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Blended Families
Karma1969
member
Totally not a flame but does anyone else wonder
Karma1969
member
how their DH could have been with someone who turned out to be so awful? I see so many people here that have such issues with the BM. I know that some things you don't really ever know completely until you marry someone, like if they become an addict, violent, onset of a mental illness, etc.
In my case the BM is pretty normal, no real issues. She offered congrats when we got engaged, bought us a bag of presents when Jacob was born, called a few times to see how I was doing since she is a labor/delivery nurse and I had complications from my c/s. She is also very agreeable about parenting time (we can get SS when ever we want) and seems appreciative when my DH does more than what the CO states.
The reason that they failed as a couple was that she became born again and my DH is Jewish and wouldn't convert. They both admit to that. Since then she actually dropped out of church for the most part though.
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Re: Totally not a flame but does anyone else wonder
how their DH could have been with someone who turned out to be so awful?
oh lord, YES! I wonder that frequently. Although I'll give DH this, if you don't know BM, she comes across as perfectly nice and sweet and all that stuff. But the more you get to know her, the crazy side starts to pop out. I know DH tried to leave her a few times and twice she told him she was pregnant so he he went back, so I'll give him a little props for trying to do what he thought was the right thing but on the other hand...if you were going to leave someone then stop sleeping with them!!! I love DH to death but damn I find myself looking at him sometimes (when we're in the middle of dealing with BM being super nut-so) and think to myself "really, baby?" WOW.
LOL - DH and I were just talking about this the other day. His ex can be a ravinglunaticbitch and he is the calmest person I have ever met. Seriously - I've never heard him raise his voice...ever. They met in high school and dated off and on during college. I think they got married because it was the next logical step.
Her ability to fly off the handle has only gotten worse with age, so I'm sure it wasn't this bad when they were younger. We just had to deal with one of her meltdowns last week when she realized that her daughter's first homecoming dance was next weekend, and she will be with us. Holy cow - she went balistic!! If she had just calmly asked if SD could get ready for the dance at her house a couple of hours before the dance, DH would've said, "no problem". Instead, she has to come at everything fighting, so she loses the ability to settle things calmly. It's like a bomb goes off! After all this finally settled down, I asked him, "How in the world did you two ever get together in the first place?!" Sheesh.
In the begining I wondered this all the time. I have no idea what he saw in her besides his best friend was dating her best friend and it was convienent. He stayed with her as a means of coping when his mother passed away. They failed (and failed and failed again for the final time) when she refused to work and wanted him to support her while she went out 3 or 4 nights a week.
And guess what? She's at it again, new husband she met a month earlier and she's now pregnant and not working. We actually feel sorry for her new DH.
DH and BM were very young. She was 16 when she met him and he was 21 - he thought she was very pretty but too young and her aunt (who she was living with at the time) didn't want them to be together. BM tried to committ suicide and aunt sent her back to her mother. 2 years later she moved back and they met again - conincidentally. She went after him with a vengence (she thought she loved him) and she got pregnant and he wanted to do the right thing. At the time he loved her. She had expectations and he had expectations which due to their immaturity never talked about or got counseled on.
He wanted to keep partying and I guess she felt neglected and went after another guy. They separated but didn't get divorced. She told him she met someone else and he was shocked and devastated. I'm reading between the lines - I'm sure DH wasn't a saint either you know but always came home to her.
They separated when SS was 2 months old. She went on to live with her new boyfriend and 2 years later had another son. According to DH's family she knocked on DH door and told him she couldn't raise SS and left him there. She went off to live with her new man and her new baby.
Then 2 years after that (SS was 4 years old) she came back to claim him and claim child support and moved to PR where she lived with him until he was 10yrs old. She's been very bitter about raising SS on her own - but she chose to move, she was the one holding the cards. She used SS as a pawn until I came into the picture. She seems very high strung and bratty like she's used to getting her way?
Even after all these years - she is upset with DH. I guess she sees that he has a marriage (even though she does too) and that everything seems to be hunky dory. It's one of those things I guess she never got closure on?
I think it depends a lot on the age you were when you met. Being young and "in love' closes your eyes to the rest of the package. Like grandma always said, "You don't really know someone until you live with them."
Looking back, I know that I was just way too young my first time. We were still growing up, and instead of growing up together, we grew apart. Second time around I thought I knew my hubby to be, and wondered what he saw in his exwife. I didn't live with him before we got married-big mistake. Within a year of being married I left him.
I hit the jackpot this time around. Lived with hubby awhile, saw we could make it work, then got married.
People change as they age, I think that has a lot to do with it. Your values and what you find attractive in a person change. If both of you don't change together, then it won't work. You go into a marriage thinking this is forever, but a lot sure can happen between now and forever!
We felt sorry for her new DH when she turned up pregnant and he divorced his wife and married her (nice, I know!). He has no idea what he's getting into. Now that the baby is here, we've been wondering how long it'll be before she goes back to her old ways.
I have often felt that! DH used to be an entirely different person, though. Well, he rebelled in high school, and that is when he met BM. She had a sort of power over him. He was a virgin when they started dating, and felt a strong connection to her being his *first.* They got engaged quickly, got married quickly, and then found out they were 4 weeks pregnant two months after saying "I do."?
He was completely unaware of her infidelity that went on for the entire 5 year relationship. When he finally found out about it, he wanted to work things out. She wanted to live the single life that she was "robbed" of. When he gave her the choice of a divorce or working things out, she chose the divorce.
Since then, she has continually tried to "find" herself. She tends to be the person she thinks you want her to be. DH nearly went off in the wrong direction and met me the night he decided he was planning on "settling with a one night stand." When we started dating, he found the old him, the boy his parents raised to be responsible and caring.
So, all in all, DH and BM are not the same people they were when they first met. I have some similar traits to BM, as in our creativity and passion, but we show those towards opposite matters.
I'm convinced that had DH not gone through what he went through, he would not be the man I know and love. We often remind each other that if we had met a few years earlier or in high school, we probably wouldn't have liked each other.?
When we were first dating, DH asked me once why I ever married XH.
Now that he's seen XH in action for several years with other women, he understands. XH seems like an amazing guy to everyone who knows him--at least for a while, then he screws them over. I was also 18 and I'm (still) a very trusting person so I was totally fooled.
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I have to laugh because after Sunday's "episode" was over my mom smacked DH in the back of the head and said "what the hell were you thinking?!". She was (mostly) joking, but I certainly do wonder and DH wonders the same thing about me and my ex. We both married really young (read: dumb) and kind of as a way to cope with other issues in our lives if that makes any sense?
DH and I are really similiar and our ex's are also really similiar. We are type A, responsible, driven people and our ex's are laid back to the point of being comatose, hate making decisions, and think that whatever happens in their lives it is out of their control and they have no responsibility for creating the life they want. I can't really say why either of us chose to marry the people that we did the first time around, but I know that is why it didn't work out.
When I read a post, and the BM or BF is crazy it speaks volumes about the other person, to me. I know it should not but I can't help but think that. Crazy doesn't usually just pop out of no where... you can usually smell it.
Yes, but he was young and immature when they met. She was a girlfriend he wasn't even serious about. They broke up while she was pregnant with first SS and got back together when he was 5 months old. He knew she wasn't able to be a good parent. She got pregnant with second SS the same as with the first ("accidentally" forgetting her pills). My question to him was - why were you still having sex if you didn't want her to get pregnant again!?!? LOL
I love both my SSs dearly, so I can't really complain too much.
mckelvykr - When I read a post, and the BM or BF is crazy it speaks volumes about the other person, to me. I know it should not but I can't help but think that. Crazy doesn't usually just pop out of no where... you can usually smell it.
Meh - not if you're inexperienced. Crazy people tend to gravitate towards normal people. Not the other way around.
DITTO ALL OF THE ABOVE! Plus, I SO wish I could tell you guys how they met and the circumstances-DH must have had temporary lapse of sanity.
Ah, very true.
And I didn't mean the little things- when we go "oh yeah..she's crazy" I mean the ones when you read it and think the BM or BF needs to be locked up far far away..
Yes, I've asked DH this a bit... Now, she is cute, I'll grant her that, and does seem 'normal' to the outside world, but... I think they got married too young-not that 22-24 ish is young, but I was surprised he married young.
They seem so different-it's amazing. Then again, if DH and I would have met when I was in my 20's, we wouldn't have worked out at all!
He laughs now and says he feels people wonder what I ever see in him, but he's great! He put up w a lot of SH!T, too (not from moi)... Cheat on me once, shame on you... cheat on me twice-and I'm outta here!...
THIS. I'm constantly thinking this.
I've asked him many times. DH is very conservative & a therapist (of all jobs) and BM was addicted to cocaine & went to jail for stealing money from her job to pay for her habit. She's also never had a stable home and had 6 step fathers & she has been married 3 times herself while DH's parents have been married for 50 years. They are like night and day.
He says they met at 17 and he's known her a long time and back then he was young and stupid and in love and wasn't mature enough to see the full picture that given her life, it could have never worked. I still shake my head cause if I brought a guy home who had a history of cocaine addiction and jail time, my parents would have turned him right around on the porch and said, "You ain't gotta go home, but you got to get the heck up outta here!"
No, I don't wonder because it makes perfect sense given his upbringing and his background. He had a very rough childhood. He did not have a mother who was any kind of proper example of a wife or mother, and the only decent marriage he had to look up to as a good example was that of his grandparents who thank goodness, raised him for 4-5 years. He always wanted to emulate ther marriage and marry one woman, have a bunch of kids, and grow old wth her, but bad decisions of a young and immature man made that difficult. He wasn't perfect, but he always tried to do what was best for his children given the circumstances.
I also don't wonder because he's a different man. When I met him he was very honest about his past - even as ugly as it was - he was very open about it and he obviously had learned from his mistakes. Strangely, they are all very similar to each other, but I am very different than they are.
His last marriage prior to ours, was almost ten years ago. He wasn't even sure he would marry again, and if he did, he was going to do it right, for the right reasons, and with the right woman - or not at all.
So again...no. I don't wonder. Those marriages and what they were or were not, have no effect and make no difference in ours.
DH and BM dated for a while after she chased him for about 6 months. He was in the car to meet her to break things off when she got in a really awful car accident, so he felt bad. Then somehow they ended up engaged, because she has this way of playing the damsil (sp?) in distress. That woudl have ended too, but DH found out she was pregnant with SD and wanted to do the right thing. So, they got married, he got shipped out, she got a new boyfriend while he was gone and blew through $13,000.00 he had saved up. THEN he comes home and she LEAVES him.
Icing on the cake was she wanted him to give up his parental rights for her new boyfriend, who was shortly after encarcerated.
The only thing I can figure is he was just a really nice guy who got taken for a ride at a young age, she beat that out of him of course.....Now he's still a nice guy, just not an idiot
Same here. BM was older than him, too, so I've said I'll warn our sons about those older women...
From the moment I met DH's ex, I was completely flabbergasted that he could have ever been with her. Pretty much anyone who met him without her felt the same way - they were just SO not a match...physically, emotionally, mentally. DH has explained to me why he married her - out of duty - because he had made a promise to her mom on her mom's death bed. Sadly, he has said when he looks back and thinks of the women he has truly loved in his life, she's not one of them. And yet, he spent 10 years with her. And made 3 kids.
When I ask about that - why he had kids, he says it was his only consolation in a marriage he hated - that he would at least have his kids, that he had always dreamed of. Sadly - her mental state, and the way their marriage deteriorated over the years, left scars on those kids that really aren't fixable.
It sucks.
I have a friendly relationship with BM actually, and it makes things much easier that way. We dont have to argue with her about when to get the kids and when she found out we were expecting she got us gifts and frequently asks how I am doing. Its better to have a working normal relationship with her I realized then to hate her for all her flaws. While she may not be the brightest bulb, very far from it, and I dont agree with most of the things she says or does in any way, I deal because its easier for our lives in the long run. Of course I dont see what he saw in her at all, but im sure there was something nice there at one point or else he wouldnt have married her or had children with her.
That's just the half of it.
DH also lived in a boys home for 4 years when his mother dropped all four of her sons off. She couldn't handle being a mother. Drugs and abusive men were more important to her. Then again, maybe she did him a huge favor and could be considered a good mom for doing that? I dunno. His grandparents had ot search and find them. DH was the only one who wasn't fostered out by then so they pulled him out and raised him.
And then there is his last marriage. It literally almost killed him. Or should I say she nearly killed him? Big allegation, I know, but the things I've come across in his paperwork and the things friends and familhy have told me are chilling.
I never met someone who has had such a life. It's amazing he's survived and overcome what he has. You wouldn't know it to look at him and know him now. So yeah....looking back at the past and the people in it is a huge waste of time and very unproductive.
they got pregnant.