Why don't I believe it?

[hpdrifter]

So I am depressed today. I am fustrated because I am with a guy I love, we have a nice life together but I can't stop thinking about how much I wish we could move forward. I used to think I wanted to get married but now I think maybe some sort of other commitment. He says things every now and again about how he wants that too and sometime this year etc etc.

I want a baby too and its really hard because he has one. We have his son once a week and every week it gets harder. The boy calls me momma sometimes. I spend as much time with him as his dad does and I do a lot to help take care of him. Everyone always talks about how cute he is and how smart and how wonderful.

I am older than the bf by a year and a half and sometimes I resent him so much for wasting my increasingly precious time. I just don't believe him. I have this horrible feeling he's just saying that to keep me around because he's afraid of being alone or maybe he really does love me but he isn't ready and he just says that shit to buy time for another 6 months. Or maybe he really believes it but still isn't ready. And ultimately I will find myself 32, 35, 38 in the same place I am now. With him or some other guy.

I feel like I live in her shadow (baby's mom). Everything we do depends on her schedule and when he'll have the baby. They were each other's first love and were together for like 6 years off and on. The son wasn't the only baby, there was another pregnancy that was terminated. And occasionally bf's mom will talk about how they wished the two of them (my bf and baby's mom) could have worked it out.

I hate this. I hate being in this situation. I wish I could extract myself from it without going through all the accompanying stuff. I wish I could rewind my life two years and stop myself from getting involved. I actually think if I could I would.

[jabumbo]

do you know if you want to move forward or not?


for me, i kept being told that i need to do something to move things along, but then when i finally did she started to pull away a bit. now i'm in a pickle trying to keep things positive even though i have no idea whats going through her mind.


maybe you and him just need to talk about those things without any distractions?

[hpdrifter]

He gets frustrated when I ask about it. Probably because I don't have it in me to just trust him when he says he's planning on it. He says he doesn't want me to think he's asking because of some conversation we had.

I don't know. I guess I'm just tired of waiting. I was with my last bf for almost 5 years, 4.5 of which we lived together. We got engaged after three years and were engaged for over 1.5 years with no date set. Neither of us was really into it by the end so we split amicably.

Its not new bf's fault that that's my circumstance. It is what it is but either way I'm tired of waiting. I mean, I want to buy a house but I can't afford it on my own around here (average single family home costs $450,000). I want to have a child but I don't want to do it without a father. I know what I want and I'm ready to have it I just can't seem to find someone who's ready to have it, with me, in the near future.

[ms.peachy]

I think it's pretty much always better to rip the band-aid off quickly, rather than pull it bit by bit. If you see what I'm saying.

[kll]

Your boyfriend is in a very non-traditional situation with having a baby with a woman he is not only not married to, but not involved with anymore.
This non-traditional situation has most likely soured his opinion of the white picket fence, wife waving goodbye to him from the front door while the kids (their kids) are walking to the bus stop.

I would imagine he doesn't think of getting married because his situation is overwhelming having to balance the ex, the baby, his family, his friends, and of course, you.

If he no longer believes in marriage or never has, it is doing you a disservice since you obviously want more. As everyone says, communication is the key, and if you can't talk to him to actually pinpoint what he wants, set a date, etc., then you have some work to do.

[hpdrifter]

Well, I guess buried in the miasma of my thoughts on the subject is the real purpose of this thread:

He says he wants to get married. He says he wants to marry me. But I don't believe him. I think if he did there would be no excuses.

I am tired of the stress, tired of feeling like I'm second to someone else. Tired of being "momma" to a baby that isn't mine, that I have no claim to and that anyone could take away from me forever at any time.

In a month or two I'll be able to afford a townhouse or a condo. I have thought about living with mom my until then but I can't acutally think of anything more depressing than living in my home town with my mom at the age of 30. But it is what it is.

I am so miserable. I want to go home and bury my face in my pillow and cry for all I'm worth.

[little j]

:( two years isn't really that long... if you love him and if you are sure he loves you i wouldn't give him an ultimatum or anything...

how long ago did he end his relationship with baby mama?

guys act tough and non-caring but it takes them just as long to get "over" past relationships and having a child only adds to this.

It is societally acceptable now to get married after 30 and have children. most women are waiting until they are in established careers and such.

i probably didn't help at all!

[hpdrifter]

I guess it isn't really about age. I just am at a point in my life where I'm ready to go to the next level.

I mean, for the past 7 years or so, since I graduated from college, my life has been pretty much the same every day. Work all week, go out on the weekends, hang out with friends at the club or the movies or the park or whatever. With the occasional trip or concert fesitval weekend thrown in.

I'm just ready to move on. I want new challenges, new experiences. And the next phase, for me, is a family of my own.

I've done a lot of the other stuff I wanted to do. I've traveled to exotic parts of the world, I've studied foreign languages, I snowboard and I tried rock climbing recently. I've partied a lot, played in a band, sang jazz. I'm just ready for the next thing.

[Documad]

I feel bad for you. It's good that you're being honest about how you feel. It may be the way I'm reading your posts or maybe I'm bringing my own feelings into this, but it sounds like you want to be married with kid more than you want to be married to this guy with his kid.

You don't have control over him and his family situation. You only have control over what you are willing to accept and what you are not willing to accept. The guy has a kid. That kid should always come before you, even if you marry him. It sounds like your guy has his priorities right.

Are you at all worried that he will go back to the ex? That happened to one of my best friends. The guy got cold feet when they were getting serious and went back to the ex to give it one more try for the sake of their daughter.

[hpdrifter]

I don't mean that its me vs baby. I mean, because of the situation we're sort of always beholden to the ex's schedule. And I get tired of hearing how people in his family wish he and baby's mom had worked it out.

Sometimes I worry he isn't over it. I'm pretty sure he wasn't when we started dating. But it doesn't matter, because she is in a big way. I think even if he wanted her back she's just over it.

You're right. I want to be married with baby. But I am not sure I want to be married to this man and if i did I'd want my own baby.

I hate that this bubbles to the surface every so often.

I guess its good you guys are here so I can vent it. Once I do I usually feel better.

[Documad]

It has to be really hard to listen to his family talk about the ex. People shouldn't do that. Sometimes they learn and sometimes they don't. My sister married a guy who had an ex and his parents were always going on about how much they liked her. There wasn't even a kid involved, they were just religious and thought that the ex was the real wife. They never accepted my sister, even after she had a kid. It's a bad way to start a marriage -- a symptom of bigger problems.