Maybe it's PMS LOL but I'm so stuck in a rut right now, emotionally drained and not sure which way to turn.

Been with my boyfriend for almost 4 years. He has 2 kids (10 and 11) who are at his house every other weekend, plus every day they have off of school, spring break, multiple weeks during the summer, the entire Christmas break, etc. When we met he only had the kids every other weekend. I would not have agreed to date him if I knew at that time that he had his kids nearly 50% of the time. Unfortunately now it's too late because we fell in love.

We don't live together and I can't move into his place because I feel like an outsider and a second choice behind his kids which I have a problem dealing with. Yes, I know that most parents are going to put their kids first but my feeling is that a couple in a long term relationship or married should make up 1 whole unit and face the world together and everything else should kind of orbit around this 1 unit. The kids will be grown eventually and if this 1 whole unit does not exist, there isn't much left when it really is just us. When in a single dad situation, I feel as if my BF and his kids make up this whole unit, and I'm on the outside looking in, only getting a piece of him whenever his little planet happens to orbit mine. I have tried many times over the last 4 years to make us a 1 blended family unit where we make all decisions together and maybe eventually work towards marriage, but only received resistance in return. Therefore I cannot see myself moving the relationship forward by moving in and/or getting married with this issue hanging out there. Without going into a lot of detail, it's all similar to what others go through....visitation times, ex wife issues, discipline and structure for the kids, etc. I also just recently found out that now my BF is keeping things from me instead of telling me everything just to keep the peace as he doesn't want to make me mad. Luckily I'm pretty damn smart and he's just a bad liar so I figure it out most of the time, but I do feel a sense of deception as well. Unwarranted maybe since I don't live with him, but still a terrible feeling in any sense.

Yes, I also know that breaking up is an option, but neither of us want to break up. We are good together with everything else and the grass is not greener on the other side. All couples have issues, it's just learning how to deal with those issues to make for a peaceful existence with each other.

So here I sit in my own house lonely, either trying to figure out how to change myself to just let the issues with his kids and his ex blow over my head and adopt the "not my kid" attitude and move in to spend more time together but be miserable when they are there, or continue to live this separate life indefinitely in hopes that once the kids get older things would get better. I go to bed alone every night and only get to actually spend time with my partner about 2-3 hours a day. We also both work from home, so there is plenty more time to be spent together if we lived in 1 household. I just have this gnawing sense of despair about the whole situation in feeling that I am not as important to him as his "other life" versus whether this is really true or just how I feel due to the choices that he makes.

I'm not sure there really is a answer for this problem, but just needed to put it out there in a blog post to get my feelings out in writing and see if anyone else had any advice.