Partner asking for space

[JohnK1984]

Bit of a long story here but I'll do my best.

My partner and I were together for 6 and a half years and have 2 kids together, we both have a child from a previous relationships, none of which stayed with us, her son stayed with his dad and my son stayed with his mum.

About a year ago, she decided she wanted her son to come live with us, I wasn't too thrilled about the idea, as he was 9 and I felt it wasn't going to end well. I was also in a job that was making me miserable so I left and started a new job which I am still at.

So her son came and we got through Christmas, but her depression was making me miserable at home, I was starting to feel like an uninvited guest In my own home, so decided at the turn of the year to move into my mums and have a break from our relationship. I felt like she had her happiness, and I didn't feel included in that once her son came.

This is where it gets complicated, my son from my previous relationship was having problems with his mum (my ex), and he decided to move to my mums (his gran) as well, based on the thought that I would get my own house and he would come stay with me.

My partner and I started seeing eachother again, while staying in separate houses and things were going better than ever.

Then everything seemed to happen all at once, I got a house, her dad got offered a new build house, which he took and her son decided he was going to go back to his dad's dad's live.

My partner had to deal with most of dad's housing issues (new build, new street, not registered anywhere) and help him get set up.

During this time period she decided to end our relationship (About 6 weeks ago). She said she can't forgive me for leaving and she was making excuses for me all those previous months.

We still hung out, done things, I stayed over a few times (slept in the kids room) but she was so nice to me and told me she still loves me and likes spending time with me. And she had a twinkle in her eye everytime I was there.

I decided to stop hanging out with her as I felt it wasn't fair on me that we were no longer together, but we were acting like we were, with just a "ban" on sex. She has stayed in contact with me, even when I have told her not to, and sometimes even messages me late at night, and she even gave me her disney plus log in (I never asked for it) bonus.

I have asked her if we are finished for good, her reply was "I have nothing to say about this"
She has recently told me she is in a very dark and horrible place and needs me to give her space, which I accepted nicely and we stopped talking.... For about 20 hours....
She called me less than 24 hours after requesting space which I wasn't too thrilled about. At the end of her story she was telling me, I said "can I go back to giving you space now" she said OK bye. About an hour later, it was bugging me that she was basically telling me not to call or text her, but less thsn 24 hours later it was OK for her to call me. So I proceeded to text her and tell her this wasn't fair on me.

Her messages have been very confusing recently, she has told me "she doesn't want me to wait for her" but in the same message tells me "to wait if I want" and "I don't think I will forgive you" Then "I might forgive you I might not"

I understand she has had a lot on her plate in the past few months, and I understand that I've not made the situation any easier by not being there full time, but I honestly don't know whether I'm coming or going.

She has told me she needs to sort out her own problems, she sees a therapist, and said she didn't realise how messed up she was until her last therapist session. She wants to work on herself, as she doesn't know what's right and what's wrong, and what she wants and doesn't want. And only when she figures that out she will understand where she stands in relation to us.

What do you make of this?

Any help, advice or another perspective would be great. As it's eating away at me.

I think you'd have probably got a more positive response if you had said you had moved out to avoid the children being exposed to the difficulties in your relationship but you said it was because of your own feelings without any real thought for the impact on your ex partner and the children involved.

That said, she has ended the relationship so it's not really fair for her to continue to use you as an emotional support person, give mixed messages and confuse the situation. You need to figure out what your boundaries are and stick to them. Because none of this situation sounds healthy for the children who are probably being affected more than you realise by this dysfunctional relationship.

It’s not working for either of you, move on

As a PP has said, you seem - at an emotional level - to take strangely little responsibility for what’s happened. Perhaps you’re still pretty young.

You weren’t properly supportive of your OH’s son coming to live with you. It doesn’t make sense to say you felt like a stranger in your own home when you and your partner were living there with your 2 shared children as well as her son. And despite the children you share with her - including a tiny one - you moved out because - really - you felt your partner wasn’t giving you enough attention or looking after your feelings sufficiently at a time when she was already struggling. That’s a pretty flaky and irresponsible thing to do to her and your shared children.

When asked about problems you may have that require counselling, you talk about collecting action figures.

You were too casual with your relationship with her and as a PP said - it sounds like she might want you back but feels unable to trust you.

We all make mistakes. I have made some huge ones including doing some rotten things in moments of peak selfishness and self-centredness. I look back on some of the things I’ve done and feel deep shame and regret. I’m quick to forgive now because I’ve been in such need of forgiveness in my time.

You’ve said sorry but have you accepted and admitted that actually you let her down terribly and really screwed up? With that kind of acknowledgment (which perhaps you’ve done - a MN post doesn’t really allow for lengthy explanations), she may start to feel safe around you again and there may be a path back to the relationship if that’s what you both want and if you’re able to be less flaky. At least, it should make co-parenting easier.

I'm 37 and she is 30. I mean, when i I felt like a stranger in my own home, for example, I would come in from work, and want to spend time with my kids, but her son would be in the living room, playing a game on his phone and shouting to his friend while playingsaid game, and then tell me to leave the room cause I was trying to have fun with my kids, cause I was being noisy. Like there was no respect there, and she done nothing about that.

Yes I have said sorry, and I truly have accepted and admitted that I screwed up and let her down. And she knows I know it.

And she has told me that she didn't realise how messed up her head was until her recent therapy session. And that's why she wants space. Then proceeded to call me the next again day.

I own my responsibility in this situation, and I have told her I was blinded my my own foolishness and selfishness. Took the easy road out. When I should have stayed to iron out our issues and move forward together.

But why do you think you should stay in a relationship where you're being treated in ways that you don't like, and that confuse you?

I want to ask you again, because you didn't answer before, and it's really important: when you say 'you take responsibility', what is it you take responsibility for? It sounds like you think 'responsibility' in this context means 'blame', as in 'you accept that the situation became difficult because you did some things wrong'. That's the answer to a different question. The question is about what you feel you should be taking responsibility for in your life.

What/who do you feel responsible for? Who/what are the most important things that you need to be responsible for, as an individual? And how do you feel you handle those responsibilities? Try to tell us without telling us how she feels.

Hi OP - thanks for responding to my message and it’s clear that you accept that you bailed too soon.

Usually I find @Watchkeys’ advice extremely wise and sound but I would say that when there are children involved, and where there’s no abuse, a parent shouldn’t be too quick to bail on a relationship just because it’s going through a tough patch. But it looks like that’s what you did and you accept that’s what you did. You can’t undo what’s done (there’s so much I would do differently if I could) but being conscious of what you did wrong here reduces the chance that you’ll make the same mistake again in the future.

Good luck getting this sorted.

We needed space.

I take responsibility for my kids, even after I left, I was still there regularly helping her out. Helping her financially and taking her places she needed to be, like shopping and things as she doesn't drive.

I love her. And loved our relationship, but I just couldn't adapt to the changes that came into our relationship at the time.

I think you should stay separated and build a good co-parenting relationship if you've remained on good terms.

Do you take responsibility for anybody else except your kids?

Sorry to keep gunning away at this, but who's the one person you haven't mentioned? Who's the one person you are responsible for above all others?

I take responsibility for my own actions. And I should have took more responsibility for her and the way she was feeling but I never. Until i left and we were on our break from eachother

And I should have took more responsibility for her and the way she was feeling but I never

OK, You're talking about how she feels again.

I'm going to tell you the answer that, if you take notice, will change you from your current mindset, which is that of a teenager who feels he has to behave properly, into that of an adult, who recognises and upholds his position in life:

You are responsible for your own feelings. You are an adult human being, and it is up to you to look after that adult human being. It's a big responsibility.

You are using up valuable minutes, hours, days, months, in trying to be happy with someone who unsettles you. This is like trying to make a happy life whilst sitting on a fairground ride that's designed to jolt you. You are currently trying to educate the fairground ride into behaving differently, so that you will feel better. You are giving it the responsibility for your feelings. i.e. if she does what you've told her you want her to do, you'll be happy.

This is what teenagers do. They stomp around, complaining that 'it's not fair' that their world hurts them, and they have a fair point, because by and large, teenagers can't choose to exit the life they're in, with their parents, and their annoying brothers and sisters. They are captive.

And that's the difference between you and them. Why do you feel you have to stay? 'But I luuurve her...!' is a teenage response. As an adult, you have to understand that love doesn't hurt, and if it does, it's not healthy love, and comes from somewhere in you that you need to investigate.

For you, you're a rescuer. All of your feelings are based on how she feels. Your actions are based on what she will do in response. You're ok as long as she's ok. But you're not ok. OK people don't post on forums with pages-long dissections of their relationship.

Why are you a rescuer? It'll come from your parents/upbringing. Did you feel loved and listened to and respected when you were growing up? Or did you have something happening at home that meant that the focus wasn't on how you felt? Absent parent? Addict parent? Fighting parents? Ill parent? Sibling who took all the attention?

It comes from somewhere.

What you say makes sense. I don't know why I am a rescuer, or feel like I need to be.

I had a great childhood, so it can't stem from that. But you have made me think that, from previous relationships I've always felt like I was the rescuer. And I honestly don't have an idea why.

When's the first time in your life you can remember the rescuer feeling? Think back. Think hard. Having a 'great childhood' doesn't mean it didn't come from there. Did your parents have a respectful relationship, for example? If there was an undercurrent of resentment in their relationship, that could have affected you, without making you feel your childhood was bad, in any way.

I wouldn't say so. My dad worked nights so he wasn't always present.

First time I noticed it was in my previous relationship, I felt like I was saving the girl, and during that relationship I started to feel more like I was her dad than her partner, like she needed guidance.

I'd say my parents had a respectful relationship.

I've always felt like the rescuer, when some of my friends have been in trouble and a fight was brewing, I was the one who always stepped up to to plate. Or I was the one they would come to first.

Never seen it this way until you mentioned it.

I felt like I was saving the girl

It will have been present before this though. You stayed with her, despite feeling like her dad. The healthy thing to do would have been to recognise that she wasn't your responsibility, and that that feeling wasn't representative of something good for you.

You stayed with her because staying and rescuing fed something in you. Have a think about what that might have been. What would you have felt like if you'd said to her 'I'm not your dad; I don't want to be with you, because I feel like I am. I'm leaving.' What would have been taken from you?

Were you perhaps responsible for someone when you were younger? Who did you take care of? Who did you look after? Did your Dad tell you to look after your Mum when he was working away, maybe?

Never seen it this way until you mentioned it

I'm glad you're seeing it a little differently. You're still rescuing, and to your detriment. It'll be really good for you if you can identify what's really going on for you.

I did end up leaving that girl for that very reason, cause I felt more like I was her dad.

I can't think of anything off the top of my head, maybe when my little sister was born, I was 9 and a part of me felt responsible for her and I done a lot for her during her younger years. I don't know, but that's what I can think of at the moment. Not that I was responsible for my younger sister, or made to feel responsible. I just felt like I was cause she was small.

It's probably based there, then, if that's what's come to mind. It makes sense. Taking care of a younger female is part of your identity. It's part of what makes you who you are. I'm sure your little sister will have been a pain in the bum for you sometimes (younger siblings are), but you had to put your feelings aside in favour of making sure she was ok. I'm sure there will have been times when you wanted to talk to your parents, but they were 'busy with the baby', and you were told to come back later. Again, your feelings being pushed aside in favour of the younger female you were part of the care-team for.

Ponder on it, when you think about your current partner. Think about the habit of putting your own feelings aside. Think about putting her feelings first instead, and whether you want to continue with the dynamic that someone else's feelings are always more important than your own.

You're not happy in this relationship. You wrote so much because you're desperate to be heard, and nobody is listening to how you feel. How does it feel to be listened to now, on this thread? To have the focus on you? Is it nice? Reassuring? Validating? What is it you're getting from the thread? That's what you need to be providing in your own life, via your own means and via your relationships with others. THAT'S your responsibility, and if you learn how to do it, you'll be a much healthier partner and father.

Wow. That was something. Great take, and you are right. I do want to be heard, from someone other than friends telling me what they think I just what I want to hear. It has been good Reading people's opinions and suggestions. It's been good to be heard, actually pretty satisfying. And it is reassuring, that's a great word you chose. It is reassuring, and no I don't want to always put my feelings aside, I am important to, and putting other people's feelings first all the time has got me nowhere.

Thank you.

Being heard is something you can do for you.

You can listen to yourself. Take notice of how you feel. Make it a priority, rather than 'Ugh, this feels unpleasant for me, but my girlfriend is really struggling, so I need to help her, regardless...'

Have a look here too www.attachmentproject.com/blog/anxious-attachment/ You probably have an anxious attachment style, meaning that when things go wrong, you'll look to change yourself to try to fix it, rather than simply accepting that things between you and this person don't go right, when left to flow naturally.

And you're welcome. Glad it's helped. Relationships are all about that 'being heard' feeling. I'm glad you're getting some experience of what it feels like. Spend your time with people you feel like that around. Dismiss all others.