Dating a Dad: Another Perspective

This past weekend, the bf and I took some time off and went and visited a good friend of mine from high school. Her situation is a little similar to mine, in that her bf is also divorced and has three kids, and her mom hates that. (Her mother says the same things to me that my mother did when she first found out that my bf was a divorced dad.)

Other differences, aside from the 1 vs 3 kids, is that he introduced my friend to his kids on date number 3. Three!! That is insane! His kids, granted, are a little older than the bf’s – I believe it’s 13, 11, and 7. Her bf, let’s call him T, also threw his entire life at her at the very beginning, telling her that “This is my life – this is the whole package, and if you can’t deal with it then too bad.” Not only that, but despite the fact that she was not ready to meet them and to this day is still extremely wary about spending more time with them, he guilt-trips her by telling her that his kids miss her since she hasn’t seen them in two months, and has actually lied to her about his whole custody arrangement. (Which we found out about accidentally, since T told my bf a totally different story than the one my friend told us earlier in the day.)

It was interesting to hear about their relationship/”dating a dad” issues from a completely different perspective from mine and my situation, and it was also interesting to compare her relationship to mine. The funny thing is, I found myself agreeing with the bf more and more about everything, forgetting that I sometimes am a little hurt by the fact that I still haven’t met his daughter, but I was able to totally see it from his perspective, and if anything, I’m truly ok with everything he has decided in terms of when/where/how I will meet his daughter. It’ll be hard to explain it to my parents, but I’m going to do my best to just not talk about it at all with them.

The other thing is, the fundamentals of their relationship and how they treat each other, and what she is looking for, at least from my point of view, is so different from mine. She “doesn’t know” if he’s The One, yet she still wants to make her mom meet him; he also gave her a “promise ring” a couple weeks ago that the bf and I suspect is more plastic than sterling silver; he is super needy with her time, not even understanding why it was rude to be on the phone with him while I was visiting; she pays for almost everything they do together since he works in retail and pays a lot of child support (and then he boasts about how he “got the better end of the deal” when he bought $17 worth of ice cream for us after she treated him to an $80 meal – really dude?); and he doesn’t care about how she feels about spending time with his kids and just wants it his way rather than respects her feelings. Oh, and they’ve only been dating 6 months at this point.

All in all, it sounds like way more drama and trouble than would be worth it, and after seeing their relationship up close and personal (this was my first time meeting him), I am more in love with the bf than ever, and more grateful than ever that he is my person.

Oops, long overdue update!

So we did talk that night, and it turns out he does have a plan – and the plan is for me to be introduced once he has a job and the move is really happening. Apparently he agrees with his ex-wife in that they don’t think there is any point in me being introduced until I will be spending a lot more time with her. Which, fine. I’m not 100% happy about that, but fine. I can deal with it.

Last night we had another conversation about the whole moving thing, because this past weekend while he was visiting his daughter, I was having a blast with my friends and the more fun I had, the more reluctant I was to move. I was even telling my friends I feel like the moment he leaves, I’m definitely staying behind, basically until as long as I can stand it. I need to be mentally and emotionally ready to move for me, and I don’t want to be yanked out my current life.

So, I couldn’t keep my big mouth shut and kind of brought this up last night. He was upset that the ONLY reason I’d be moving would be for him – but duh, I don’t know how he didn’t realize that before? And that’s partly why I have so much anxiety about it all? I’ve already told him how much I love living where we live now, and all the reasons – job, family, friends, ease of getting around, variety of things to do all within a 2 hour radius, etc.

I can’t help but feel a little selfish about it all – maybe it’s partly because I’ve never uprooted my life for anyone other than myself (except when I was a kid and my parents moved us out of the country), and maybe it’s partly because I feel like he hasn’t necessarily demonstrated how serious he is about me? I mean, we talk about the future and everything all the time, but up until he decides to move I still won’t have met his daughter, still won’t even have met the ex wife which is a means of getting to meet the daughter, nor will I have spent any real time in the area he wants to relocate to. How is that fair to me?

I’m still not 100% happy with any of it, and I know it’s a complicated situation, but still. He suggested maybe a way for me to be excited is to start applying for jobs there and if I get something good that could be exciting for me. I can see what he’s saying because I am very career-oriented and having a job I like is very important to me (especially as a way to make new friends if I do move), but the thought of updating my resume and putting it out there already wears me out – I hate job hunting even more than I hate moving. (But, ok – I did tell myself I would apply for jobs next year anyway since I really need a big raise, so I guess I could do it then regardless.)

I mean, when it comes down to it, I would move for him – I do love him very much. I just hope I’m not being a complete sucker by feeling this way, especially in light of the fact that I don’t think he’s really shown how serious he is about me (or am I taking it the wrong way???). And I also hope I don’t end up resenting him for taking me away from everything else I love so much here and that resentment then leads to the demise of our relationship and then I end up moving back up here anyway – that would be the worst case scenario. The best? We move, I take a huge leap of faith, I fall in love with his daughter and love her too, we get engaged and married and have our own babies too and live happily ever after. Which may not even be that far fetched!

The anxiety of not knowing just really freaks me out, if you can’t tell! Ack! Why isn’t there protocol for this kind of a situation? Somebody tell me how I should feel/think or what to do!

On Timing & Next Steps

Last night the bf and I had a really long discussion. I called him because I was starting to really stress about seeing my parents in November and just knowing that they will ask me if I’ve met the ex wife & daughter yet, and I still didn’t know anything about what was going on with that.

As it turns out, his whole thing is that until we are on the cusp of taking the next step together, whether that be engagement or moving in together or what, he has no plans to introduce me. I’ve told him time and again that our relationship can’t move forward until I’ve met them and until I have a relationship with his daughter (exhibit A), and at the time I thought he had agreed and understood where I was coming from, but I guess not. I don’t want to continue feeling ignored/invisible, like when he introduced my gay husband to his daughter on face time and hid me in the back seat of the car. It hurt, when that happened.

Initially last night I was ok with it, but then the more I thought about it the more I wasn’t. It’s such a balancing act to figure out the best way to do this while trying to make everyone in the situation happy, and I get that. I also get that he is protecting his daughter, but what I don’t understand is why he feels he needs to protect her from me and from knowing me. We’ve talked again and again about how serious we are about each other – we’ve talked about marriage, having babies, living together, etc etc – so it almost feels like he doesn’t have confidence in our relationship by putting off the introduction until I’ve made a serious commitment.

Part of this is, of course, the fact that his ex wife has said time and again that she doesn’t want to allow me to meet them until I’ve moved with him. Up until last night, I just didn’t think he agreed with her on that point, but now it sounds like he does. He explained it a few ways, saying that:

a) It’s difficult logistically also because he gets such little time with her that when he is with her he wants that 1:1 time (doesn’t this sound familiar? Oh wait, that was one of the reasons I brought up for meeting her BEFORE they moved!) and that if he were to introduce me then the time spent isn’t about him and her, it’d be about me and her (which I also on some level disagree with – why can’t it be about all of us?); and

b) He doesn’t want to introduce her to me and then I spend a few hours with her and then “don’t see her again for months”. What? Why does he think that I would want to just meet her once and then not see her for ages? My whole thing was that I want to have a relationship with her before we took the next step together in our relationship – not just to have met and then be done with it!

I also found out that part of the reason he’s been driving to see her and then driving back the same day the last two times is because his ex wife keeps making plans for their daughter on the Sundays that he is supposed to have her, and he hasn’t fought with her on that. He said he didn’t want to tell me about that because he doesn’t want me to not like the ex wife, and it’s true that it makes me angry that she does that especially since she gets pretty much 95% of their daughter’s time, and he literally only gets every other weekend, and now that’s cut down to 2 days a month. That is totally not fair, and he is such a good dad it makes angry on his behalf and sad for him too. At first I was like, “Yeah that makes me angry so maybe it is better for you not to tell me these things.”, but now that I think about it, no – he does need to tell me these things because these are the kinds of things that will affect my life as well, and this is the kind of stuff I will need to help him deal with.

The main thing that upsets me through this all, though, is that he is putting his ex wife’s needs and desires before mine. I’ve told him time and again that I need to have a relationship with his daughter before I uproot my entire life to be with him, and I thought he’d heard me, but I guess not. I feel like he’s hiding me, and still keeping me separate from the other half of his life.

If he doesn’t introduce me, that means I won’t get to spend Christmas with him if he takes his daughter home to visit his parents. That’s something else he’ll be intentionally leaving me out on.

We have no timelines for when we move, but he is actively applying for jobs and what if he gets an offer in 2 months? He’s just going to up and leave me here? And I still won’t have met anyone? Why won’t he respect me and our relationship and trust me and our relationship enough? Does he not think we’re going to end up together? Because if that’s what it comes down to then that’s a whole other topic.

I also re-read my mom’s emails, and she’s right when she says I need to see the situation clearly and then make a decision for myself. I understand that he’s afraid of what may happen – that maybe I’ll meet them and then decide that it isn’t for me, but isn’t it better to do that now, than 6 months later and we both would have wasted a year and a half of our time? I don’t think now is “early” – we’ve been dating for 8 months, and I was at least under the impression that we were serious this whole time.

All I know is – I apparently need to make it extra crystal clear that we cannot proceed until I have a relationship with his daughter. Is that unreasonable? Selfish? I feel like I have been pretty patient thus far, and it frustrates me that he isn’t taking my needs and desires into account at all, especially when asking me to uproot my entire life for him. Why would I do that if he won’t even introduce me? And if I did move with him, wouldn’t it be important that his daughter is also comfortable with me so that she isn’t thinking, “Who is this stranger in my dad’s house?”? Plus, the moment we start living together, even if we aren’t married, I will essentially be a part-time stepmom. Why wouldn’t he think it’s important that the groundwork is laid for a relationship between us?

Well – there will be a long conversation happening tonight…