I'm still here.

Still reading..
Seeing a counselor every other week...
WBF wants to be "friends" with me, and said that is what we have missed in this entire relationship of 18 years together. That somehow we have put our children first before us. I agree, it's always been about the kids and never about us. We were never friends...maybe that is why he never wanted marriage or to commit to me. Starting to believe that with him, friendship is one of his top emotional needs.

This WHOLE relationship needs a new beginning. It needs a marriage to happen. I'm throwing out everything that has been on my mind in the last few weeks since I found this forum. I really need to do a good Plan A with him..especially now since he's finally told me what was missing in our relationship.

I have thought about moving out of the house for at least 6 mos.

Thanks for the recommendation on the book, I will see if I can find it.

So how do you be friends with someone that you have lived with for 18 years and had children with? Such a stupid question but I really think that's where we need to start over.

I have the link for PlanA--someone posted it awhile back in my thread. Printing it out today. My Plan A is going to have to go on longer than a week or two...and be mixed with establishing a friendship with him.

I would like to see if I can edit the thread title...Who can I contact for that?

Sorry to everyone for misleading you about my situation. Somehow I thought that it was okay to be the Goldie and Kurt (Hawn and Russell) among our friends. As we watched almost every single one of our friends marry and divorce during mine and SO's relationship, I used to say to him "we are lasting longer than our friends marriages!" So much for that!

Plan A is all about showing you got the stuff he wants. Since he is involved with other contenders for his needs....you will have to put on your best game and also try to figure out his needs from your historical involvement with him.

Friendship per se is not one of the emotional needs. There are ten of them and five emotional needs are HIS more important five and five are your most important five.

The emotional needs being met makes the friendship better.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3300_needs.html

Wanted to answer your questions. (In the early years of relationship.) Honestly...no money, no family to help me, nowhere to go, no job, stay at home mom, career but no career because I left it all in another state when I moved here to be with the father of my child. He begged me not to leave him, told me he would marry me if I didn't leave him. Maybe I should have taken him up on that offer.



It all sounds crazy...but I didn't want to juggle my kids around to all the different states he would work in. I wanted to be the home base that he would come home to. It worked for us. I have worked since I was 15 years old. I was looking forward to being a stay at home mom and being taken care of, no bills, everything I ever wanted or the kids needed. I had a daughter from another marriage, whose father refused to pay child support. Even with court orders and jailtime, he wouldn't pay. BF/SO stepped in and became a father to my daughter in place of the deadbeat other dad. He did everything for us and for a child that wasn't his.

I loved him, he loved me. We never fought. He had issues with being married...said he saw his father leave his mother and an aunt and uncle that had a messy divorce and he didn't want any part of that. I wanted marriage...I made him buy me a ring and wore it all the time. I was young when I met him, I didn't know how to get a man to marry you, and probably at the time figured that he would eventually grow up and want to marry me. Marriage wasn't a priority to me with him. I did not want to go through another divorce. I thought if it made him happy being as we were, that my kids would have a happy home and not have to deal with parents who were not together. I didn't want to throw out ultimatums or force him to marry me, so I stayed away from the subject most of the time together.
Most likely extreme low self esteem. Or possible addiction to this man. It's my comfort zone, safety net...you name it.

My counselor says it's because as a 14 year old teenager, I watched my mother cheat on my father...then had my mother brainwash me into going to live with her away from my dad while she carried on her affair. My mother took me out one night with her and her OM, where her OM tried to buy me anything I wanted just so I would accept him. She used to leave my brother and I out in the car while she went in the bar to have a drink with her OM. Then my dad found a girlriend while my mom was still having her affair, yet my mother took me with her while we drove around neighborhoods and sat outside of my dads girlfriends house to see if my dad was there. I come from a really screwed up family of cheating...and to be only 14 years old and see that happen. Then FF 20 years after that and my dad cheats on my mom. My counselor says that my mind accepts it because of what happened to me as a kid.

My counselor also says that what happened to my BF/SO is what is causing him to do what he is doing. When he was 3 years old, his father used to beat up his mother and leave her to go cheat on her with lots of other women. He finally left her and his two sons indefinitely and never came back into their lives until my BF/SO was in his mid 20's. Counselor says my BF/SO is not dealing with his abandonment issues that his dad put upon him as a young child. He says that BF/SO needs counseling stat...or he will never change.

The counselor says that both of us coming from such screwed up families (he didn't say it like that) that we have such a dysfunctional of looking at marriage, cheating, etc. He says we are re-living our parents lives in some ways.

Hmm, okay that is interesting...and it makes sense. I have read the emotional needs thing before. I will re-read it. BF/SO keeps talking about how the OW is "his friend"...and she was there when he need that friendship.

One night he was telling me that, one day when he needed me, that I wasn't there for him (I was working)...he said that I would go hours in between texts...when all he wanted was someone to answer him back right away. Even if it was a quick "Hey, how's your day going?" Well I would be busy doing haircuts and wouldn't even look at my phone...so he would text OW and of course because she's 62 and a filthy rich, she had nothing better to do than answer his texts right away. She swooped in and snatched him up.

One of the biggest emotional needs the OW is meeting for him is conversation.
She always tells him how great he is and how important he is to her and how she is proud of them as a couple etc. She sits around all day and will talk to him about politics, sports, construction, his job, him...She strokes his ego pretty good. I have always been resistant to too much ego stroking...maybe that is where I went wrong.
I can't hold a conversation with him about sports or politics. I really could care less about politics. Sports are okay,,,but again...don't really know that much about sports. He says that we have NOTHING in common except our children. Yes, I have tried many times to have things in common with him. I have wanted him to take me and teach me to golf so that he had someone to golf with, instead he would say "I don't have the patience to teach you". Then I would say "Hey, let's go to a sports bar and watch the game and have a beer"...and he would reply "no, I'm not in the mood to have a beer, and we can watch the game at home...I don't want to hang out in a bar". Or I would say "Hey, let's go to a movie just you and I"...he would say "Oh but we can't leave little DD14 home alone, let's take her with".

So I have tried having a friendship with him based on some things I thought he would like to do and he shut me down. Yet, guess who he goes to sports bars to have a beer and watch the game with now.

We talked some last night, and I brought these things up and tried to point out how he never wanted to do those things with me alone...yet OW gets him all to herself without children to bug them. I can't meet emotional needs if he won't let me. He said that I was meeting his emotional needs as being part of the family with the kids. I wanted alone time with him, he wanted to always include our girls.

You are getting good inklings of how to try to meet his true emotional needs for plan A!

Sounds like
conversation
and
admiration
are a couple needs of his......now...might be that admiration isn't a top one....really think over the ten and try to gauge the most important five and address each, creatively and confidently....even though you are not feeling confident.....move in that direction boldly.

Text HIM during the day, night, whenever.

"How exciting about all the riots in the middle East! ______ really is having a time of holding onto power right now...etc" (start reading online reports of various political news things,etc if that is a passion of his)

"Saw you made the bed....thanks dear"

You go off and learn some golf as a new hobby just because. You might play with him in the future, might not.....it can be a pastime for you to focus on the skills and the older kids can hopefully help care for the house and any younger kids while you do go out and learn.

Offer admiration "I am so proud of how you financially support our family" "I admire how you ______" etc.

Craft a life where you have time to do things while your kids are cared for. Ask WSO to go along with you but if he doesn't....you still go! Show that you are a big girl gosh darn it.

Trista! I'm so glad you're still posting. Do you know now (based on what you've told us about your families) that possibly your views on marriage could be a little skewed? It is possible to fix all of this, which would be awesome for your children.

Please get that book and maybe even if you get to that point with your WSO, he'll read it too and see just how important that piece of paper really is. In the meantime, keep working on your Plan A-like behaviors, but understand Plan A isn't necessarily about meeting ALL his needs (if you get my drift) but that you're willing to if he makes things right. Also, keep in the back of your mind that you're not going back to the pre-A relationship. You want the whole ball of wax. Don't settle for anything less.

One of my favorite flirty texts is: "I heard that aliens have landed and they're kidnapping all the beautiful people. I'm gonna miss you." See, that can be taken two ways... are you talking about him or yourself? Lol

Keep working on this. Sounds like you're beginning to get things worked out in your heart. Stick around and keep growing.

Even moreso I suggest going forward with Plan B and a Plan B letter which includes marriage as a condition of reconciliation.

Considering how long this has gone on...if there isn't a definitive line drawn in the sand (a boundary of what you'll accept in order for YOU to continue participation in the relationship) then he ain't stopping. He's got a cougar girlfriend with money to blow on him AND a family.

I'm far enough down the road to not be mad at you about deceiving us here. I'm more bothered FOR YOU than at you. MB isn't likely to be to effective for you until you get married.

Mr. Wondering

p.s.- since you aren't married...I'd consider going to dark Plan B AND actively pursuing a few casual dates which somehow innocently get leaked to him by someone. It's manipulative but could be effective. He doesn't mind having his cake and eating it too...but the thought of permanently losing his cake to another suitor may bother him and increase the perceived value of said "cake". Who knows...in the process you MAY meet someone that values you a whole lot more than this guy seems to.

Mr. Wondering, thank you for your reply. I really do appreciate it

Well Plan A is only going to last up until he goes on the trip to Costa Rica. I talked to him Sunday night and asked if he was still going. He told me, "some days I don't want to, and other days I do, but if you asked me right now what my answer would be, then I would say YES I am going."

I then asked him "why? If you aren't 100% sure you want to go, then why would you? He said 'because the tickets are already bought and paid for, and...her family already knows I am coming and they are expecting me to be there."

I don't even know if I should still say something to her family before he goes? Being as though I can't say, I'm the wife? Any ideas on how it should be worded?

My Plan B will be dark, but it's not going to be while I stay in his house. My Plan B is different, considering no marriage vows etc. so I am moving out. I will have everything packed and ready to go. This may be his house, but there won't be a home here any longer. Just a bunch of bare walls.