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mcongdon18
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At a loss...
This may be long. I feel as though in my relationship I have exhausted every other option, we've been together almost a year and I'm 5 months pregnant. This pregnancy was prevented but apparently our son really wanted to be here. I own my own house( paid cash) and I have a great job and do pretty good for myself. My boyfriend on the other hand has a seasonal job and does not do as good money wise. He works very hard but it's not even enough for him to live off of. This pregnancy was sudden and I had a lot of complications in the beginning. I've learned his mother is completely over-baring and use to having a comment on everything. My family is just not like that. Heres the thing, in the beginning I paid for all the home bills and took care of all of the cleaning, basically he got to work and come home and be taken care of. Now since I've had to work part time, he's just now paying half of these bills. Not helping out with cleaning but helping with his half. He complains about the amount he pays in gas to go to work, he complains about dog hair yet refuses to help vacuum, he complains the house isn't clean enough. Example: took a day to deep clean, he came home and said, nice but you really should have been packing. this week I finished all of our packing and he said, "you got a lot done? Doesn't look like it". I'm exhausted. I've told him firmly im clean but I'm not ocd clean, if he needs that, maybe he should go find it because I'm not changing and he needs to accept me . He instantly got mad and said oh you just want me to leave?!? I told him if I'm going to be constantly not picked than he needed to figure that out himself.. I'm told I work too much, I'm told I'm "too independent" and thus stubborn because I don't accept help from His parents.
Fast forward to the house we looked at, his parents thought it would be a great option to buy instead of rent, which yes but not really reality for our situation. We are not married but have discussed after the baby comes we will plan on it. This house is very expensive, it's gorgoues BUT told him we would need to talk about it. I gave it a few days to stew and realized I'm just comfortable not being married and buying a house, (I would be putting most of down payment down and his parents would probably have to consign for us). I told him nicely that at this time I still think it's best to sell my home, and rent for a year, get married than buy. I told him if we were to get engaged then *maybe* I could feel like there's more commitment and plans in place for such a big purchase, if that was out of the question renting was totally fine and probably the best route, no hard feelings. He started lecturing about this child being commitment and what more commitment do I want? Where does he have money for an engagement ring? And what do I want? An engagement ring? A Mercedes Benz? I just shut the conversation down and we didn't speak the rest of the night. The next day he won't stop texting me about "me wanting too much", again I explained its black and white and I have no problem renting, and that I'm "stressing him out". He says he'll marry me one day and that should be good enough.
Even trying to find a place to rent was a nightmare, it has to be in a certain area (granted I will be commuting an hour) and have a garage, indoor laundry, the list goes on... Now that he's paying half of the bills that he should rightfully pay he thinks all the sudden he's doing so much. He has never lived on his own before, he was with his parents and moved in with me, he's 25 and I can't help but feel like I'm with a man child with zero life experience. He did apply for a better job, he can be loving and he does go to all of my doctors appointments and have some great qualities. I'm making a counseling appointment for myself and asking he will go, if he doesn't I'm going to ask him to move out.. I just don't even know if counseling can save this...someone who has zero life experience and zero concept of how things work in life. How do you stick this one out?
Fast forward to the house we looked at, his parents thought it would be a great option to buy instead of rent, which yes but not really reality for our situation. We are not married but have discussed after the baby comes we will plan on it. This house is very expensive, it's gorgoues BUT told him we would need to talk about it. I gave it a few days to stew and realized I'm just comfortable not being married and buying a house, (I would be putting most of down payment down and his parents would probably have to consign for us). I told him nicely that at this time I still think it's best to sell my home, and rent for a year, get married than buy. I told him if we were to get engaged then *maybe* I could feel like there's more commitment and plans in place for such a big purchase, if that was out of the question renting was totally fine and probably the best route, no hard feelings. He started lecturing about this child being commitment and what more commitment do I want? Where does he have money for an engagement ring? And what do I want? An engagement ring? A Mercedes Benz? I just shut the conversation down and we didn't speak the rest of the night. The next day he won't stop texting me about "me wanting too much", again I explained its black and white and I have no problem renting, and that I'm "stressing him out". He says he'll marry me one day and that should be good enough.
Even trying to find a place to rent was a nightmare, it has to be in a certain area (granted I will be commuting an hour) and have a garage, indoor laundry, the list goes on... Now that he's paying half of the bills that he should rightfully pay he thinks all the sudden he's doing so much. He has never lived on his own before, he was with his parents and moved in with me, he's 25 and I can't help but feel like I'm with a man child with zero life experience. He did apply for a better job, he can be loving and he does go to all of my doctors appointments and have some great qualities. I'm making a counseling appointment for myself and asking he will go, if he doesn't I'm going to ask him to move out.. I just don't even know if counseling can save this...someone who has zero life experience and zero concept of how things work in life. How do you stick this one out?
Re: At a loss...
Thank you for taking the time to answer everything, when we "got serious", everything was way different and clearly we moved too fast and he got too comfortable as me playing his mom and not his equal. His job is seasonal but last year they asked him to stay the full year, this year he is hoping the same. The house is a horrible idea, I threw that in there to show his mind set. He's clearly a man child and thinks just because we have a unplanned child now, we are clearly bound together. Not true. With the packing it was all the stuff in our home because either together or not I need to move from current area. His days off he packs maybe 3 boxes and drinks beers and does Netflix and that's suppose to suffice. My biggest question was trying to save this somehow by counseling, hoping someone will tell him to grow up, how wrong he is, the way he talks to me. I would love for my child to have two parents together but I just don't even know if counseling can save this..
And even if you decide to go your separate ways, what kind of a father will he be?
This is tough ---sorry to hear about your troubles.
Isn't this the *idea* of living together -- to see what it really is like to live with that person and if it turns out you are not suitable for each other, you both say goodbye?
Perhaps you should look at it that way.
As far as employment for him goes, neither you nor he can live on a lick and a promise. (I had a boss who had me in the same kind of spot with my first job --- I was too young to know better -- didn't hire me full time straight away and the only hours I got were these part time and per diem hours...until I went to work full time 11pm-7am for the facility. In essence, I should have told Jerry the boss to take a walk and sought full time employment elsewhere, instead of taking his per diem hours) I don't know what he is by trade. What happened to that job? didn't he go to college?
I don't know if this guy will ever grow up. neither do you and I do not think you should take a chance trying to find out if or when he will.
If he cannot talk to you like you're the greatest woman in the world?
Forget it. He ain't worth your big toe.
You've lost nothing here.
He needs to go out on his own. REALLY on his own and learn about life. How to take care of himself, his home, etc. As long as you're there, clearly he's going to expect you to do it all.
Don't force this to work just because your PG. You can still successfully co-parent while not being together.
Being like a mother to him is very unhealthy.
This borders on a codependency: you have a lazy schoolboy there --- and what can he offer you right now?
If it was as such that you could not work after the kiddo came along or you decided you want to be a homemaker, can this guy provide for you and a baby?
If something happened where you lost your job, could he provide for 3 people?
Ask yourself that.
As I said, the whole idea of living with somebody is to see if they can cut it with you on a day in day out basis: he cannot do that. Like I said, say your goodbye to him and go, based on the fact that he's a poor choice for a partner. He cannot do the job.
If this is any consolation to you, I have a friend who was married and they had 3 kids.
The kids were 14, 12 and 4 when they got divorced.
She says that she and her now xH get along better than ever now they are divorced.
If anything, he was dependable with salary and has a fantastic job as a software engineer --- in lieu of child support, he paid the rent on a very nice home for the 4 of them to stay in. it worked out to be a better deal than typical child support for 3 kids.
If I were in your position, I wouldn't buy a home with him under no circumstances at this time. Because if you do & you split up before marriage, it will make things more complicated. You also don't want to have his parents involved in the housing issue at all because they they will always be butting in & giving their 2 cents on everything you do to the house. I would try to find a place be it an apartment or house that you can afford to rent on your own. Ideally if you could stay in your current home I would recommend that. If you have the space, stay. If the school district is the reason for moving, that can wait a few years as long as you have decent child care either near home or work. Reason being is, you know you can afford this place on your own right now, if he leaves, you have a place you can continue to live.
Counseling may not be a bad idea to help you guys to understand the expecitations of each other and how to better communication to each other your needs.
What I would avoid totally right now is getting married or talking about marriage. You guys moved quickly and now have a baby on the way. I think you need to continue to see where this relationship goes without being legally bound by marriage or a house. I understand wanting to give the relationship a chance for the sake of the child. But at some point you have to ask yourself, am I better off as a single parent who is happy, or to stay with him and be unhappy. Two parents who can co-parent but live separate and happy lives is better then two parents in the same household who fight all the time. Keep in mind, however the relationship is between the two of you, your son will think is normal.
Now for what type of father he will be, only time will tell. But what is important right now is to figure out, how he is as a significant other. Are you happy with how he is treating? Can you continue to deal with his mother for the rest of your life? Would you want your son treating a women the way his father is treating you, because he will learn by example
I'm not saying break up with him (but I probably would if he didn't change). You need to have a heart to heart talk to him about what his expectations are in regards to the man vs women roles in the household. He probably grew up in a household where his mom did everything and maybe his dad didn't pay her many compliements (learned by example of what he saw growing up). And you need to tell him what you would like to see happening in the house. And if you can't come to an agreement on those things, and how to handle your current financial issues, then it's probably time to have the talk about, you're a nice guy, I'm sure you'll be a great father, but I don't think we're right for each other so let's try to be friends and raise a wonderful son as parents and friends who live seperately and want whats best for our son. Would being a single parent be hard, hell yes, but you'll only have one baby to deal with instead of two.
Then down the road, you can deal with the issues about how he is as a father. Try to keep the lines of communication open with his mom with updates on the baby (assuming you guys split) so that she can see you have no intentions of denying her access to her grandchild. Why should you do this, if she is happy with getting to see her grandson & be a part of his live (assuming she wants that) then hopefully she will be less likely to put thoughts in his head about you being a bad mom and how he should fight you for full custody of the baby, and making things ugly between you and him.