AIBU want to know I'm the best

[Tinselbelle]

I want to know I'm my partners best. I feel stupid writing this but can anyone let me know what they think and why!

My partner had kids with ex, had ex's name tattooed on body (tattooed over now but still did it in first place), proposed (never got married).

I have been married but the back story is, childhood sweethearts that were friends only for many years.

I have never felt what I do for my partner EVER before, I actually didn't think I could feel like this. I'm finding it hard to deal with that when I asked him if he'd ever felt like he does for me, for someone else he replied 'yes, you know that - I had kids didn't i?!'

We are trying for a baby, another first for me as I didn't ever want them with my ex. I know it might look like I'm 'point scoring' but I don't feel I am, their relationship ended horribly so want to know his feelings for me are stronger etc so we can survive more possibly?!

How else, other than paying more than set out by government, can he show how much he loves them - and he does!!! When he goes to meet them and they never get there??

if the children aren't brought to arranged contact meetings, you go back to court the ex is in contempt of court which carries a prison sentence if the judge so wishes

There's no option to see the kids, he'd still pay same though.
I imagine some men do make these stories up to not look bad but I've been through this with him so it is a fact

Would you want to be the person who puts a kids mother in jail - he wouldn't and neither would I. We all hope a relationship will be allowed soon, nobody wants the situation to get worse

She's not going to jail, she'll get her arse kicked. And he will get to see his kids, if he's bothered he's not going to let some new man stopping him is he?

Too much to go in to. New man just another aspect of a car wreck of a situation. We don't want to drag it through the court. We hope something will happen from her end to avoid it. We are all trying to get through things with damage control- currently the only damage being done is to my man and family members. Luckily the kids are fine and safe and happy.

So the kids aren't being "damaged" by this abuse woman, and the "car wreck of a situation"?

How long have you been together, out of curiosity? And how old are the kids?

We don't want to drag it through the court

Yes, oddly enough you don't want to do the one thing that is the obvious option, That is usually the case. You don't want to bother with the one avenue that would give you access. Why is that?

In summary; he's happy to let his children live with someone he says is violent, but he pays them so its fine.

These things are never straight forward but it comes down to does he want to see them or not?
First you threaten court and if access isn't forth coming you go to court. You don't let little kids think their dad vanished into thin air and didn't care about them.

Hoping for a change rarely brings it. I've been hoping for a Porsche for nearly 25 years, nothing yet.

How did this get so far from original post?! Wow.
As I've said repeatedly there's a lot (obviously) that I can't go into. I'm saying what the facts are and that's still not enough for some people. I don't care enough that he didn't say I was the best thing to of happened to him (romantically) to carry this on.
The amount of 'leave him' comments on this site is worrying. Life is hard sometimes, but we do our best. The kids are safe (mother is not abusing them) and happy.
He loves his kids. He loves me.

Thank you everyone for your comments and support

newbrummie I'm not being funny but... 🙄

He was stopped and told it would best to take the child home and sort it out 'through the proper channels' he refused and showed the video.

I can't say whether the child would have been removed from him because that's not what happened nor was it what I said happened.

What I did say was that the default position was that child should automatically be with Mum and dad had kidnapped her. If it was a reverse situation then it's highly unlikely Mum would be viewed as a kidnapper. She would be seen as a fleeing victim.

If I was in a relationship with somebody and felt the need to enquire if they'd felt the same way about another, and their reply was, "yes, you know that - I had kids didn't i?!" , it wouldn't make me feel particularly special.

A couple of months into an horrendous relationship, I had a pregnancy scare, (thankfully just a scare). He wanted me to be pregnant, although we barely knew each other. He already had 2 sons that he'd never paid any maintenance for, and hadn't any contact with since they were babies.

Maybe your partner's not very good at expressing himself. Either way, I would put the baby-making on hold, until you feel secure in your relationship.

This bloke is such a cliche. You don't want to see it, because you love him, it's understandable, BUT:

• goes out a lot, you believe this would continue if you had children together.
• left allegedly violent wife, who now has a train wreck of a partner, yet has left kids in that situation and not done everything in his power to resolve this.
• rarely sees own children.
• is not reassuring you about your insecurities

Hang around relationship boards for long enough and you learn to spot a tosspot from 20 paces. My tosspot senses are tingling like mad. Please don't rush into having children with this man, I fear you'll be back here in a year or two adding to the chorus of 'LTB' on similar threads, based on your experience. All the best

You sound like a teenager, wanting to be loved most / best. That screams of insecurity in this relationship - which is probably giving you a bit of a highs and lows roller coaster which is why you end up feeling like this is different and special, rather that just a walker pissing you about.

If he loved you, he wouldn't make insensitive offhand comments about already having experienced it! I think he was deliberately putting you in your place. My fiancé will never love me more than his late wife, but he can convey that in a far more sensitive way!

Do not have a baby with a man that you don't feel secure with. Just don't. Either he's the wrong man, or you have personal shit to sort out before you end up dumping your crap on a child. Sort your head out first.

Oh and utter bollocks that he's done everything he can to see his kids yet he hasn't even taken the first court steps. Not great father material, is he?

Time to put the breaks on having a child with him - at the very least until he sorts out the ones he has already.

She'll be pregnant by new year 🙄

Ellisandra thank you for your post, and while, for the most part I think you have a good point, I can't see why you think going through the courts would be a good thing for the kids?
As I've said, they're happy and have plenty of money, go on holidays and are safe. Don't you think the upheaval of court action would have a negative effect on them, and the situation? The mother already has been known to use my partner as a threat and tell them nasty things about him. We don't want them to fear or dislike him any more than they might do already. The younger ones won't even have a chance of remembering him and the older one probably won't either. He will be a stranger to them, and as much as he could of gone the court way - also she could of just let him see them very easily, with supervision if she was so worried (which is not really the case, im sure, it's just so she comes off looking better).
There are women who use fathers to scapegoat, as threats, and turn fathers into monsters. This does happen. I know women that have and do do it. Sometimes even just 'if you do that again I'll take you to your dads!'. Psychological warfare - with your child! Yet the father is in the wrong - no matter what. I think that's crazy.
Have any of the posters grown up having come from an experience like this?

The things which bother me here are that he has not bothered/given up trying to get his kids away from a violent mother, and that you know he would continue to go out partying while you were at home with the baby.

Both of these would be absolute deal breakers for me.

No, I don't think growing up with lots of money and holidays negates the potential mental health effect of believing that your own parent doesn't care about you

Parental alienation is a real thing, and it's terrible.

But you can't say he has "done everything" when he HASN'T. Not even close to everything.

Going to court doesn't mean that small crying children are dragged in front of a judge. Going to court starts with a solicitor's letter and then mediation. Why hasn't he even done the mediation?

I know that if my unstable volatile mother kept me from my father, and at 16 I contacted him, I would feel totally unloved if I then found out that he had done nothing official to keep contact.

You want to have a baby. What do you think you would do if someone tried to keep you from your child?

A good way to counter parental alienation is just to be in the kids lives so that they see who you are for themselves.

Sadly I fear I may have chosen the wrong side earlier in the thread. Your DP sounds a tool. He hasn't done everything at all, he's just jibbed out when it got a bit tough. Court would be the best possible option for him here, if he is in fact as innocent as he says.
Your post reads just as my dad's girlfriend would sound around the time my parents broke up, when I was 11, until I went NC at 14 (Different girlfriends every few months funnily enough, no-one could stand him long and all spouting the same shit. 'He's done everything' 'Their mother poisons the children against him' 'He pays the correct amount!' 'He loves his kids'.
Na. He was a violent, abusive arse who hit us and our mother, who pushed us away when it got tough and wanted us to rally when he needed to impress someone, who paid £5 a week (for 5 of us) because he had a clever accountant a low-earning job despite the new 4x4 every year or so. Also a man who, when it did go to court, was banned entirely from contacting three of us and allowed one letter per year to the other two. Good liar though, very convincing.

I can't see why you think going through the courts would be a good thing for the kids? As I've said, they're happy and have plenty of money, go on holidays and are safe

But they don't have a father. But since their father doesn't care enough to bother, I guess you're right and they are better off without him.
Is that what you want for your children though, OP?

I would not stop him from seeing his kids, if we split up.

Out of interest, how long would you leave it to reach a natural civil conclusion before going through the courts?

You wouldn't have to stop him, clearly.

How long? Me personally, I would wait about a fifth of a second before I started to do anything in my power to see my children. But then I wouldn't have walked out without a backward glance in the first place.

User, I've already said he tried to see them, they never showed up! Don't get why you are jabbing at things I have already said. And 'no backward glance' what are you on about?!! I asked a literal question and you give me a comment like 5 seconds - either be real or don't be anything at all - why post?!

An ex of mine once asked me if he was the best I'd ever had (sexually). In the interest of honesty o told him it was great but no, but we'd only been together 5 months so there was still huge scope to get there.

That was the start of a huge slippery slope of self doubt and insecurity that led us both to compare every aspect of the relationship.

If you have any doubts now, please take a break from ttc and find some security in your relationship with him before you really hit the hormonal roller coaster of pregnancy and minefield of parenthood

Stronger were you the best in his eyes?