Shouldn’t I be excited?
My soon to be husband have known one another since 8th grade. We are now 33 with twin girls together. He has two biological children, 3.5 and 5.5. I have a biological daughter who is 11. My ex and I divorced in 2015 and my fiancé and his ex divorced in 2019. They are still in the process of figuring out how to parent their children due to their oldest going into kindergarten so schedules are changing.
I am madly in love with my fiancé and the family we have made and blended. We've had our fair share of issues and from the outside it seems like we have worked through but my heart is still aching. He gives me the reassurance I need when I start to go down rabbit holes as I do for him.
Last night he told me about how his ex wife's hours were cut at work. He knew details of why she was laid off and talked to me about their break up. I want him to talk to me about everything but hearing about her rips me up inside. I'm sure he knows about her work situation due to scheduling but sometimes I wish those things weren't revealed to me. I don't care about her nor do I want to be reminded of her in my house especially when we are planning our own wedding. I don't want to talk about his first marriage.
I know I'm being immature and petty but I'm scared of being hurt and left broken. We are each other's best friends and we talk about everything.
How do I grow from this?
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I met DH when he was
I met DH when he was separated and went through his divorce with him. We ended up discussing BM waaay too much because there was so much that was unsettled. Sometimes I felt like she was a third party in our relationship (and she did what she could to keep herself present!). We were always talking about court, or BM's latest antics or whatever. Ugh, it got so tiresome.
I think it's fine to tell him that honestly, you don't want to hear about BM, other than what you need to know as someone who interacts with the kids.
He can tell it bothers me and
He can tell it bothers me and he apologizes or asks if I'm okay after he talks about her saying I'm his best friend and he has no one else to talk to but on the other hand he doesn't fill me in on the things she says about the kids. I've gotten advice of not worrying about my step kids and letting him handle it with her but they call me mom. I want to be involved. This morning my SD told me her mom told her what the best way is to scare her dad. I'm sure it's innocent but it's just hard to have to hear. She's tried to get him back last fall when she confessed to him that she made a mistake by leaving and wanted him back. It obviously didn't go anywhere but it's always at the back of the mind. I don't want to look like I'm crazy. I'm half tempted to find a therapist before I ruin things. I obviously have an underlying trust issue.
OK, calling your spouse your
OK, calling your spouse your best friend doesn't mean they want to hear about your ex. He needs to get a therapist for that if he has no friends to talk to.
These are the hazards of getting involved with a guy whose divorce isn't really settled (I did it, too - it worked out, but it wasn't fun in the early years).
I see exactly where you are
I see exactly where you are coming from. The relationship I came out of left me not being able to share my feelings in fear I'd be ridiculed and emotionally abused. I've learned to keep things and deal with things on my own. Usually it ends in me having a complete melt down which isn't healthy. At the end of the day I want my children to be taken care of and loved. I want to marry my best friend and create a healthy life together. I having a feeling in order for that to happen I need to seak out professional help.
There is a lot here that I'm
There is a lot here that I'm not sure how to piece through.
What makes you think that your BF is cheating on you? Seeing the timeline of his divorce and the fact that you now have kids together, were you two together while he was still married? If that's the case, then I could see why you feel that way.
If you didn't get together while they were married, I'm assuming you got pregnant really shortly afterwards and that your twins are very young. Could these feelings be tied to PPD, or just the stress of there now being 5 kids in the house and you not being able to handle everything (which is entirely understandable because that is a LOT of young kids)?
I also see the kids calling you "Mom" as a red flag. You aren't their mom. You can't be their mom. You'll never know everything about them, nor will you ever be 100% in the loop about things in regards to the kids. Your BF is going to forget to tell you things about the kids, especially since his divorce is so new. He's not used to having to share information about his kids, unlike how he'd be used to talking about exes with other adults.
What I'm trying to say is that things in your relationship seem to have moved very fast, and no one has had a chance to actually figure out how this family dynamic should work. You haven't had a chance to figure out how to be a SM because you're now a mom to (I assume) babies again. He hasn't learned how to be a single dad or how to co-parent with his ex. It's going to be a communication nightmare for a long time, and that's before adding on any outside factors like cheating or this relationship moving much faster due to your pregnancy with the twins.
The only way to work through this is to take a breath and figure out why this bothers you and why you think he's cheating. Is it issues in the relationship? Issues with your past and being able to trust? Post-partum depression? Low self-esteem? Stress? Incompatible communication styles? Each of those reasons has a different approach to fixing it.
Start with finding the root cause, or causes. You can't find aa solution until you identify the problem.
Yes we were dating before his
Yes we were dating before his divorce was finalized. Yes my twins are almost six months old. We got pregnant very quickly. I have very low self esteem and have never loved or been in love like I am now. I'm afraid of losing him. We had one little run in with social media that was resolved on the outside but Inside I'm struggling.
As far as the kids calling me mom it was on their own accord. It was not forced upon them by anyone. Sometimes they call me by my first name and that's fine too. It's what makes them comfortable.
at the end of the day I feel like I'm making this harder on myself. He has proven himself worthy of trust I just have a hard time not accusing him in my head.
Were you dating before he and
Were you dating before he and his ex split?
I don't hold to the philosophy that "once a cheater, always a cheater". I also don't think cheating is the biggest sin someone can commit in a marriage. But, cheating isn't a healthy behavior. Neither is swiftly moving from one relationship to the next, especially if the next results quickly in kids.
You and your BF would likely do well with some therapy, both individual and as a couple. He has had zero time to recover from his divorce, and zero time to learn how to co-parent. He needs to examine his own behaviors that led to the downfall of his first marriage before moving on to a second marriage with you.
You need to work through your self-esteem issues. No one is ever going to love you enough to fill the hole that comes from not loving yourself. You also have to be okay with the possibility of this, or any, relationship not working out and be able to not attribute it to you being a bad person unworthy of love.
Honest advice? Pump the brakes on the wedding. There is enough going on in the relationship as-is that doesn't need the added pressure that a wedding and marriage brings. If you think he's cheating on you, even if he's not, that's enough reason alone to not walk down the aisle.
Also, the kids calling you "Mom" even on their own is too much right now for them. They're dealing with their own trauma from their parents getting divorced and blending into a new family and getting new siblings. Calling you "Mom" may feel good to you, but it's a very weighty word for those young kids. It means more than just a title. You can kindly correct them by coming up with another nickname for you.
2 cents
I agree with a lot that's been said above! Being a best friend and romantic partner doesn't mean you need to hear EVERYTHING. Though, given your insecurities, perhaps that's better than feeling like he's hiding something? Though I do agree that it sounds like he still needs time to recover from his first marriage and that therapy for you two as individuals and as a couple could give you lots of support in figuring out these difficult parts. And someone else already said it, but if you haven't put down non-refundable deposits or something, slow down on wedding plans. Marriage won't fix these issues; it'll likely just make them worse. And every stage of a relationship is worth enjoying, so slow down, learn good things at this part, let everyone adjust for a minute. You can't fast forward to a happy ending, so stick with some baby steps rather than sprinting.
And I agree about kids calling you mom. I correct my skids when they call me that. I'm NOT THEIR MOM. That's a specific and unique relationship, even if it's a fraught one, but I'm for sure not it. My DS's SM and I also talked about this and agreed to correct any accidental mom's to her until DS is old enough to really understand and decide if he even wants to call her "stepmom" rather than her first name or a nickname. But you can't be that for them. That's their BM. Even if she sucks.