I've been with my girlfriend for 1.5 years now. She's a sweet caring girl, generally positive and has a good job. Shes loving and affectionate. Shes a nurse and loves talking about her job.
However we have our differences and my gut is telling me no. First of all I'm divorced with a 6 year old. She's a single mom with a 5 year old who was abandoned during pregnancy. My feeling now is that the baby was her idea. I told her explicitly that I don't buy the stories where the girl is on birth control and accidentally gets pregnant anyway. The pill is supposed to be 99.99% effective. Somehow that drops to a much lower number with emotionally dependent people.
On the face of it we looked like the perfect second chance. We have been exclusively dating up until now. Because of my divorce I decided to not jump into a new family right away. She's been struggling with it a lot and asked me to " wife her up" six Months in. Now I'm kinda glad I stayed strong.
Recently we have started probing and feeling out how we would function as a family. We both had our reservations and mine are based on the fact that her parenting style is too permissive and that she isn't domestic enough for my taste. We've had this up for discussion before. The short story is that she's raised her son in an environment without rules and with constant attention. Anything goes. Eating on the couch, jumping on the bed, running around screaming in the house. She thinks it's cute when he lies because he has such an amazing imagination. He cannot occupy himself for a minute unless it's on the iPad.
She doesn't clean and barely cooks. She pays a guy to occasionally clean her house and car. Needless to say her bathrooms are dirty and so is her car.
This became more obvious to me as of late and I think our last run really made me aware. We planned to spend the weekend together as a family. A two night sleepover.
It starts off at a Hispanic green market where we meet to shop for dinner. They also sell pottery. When we meet her son was running around the area with pots. We then go inside where the son initiate tag with my daughter. She follows. I tell them several times to stop. In the end I have to pull my daughter aside to tell her not to follow. My girlfriend responds. "They're just bored". I tell her I find it to be unacceptable behavior. The kid grabs stuff left and right until he pulls the handle on the bean container and they start pouring out. We go to check out. While I'm in line to pay (girlfriend has taken no initiative to buy anything or even think of dinner) her son runs into the middle of a tight arrangement of yard tall wobbly pottery. At this point I feel compelled to take action. I leave the line and tell him to come out and grab him by the hand. I tell him it was a bad choice and I can see it goes in one ear and out the other. My girlfriend does not do anyth ing.
We get home and the kids start to play. The son is clearly the leader. He decides what my daughter does and says. They rough house despite being told not to. Until he runs into one of my very expensive speakers nearly knocking it down. I again raise my voice and they go upstairs to play. I can tell that it is still wild but at least they are out of the way. I start working on my daughters doll house and try to engage girlfriend. Her response is "I don't remember volunteering for this". She then sits on her phone next to me while I build the house.
We start making dinner. My gf was supposed to have bought fish but she didn't. This is the second time we talk about her cooking but not coming through so I do it. She makes a salad though. Bed time comes around and we sit down on the couch. I'm pretty worn down and I want to get my mind off things so I pour some scotch and put a movie on.
The next day we all go to a birthday party. It's a great party with lots of kids in a protected back yard. Her son is upset because the birthday child is his best friend but isn't focused on him. Everything goes well though until he punches another kid during horseplay. By the end there is an animal showing. The lady with the animals takes an animal out and walks around the benches where the other kids sit. The birthday child is helping the lady. After a little while gf's son gets up and "helps" too. He wants to be part of the center. The lady says no thanks and gf's son comes back crying. Gf says to sit down and enjoy like all the other kids. After a minute he gets up again with the same result. This happens three times.
We get home and do bed time routine. During this my gf finds a book of mine about rules and why we need them. Gf's son responds with no rules for him.
In the morning girlfriend has to leave for work at 7. She gets up and makes eggs for her son and herself. My daughter and I get up to say goodbye. After they leave my first thought is good riddance.
I walk upstairs where she slept with her son. Bed is a mess, the kitchen is dirty, there is egg rubbed into the couch, the sons plate is still on the table, egg all over the table and she has forgotten some of her things.
Here is my problem:
we talked from the beginning about family dynamics. I told her my wish was for a more traditional family. This to me means a family where I'm the breadwinner and she's the homemaker. I feel I've laid the groundwork to support most (in fact all) of my family's financial and security needs. She told me that her focus was not career but family and therefore she's happy with her associates degree and three day per week job that pays very well for what it is. She wants to be married and have a family. I think "perfect! We will have around a 70/30 split in career vs. domestic responsibilities respectively". The reality is though that I find myself picking up after her a lot and that she does not take initiative in domestic areas. She can't even clean up after herself! She does care about me in the sense that she want me to get on board with all her health stuff. She says that she plans to keep me around for a long time she says.
The things she puts effort into are health foods, diets and working out. She's now decided to become vegetarian which is NOT what I want to be. She's given up alcohol all together so going out for a drink isn't an option anymore.
I'm my opinion her son is a mess. He think he's in charge and that there are no rules. He doesn't need to listen. I can just imagine how this would be in ten years.
I'm starting to feel like her idea of traditional is "you take care of me while I post my acai smoothies on Pinterest blog and post workout pictures on Facebook". She likes to talk about all the places we're going to travel and the house we will buy while talking about working less AND having more kids. Meanwhile I've got dreams of a classic car and money for my interest. That's not gonna happen with a dependent
Having written all of this down it seems clear to me but I still find it hard to cut the ties because I'm emotionally attached to her and I'm still hoping she will "grow up". Every time I've talked to her about these issues she's been receptive and agreeing. I just haven't seen a real change in that direction. The only change I've seen is that she's more confident an self absorbed these days.
Looking at her mother I see a self centered woman who's been divorced twice and doesn't focus much on being a mother. She rarely helps and wasn't there for my girlfriend when she got pregnant at age 21.
It's difficult because that on the surface gf is a positive, care taking, pretty girl who has endured a lot but come through for herself.
I doubt myself because I know that I'm scarred from my previous marriage. I know I can be overly skeptical.
However we have our differences and my gut is telling me no. First of all I'm divorced with a 6 year old. She's a single mom with a 5 year old who was abandoned during pregnancy. My feeling now is that the baby was her idea. I told her explicitly that I don't buy the stories where the girl is on birth control and accidentally gets pregnant anyway. The pill is supposed to be 99.99% effective. Somehow that drops to a much lower number with emotionally dependent people.
On the face of it we looked like the perfect second chance. We have been exclusively dating up until now. Because of my divorce I decided to not jump into a new family right away. She's been struggling with it a lot and asked me to " wife her up" six Months in. Now I'm kinda glad I stayed strong.
Recently we have started probing and feeling out how we would function as a family. We both had our reservations and mine are based on the fact that her parenting style is too permissive and that she isn't domestic enough for my taste. We've had this up for discussion before. The short story is that she's raised her son in an environment without rules and with constant attention. Anything goes. Eating on the couch, jumping on the bed, running around screaming in the house. She thinks it's cute when he lies because he has such an amazing imagination. He cannot occupy himself for a minute unless it's on the iPad.
She doesn't clean and barely cooks. She pays a guy to occasionally clean her house and car. Needless to say her bathrooms are dirty and so is her car.
This became more obvious to me as of late and I think our last run really made me aware. We planned to spend the weekend together as a family. A two night sleepover.
It starts off at a Hispanic green market where we meet to shop for dinner. They also sell pottery. When we meet her son was running around the area with pots. We then go inside where the son initiate tag with my daughter. She follows. I tell them several times to stop. In the end I have to pull my daughter aside to tell her not to follow. My girlfriend responds. "They're just bored". I tell her I find it to be unacceptable behavior. The kid grabs stuff left and right until he pulls the handle on the bean container and they start pouring out. We go to check out. While I'm in line to pay (girlfriend has taken no initiative to buy anything or even think of dinner) her son runs into the middle of a tight arrangement of yard tall wobbly pottery. At this point I feel compelled to take action. I leave the line and tell him to come out and grab him by the hand. I tell him it was a bad choice and I can see it goes in one ear and out the other. My girlfriend does not do anyth ing.
We get home and the kids start to play. The son is clearly the leader. He decides what my daughter does and says. They rough house despite being told not to. Until he runs into one of my very expensive speakers nearly knocking it down. I again raise my voice and they go upstairs to play. I can tell that it is still wild but at least they are out of the way. I start working on my daughters doll house and try to engage girlfriend. Her response is "I don't remember volunteering for this". She then sits on her phone next to me while I build the house.
We start making dinner. My gf was supposed to have bought fish but she didn't. This is the second time we talk about her cooking but not coming through so I do it. She makes a salad though. Bed time comes around and we sit down on the couch. I'm pretty worn down and I want to get my mind off things so I pour some scotch and put a movie on.
The next day we all go to a birthday party. It's a great party with lots of kids in a protected back yard. Her son is upset because the birthday child is his best friend but isn't focused on him. Everything goes well though until he punches another kid during horseplay. By the end there is an animal showing. The lady with the animals takes an animal out and walks around the benches where the other kids sit. The birthday child is helping the lady. After a little while gf's son gets up and "helps" too. He wants to be part of the center. The lady says no thanks and gf's son comes back crying. Gf says to sit down and enjoy like all the other kids. After a minute he gets up again with the same result. This happens three times.
We get home and do bed time routine. During this my gf finds a book of mine about rules and why we need them. Gf's son responds with no rules for him.
In the morning girlfriend has to leave for work at 7. She gets up and makes eggs for her son and herself. My daughter and I get up to say goodbye. After they leave my first thought is good riddance.
I walk upstairs where she slept with her son. Bed is a mess, the kitchen is dirty, there is egg rubbed into the couch, the sons plate is still on the table, egg all over the table and she has forgotten some of her things.
Here is my problem:
we talked from the beginning about family dynamics. I told her my wish was for a more traditional family. This to me means a family where I'm the breadwinner and she's the homemaker. I feel I've laid the groundwork to support most (in fact all) of my family's financial and security needs. She told me that her focus was not career but family and therefore she's happy with her associates degree and three day per week job that pays very well for what it is. She wants to be married and have a family. I think "perfect! We will have around a 70/30 split in career vs. domestic responsibilities respectively". The reality is though that I find myself picking up after her a lot and that she does not take initiative in domestic areas. She can't even clean up after herself! She does care about me in the sense that she want me to get on board with all her health stuff. She says that she plans to keep me around for a long time she says.
The things she puts effort into are health foods, diets and working out. She's now decided to become vegetarian which is NOT what I want to be. She's given up alcohol all together so going out for a drink isn't an option anymore.
I'm my opinion her son is a mess. He think he's in charge and that there are no rules. He doesn't need to listen. I can just imagine how this would be in ten years.
I'm starting to feel like her idea of traditional is "you take care of me while I post my acai smoothies on Pinterest blog and post workout pictures on Facebook". She likes to talk about all the places we're going to travel and the house we will buy while talking about working less AND having more kids. Meanwhile I've got dreams of a classic car and money for my interest. That's not gonna happen with a dependent
Having written all of this down it seems clear to me but I still find it hard to cut the ties because I'm emotionally attached to her and I'm still hoping she will "grow up". Every time I've talked to her about these issues she's been receptive and agreeing. I just haven't seen a real change in that direction. The only change I've seen is that she's more confident an self absorbed these days.
Looking at her mother I see a self centered woman who's been divorced twice and doesn't focus much on being a mother. She rarely helps and wasn't there for my girlfriend when she got pregnant at age 21.
It's difficult because that on the surface gf is a positive, care taking, pretty girl who has endured a lot but come through for herself.
I doubt myself because I know that I'm scarred from my previous marriage. I know I can be overly skeptical.
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