Hi Needthelight,

I’m going to suggest something that sounds very cruel: Leave the man and move into a household where it is just you and your son. Yes, even if he loses his kids. And guess what, that wouldn’t happen immediately, he would have enough time to figure something out.

You can’t go wrong when you do the right thing. Your son needs a full, attentive mother. Your quasi-step children need the full attention of a parent, even if it’s from their mother. Your BF needs to get a job and be self sufficient for his children.

Don’t let guilt hold you back. Blame your partner’s drug use. His problems really aren’t yours. Only your son is yours. He is the only one that matters here when it comes to your responsibility.

Good Luck,

Inky

Dear Needthelight:

What your son told you: “I just want to live with mummy and daddy, will it come true mum?” is very touching. It makes me wonder: what is the relationship between your current boyfriend and your son, how does your boyfriend treat your son (and how does he treat his daughters?)

It also makes me wonder how did your son’s father treat him (the father is now in India, correct?)

anita

Dear Needthelight:

I think I understand the magnitude of your heartbreak over finding out that your husband at the time had a 6.5 year relationship while being married to you. Such long term betrayal is difficult to … digest, isn’t it? And then, I understand your joy at being loved in Australia by a different man, and appreciating that love very much. I also understand your guilty feelings about the idea of ending the relationship with your current boyfriend, his feelings being hurt, his daughters being involved.

In all this, there is one person who deserves the highest priority of consideration from you, and that person is your son. Out of all the people you are concerned about, your son is the only person that you brought into this life, into this world. He is the only person you are legally and ethically responsible for.

Because his relationship with his father is good, and the two of them are close, and because his father would have spent much more time with your son if you didn’t live with another man, I think it is the right choice for you to have your boyfriend and daughters move out/ separate, so to make your son’s life better. What a positive, healthy experience it would be for him to see that his wish is coming true, that his feelings and his needs are so important to you that you purposefully made the changes to accommodate those, that you care so much for him!

The decision is not easy because some people will be hurt. But your primary responsibility, far and above all responsibilities, are to your son.

anita

Dear Needthelight:

I hope you do get the courage to do what you believe is the right thing to do. Will it make it easier for you if you communicated in writing to your boyfriend that you need to live separately (instead of talking to him face to face)?

I also wonder if you can stay in contact with the boyfriend, that is, not make the separation complete- live separately, let’s say, but remain in a relationship with him? This will allow the visitations between your son and his father, will make the proposed separation easier for you to bring up… would it?

anita

Dear Needthelight:

I have a few comments about the email you sent him:

1. I believe that what is important for your son’s well being is not being able to travel once a year, to be shown the world, nor is it to go to the best private school. Being physically close to an extended family in his life is not at all necessarily a good thing for him. It is not material luxuries that will benefit your son, but relationships. What is important for your son’s well being is not for you “to show the world to him”, but for you to show your heart to him, that you see him, hear him, attend to him, feel empathy for him. And to see to it that the people you introduce into his life (strangers and family) treat him well.

2. You wrote that you want to take care of your mother- if you want to substitute taking care of your boyfriend and his daughters with taking care of your mother, I don’t know if it is such a great idea especially because as I understand it, your mother doesn’t support you (“my family in India stopped supporting me. All I had was my partner…”). Depending on who your mother is, taking care of her, in India, I suppose, may take away even more from the time and energy that your son deserves. Being back with the family who stopped supporting you may not be a good idea.

3. Financially and otherwise, supporting a man and his two daughters is a lot that you don’t have to keep doing. Like he wrote to you in response, “only you can make any decisions about those things”- a fair and honest response. He was very clear: he wants you in his life, living together, supporting him and his daughters. He wishes it wasn’t difficult for you, that you were happy, but he feels that he can’t do anything to help you more than what he is doing. He communicated clearly to you that these are your decisions to make. He didn’t try to make you feel guilty in his email response.

Looking forward to your response to this very post.

anita

Dear Needthelight:

Reading the additional information you provided in your last post, seems to me that indeed, you extricating yourself from the situation you are in: spending your time and resources, material and otherwise, on taking care of this man and his two daughters, is what you need to do. You realize it yourself but as you wrote three days ago, “I feel weak every time I think I should ask them to move on. This is my only struggle.”

In your email to him you wrote: “I need your help and not anymore guilt”- in his short email response to you he did not pressure you to stay with him via guilt or in any other way, but maybe in-person he does. I don’t know. Maybe the guilt that you feel is coming from your prior experience alone, as your mother told you, that you are just “‘repeating the same pattern in my life’ husband/ partner not working and I live in stress”- meaning you have done this before.

Where does the guilt come from then, the feeling that it is wrong for you, an offense, for you to no longer financially provide for this man and his daughters?

anita