I like this forum, it’s helping me keep strong, Des thanks so much for your post about your experiences. Like you for the first few days after our last break up I felt a weight had been lifted; I had so much faith in my future.
Then I became upset; I’d never find anyone else, I felt so lonely, had I done the right thing, what about all the good times we had. I spoke to a mutual friend and told her about the break up and she was like he thinks the world of you, you are so good together, you shouldn’t feel as you do, everything will work out. This friend and her husband and kids are very close to us.
So we got back together and here I am 4 weeks on regretting it, tomorrow his dad is going to have a major operation for his advanced cancer.
When I met him and he told me he still lived at home (at age 42) these huge alarm bells went off in my head, I remember the moment clearly but I liked him, he was a genuine nice guy and I thought I could fix that.
We took the early days of our relationship very slowly, after a year or so he had moved in and I was very happy with the arrangement. He didn’t move his stuff in (as my flat is tiny) and his mum still wanted to do his washing & ironing, so I had no chores. He didn’t pay any rent bc he is on appalling pay (he works for the family business) and I just rolled with it as he’s such a nice bloke and I loved him.
The first Christmas, his Mum says ‘are u sure u want to get involved, a close family member has been in prison’. I should of realised way back that his Mum wasn’t prepared to let him go, she was trying to push me away and has been doing so ever since (he’d been single for 20 years before me). Going out with his parents became an emotional ordeal for me due to her name calling but I kept on giving her the benefit of the doubt, it’s her age, her diabetes, just the way she is. Out of respect I hardly ever answered back. One time I invited his parents to my flat for dinner, she sat there and was critical of most things and I decided here and then never again will I have them round. My partner has 4 financial outgoings, his leisure/socialising money, he pays my flat electricity, he now pays a token rent to me and pays half our food costs – everything else is paid via the family business (i.e. car costs, phone bills). He has it so easy why would he want anything to change.
So I reckon he is non-committal about us bc he doesn’t really need our relationship bc he hasn’t broke the bond with his parents so he doesn’t really need my love. He probably isn’t emotionally available as he has a co-dependency with his parents, actually his co-dependency is to his Mum (he is a only child). Last night I talked to him and told him when he tells me he can’t see his life without me that I don’t believe it as he has done nothing in the last five years to help build US. I told him I had been in love before and I knew that romantic times and cuddles did not build a relationship. I told him that by making no decisions he had actually made a decision that said to me he didn’t care about building US, he was happy with the way things were. I told him if he loved me truly, he must tell me how the future is going to be, he can’t keep on stringing me along.
I asked my partner will he carry on working for the family business (which is on the same grounds as the family home) being paid peanuts and supporting his parents until the day they are gone, I asked when would our life begin. I said I would not wait around for him; that the only way I could feel his number 1 (which is what I deserve to be) is if he asked them to sell the family home and business, he got a proper job and he moved them to a place where they would be less of a responsibility to him (i.e. near a bus route, near the supermarket, near the doctors & hospital, near other people). The family home is an out of town 4 bed bungalow with an acre of garden, his parents are in their mid 70’s and soon this will be too much for them. I won’t push for an answer to this as he doesn’t need it when his dad is so ill but I need to be told that I am not leaving a relationship where he may put me first.
I’m writing this and calling myself a fool, I should of not got back with him, I should not have listened to our mutual friend who’s bias was for him to be happy as she is primarily his friend.
Do I walk away now beating myself up because I was cruel and I couldn’t support him when his dad was ill? Has fate brought us back together bc I need to be there for him at this time? I’m on a road not of my choosing and I feel lost.