MrsDan

My BF proposed on New Year's Day!

I never said we should tell each other everything is okay and good. I never said we shouldn't have different opinions. I simply said we should offer our thoughts with kindness and compassion. Bluntness for the sake of helping someone make informed decisions is one thing. Using a grief site as your own personal playground to condescend, belittle, and bully people, advance your outdated and narrow-minded belief system, and take out your unprocessed anger on vulnerable people are very different things. It's my contention that is what he is doing. I don't believe there is anything close to an altruistic motive here. That's not what this is at all, and I'm tired of it to the point that it has pretty much driven me away from this site. I'm pretty far out myself, 7 years, and the nature of my husband's death mean I have faced very hard truths every day since. I have no problem doing that. I do have a problem with cruelty.

It will be seven years in October. Our DD just turned seven a couple weeks ago. She was just a baby. Now she's a kid. A little kid, but still a kid with a fully formed, if evolving, personality, who's just under a foot shorter than me. I feel like I'm seeing new physical characteristics and personality traits that she shares with her dad all the time. She's tall like him, but they also share the same frame, they have the same feet. They have so many of the same expressions. Just this weekend i noticed that she has developed this crease he had in his cheeks when he smiled. My BF takes a ton of pictures of us and there are so many where I've thought, wow, that is Dan, right there, in that expression, or that pose. They share many likes and dislikes. She wants music on all the time. They both dislike putting their clothes away more than any other chore. They both love pickles. They share the same expression when they're messing with you. It's crazy to me to see this person who couldn't even sit upright when he died is so much like him now. In many ways, it feels like he died so, so long ago. So this sensation of almost like seeing him again in a way, it's jolting. I don't know how to describe it exactly, this deja vu, but it's so overwhelming I had to come here and post about it.

I don''t know exactly what Portside said, because I have him blocked, for exactly this type of thing, but there is a huge difference between giving honest feedback and shaming people about something they already feel turmoil over. This is why I hardly ever come here anymore, not because of Portside's posts, which i can easily block, but because of all the posts that defend his bullying behavior, so perfectly described by Mizpah as "uninformed moral self-righteousness." Stop dressing this up as bluntness. You can be blunt while being compassionate. To choose not to when dealing with people who've suffered profound loss can't be described as anything other than cruel. It's my understanding that this is intended to be a place to support and seek support. This may be just my understanding of the nature of the site, but it is not the place to promote your political beliefs, or to make yourself feel superior because of how you think you've handled grief, loss, and life in general better than everyone else, or to take out all your unresolved issues on people who are already suffering. If you are not here to provide support, and you have everything figured out, then what are you doing here? OP, I have been where you are, and ultimately asked and received money from the ILs. I never regretted it, because the awkwardness just faded away, but the benefits to my kid was real and long lasting.

A divorced friend of mine posted on Facebook about how she's doing this on her own. And it took all my self control to say, no, you're not. They have a father. Your relationship ended; theirs didn't. PS, you can't post about missing your kids when they are with their dad, then turn around and say you're on your own. If you actually did have them all the time, if you were the only parent you'd know the difference. I cut her a lot of slack because one of her children has been seriously ill his whole life. Maybe since her marriage dissolved it feels like it's on her own. But it's not. That's another one that gets me, when single mothers complain about their kids being away from them, as if fathers don't go through the exact same thing. Especially fathers who only get a fraction of the parenting time that the mothers do. Not tied to my widowhood, but as someone in a relationship with someone who got screwed in the parenting time department. My mother tried to pull that whole, "your dad didn't help with you kids much argument. First of all, that's horseshit, she's rewriting history, my dad was always there for me emotionally. Even if it were true, it's still not the same fucking thing.

Oh man I am so sorry. That's so rough. ((((((((Tybec)))))))))

I think it's hard to overemphasize the restrictions the court in a custody situation puts you under. The time you get is what you get and there is no compromise. The rules a super specific and unless the other parent is willing to compromise (never happens in our case) you are stuck working around what the court has put in place, and walking around eggshells trying to keep them from taking more time away. When one person is dealing with the court, the other person is the only one able to compromise. And that gets tiresome, and it means you are asking yourself and your child to make all the sacrifices. Why should her kid miss band (I was a band kid, it's a bigger deal than you might think) just because the court is dragging it's feet (3 months?! That is outrageous!) To answer the other question about needing a relationship where the other person is "all in" well sure i would like that but (see the above court stuff) that is something that is not completely in his control. What I do get is someone who understands that i will always love and grieve Dan, who understands that Dan will always be integrated into our lives, who gets along with Dan's family, is even willing to go on vacation with them, who is so supportive through my chronic pain condition, who is someone who argues fairly and constructively. The list goes on. There are things i wish were different, but you can't have everything, and with him i get a whole lot. I don't believe people should settle by any means but i don't think I'm settling either.

Tybec it's confusing for me as well. He says he wants to get married, and i think he does in theory but the reality is we are not married or engaged. I do feel like he wants to ask, and i don't want to take that away from him but it kind of rankles me too. I would prefer us to have a sit down and just decide it together. But when i try, it's clear that he's still in the exploratory stage. I'm aware that i could go find someone else if marriage is that important. But it's not like i want to be married for married sake; in fact i really didn't want to get remarried at all but he changed my mind. I also don't think that's realistic; it's hard finding love like this. Besides Dan didn't want to get married either. So who's to say anybody else would feel differently? At some point sometimes you have to say, it's not them, it's me. It's fine. I'm generally getting to be pretty accepting of it, except when I'm out of sorts. I do wish i had broached the subject earlier. I spent too much time early in our relationship not wanting to scare him off and i think much of that was informed by my relationship with Dan and his addiction.

Oh I've told him some time ago. I just wished I'd been more direct sooner. He knows. He just doesn't want to marry me.

I too wish I'd had this conversation sooner. I know he's thinking about marriage. I know he wants o keep moving forward. I also sense that he wants to ask. But I also don't like the loss of agency on my part that comes with that. I say I want more, and he says he does too, but I'm about ready to say, we are not on the same page with this because if we were we'd already be married.

I don't know. These dances have been very, very hard for my daughter, whose father died when she was three months old. She is six now, and what is very difficult for her is not having ANY memories or experiences with her father. None. She adores my boyfriend and her uncle but they still make her weepy. To me, if a school offers Ladies Choice as opposed to Daddy/Daughter there's a good chance it's reflective of greater sensitivity to different types of family circumstances and the emotional well being of kids in general.

I second everything Bunny said. Honestly, I don't particularly feel it's my place but throughout all your posts on this man the word that most consistently comes to mind is backburner. And since you yourself used that term maybe i can finally say it - this man doesn't seem emotionally strong enough to give you what you need. I get the custody stuff - I do- particularly the fear, after my BF was punitively treated by the Friend of the Court simply for requesting that his ex abide by the CO and for more time with his child. I get it. It takes two incredibly strong people to deal with one, the custody issues, and two, the widowhood issues. TWO people. It doesn't work if one person carries the load, by providing all the support and patience, while also having to mange their own difficulties without support. There are times i felt backburnered and I'm sure my BF has felt sidelined by my grief at times but we both work to make sure that is decreasing over time. It's a two way street. Negative behaviors and the responses to them both need to improve. I also think the fact that he would have married this person but for geography is a huge indicator of a lack of his emotional depth. If you really want to marry someone, you do whatever you can to figure out away to make it happen. Change jobs. Meet halfway. I can see choosing not to move a relationship forward because of distance but if you are truly at the point of marriage, then it's a non issue. If one of you had to move, would he just give up? I have to admit, this kind of infuriated me. That's a pretty ballsy statement for someone who has expected you to put all your wants and needs on hold while he deals with his shit.

I am so very sorry to hear this.

It varied, but with my boyfriend it was on my first date. He's told me many times since then that he was impressed with how I shared something so personal. I told my ILs when he and I started getting serious. I told my BIL and SIL first; I didn't know how any of them would react and so I called them and they were very positive. I told his parents in person. There have been some bumps in my relationships with them, but they were supportive. I sensed that it was a bit tougher for his dad, although we never discussed it and he passed away not too long after meeting my BF. Everybody is very supportive on both sides. I don't really see my own family too much so often doing things with "my side" means doing things with my ILs. BIL and BF are friendly. My BF was invited and went to BIL's Coast Guard retirement and to SIL's baby shower. My MIL buys Christmas and birthday gifts for his daughter. I think it must be hard for them. But I also think they felt so bad that I was raising a baby alone and was so miserable that hey are happy that I am more functional and have support.