My Sister

Oh thank the Lord. My sister called me last weekend (I completely forgot to blog about this earlier) since I hadn’t replied to any of her texts. Long story short, we had an alumnae gathering last weekend and she decided she was going to bring her boyfriend. We went to an all-girls, Catholic boarding school, complete with nuns, so I chose not to bring the bf on account of not wanting him to be bored to tears. Plus, that way I could chat to all the faculty/staff/former classmates I wanted to without worrying about him.

My sis and I talked about this a few weeks ago and I gave her my reasoning for not wanting to bring him, and then two weeks ago she texts me telling me I should bring him and that she’ll “explain later”. I was already really annoyed at her telling me what to do so I never replied and she never explained, and then on the day of the event she was texting again telling me “Don’t forget to bring the bf”. Again, I was super annoyed! Why couldn’t she just not tell me what to do and leave me alone?? She sent me a bunch more texts and I didn’t reply so finally she called me and was like “HELLO! You’re alive!”

So I had to tell her my reasons – AGAIN – for not bringing him. She was like “but there’s going to be a presentation and don’t you think it’s good for him to experience the nuns?” (WHAT?) Also, it turns out she didn’t remember that we had a whole conversation about this weeks ago so she apologized for that. And I told her she was being annoying when she asked why I wasn’t replying. I tried to do it as nicely as I could since she is super sensitive, but couldn’t help some of the annoyance. I just said something along the lines of “I didn’t reply because you were annoying me but I didn’t want to hurt your feelings so I just didn’t say anything.”

FINALLY, she said, “I’m sorry. I’m not going to meddle any longer. You are clearly happy and know what you are doing so I won’t think for you anymore.” (No one asked her to “think for me” in the first place!) Thank. The. Lord.

It’s just so irritating when my younger sister is trying to control my life – I have my reasons for doing what I do, I’m not some 15 year old head over heels in love and will do anything for the first guy to come my way! So thank God we can just move on now.

The Move

Well, it’s happening. We are packing up his place and leaving tomorrow morning. I can’t believe this is really happening. Last night was the first time he got sad about it – think it finally hit him. As we lay in bed he cuddled me hard and kept telling me how much he loved me. Ugh, thinking about it right now it starting to make me tear up!

He even told me he didn’t want to move anymore. I said, “Stop it, you know you do still.” And he replied, “Only the Dad part of me does.” To which I said, “Yeah, well that’s a pretty big part of who you are.” And that was that.

It’s going to be so weird to not have him around. I’ve already made plans for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday next week – hopefully I’ll be so busy that I won’t have time to miss him too much. We’ve also spent so much time together these past few months aside from when I was away for Thanksgiving and when he was away after Christmas – even those days added up don’t amount to more than 3 weeks. At least I have a ticket booked to visit on Valentine’s Day and he’ll come up for the last weekend of February for our anniversary. (I already said that in a previous post, didn’t I? Ugh, sorry.)

Welp. Guess that’s that, for now.

When It Bothers Other People That I Haven’t Met the Daughter Yet

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my relationship vs how other people view my relationship. To a lot of people, it may be shocking that the bf and I have been dating almost a year and I still haven’t met his daughter.

Why am I so bothered when other people are bothered about it?

The reason I’ve been thinking about this is because of my sister. I went to hang out with her for a bit last week and it turns out the “big thing” she wanted to see the bf do for me is introduce me to his daughter. To her, it’s unfathomable that I was ready to up and move in with him when he hasn’t even introduced me to her, i.e. made a big emotional investment in me/our relationship.

All she’s seen is the fact that I am willing to do big things for him and show him my commitment when he hasn’t done anything of the sort for me.

It sounds lame when I say “it’s because of logistics” or “it’s because I haven’t met the ex-wife” (especially when the latter makes it sound like he was prioritizing ex-wife’s wants over what would be a big step in our relationship, although I do understand that he just doesn’t want to ruffle feathers there since ex-wife will always be the mother of his child), but that’s really mostly what it’s been. Is that such a bad thing? For sure if they still lived here I would have met them – the fact that they moved away and he also has barely seen his child just made it more difficult.

Maybe it bothers me when other people are bothered about it because I don’t have a huge example of what he’s done for me. Other people can’t see the little things he does for me that all add up – like when we spend the weekend at his, I literally pretty much sit on the couch all day and he’s the one cooking for me and fetching me water and offering to get things for me and even doing the dishes. Those aren’t “big” things per se, but to me they matter.

Or they don’t see the times I am being particularly bitchy/mean/annoyed at him and he is still sweet to me and makes me laugh and then I have to give in and acknowledge how sweet he is. (I know my temper isn’t the easiest to deal with.)

These day-to-day actions matter to me, very much. I don’t think me not meeting his daughter negates any of that, since whether we have met or not, this is how he is going to treat me. And in the end, I’m the one who’s going to have to live with it, not them. I’m the one who he is getting water/coffee/whatever for, I’m the one he says things like “I wanted to see your pretty face so that the rest of my afternoon will be better” even when I’ve been complaining about something out of his control that I was still annoyed at him with anyway, I’m the one who has faith in him and us and our relationship and knows that we will be married one day.

What everyone else has to say or thinks about it is their own opinion and I will just have to continue to deflect. I wish I could just tell everyone: “Don’t worry about me. You live your life and leave mine alone.”

Curve Ball #3

(The title of this post just made me think of Mambo #5…totally unrelated side note.)

ANYWAY – yesterday we were thrown yet another curve ball – it turns out, the company he interviewed with turned down THE WRONG PERSON. Yep. The guy who called him to tell him he got the job yesterday was mortified when he found out. All that stress for nothing!

So now we are/he is gearing up for a move at the end of the month – I just bought a one way plane ticket to come back, but I’m gonna drive over with him in the moving truck to help out (ok, mostly to check out new surroundings, since I can’t say I’d be really that helpful with moving any furniture lol).

Then, when I told my sister, she kind of freaked out and got really stressed about everything, especially his financial situation, but also saying that so far, she’s only see me be willing to do “big things” and make sacrifices for him. She kept saying he had “nothing to lose” by moving and having me move with him, whereas I’d be leaving a decent job, great apartment, the city I love, and people that I love for him. Which is all true, but as the bff and I discussed last night, I haven’t needed him to do “big things” or make sacrifices for me. And this is the man I love – of course I am going to do everything I can to make him happy. And I do think I’ll learn to love the new area, and I also know that financially, it’s a much lower cost of living there overall.

Anyway, so I guess the next step is me meeting ex-wife, who, by the way, told him that she’s going to take him to court so that he’ll have less time with their daughter as it’s “disruptive” to her “routine” and she’s happy right now (all of which we suspect is a cover for her just not wanting him in their daughter’s life at all – she’s happy just taking the child support and that’s it). I have a feeling it’s because she doesn’t have anything really going for her aside from their daughter, and she just doesn’t want to feel like he’s taking that away from her. Ugh, sticky situation.

The good thing is he said he’s going to counter and ask for more time, and with that, child support payments will go down. He isn’t even at 50% time right now on their parenting plan, so it’s very likely courts will grant him at least that.

And what about me, you ask? Why thank you for asking – for now I’m going to stay where I am and wait until I have a job offer in hand before I move. Ideally, that’s the situation anyway. Hopefully it won’t take too long before I find a great new job!

Happy New Year!

Wow I can’t believe it’s 2016…2015 was so crazy. I met (ok, discovered) the love of my life and am in the best relationship I have ever been in, despite the complications (parents, ex-wife, meeting his daughter, etc.). I am truly grateful for the bf and for our relationship!

So God threw us a bit of a curveball at the end of the year, which I haven’t mentioned yet here. The bf was fired (we are still scratching our heads as to the real reason why – seems all the reasons he was given were vague), and he didn’t get the other job he was interviewing for. Which means he has until the end of the month to figure it out. (He can’t afford both his apartment and child support on top of his other bills without a job – unemployment will only cover one or the other pretty much.)

We’ve come up with a few backup plans but nothing feels that right, and nothing that is a long term solution at all. I am hoping that one or both of us land a job within the next two months and we can just move together. In the meantime, I’m really not sure what’s going to happen and it’s left me (and him, of course) pretty stressed.

I am doing my best to be supportive in whatever way I can and just be there for him – this is such a hard situation! – but I’m pretty sure it’s taking a toll on me as well. I spent almost all of the past 3 day weekend in bed, sleeping. Literally yesterday I slept until 11:30, got up to make food, then got back into bed and stayed there until about 5pm. (Thankfully I invested good money into my mattress and sheets – I love my bed!) And I also have really tight neck and shoulder muscles right now.

Anyway, all of this is a reminder to be as frugal as possible and to really save! My financial goal for this year is to build up my emergency fund, because you really never know what’s going to happen.

Wish us the best of luck – and if anyone has any tips/advice as usual, please share!