he's not out all hours every night, I wouldn't mind, but he said that I would get upset because he gets to have a life and I don't, and he's right :( but I don't want to feel like this. I just feel like it's going to be a massive thing for me moving, and he gets to meet all of these people through his job and have a career, and I won't be able to do that, all of my friends are here.

God, I'm rambling now, I'm sorry. I've had a glass of wine and it's gone to my head now so I'm probably making no sense, but I just, I don't know. I want to know how I can control my overwhelming feelings of jealousy that he gets to have a life and I don't. Because I don't want to tell him to stop, and I know I'm being irrational. I'll get my turn, I suppose.

MY mum says she wants to be a man in her next life - I do too. DH's life is different from your DPs but it's a lot freer than mine as he isn't primary child carer - don't feel bad just focus on being there too. It's hard being by yourself but at least you know it's short term.

Thanks for replying. I think I find it hard because it's not his problem that I'm upset over him having a social life, and I don't want him to not have one - I just want one as well!

Anyway have spoken to a couple of friends tonight and arranged some get togethers and am feeling much better, but still slightly apprehensive about when we go over there and meeting people. I still want to do it, though. I need to hang on to the positives somehow though and stop focusing on the negatives!

Glad you've arranged some get togethers with friends, I hope that helps.

Obviously you are parents now and that does somewhat curtail both of your social lives. It just so happens that at the moment, he has childcare in place for his nights out (you) and you don't (because he's not there).

I suggest getting a babysitter or a friend/family member to babysit whilst you have some socialising time if nights out are your thing. If it isn't about those kinds of nights out, and its just adult company you want then that might be easier because of being able to arrange things with people during the day whilst your children play.

I think he's being realistic about not getting out quite so much once his family has joined him. Bear in mind that he will need to go out less anyway because he'll be able to spend time with you, whereas at the moment staying in is lonely for him. But you are being very fair to let him know that he'll still be able to go out sometimes - as long as he will facilitate you doing the same when you move out there. Especially as you'll need to build up your own support network.

Do you speak German? If not, taking up an evening class this autumn at your local college might be a good way of socialising now and making it easier to socialise once you are there.

So, short term, arrange some childcare and get out and enjoy yourself. If its too difficult then invite friends over to you. In the longer term, make sure that he's as willing to help you socialise in Germany as you are for him to. Certainly don't tell him to go out as much as he does now just because you feel he ought to be able to and then resent him for it because you haven't given yourself time to make friends. He honestly won't need that company quite so much when he can spend his evenings with you, and he knows that!

Oh, and make sure he looks up some good babysitters in Germany so that you can go out as a couple, either with his work collegues or out to dinner/cinema/whatever you enjoy!

Thanks Spirited - you make it sound so simple In truth DS is at a better age for babysitters now as he actually goes to bed at 7 so it's definitely a possibility that we could get babysitters in Germany and go out as a couple. Which would be nice because we never got/get to do that here!

My best fun time was when I was early 20s no responsibilities and great group of similarly minded friends. But it only lasted a couple of years, if that.

I would think DP's colleagues will soon start pairing off and then it's weddings and babies.

Also, couldn't face all the drinking and hangovers now, but it was good at the time. So my point is that DP's fun might be short lived.

Aww, but I want to do it! I don't want it to be all over!

On the other hand, weddings and babies, oooh!

He has mentioned trying to get promoted into a department where there are more older people with families. But I don't know, it feels more manageable now.

Okay, I need help on a specific point now. Do I need to back off while he settles in, or is it okay for me to ask him to e.g. specify one evening a week where I'll be able to contact him and definitely have a one to one conversation with him? Because at the moment I get snatches of Skype IM time in between either him sleeping, playing online games, watching movies, or going out. And I get that he wants to go out, and he has to entertain himself somehow when he's not out, and that the nature of the group of friends he's with means that they arrange things at short notice, but I'm feeling a little like the lowest priority in the barrel here and I don't like it. But perhaps I'm expecting too much and he needs some time to work out his own patterns before I get to fit into them properly. I don't know, reading that back it sounds kind of shitty? But maybe I'm being all needy, aargh!

I think what you're feeling is totally understandable. I'm not sure what you can do, though, other than try to have a bit more fun yourself (if funds will stretch to a babysitter). When you're back living together there will be a bit more equality in your free time I should think.

It's one of those horrible things that men often seem to have a freer life after you have kids. My dp does. I sometimes feel resentful, my feminist side wants to insist that things are fair, but I haven't found a way really (as dp has not yet learned to lactate).

I think it would be totally reasonable to agree a regular time to Skype your dp, as long as you're not deliberately picking a time he's likely to want to go out. But you need to talk to him about it really.

my ( male ) friend spent two very well paid years on a merchant navy ship sailing the world stopping off at posts all around the globe meeting interesting glamorous people and eating and drinking the world's finest food and wine.

He was miserable and spent all the time wishing he was back with his girlfriend and his friends in Glasgow

When I started working and my kids were 1 and 3 I used to say - I need a wife :) ... all guys in the office who had kids had wives who weren't working or worked part-time

I was the only one in the department of around 50 with 2 kids where both partners worked full time...

so Ifeel for you

when me and DS come out, he will have to stop going out "and that will suck"

Tell him that it is a privilege for him to spend the evening with you and DS, and if he prefers you will find someone else who appreciates it.

Aww, Bertie. Big friendly hand-squeeze.

If I wake up with anything that looks coherent from the stream of thoughts & feelings your posts prompted, I'll write back. Just for now ...

... OF COURSE you're allowed to fix Skype 'dates' with your husband!
Good heavens, woman, what's got into you?
xxx

Definitely ask him for Skype 'dates' now. If he is rubbish about those, he's more likely to be rubbish about spending actual time with you when you move there.

I am a little worried reading your post.

You are planning to leave your work/career and live away from your current support network.

He worries that having you around will suck because he will not be able to go out so much.

It could all be great but it would be worth having a discussion about your respective expectations before you get there. If there is a clear mismatch, this will get ou time to either resolve it or get out.

Don't read too much into that "it will suck" comment, I know what he means and it isn't that he doesn't want to spend time with us.

No time to reply more fully, but those comments were upsetting me

Oh god - okay, totally hijacking my own thread now, but we just had a talk on skype - first just on instant messenger for around 3 hours, in which time we had a pretty good talk, I thought. I tried to not talk about DS, or about how much we were both missing sex, which is what we generally have been talking about, because I'd been aware of this - and anyway we had this conversation for 3 hours and I was feeling so much happier, like we were connecting again, and then he asked to talk on webcam/mic instead because he wanted to sit away from his computer, which I said okay, and we talked for almost another hour and then ran out of things to talk about (which is pretty normal after 4 hours, yes?) but then he started saying don't you think this is a bit worrying, it's been just under an hour and we've run out of things to say to one another.

Basically, he's worried we have nothing in common except DS, and I don't want him to be right :( but I have this awful feeling that he is, I've been feeling it for ages and just put it down to the fact we were on opposite shift patterns or that we were too tired, or skint, or short on time to have chance to connect, and we both rely on the computer way too much as a first port of call in the evenings, to relax, etc. I love him, his personality, the person that he is etc, but it doesn't feel like we are a partnership and that's been bothering me for some time, but it's now the first time either of us has put it into words like that (because I am crappy with words, and he has apparently only just noticed) and neither of us knows what to say or what to do. And I hate that he only realised this once he was over there because it makes it so much more difficult to try and work it out.

I mean what the hell? We were talking about the future this morning :(

Your DP may be catastrophising, trying to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. He seems to be talking himself out of making your relationship a success - that's how it appears to me anyway. The question is whether he's doing this because of his own low self-esteem, or because he really wants it to be over, or more importantly, whether it's because you want to think he wants it to be over because you perhaps are catastrophising.

Your fantasy of living abroad with young children is an interesting one. Are you aware that if you have children abroad you are not able to remove them from their birth country without permission from their father? I know it's not particularly relevant, but it will make me sleep a bit better knowing that you understand this.

I would be very careful about committing to someone you don't have a lot in common with - you don't have to want to watch the same movies and listen to the same music, but it makes life so much easier when you have a lot of things that you both appreciate without explanation.

Haha - your first paragraph is spot on, I think. I hope, anyway.

I wasn't planning on having children with him for a good few years yet or until we were married and there's no way I would marry him while I had niggling doubts like this, or for a good while afterwards, to be sure that it was definitely what I wanted, so I hadn't thought about that, but you're right - although I'd looked up about being allowed to take DS out there because of his father, I hadn't thought about any potential future children. I think that it would only become an issue if I was to get pregnant accidentally though, so fingers crossed no contraception failures. We're always careful anyway.

I am worried - I know that the way it is at the moment, no way do I want forever, but I was looking on this as a blip rather than the way our relationship is, since if it is just like this, then I don't want it. Which is hard with all the other stuff attached to it :( but trying not to think about that at the moment.

I think I have lots in common with my dp, but we would run out of things to say after several hours!

I think it's inevitable that you might have less in common right now while your lives are so different, but did you feel like that when you lived together? If not, then things may get better when you're back sharing a home and lifestyle.