Finally – The Meeting!

Yesterday was the day – the day I finally met the ex-wife, and as an added bonus, I met their daughter!

We met at a Starbucks at noon (after she made the bf meet her first so that she could hand their daughter off to him while she came to meet me). I was so nervous prior to the meeting – the bf and I were trying to guess what she’d say or ask, neither of us really having any idea how it would go.

When she found me at my table she sat down and just said she wanted to meet me and make sure that whoever will be around her daughter will be a good influence. What struck me as rather generous was that she also said “the more people who love her, the better”, and didn’t come across territorial at all. I also just made sure to steer clear of saying anything that might make her feel jealous or threatened, and emphasized that I want everything to be as easy and comfortable for everyone involved as possible, and I think she appreciated. We also talked a little about where we grew up and other various things. 45 minutes later she looks at her watch and says, “Not sure where they went…let’s just have them meet us here.” So I pulled my phone out and texted the bf to come by.

He appears almost instantly and I see his daughter with him, and she is instantly shy. (You know how kids get when they’re shy and acting out a little bit for attention? That’s what she was doing – hitting the bf on his belly with the stuffed animal he just got her; getting her mom to take off her jacket and put it on backwards and zipping her into it, pulling the hood over her face, etc. I just smiled but didn’t want to put any pressure on her, though the ex wife and bf both kept trying to make her say hi to me. Finally she gave in with a wave, and made the briefest of eye contact with me.

Later the bf said he didn’t think I’d be allowed to meet the daughter right then and there, but the ex wife must have just decided to give me her stamp of approval to suggest that I have them meet us. Either way, I am glad to have finally taken that step!

Also, I got my official offer letter on Friday while I was out shopping with the bf, and I got both a raise AND a signing bonus, which I definitely did not expect! I also announced it to my team today and let them know we’ll be transitioning, and I also had a call with the managers to figure out when I’ll be there this month to help out, and I’ll be there the week before I move. (Moving on Saturday the 28th!) I’m also hoping I can convince work to let me stay the weekend while I’m there since that’s a dad weekend and I can spend more time with the daughter.

As always, I’ll keep you all posted. 🙂

Next step: telling my mom that I’m moving…I wonder if she’ll connect the dots with the fact that I told her months ago that the bf was trying to move there because his daughter moved. Wish me luck!

Last Night’s Chat

So I face timed the boy last night, and made it super ultra clear that I am not even going to accept a job offer in his city unless he introduces me to his daughter. I guess me crying about it and bringing it up every few months didn’t make a difference and he just needed to have it totally laid out for him in order to understand me.

I just emphasized that it is super important to me. He kept saying she’ll get so confused and keep asking him where I am and why I’m not here. I asked if it was confusing when she moved away and he still lived here, and also brought up the examples of nieces and nephews and he was like “That’s so different” and I said “it isn’t though, because she won’t understand the difference between me being your girlfriend and being your friend anyway, so it doesn’t matter where I am and there will still be face time and maybe I’ll send her little packages and you will still be talking about me.”

I was sensing that she did get attached to his ex girlfriend, and that he hated it every time she asked him where that gf went and why she isn’t around so now he’s projecting his stress and fear about it happening again on her and saying it’s for her benefit, though I really feel it’s more for his so he doesn’t have to field a bunch of questions.

Either way, I was mentally preparing myself to break up with him last night if I needed to, but thankfully it didn’t come to that and he agreed to set up the meeting. Thank the Lord, finally!

This is what it comes down to

I’m going to try to be as laconic as possible in this post, but it just may be a bit wordy. My current situation:

1. I’m in the running for a transfer within my company for the same position, just in another market, so that I can move and be with the bf.
2. He still has yet to be proactive about me meeting the ex wife or the kiddo, and we were just talking about it on Friday night and also the last weekend I was with him (just over a week ago).
3. Friday night I saw my sister’s guest list for the wedding and noticed the bf wasn’t on there, so she was like “ok well tell me when you meet his daughter so I know he’s serious about you”. Which is why I was upset and talked to him about it that night (point #2, above).
4. I do really want to bring him up again to my parents, but I need him to introduce me to the ex and to his daughter before I do it.
5. I also need to meet them both before I move. It isn’t a small thing to uproot my entire life and move for a man, and the fact that I am clearly willing to do this and he isn’t even willing to introduce me to his ex and his daughter are very concerning.

So this is where my head was at this morning, and I’ve pretty much just had enough of it. I talked to my therapist and to my bff, and both say it’s about time I meet them. At first I was saying I should just meet the ex wife first, but my therapist says it’s time for me to meet his daughter too, and that he needs to also take my feelings and needs into consideration rather than be so overprotective of his daughter.

At this point it’s going to be a deal breaker for me – if he doesn’t introduce his daughter to me ASAP I am not moving and I am going to have to break up with him. I feel like he just needs to meet me SOMEWHERE, rather than asking me to do everything and not giving me anything. What has he done to show me his commitment? So far, nothing. And I’m sick of it, and it’s time for him to listen to me and my needs and to actually do something about it rather than saying “you will meet them” etc etc.

So we’re talking tonight and he already suspects something is up. But what it comes down to is: I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with someone who will not listen to me or take my needs into consideration, when I’ve clearly cried about this and been so stressed about this very situation.

His excuse again was that his daughter will be “confused” by the fact that I don’t live there if she’s met me. She is 6. I have nieces and nephews under the age of 5 who I love and they love me too and there is no confusion about where I live or why. I highly doubt she will spend all her brain power wondering where I am and why I’m not around. Even if she does sometimes ask him where I am and why I’m not around, is it that big of a deal to say “She’s trying to find a job here because she needs money”?

Thankfully my therapist agrees with me and says I am being beyond reasonable. I am just sick of waiting anymore and feeling like I come last. I’ve already stood up to my family for him, I’m already getting the ball rolling on me moving to be with him, and he’s done nothing on a similar scale. This is it.

I’ll let y’alls know how it goes down…stay tuned. And wish me luck.

Overdue Update

There hasn’t been too much going on in my relationship, but there are a couple small updates to write about, anyway!

The first is that we have adjusted pretty well to the long distance thing – it helps that he still comes into town for 5 days at a time every month for work, and I fly to him at least once a month as well for a weekend together.

Secondly, two nights ago without any prompting or questioning from me he tells me that he is talking to the ex-wife about setting up time to meet when I visit him next (first weekend of April). It was such a relief to hear, and especially because I didn’t have to bring it up first like I usually do. So I’m glad he’s thinking about and being proactive about it. It just feels like one more step to meeting his daughter, and even if I don’t meet his daughter that weekend just knowing that the next time I visit will possibly be a time for that to happen makes me happy. (And even if not, then it really is totally up to him once he’s introduced his ex-wife to me, and just having that out of the way will feel good.)

Lastly, last night at dinner he was face timing his daughter with headphones on (we were out at a restaurant), and when he was done he said, “She says hi.” This immediately won me over but I didn’t hear him say my name at all, so I asked, “how did she even know I was with you?” And he said she asked him and he said yes, then he laughed and said how his ex-wife probably isn’t too happy about that! But either way, I love that she is trying to make a connection with me – so sweet, and it just makes me so happy.

So, that’s all for me for now. Hopefully I’ll have more updates soon!

Insomnia

I can’t sleep. It’s 1:30am on a Tuesday morning and this is the latest I’ve been up on a weeknight in forever.

I haven’t written in a little while – the bf’s moved. I helped him that weekend and when I was in line for security at the airport for my flight home, I was standing there with tears just streaming down my face because I was so sad for us to be split apart. I mostly recovered after that day and the next, so haven’t been emotional since, until today. (Yesterday? Well, my day isn’t over until I’ve fallen asleep, so “today” means Monday as I refer to it in the rest of this entry.)

So this afternoon we got into a huge fight. He was originally going to come up at the end of the month for work and spend the weekend up here as well, but told me today that since he’s still a new employee he couldn’t book his flights so his boss did it for him and instead of spending the weekend with me he is coming up Monday and leaving Friday at 5pm. That made me really sad because I was really looking forward to that weekend – I need it.

I’m going to see him for Valentine’s day but because I haven’t met the daughter yet and because this is his first weekend with her, I can’t go see him until Sunday late afternoon, and I’m leaving Monday early evening. Literally just 24 hours and I have to leave him again.

So after that news about not having the whole weekend like I thought we would have, I said that we should plan our March visits. I looked at a calendar and realized I have a work trip right in the middle of March so don’t want to fly to him the weekend before or the weekend after – too much to handle and too much travel and too much to pack (work trip is to the east coast, which is still in the middle of winter), so I offered up the last weekend of March even though that’s another weekend with his daughter. I was kind of thinking that maybe he would realize that but it would be okay because maybe by then he will finally introduce me to at least his ex wife so we can get that out of the way, if not his daughter. But, nope. Immediately he told me that wasn’t a “free weekend”. So I was stung – again – and instantly started feeling emotional, so I texted my bff about it and even she agreed with me that it’s strange he doesn’t seem at all excited for me to meet his daughter, and also that he literally has zero plans on introducing me or even a time line or time frame on when he might want to do so.

He called me a few minutes later and we got into a huge fight about it, him using excuses like how he’s only lived there for 9 days and how he’s only spent 4 hours with his daughter, but I was like “Ummm I’m not talking about meeting her THIS weekend, I’m talking about the end of March or maybe sometime in April or something but you NEVER give me even a general time frame!” And he was super defensive, as I knew he would be. This is why I HATE bringing this up all the time even though I’m thinking it – he always gets so defensive about her and I just don’t see where my needs and wants are being taken into consideration at all.

Look at it this way: here I am, almost a year into a relationship with a divorced dad. My parents are ultra conservative but I told them about his situation 2 months into our relationship because I know he’s The One. I almost moved 40 miles away from my city to help him out when he was unemployed (before he got the verbal offer from his current company), and I am trying to get a job in/around his new city so I can move to be with him and leave a city I love and friends and family. What has he done for me?

I finally see what my sister was talking about all along – how he hasn’t done a single “big thing” on a similar scale to show me his commitment to me. (Even though I will never admit this to her!) Flowers, paying for meals, little trips – yes those things matter, but those are not on nearly the same scale as anything life changing. I sacrificed my relationship with my parents for him, for Christ’s sake. Almost that of my sister too. I’m willing to pick up and move for him, and he still doesn’t have even a TIME FRAME for me meeting his daughter?

That would be HUGE. I know how important she is to him. He left me to be with her – right now as the situation stands, he is the one who left me behind to chase what was important to him. He’s also the one who holds the cards. The only thing we ever fight about is his daughter – mostly about when I’m going to meet her.

His concerns are her asking him constantly where I am and why I’m not around more. I’m no child psychologist, but is that so damaging to a child’s psyche to delay me meeting someone who will be a Very Important Person in my life and our life together? She already knows about me – she asks him about me as it is right now.

Do I look like a fool that I am willing to do all these big things for him when he hasn’t even introduced me to his daughter, though he does talk about marriage and wants me to live with him in his new city?

After hours of fighting over text/phone calls, I was talking to my roommate and she was like “well maybe you just need a timeline for when you will move – that might help him”. So in our last conversation I offered that up, since he explained that he is totally insecure about whether I’m actually going to move or now (he also used “What if I introduce you and you never actually move?” as an excuse – to me that sounds like he thinks we will break up, since if I don’t move that means it’s the end of our relationship – we can’t do long distance forever! But to him, as he explained it, he is just insecure about it since “life and things always change”.) So I said ok, let’s say 6 months from now if I still don’t have a job in that city then I will move without one. And he was like “Well I want to make sure that is what you want to do”, but he definitely was placated. We were much calmer in our last phone call and we hung up with “I love you”s and good nights, but something still didn’t feel quite right for me, not quite settled.

Now, hours later, I am realizing that maybe I am still being a complete fool. I have to make ANOTHER life changing promise to him with a definite deadline, and he STILL doesn’t have an actual time frame for me meeting his daughter? Why am I giving so much, and he isn’t really giving me anything at all? Am I being a total idiot still?

I mean, he did throw a “ok well I will introduce you this Sunday” out there, but I don’t know if he actually means that. And then when he said that I felt bad because I don’t want to FORCE him to introduce me – that’s not how it should be at all. He should introduce me because he wants to and because it’ll make him happier to do so, not because we got into a fight about it. He did tell me that I will definitely meet her before I move, and when I asked, “Does that mean I need to have a job offer in hand before you introduce me?” He replied with “Oh my God we have been over this and over this, I’ve told you over and over again.” (When he really hasn’t.) After asking a couple more times and getting variations of that reply, he finally said “NO, you do NOT need to have a job offer in hand for me to introduce you.”

I don’t know…this whole thing is making me question everything. I tried telling him everything about how I feel like he is compartmentalizing me vs his daughter and how I feel like he is putting his and his ex wife’s needs before mine and about how I feel totally separate from all his plans and how he never brings up the subject of me meeting her or tells me any sort of time frame or what he’s thinking. It’s always vague statements like “When things are settled”; “When I’ve had more time with her – I’m catching up on 6 months of her life”, etc etc etc.

Am I being a bitch, or am I being a complete fool?

One thing he’s right about though – there is no manual for this at all. He may not realize it but I am also trying to be as patient as possible. I just want to be integrated into his life and for it to not be a huge deal about what weekends I can visit because I haven’t met her yet. I still remember in early summer when I was so upset that we barely got time together as it was, and one Sunday he had to kick me out of his apt because ex wife needed him to watch their daughter for a few hours and I was crying and sad that I had to take the damn train home all by myself – again all because I hadn’t met the daughter. It’s the same feeling I’ve been having for the better part of a year, and he doesn’t seem to understand that at all.

I’m just at the point where I don’t know if I can keep giving without getting SOMETHING in return. And I know this post makes him sound like an asshole – he isn’t an asshole, but in regards to his daughter he always acts like this with me and it’s upsetting. Yet when I tell him how it’s embarrassing for me when other people find out we’ve been dating a year and I am trying to move to be with him and give up everything I’m going to give up and he hasn’t even introduced me to his daughter, he gets angry.

Funny thing is I was talking to a coworker about my situation today because she heard me yelling and wanted to see if I was ok. When I told her what we were arguing about, she tells me “I think it’s a load of bullshit that he wants to prolong this. I mean, I understand where he’s coming from, because I was raised by a single mom and she didn’t want strangers around, but you are not a stranger and you have got to be one of the sweetest and loving people she’ll ever get the chance to be around.” Which has got to be the nicest thing she’s ever said to me, and it means a lot because she was a daughter in that same situation.

I don’t know. What’s right here? If he’s as serious about me as he says he is, why hasn’t he DONE anything about it?

Sorry for the crazy long post. Damn this is longer than most essays I wrote in high school. Ok, I’m done, for now. Hopefully I can get some sleep after getting this off my chest…

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!

Over It/Moving Update

So I decided I’m over it. The whole jealousy thing – I know he wasn’t being insensitive, I was just being too sensitive.

But if you must know, we had a huge fight about it. If I was sensitive about that comment, he was super sensitive about what I told him. It was pretty bad, but then we decided we were tired of fighting and both apologized to each other and now I’m over it.

In fact, I kind of wish I hadn’t even brought it up in the first place!

We did have an interesting conversation yesterday though about the potential move – he has a 2nd round interview- and this time in person- next week, and so was discussing me moving with him and all this stuff. I was like “Whoaaaa – hold your horses. I don’t plan on moving with you the moment you take off and leave – we haven’t even spent time there together; I literally can’t even visualize what life would be like there; and I’m in no way emotionally ready to go.” So he promised that we would go visit together in January, and he also said once he gets a job all the introductions will be made.

He did make one comment though as we discussed me staying behind initially, and that was “Well I hope you end up deciding to move!” Good. I need to instill some fear in him – there isn’t a ring on this finger so I am still gonna do what I want!

I just want to make sure I don’t resent him, and the best way I know to prevent that is to not move until I am 100% confident that this is what I want to do. I know I love him and I do think he’s The One, but I just need to do things on my time, too. And if I move before I’m ready to the worst-case scenario is that I’ll hate my life there and hate him for taking me away from my job, my family, and my friends.

Green Eyed Monster

Just went on Facebook and saw a photo the bf posted of him and his daughter (he is with her today), and the caption was “My favorite weekend – hanging with the kiddo”. Instantly, I am ashamed to say, I was both jealous and upset. I know – I know I can’t compete with a kid, I know I shouldn’t feel like I am in competition with a kid, but I just can’t help it.

I just feel like “excuse me, so whenever you hang out with me it isn’t a favorite weekend?”

I know this is incredibly petty, I know that part of it is that I haven’t met her so I have zero feelings towards her and no relationship with her whatsoever, aside from thinking she’s cute and knowing how lucky she is to have my bf for her dad. That’s not much to go on.

All of this is happening as I am planning his birthday weekend and trying to make it the best weekend ever – but now that I can’t have her come up for it, or have her around, it almost feels like my effort is going to waste, because no matter what I do it won’t be his “favorite weekend”.

I have all these mixed up ugly feelings right now and there is no way I can ever tell him about this because I KNOW how it looks and sounds. Guess that’s partly why I started this blog – show the truth of what it feels like for me to be dating a dad, when I have never done so before.

So forgive me for sounding like this – I simultaneously can’t help it and am beating myself up for being dumb and petty. I’m only human, after all.

Back from Asia

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Just thought I’d write a quick update after coming back from Asia. I was actually really sad to leave, which I didn’t expect to happen since I’d kind of been dreading the trip, not knowing what my parents would be like, especially without my sister around. But we actually managed to have totally normal family time, without any emotional breakdowns.

My parents didn’t mention the bf really at all – well Dad never did, Mom did when I told her about the divination (I just realized – I haven’t written about that, have I? Oops! Post coming soon!), but I only mentioned parts about my grandma showing up. Mom just said, “Did you ask if you were going to marry him? You must have talked about relationships!” I didn’t quite know how to tell her that I didn’t specifically ask if we were going to get married, simply because I know it’s going to happen, so I kind of dodged that to the best of my ability.

Other than that, she just sounded resigned when it comes to me and my sister’s relationships, waving her hand and saying “Well, it’s your lives.” I see that as an improvement over being hysterical and emotional and crying and guilt-tripping, so two thumbs up!

While I was in Asia, however, the bf had a phone interview with a company in the city he’s trying to move to, and he says it went really well. I’m trying not to panic, even though I can’t help it! When they asked him when he would be able to start if they were to offer him the job, he told them mid-January due to the holidays and he’s taking off right after Christmas until the 3rd. At least that’s about a month and a half away? We’ll see what happens…