Has anyone got time to tell me if my relationship is bad or good?

[littlejackiehorner]

I've only ever had one relationship before this (at least one we lived together and it was really serious) and he was a drunk, cocaine taking guy who was aggressive, very selfish and quite outwardly unpleasant to me at times.

I wanted to know if anyone had time to just read this and let me know what this relationship sounds like. If it's a good and normal one or if it's a bad one. I feel at times like I don't see the wood for the trees.

He was quite infatuated with me very quickly, at the tail end of a marriage where she'd left him and broken his heart. He told me he loved me and I was his soulmate nd that what he had with me he never had with her. He could not do enough for me, wanted to talk to me every minute and I've never felt so loved by anyone before.

He's a generally nice sort of guy, easygoing, popular with people, no bad temper, kind to people, responsible and dependable and he pretty much always does what he says he will.

He has a child from previous. Very cute and lovely kid of 5. I have a child from previous. Also a lovely kid, but some SN which makes him challenging at times, he's 8.

He asked me to move in with him after about 6 months dating, so we did and have lived together for 3.5 years now. We live with my kid full time and his every weekend and most holidays. Kids get on great.

Living together meant me moving quite far from home /leaving my job and a lot behind me so that's hard but I always felt like I had found Mr Right and he's made me happy and given me a happy family I always wanted.

On the good side

I feel silly almost even asking about the quality or normalcy of my relationship because BF is so outwardly devoted. He can't do enough for me, would give me his last penny, would drive any distance to save me walking in the cold, would go out at 11pm to Tesco if I fancied some crisps, he cuddles me all the time, very affectionate, always wants to see me and misses me if we're apart. We have a great sex life, he remembers every ocassion and gets me romantic and thoughtful gifts. He listens to me when i want to talk and he tells me everything. We laugh and get on as great friends and enjoy nights on the sofa and trips as a family. He is nice to my friends and family, he is supportive of my ideas and wants to help when I have a problem. He tells me he loves me all the time and does nice things for me that make me feel very loved and appreciated. He isn't an angry person and never says bad things to me or does anything nasty. He is a really good Dad and always does things with the kids and plans things for them. He's the first to get up on the weekends and brings me a cup of tea. He acts proud of me when he introduces me to people and his friends have all told me they've never seen him so happy or in love like it is with me, and that his marriage was nothing like that.

So there's a lot of good things, and day to day, we are just good to each other and in love but a few things are just ongoing battles in my head.

Concerns

I feel guilty even saying this but a few things concern me.

1. He seems to favouritise his kid over mine. I know this is normal to a degree but sometimes it is really obvious. In fairness, he is a good Stepdad and comes to parents evenings and shares responsibilities and is a good ear and role model to my kid BUT the favouritism seems to slip out in subtle ways. Like my kid asks him to play a game and he says hes busy and two minutes later he plays the same game with his own kid and looks annoyed if mine wants to join in with them. This breaks my heart a bit for my kid who has SN and gets rejected by people a lot. I do treat both kids 100% equally and if anything I spoil my Stepson more and I do a lot of things to make sure his kid feels 100% included in our home, but it hurts me to see him do that.

1. He has occassionally been caught lying or doing something "off", which I have swept under the carpet, but which irks at me. For example, I once caught him looking at porn one night when I was really ill and he lied about it. Seems silly, but I really needed comfort that day and he was wanking over porn while I was suferring and needed a cuddle and it annoyed me a lot. I am not sure he is 100% truthful with me over little things like that and feel like he spends a lot of time on porn sites or whatever.

1. When he asked me to move in with him, he said he wanted marriage, more kids and various things but none of it has materialised. He told me a couple of years in that he changed his mind about the baby, which I accepted, but the engagement was also put off by two years and the wedding is set for much later than we agreed. I can't help feeling niggled that our joint plan has been slowly changed to somthing else without my consent. He is always saying he can't wait to marry me and he bought me a beautiful ring but I just feel like he does everything on his timetable.

1. His ex wife seems to still play a role in our lives. For example he allows her to dictate elements of our lives that seem to cross a boundary of what should not be her concern. He seems hell bent in impressing her at times - for example buying expensive gifts for his ex in laws (although the ex wife has now remarried) and it is sometimes a bit concerning that he does no such thing for my parents. Albeit they were married 18 years and he says he feels her family are very important to him and I try and be understanding but he honestly acts like they are his in laws and mine aren't.

1. Although I moved to live with him, he has changed nothing about his life to allow for me being his partner. So for example he still plays in all the same sports teams and hobbies that he did in his marriage and socialises in a way as if he was still her husband, and mixes mainly ith their old joint friends. That makes me feel extremely excluded. In fact, I feel his involvement in activities and social groups that I can't be part of have left me very isolated in my new town and at times I feel more like a mistress than a partner.

1. We never argue. I say that in the sense that I literally mean that in four years he has never once told me anything I did annoyed, upset or aggravated him in any way. He has never been in a bad mood and snapped at me or said something mean or stormed out or slept on the sofa. I mean, literally not one time. And I worry that this can't be realistic. He says I am perfect, but no one is.

1. We have no social life. I mean, we do stuff at the weekends with the kids as a family and he's rarely out with friends without me but we don't know any other couples or families. He knows lots, but because they are friends of the ex wife, he tends to go to their events alone and never invites them to our place. All my friends live far away so the only time we "socialise" is when we have weekend visitors.

1. He remains separate from me financially. I have my accounts and cards and he has his. We both have a Tescos clubcard. We've not "joined" in that sense and while he pretty much is the most generous person you could describe I don't feel like a full couple. He also got a life insurance policy through work and named his kid as he sole beneficiary, and he got a new passport and named his Mum as next of kin. This isn't about the money...it's about me not feeling like a full partner and those things made me feel like less than his partner.

1. We have his kid every weekend and holiday. Now don't get me wrong, I love his kid and love having him around, but when we have him every weekend it means we literally never go out as a couple or have a weekend just the two of us. I don't think we ever do that and I am so bored and isolated that at times I dress up in heels and a little black dress just to have dinner at home.

So that's it. Based on those things..do you think they are things that are worrying?

It has been years now and we have slipped into the permancy of this and I don't feel 100% like I am part of my own family. I feel like he loves me, yes, desires me enormously - maybe to the point he has me on a pedestal, but I feel like he keeps a foot in the door of his previous marriage and I am not fully secure. I also feel like I gave up such a full and colourful life of my own, to become a SAHM, to be there for his child and provide for him the family life he wanted, but often worry that it is at my own expense.

I have tried to talk to him about all the things on the list - some things over and over again -and his response is always the same which is to cry a lot, tell me how sorry he is, how much he loves me and then he just pretty much carries on exactly how things were. I honestly feel like if I left him he would collapse completely because he seems to need me that badly - but then I wonder why he can't see my own need as well as his.

Most of the time I just go along with it, because he showers me in so much love and kindness that I have never had before. Because he is a good Dad and a kind person and because I love him and he doesn't mean to harm but I just want to know what independent observers might thing of our perfect life and home which might not be as perfect as it looks on the surface.

Nothing on this list is ever going to change.

He would still do anything for me in some ways. If I called him now and said I was having a bad day he'd leave work and come home to me.

He does stuff

Just not the stuff that actually matters most to me.

does that make sense?

but getting a clear picture that what I want isn't selfish helps me feel more strong
BE 'selfish'
Do whatever is in your long term best interests

If what's good for you isn't compatible with what's good for him then you just don't have the basis for an equal and fair partnership

"Madly in love", "being on a pedestal" and someone who's comes on very strong to begin with, who wants to move quickly - these are all red flags. This is why a few of us have recommended the freedom programme, which will help you spot them.

Always pay attention to what people do, not just what they say - and if there's a disconnect be wary of trusting them and making sacrifices for them.

It sounds like you might be a bit worried about what your family and other people might think and say. But no one knows what a relationship is like on the inside apart from the people in it. And your family are probably in part responsible for your pattern of unhealthy relationships, based on what they did and didn't teach you.

What you want is not selfish at all but this man will never give you that.

Your son likes all the treats but his stepfather favours his own biological child over he and has likely picked up on it. This man spends very little time with you all as it is given that he is out 4 nights per week. He is also seeing how you as their mother is treated and learns from that. He may be reluctant to say anything to you because he sees you as being supposedly happy.

After the childhood you've had anyone showing you any kindness whatsoever is going to be seized upon. Your boundaries are still skewed to some extent.

Those that matter do not mind and those that mind do not matter. Who cares what other people think if you did leave just like that?. Its not their business why you left if you choose to leave. I can't imagine your family anyway giving you much if any support so you need to find it from elsewhere in any case.

Some people who know you perhaps have their own thoughts about this man and think well he is not Mr Perfect after all.

You need to work on you Jackie and rebuild your own self from the ground up. That is truly the best gift you can give yourself along with loving your own self for a change.

He only seems to do stuff for you if it suits him though. If you phoned him and said 'I need you to stop going out pretty much every without me' what would he say?

Yes he'd come home from work if you were upset about something .... but he won't marry you, have a child with you or buy a home with you.

Thanks everyone.

Honestly, I genuinely didn't know all this was not okay and am seeing clearer so you have helped me so much

I don't have a clear view of what it is like to live with someone normally.

My Dad was quite verbally nasty to me, and my Mum, and Mum was too. Lot of screaming and shouting and throwing furniture and crying and being scared and not being told nice things.

The other man I lived with was on drugs, very verbally nasty, would not do anything for me and financially I paid for everything.

I think I just found someone who was so nice to me, so affectionate and kind that I wasn't sure about the other things. I just felt such a growing unhappiness and was not sure why or if I was being ungrateful.

I promise the advice won't go ignored...I m just adjusting my brains to understanding this is not meant to be what it is like for normal people

Regarding your question as to why you should expect him to stay in and watch your child while you go out - well if you were living on your own of course you wouldn't have him to babysit but equally you'd be living near your friends, and have your support network around you. You moved to be with him and he's keeping you isolated and friendless.

Here is my take on it. You and he are caught up in the drama triangle - it started with him as rescuer and you as victim but sometimes it swaps over - such as when his mental health seems to be in jeopardy and you caretake him.
The life he offered you was a mirage. He can't or won't allow you to be an equal partner in your lives and he is profoundly selfish.
I suspect that he has anxious attachment style and uses you to meet his emotional needs without ever acknowledging that you have emotional needs of your own.
Where to start with addressing this - I can't say.

It was a mirage.

Even as I am writing and thinking, I know deep down he won't / can't give me that.

I don't think he is even conscious of it....he thinks our life is perfect and I am ill because I don't try hard enough to make friends or because I am weak

He blames you for everything, that's a huge problem and it means you can't fix it - if he won't accept that his behaviour is part of the problem, he will never change it.

If you said to him "you are keeping her isolated and friendless"

He would respond in shock and horror and never believe you.

He wants me to go out and make friends and have a life

He would happily babysit

The problem is that he doesn't realise that life would be a lot easier and more normal if we socialised as a couple, if he made friends with me, went to things with me, included me in things, sometimes had child free weekends, if he invited people he knows over so I could get to know people.

He has no clue how hard it is for me to go off on my own and just make friends. He thinks this happens in the school playground and it's not like that for me. They are quite cliquey and have known each other all their lives. They all socialise as couples and families and me on my own is not included or invited.

He doesn't prevent me having friends or making a life. He just expects me to do it compltely on my own as if we're not a couple.

Its not that he'd lie.

If I left he would completely believe that he had given me everything, and I had just not been able to settle into the new life. He would never, ever see it. It wouldn't matter even if he was told by a hundred people because he has a filter.

He sees it that he has given me a great life, and taken on my child and he sees himself playing that role and being the perfect husband figure to me and I think he thinks "what the hell else can I do to make her happy?" becase he thinks he is trying.

He just doesn't get it and will never, ever, ever get it.

If I leave, he will have a complete breakdown probably, go totally off the rails crying and drinking and he will tell everyone, and himself, that he tried everything to make me happy and just couldn't do it.

He told me the same thing about ex wife

Sounds as if he doesn't want to be seen in public with you?

No he does. Just is weird about her friends and family seeing us together. I don't think he likes them thinking of him as not her husband anymore.

He actually shows me off a lot...to most people

"He actually shows me off a lot...to most people"

But to whom exactly and where?. Are you really his trophy girlfriend?. After all this man hardly spends any time during the week with you and your child. You spend weekends together as a family doing things that he has organised. You do not socialise at all as a couple, he goes off on his own to events associated with his ex wife.

TBH if you left you would do your own self a massive favour. He would manage without you; some men do try to give their woman (whom they really regard as a possession) a feeling that they could not survive without them. You are NOT responsible for him when all is said and done; why would you think at all otherwise?.

But to whom exactly and where?

I have to say-that's exactly what I was thinking!

OP-if he was out in town 'showing you off' (which makes you sound like some 19-year old trophy wife he bought off the internet!) what would he do if you bumped into his ex or one of her friends/family?

You gave up everything for him: your home, family, friends, career. And he has given up nothing. He has not given you the big things you wanted, or even the little things like including you in his social life or a date night from time to time.

He sounds charming , maulipulative , selfish and dishonest.

Whatever happens, please please do not get pregnant

I am concerned that if you have a serious conversation with him, he will cry and then suggest that you start trying for a baby right now. Because then it will be even harder for you to leave him .

He will promise all the other things you want but they will never happen .

Stat with the easy things , like him staying in two nights a week and you going out . Sign up for a night class at a college, Join the WI or a gym . There must be some in your local town .

And have your step son only 2 weekends a month. You can always have him for an extra day the other weekends to make up the days, if his mum agrees.

These are very easy changes to make, and his reaction to your requests will tell you a lot about who is really is . I mean his action, not his words.

With his friends (not from here) he shows me off, goes on about me. Same with his family. Same with work colleagues.

Here, wth her family and her friends or their friends he acts like I don't exist.

Actually have umped into people and he did not even intrduce me as he stood there talking for 5 minutes and I have wandered off. Has happenned more thna once.

With his friends that have nowt to do with her, he makes an effort completely diferrently.

No we don't socialise at all as a couple because we live in the place he seems incapable of having a new partner in.

I do feel at times like a trophy wife. Am a bit younger than him so maybe I am an ego boost after she left him for someone else.

Yes I did give up everything, but I felt I was making a trade that never materialised properly.

I won't get pregnant don't worry.

If I made a demand that we had his child two weekends a month, he 100% would end the relationship with me. 100% for sure, he would see that as a dealbreaker.

Not sure I care anymore.

Personally I wouldn't do the big confrontation , I would do it by slealth . Like an experiment , to see if your feelings and reactions are logical and reasonable . Or a sign that you are in fact ill and crazy .

I'd check out night classes in January , then say

" you know how you are always suggesting I go out more ? Well I've decided to take you advice and I've signed up for this 10 weeks course staring January . I know it's on Tuesday night, but I'm sure you won't mind changing your football training night to a Thursday. And I've got a gym membership so I'll be doing that too "

If he says " of course darling , that sounds like a good idea , I'm sure you'll enjoy it . And I can hardly mind staying in on a Tuesday when I'm already out Monday , Wednesday and Thursday "

See if he actually does it . Without coming up with excuses . Like your child was unhappy . Or the team can't live without him .

Then you can move on to bigger changes . You can get married , buy a house and have a baby

you will know that we are all wrong and he is really a great guy .

the team can't live without him

That is always what he says!

I don't think I really even want to play this game of forcing someone to be fair. I think if I do, his lack of confrontation skills is going to mean he just builds resentment to me - and I think he will leave anyway.

I think maybe I just want to leave.

It's been three years. He's not socialised with me FGS. I mean, no wonder I am fucking miserable and he makes out that it's down to me so subtly.

A cuddle, a big hug "come here honey, awwww....is it the time of the months? you always get like this at that time? You're a wonderful person, people will love you if you just get out there. Is there not a way to meet Mum's at the school?"

Why haven't I gotten angry? I mean i hardly ever have

charming , maulipulative , selfish and dishonest

He's all those things.

He lies all the time too. I catch him lying. Not generally to me, but just little lies to make himself look good.

He's so bloody NICE so bloody AMENABLE so bloody ACCOMMODATING and HUMBLE and he still lies, is selfish, is manipulative and charming.

Grrr

I was having a horrible panic attack that had gone on half the afternoon and when he got home he asked if I had my period

Some people don't get angry . They get ill instead.

And I missed the bit where he was accommodating to you . Please refresh my memory - how has he changed his life to accommodate any of your reasonable requests ?