Alone.........again.......

[Kurmaqueen]

So today is my birthday and I'm in bed nursing a hangover alone.

I suppose I saw this coming but when it actually happened it shocked me to the core and I am truly heartbroken.

My boyfriend hadn't mentioned my birthday all week which made me a little nervous. Nervous because it's his weekend with his kids and therefore not "my weekend". However in my simple little mind I thought that he just might have got something planned so that we could spend maybe lunch together.

It's my second birthday with him and last year was spent on my own too because it wasn't "my" weekend.

We have been together for 18 months now. He stays regularly at my house with my children.
We all do things together and my kids love having him here and they get on great with him and vice versa.

Problem is that I am still yet to even meet his children. Long back story .......

He didn't even tell me that I wouldn't be seeing him today. He just left my presents by the back door and texted me to say sorry!!!!

He said he was scared to tell me - I've been inundated with texts from friends yesterday asking me what I'm doing with my boyfriend for my birthday and can't face answering any of them.

I feel so stupid and heartbroken. Am I just being silly and childish????

It's the fact that he didn't tell me in advance but left it. Too late to arrange anything else to pass the day. I was so upset yesterday that I told him I'm done. I don't want to see him again. Maybe I overreacted and maybe you can all tell me what a selfish silly woman I am.......

But it's not just this birthday incident in isolation that has led me to feel so alone. It's not yet meeting his kids.......it's spending holidays without him......basically disappearing each time he is with them and he has them to stay at his house 50% of the month and half school holidays so that is quite a bit of disappearing!!!

Communicating what you want isn't the same as forcing something. I've shared this before, so apologies to those who have read it before...

I was brought up to believe that if people loved or cared for you they would just know if you needed a hug or a surprise or something. Because people aren't mind readers this obviously meant I was sometimes let down. I collected up these disappointments like Green Shield stamps, to take out and count up at later dates.
I have had to be taught how to identify what I want and how to ask for it, hell, even that it's ok to ask.

Well I just trotted of to Tesco to treat myself to a kurma, DVD and more vino and FFS just caught sight of him in there with his children!!!!

Oh god I'm in my car shaking and crying and feel like I'm going to throw up!!!

He looks shit - almost as shit as me - obviously no sleep for him either last night........

Oh god how am I going to get through the day with texting him????

I shouldn't text him should I????

I should let him just think ??????

is he still seeing his wife perhaps?

no do not text especially when you are emotional you need to relax and calm down before you even think of talking, plus he needs to focus on his kids and when you do speak you need his whole attention

Have I missed something? Did you finish the relationship yesterday by text?

God, do not text him. He can't possibly have a sensible discussion whilst he's got his kids, and it will just make you feel worse.

Get yourself out for the afternoon, before you get stuck into the wine. Cinema trip?

plus I'm a great believer in letting a person stew, and he may work out for himself whats required from him towards you

In reply I did finish things yesterday and by text !!!!!

My text was maybe a knee jerk reaction to his rejection and utter coldness in leaving presents on my doorstep. That plus the realisation that he didn't have the decency to tell me face to face that I wouldn't see him today - I really am the easiest person to please I promise. Just sitting in the car for an hour eating a Mcdonalds and opening his gifts together would have been enough to put a smile on my face.

He really is so so kind and loving and I suppose that it why I'm struggling with his actions yesterday and today.

He just looked so sad when I saw him in Tesco and I feel like such a bitch :-(

I think you need to be very clear why you sent the text. Did you mean it, or did you lash out to prompt a reaction and not actually mean it?

Happy Birthday OP.

Sorry to be hard but you did post, in my eyes is is unlikely that you will have a successful relationship with anyone unless you change. I appreciate that your birthday comes with emotional baggage for you but that is your emotional baggage and it is not up to your partner to fix it. Until you have a balanced, reasonable attitude to relationship communication and give and take, you cannot tell if your partner might shed some of his fear and communicate properly with you or if you are just a crutch and a stop gap while he gets over his marriage break up.

You need to find a way to work through your own issues and, as others have said, insist that he goes to mediation with his Ex so that he can set firm boundaries with her.

Yesterday I really meant it.
I felt really hurt and alone.
Today I still feel the same - the real issue I suppose is still 18 months down the line our relationship is being controlled by his STB Ex and that he is still allowing that to continue.

He felt so guilty about leaving. Not leaving her but leaving his kids. At first she wouldn't let him see them but now she does and he is scared that if I meet up with them that she will stop that access. She is very money orientated and refused mediation so they are each using their own solicitors.

However she for reasons I've already stated is dealing with the divorce very very slowly. He feels trapped and frustrated as he knows that if he upsets her financially or with me involved in their children's lives then she will just take the divorce to court and he is worried about the effect of that on the children and obviously it's expensive too.

I have tried to support him through this but on an ever increasing timescale something happens which means he lets me down ........... There are times when I've needed him and he has been with his children and therefore not able to help. There have been weddings he couldn't attend with me. Funerals I have gone to alone. Lonely periods when he has been on holiday with his kids at the same time my ex with mine.

So in summary I just feel let down one too many times today.

We normally text each other loads during the day and I am really missing not seeing his name come up on my phone each time a text comes in :-(

Only 3pm - is it too early for that first glass???

I may be swimming against the tide here, but was he so wrong in putting the needs of his children before the needs of his GF? I understand your hurt and I agree that this whole thing should have been talked out well before your b'day, but "should'a, would'a, could'a" gets us nowhere and here we are now.

Even if his X is being unreasonable, why should his children suffer for her actions? Even if she is being vindictive by not swapping weekends so he could be with you, still, should his children not see him on 'their' weekend because their mother is a bitch? You have children, too. How would you feel (for your children) if their father put his GF above your children? His X may be as wrong as it is possible to be, but still the needs of the children must come first. The rest should be dealt with legally.

I appreciate that you have problems surrounding your birthday, but as an adult, shouldn't you be dealing with that via counseling? Is it right to quietly sit and wait to see if he does something for your birthday, knowing how you will react if he doesn't? IMHO, that's not really fair. If I have a problem with my expectations regarding something my DH does/doesn't do, I tell my DH in advance. We've been married +25 years and I still don't expect him to be a mind reader.

Sounds as if you do miss him and are regretting the text you sent. It also sounds as if he is a good (but maybe weak) man. Just as you expected him to accept you the way you are, so must you be willing to accept him the way he is. There are things about my DH that still drive me up the wall, but I accept those parts of him and I adapted my expectations, as I know he has also done for me! For example, my DH doesn't have a romantic bone in his body & I love 'romance'. But he has been a rock and a strong shelter to me in some rough times. He has always been there to pick up my pieces & quietly put me back together. In the long run, that's worth more to me than flowers, chocolates, & poetry. So, I adjusted my expectations. In return, he does manage to remember the flowers every so often!

At this point, you need to decide if he, as he is, is worth it to you to make some changes in yourself. I'm not talking about changing everything that makes you, you. Just rearranging some priorities and expectations. In turn, you may be able to help him be a stronger man.

I wish you the best.

AcrossthePond - I agree, up to a point. If there is a genuine risk that he'll be denied access to his kids if the OP is allowed to meet them, then that's the reality of the situation and they both have to suck it up.

But that didn't stop him very clearly telling her beforehand that he wouldn't be able to see her on her birthday and they'd celebrate it next weekend. Nor did it require him to dump the presents and run. And I don't get the impression he was clear that it would effectively prevent him from having a meaningful relationship with the OP - he can't be her partner. He can't go to weddings or funerals or in any way support her if she happens to need him on the wrong day of the week.

That's his choice - but instead of trying to make the consequences of his choice easier for the OP to bear, he runs away.

And no, 3pm is not too early on your birthday! You really need someone there to prevent you from drunk texting, though.

Chink! Bottoms up OP!

Did he respond to your text yesterday? Has he contacted you at all today? Apologies if I've missed something

But she already knew it was a kids' weekend.

I think what across says does make a lot of sense.

However, the manner in which it was done ie leaving presents on the backdoor etc was extremely pathetic/weak of him.
In your situation, and only if he really is worth it, I would try and be patient with him in terms of him dealing/complying with his ex-wife etc.

However once the divorce goes through and the pressure is off him (hopefully to a very large extent), it would be then that i would be re-evaluating the relationship, but not now.
Good luck :-)

That he wasn't actually capable of meeting you to give you the presents, or talk to you about it, says a lot.
I have no idea how you'd be able to deal with difficulties in your relationship in future if this is how he behaves.
Although you could have discussed your birthday with him, I'd think a normal person would simply say "it's your birthday next weekend, I'd really like to be with you, but I have commitments as you know, when can we celebrate it?"
Unless he expected grief from you for it, but then if you were that demanding you are best apart.

I agree that the way he handled it was wrong, he should have been man enough to talk about it with OP & let her express her feelings (calmly, not do a rant on him) even if the end result (seeing the kids) was the same.

But maybe he felt (perhaps wrongly) that OP would not have been very understanding of his need to be with his kids and took (admittedly) the coward's way out.

Communication is really the key in any relationship. OP, if you feel that you want to continue the relationship, both of you will need to learn to talk, talk, talk with each other. And realize that neither of you can have your way in everything, especially where DCs are concerned.

Thanks again everyone who has posted. I had the one glass and fell asleep lol ........ So tired as didn't sleep much last night.
The more I read the latest comments the more I feel like a complete and utter bitch.
I wish I had never sent the text in the first place really - what has it achieved???
It was sent out of frustration and hurt really.
He knows how I feel and he feels frustrated with the situation too and I know that he will be beating himself up today.

When he replied to my text yesterday he said knows he has let me down so many times and let my children down with his lack of progress on the divorce/children meeting issue.
He said that he doesn't deserve me and that he cannot defend his actions and that the only reason he didn't tell me about not seeing me today was because he was scared that this would be the thing that finally caused me to call time on us.

He has mentioned in the past that sometimes he feels that my calling time on us would make him angry enough to actually toughen up,man up and finish this divorce. He has said that maybe being on his own and dealing with this on his own is maybe what he needs to do.

Well I've done that now haven't I although I didn't calmly and rationally decide to do that. We didn't sit down and discuss it / I just reacted to the situation in a none to grown up way.

What have I done?????

Actually, he was the one who hasn't done the sitting down and calmly talking about things.

At best, I'd tell him now that if he wants to discuss things properly, he can approach you, but no more coping out like he did this time.

What you have done is what just about every human has done. Gotten angry & said something that you now wish you hadn't said. Join the club. I've inserted my foot in my mouth with DH more times than I want to think about!

All you need to do now is decide if you want to continue the relationship, with the understand that that things may or may not ever change. Is the hope & possible disappointment worth it to you? If so, all you can do is call him and tell him that, yes, you were hurt by the way he handled the birthday thing, but that you still feel your relationship is worth trying to work on. That BOTH of you need to try to change to meet the other half-way. BUT, that in the case of his DCs you also understand that you may need to meet him a little more than half-way, at least until things settle down or the children are a little older. And in exchange, he will need to learn to be upfront with you when it comes to the time he feels he must spend with his children. Not just remain silent & then slink away, hoping to be unnoticed by you. This whole thing could have been avoided if he had told you that he had to be with his children on your birthday but that he was doing XYZ for you the weekend before your birthday & would be thinking of you all day when he was with his kids. And if you had been able to say 'I understand that your children must come first, we'll celebrate now & I'll miss you then'. Instead he just kinda ignored things & you stewed inside.

Wordy little hen, aren't I? Bottom line, is HE worth it to you?

I actually think you did the right thing. It might have been a move made in anger, but ultimately you are unhappy with the situation, nothing would change if you don't make a decision, and you would have been kept out of his family until something else came along and upset the balance. You could have been plodding for years with nothing changing, and would have only kicked yourself for settling.

And I don't see it as putting his children first, he is doing that anyway by seeing them on a regular basis and being an active parent. I see what he is doing as putting his ex first. It is her needs and wants what have come above the OP in this.

You have not heard anything from him, not even a text to say happy birthday yet you think he is beating himself up about it all. You also saw him in Tesco and thought that he looked sad because of what you did. I think you are overthinking a lot here in presuming that he feels bad etc. If he really did then why have you heard nothing at all.
There have been a couple of questions here that you have not replied to. You have said that you and he started up six months after he left her so does that mean that you had nothing whatsoever to do with their marriage breakup?

If you had had something to do with their breakup, could she have kicked him out and could he still be in love with her and hoping for a reconciliation. You have said that he spends 50 per cent of his time with them at his house and you are not part of that. You don't go on holidays with him and he is not available for your birthday. I would have thought that if he really wanted to be with you and if he loved you then he would easily arrange to spend that one day with you.