Should we all move out? Moved in with widower and teens too soon?

[SoozBB]

Need advice PLEASE. I started dating a widower (with 2 teens) 8 months after his partner died (not sure if that's actually relevant!) We bought a big house together last summer and 6 of us moved in together. Him with 2 teens and me with my 2 teens. I put in 2/3 cash towards house purchase and he got a mortgage. If we moved he'd sadly probably just be left with nothing. We are 2 families from 2 very different backgrounds and it's been a pretty steep learning curve for all of us.

Had usual angst with 4 teens mixing together but I am just not happy most of the time now. Had partial hysterectomy last year and now have prolapse going on too. He's a pretty selfish man and doesn't do 'talking' about feelings much. One of my daughters hates him for the way he talks to me but the other one is fine. I'm not sure if HIS daughter likes me (understandable as she lost her Mum at 14) but his son is really fine with me.

Sex is pretty rubbish most of the time and I'm also not sure if he's actually happy here either. Without sounding snobby it's been a big move up for him and he loves the big new house and garden. I do too but just not sure that we were meant to be together as we are SO different. Think we maybe were both fed up of living alone with 2 kids each and just moved in too soon. Just don't know what to do next without totally shattering lots of lives!

sounds like you need to sit down together and have a discussion clear the air about how you both feel and see if any problems can be resolved and also have a family meeting and ask the kids how they feel, what issues they have and then go from there , if your not well sex will be not high on your agenda, have been in your position as my ex husbands ex partner died and i suddenly ended up with two full time stepchildren who were late teens and though they wern't the reason we split , the situation did cause some tensions at times

Sorry - just changed my 'name' as had horrid thought that someone may know who we are from the description alongside my old 'name'!! DOH!

What is your daughter seeing in the way he talks to you?
Had you not elaborated on his character I would have been less inclined to lay that all at his feet but...he's very selfish, sex life problems but loves the material things he would lose if you split?
That's not a great summary dc opinion not included.

Can you elaborate a bit? Am I off in completely the wrong direction having such sympathy for your dd?

DD thinks he talks to me very disrespectfully. He has some very strident opinions on some subjects and refuses to listen to me or try to see my point of view. We are VERY different in SO many ways. I actually ended up spending a night at a Travel Lodge a few weeks ago and even his own daughter said it wasn't me it was her Dad that was being an idiot!

I split from my ex 12 years ago (he lives in South Africa) and since have not lived with another man. Had a partner for 7 years but after we split 4 years ago it then came to light that his adult son had abused my elder daughter for a year when she was only 7/8 ( some 10/11 years ago now). It's my younger 15 yo DD who hates the way my partner speaks to me.
So it's not been a smooth ride for any of us here. We all have 'issues' - death of Mum for 2 of them (then aged 11 and 14), death of partner for DP, child abuse issues for elder DD and myself (guilt, anger etc) and now just when I thought there was at least one happy person in the house - turns out I'm wrong!

That sounds far from easy to deal with

You couldn't have known what would happen to your dd - but when you knew you were there for her. As an abused child my anger at my mother is not at what happened but that she didn't protect me when she knew. You stepped up.

Is it time to step up for younger dd? She sounds bright and protective and lovely. But a bit angry, unhappy too. It's very hard to see your mother treated badly.

But it sounds like she's right. How do you feel about the culmination of the 'issues'?
Because it sounds to me like this is a bit more than being very different...and nobody is happy?

If that's the case, and you did move to soon, why stay? Is it better to rectify the mistake or stay in an unhappy house so there is no physical upheaval.

Most importantly what do you want to do? What would you like the answer to be?

Another argument tonight and things are very tense. He's actually asleep right next to me but totally unaware of me now. He said he'd pack us him and his kids and leave if I was unhappy as he'd cocked up things so far in his own life. I asked WHAT and he said that his kids Mum died....OMG like THAT was not his fault. She had cancer! I tried to suggest that he hadn't dealt with his own grief and he blew up massively and said he'd sorted it out on his own for the first 8 months after she died. I don't think so and I think he has issues with it. It'll be 4 yrs on Monday since she died too!

I think you need to stop dragging your kids from relationship disaster to relationship disaster.

I know that sounds harsh but this will be really damaging for them- what with all the past stuff too.

I would hardly say that it was my decision to have a realtionship disaster. My previous one went sour due to sexual abuse by his son to my daughter. I was totally unaware that it was happening and I've not been dragging them around to live with all sorts of different men.

The first ex I speak of is their father. I had a 7 year partnership (but didn't live together) with another man and this current man is the first man that my daughters have lived with since their father. My youngest doesn't even remember living with him. So I think it's a little unfair to make such a statement like that. I'm almost 46. I do think of my children first and part of the reason we all moved in together was to get out of the area we lived in as we were being hassled by the abusers family and friends. It became extremely unpleasant for myself and both of my girls so I thought it was a wise move at the time.

Yes we all make mistakes but I'm trying like hell not to make another one now. My kids are now 18 and 15.

Oh and there was a week long trial for the abuse, a unanimous guilty verdict arrived at in less than an hour and he is now in prison serving 3 yrs 9 months (would have been 7 yrs 6 months if he'd been a couple of months older and had been 18!)

TotallyBursar - I love your last statement - What would you like the answer to be? You sound very wise. Thank you.

I think it sounds as though you should get out sooner rather than later. If it's already going this badly wrong, this early on you gain nothing by delaying. Sell up, get your investment back, and part company before more harm is done. You're not responsible for him.

You probably did start a relationship too soon. But that's in the past, all you can change is what you do next. If you aren't happy, he isn't happy and the kids aren't happy then it's a fairly obvious solution. He can easily rent a house for him and his kids, that's what most of us who can't get a mortgage do. It's no great hardship.

Just talk to him. If you can't, or he won't, you know what the answer is.

I think what he has said is manipulative.

Things are not working out it is clear. He is the one who stands to lose most when it breaks down.

You have already said he is selfish and unreasonable.

'I cocked up, my wife died' is pure manipulation. To argue that wasn't his fault makes you feel sorry for him. It is hard then to carry on the tough we need to end things conversation or to carry on and say yes you need to pack up and sort out another place.

It makes you feel like a hard nasty bitch and so you stop. So he doesn't have to give up the creature comforts you provide until you next have the conversation.

I am not saying he has no emotions of sadness for his wife's death. Just he is using it.

Perhaps you rushed things too much, but still like him, despite your doubts.

Dh and I were together for 31/2 years before moving in together, so we thought we knew what we were doing....

The first 2 years of living together were pretty difficult, it took a lot of adjusting, and I frequently thought I'd made the wrong decision. I often felt like flower trying to grow in unfamiliar landscaper. It all felt difficult and hard work, with not much fun tbh. After about 2 years it got easier, but never easy. So a lot of this is adjusting, and it is a very steep adjusting curve....very steep.

Talk talk and more talk is the only answer. Don't jettison it yet, just talk....having said that, there is o way I would have got involved with someone who's wife had only died 8 months earlier.

I used to have a rule of at least a year on their own before I considered dating anyone. Although 18months was better....

8 months is very soon to move in, you know that now, these things happen and with experience and becoming wiser it really needs to be a good few months (perhaps 6ish at a guess, but everyone is different) before even introducing a new man.
I wonder if your partner will be left with as little as you think, depends if you are tenants in common, as most are - in which case he would be entitled to half although he only put a third in if his name is on the deeds.
A frank discussion on where you all go from here required.
As mothers we have to be so careful as its not just our lives.

What about moving into separate bedrooms and just sharing a house/ the chores/ the ferrying around of 4 teenagers. It's only a relatively short time until they should be leaving home. And stop trying to be a loving couple when you both seem to have so much emotional baggage.

You could support each other by helping each other, eg him with taking you to hospital visits, but not pretend you are a pair.

Tell the DCs what is happening and see if they can rub along too.

Say you will give it a year and then have a rethink. More change isn't ideal imo so this could give you a breather.

Sorry should clarify that we only started dating 8 months after his partner died. We didn't move in until 2 and a half years after that.

It's the 4 yr anniversary of her death today and he's not well. He says he dealt with her death alone in those first 8 months but he seems to get sick around this time each year. Could it be a psychological thing do you think and that his subconcious needs to deal with the grief that has been buried and not faced yet? Am I being harsh or soft?

I can appreciate how his kids must be feeling as I too lost my mum as a teenager after a 5 yr illness and I can honestly say that 4 years didn't seem that long and I still missed her a lot - still do and it's been 27 years! How he can be sure that he dealt with her death and just box it off is unthinkable but maybe some men, esp. with kids, need to be loved by someone and not alone cos it is hard to cope with.

Don't get me wrong he does mention her and I ask about her too. She's not a forbidden topic.

I'm hoping one of the teens will get into Uni this yr and another will go next year, so maybe that will change the whole dynamics at home too.

I really don't want to rip our situations apart for all of our sakes but I do wonder if we'd all be happier elsewhere. I think I will try and give it another year and try to talk and talk and talk. Wish us luck.

Sorry but what stands out is how much you care about your relationship, his kids, their problems.

What about putting your kids first rather than continuing to expect them to fit in with your evidently precarious life choices?

Your daughters will still be part of your life long after this man has gone and taken his problems with him.

Do yourself and your daughters a favour and get rid of this terrible drag on all your lives as soon as possible.

Gosh, some men seem so selfish sometimes, you get widowers who move onto the next partner within months, then your DP is a mess at the 4th anniversary of her death. Understandable but can't he think of his DCs, surely they should come first and he should be supporting them at this time, not wallowing.

Is he at mid life crisis stage and depressed anyway?