If you think about it though… when you take away the pressures of real life and go have a fun weekend, you can have fun with literally almost anyone that you get along with. That’s why everything feels so great when people first start dating, whether they’re dating the right person for them or not. They’re just off having fun adventures together. It’s how you feel and how you react together during the real life pressures that matters because that is what is happening the majority of the time.

This is true, but when one gets home from a trip or vacation when you get home you’re not supposed to feel like you are coming home to a prison. Home should be home.  Any other times i’ve gone on trips or anything, when I got home it was relaxing.  It feels like when i go home I’m going to a stressful environment.  It’s not like that 100% of the time, but most of the time.

So last night my 12 year old wanted to talk again.  She really hit hard.  She told me that we don’t feel like a family.  That she doesn’t like coming over or being there because she doesn’t feel like she knows me anymore.  This had nothing to do with my girlfriend or her kids this time.  She told me she has felt this way for a long time.  That I don’t listen to her, and that i put others  in front of her (in so many words).  WOW!  This really opened up my eyes.  Talk about feeling like a bad father.  She was crying, i was teary eyed.  My 12 year old shouldn’t be feeling like she has to talk to me about this kind of stuff.  She should be a kid!  She even said, sometimes she feels like the grown up.  She said she loves my girlfriend and her kids more than the world.  This all had to do with me.  She said that since my ex left, I have been different.  I told her that I was sorry and she was right.  I did change.  I told her I don’t expect her to understand, that I don’t fully understand myself.  I told her that when my ex left.  It hurt me deeply and it felt like she took the best part of me with her.  That I am working on bettering myself and that I can’t fix this overnight, it will take time.  I told her that i need her to write me a list of 20 things that she likes to do.  Anything from riding quads to as simple as snuggling together just watching a tv show with her daddy or going for a walk.  So we can start doing things together.  I realized last night, that I don’t know her anymore either.

The reason I told you this is because in my journey to learn about myself and better myself.  I guess i’ve never really understood or believed what some people have told me before.  That a lot of the time, I do think about myself.  Not in a purposeful way, just that I have so much unresolved feelings and conflict in myself that I do get stuck in the past sometimes and only think about what I need.  That in my journey i have been so focused on myself that i have neglected my daughters where it counts the most.  It really made my think about everything.  About how I behave when things go bad.  I hate bringing this up, but yes I will.  It made me think about why my ex did leave me.  She told me after she left that it was “all about me”.  I thought, bullshit.  all i have done is try to be there and help and listen.  When in fact she is right.  When things were great, i was great.  When things started to get bumpy in her life and she couldn’t give me the attention she had done before because of other things in her life needing it.  I did get selfish and “poopy”.  Instead of seeing what she needed from me, I only saw what I needed and only thought about my self, not what she really needed at that time.  I realized I have done the same thing with my girlfriend now and most importantly with my daughters ever since my ex or even before my ex and I officially broke up.  I’ve always thought I was doing good and providing.  But last night, I realized it’s not about just providing.  It’s being there in the little ways.  In any relationship.  Father daughter, Man and girlfriend, whatever. I really need to figure out my shit.

One other  thing my daughter said is that when we are alone or away from the house, I act like I used to.  The dad that she did know, and as soon as we get home I change.

Well Everything is coming to a head for me.  I think after this weekend I am going to talk to my girlfriend.  Because when i told  her this last night, at first she got upset, like my daughter is just over exaggerating and such to get attention.  So what if she is!  That means that she is reaching out to me.  She has never reached out like this before, so something  is wrong and I need to address it before it gets worse.

Side note, my girlfriend got that job, for a whopping $12.63 per hour.  supposedly after 3 months she is eligible for a raise though.  She starts march 6th or something like that.

So back to my talk.  I’m thinking of telling her that I have been feeling a lot of guilt lately.  That I feel like because of me, she lost her place to live for cheap, had to relocate her family, lost her immediate help with her family, and with her last job where she was making good money, lost that because I was having a hard time being able to raise all the kids on my own 5 nights a week.  That I feel like I don’t give her what she needs.  Not because I don’t want to, but because I’m not in a place within myself to.

That I have done wrong things to her by talking to my ex repeatedly after I told her I wasn’t, and that has caused a lot of guilt in me and jealously and questions with her(my girlfriend).  That I understand that when my phone gives me an alert that it will raise a question in her, but for this to work.  I need her to trust me.  Not question me.  And give me my privacy.  This means not snooping on my things.  As partners we are supposed to share everything, but we also  need privacy as well.  And that there are times when I don’t need to hear an opinion or anything, that maybe I just need to talk or vent.  And that I do the same thing with her sometimes, and I need to work on that myself.  That I need to focus on myself and learning who I am again and being the man and father I once was again.  Instead of just being a ghost in the house that just provides a roof and food.  That I do need  time with just me and my girls, whatever it is we are doing without judgement from her(my girlfriend).  That i’m afraid to plan any time with my daughters because i’m just going to get the third degree about it and how my daughter is just taking advantage of the situation.  And foremost, I need to stop hearing about my daughters mother and her partner and how everything is “great” over there with the kids, but why isn’t she(my girlfriend) excepted that way.

side note.  My girlfriend was all butt hurt about something the other day with my oldest and my grandson.  She said “I’m just as much as a mother as your ex-wife was”  Why does she call her mom?  Got really jealous and pissed because my oldest is closer and treats my ex-wife differently.  That really bothered me.  My ex-wife has known my 24 yr old daughter since she has been 4 years old and went through all the heart ache and heart break with me and her.  My oldest daughters mother was one of those mothers that made it impossible for me to see my daughter on my weekends.  Long story short, throughout my daughters life until she was 17, i never knew if i was going to see her or not.  Even her mothers parents didn’t understand.  My ex-wife was there for me and her through all of this and they became very close because of it.  Enough so that my daughter calls my ex-wife mom as well.

My girlfriend thinks “I’ve been in your life for a year, so should be just as close or whatever”   That really bothers me.

I don’t know how to say or approach a lot of issues I am having without her getting defensive or hurt.  I do want to tell her that sometimes, I think we would be better off apart.  At least for now.  But how do i say that?  How do i bring that up?  She doesn’t make enough to live on her own and I don’t think she really has anywhere to go.  Her parents do have two spare rooms, however that hasn’t worked in the past and they have a hard time with her son, even when we just visit for a bit.

I really think what’s messed up about all of this, but also brings  a lot to light, is that I think my ex was dealing with a lot of the same or similar emotions with me in the end, and just didn’t know how to tell me without hurting me.  Kind of the same deal as me and my girlfriend now.  This is very ironic and crazy too me.  And enlightening in  a weird way.  just bizarre.

Well, i hate to cut off, but i have to go.  i will continue tomorrow…