catfeeder

I would do this, but not without getting legal advice of your own, and also without the 'start getting a divorce' part. In the spirit of team-work to get the child into the right program, you can both learn what life is like without living together. You can date one another. You can explore whether there's anything salvageable in your relationship over time. If so, you can both shop for a nice house in the area and move in together. If not, you can work together to make a planned split.

Good. It's not just about the 'work' of setting up dates, it's about allowing for yourself and the other to catch your breath and reflect between the dates. Too much, too soon is suffocation. There really is no coming back from that. This woman had these events lined up, and she's running from one thing to the next. Let her catch her breath instead of pushing her to stay running on a hamster wheel. Pressure doesn't feel 'good'.

No, you're not wrong. Your mother just knows that it's her best interests to manipulate you into believing that you're wrong. However, she's in charge of running her life, your sister is in charge of running hers, and you're in charge of running your own. You don't deserve to have your household or your finances harmed by those who want to use you as their ATM machine. And I wouldn't count on never hearing from your mother again. She'll be asking you for something else at some point, and you're better off suggesting that she contact her local hospital's human services department for a referral to a case worker who can help her to apply for resources. Head high, and my heart goes out to you.

I can't speak to the SM point, but most people I know don't use apps to schedule full expensive dates, just first mets over coffee to check one another out. If either wants to invite the other for a full date after that, then great, but in most cases it not a match. That's just a statement of natural odds, it's rare to strike simpatico no matter how you opt to meet a new person.

It's only been a few weeks, and you're still strangers at this point. Pipe down. Allow for a natural progression, and appreciate that nobody can fully trust anyone during the storm of a whirlwind. I'd pull back and allow her to settle into some reflection and deliberation of choice. That's how both you and she will be able to trust that your next future date is fully voluntary. Don't pressure her to trust you--that has the opposite effect. Think: whenever someone rushes into anything, it's usually about persuasion, and nobody likes to feel manipulated. Head high, and congrats on meeting someone fabulous. Tread gently.

I know some couples who opted to stay together through the blahs because they were focused on prioritizing their family and cultivating their home and friendships and shared bonds. I know others who divorced yet in hindsight ended up wishing they had stayed with their partner and what they'd built together. I know still others who divorced and went on to build partnerships with other people, or they've remained single out of choice. All of the above are valid options. We are not the morality police here, and we're also not living your life FOR you, so we don't get a vote. I will say, however, that I would opt to fully lean into my choices--none of this half-azzed, "I'll just resign myself to misery..." stuff. I mean, you can do that if you want, it's not against the law, but it's a mental take-down of yourself and everyone around you. I can appreciate that you feel this way in this moment, because this is how people typically feel after a breakup. So grief is natural, but I'd reach for some professional help with it. People have no trouble hiring a plumber or electrician or tax accountant when they need that level of expertise, so why disqualify your whole quality of life when there is expertise to be hired there to help you enhance it?

My heart goes out to you. You've picked up the myth that adolescent development ends at age 18, but your prefrontal cortex is only mid-development, and it doesn't complete until between ages 23 to 26, This is why so many people consider themselves to be entirely different people in their 20's. So you became suicidal as you entered puberty, and you have not yet experienced what life could become for you on the other side of that stage. You might consider exploring how to become a peer counselor to help others who are suicidal to feel understood. You might find comfort in offering comfort to keep yourself alive long enough to learn whether maturity beyond adolescence brings a state you'll thank yourself for experiencing. Regardless of your choice, I would give myself the benefit of researching developmental life stages and teach myself enough to operate on real information rather than on emotions alone. Emotions are fluid, and so are life stages. Holding you in my thoughts.

I'm not clear what you find to be the big surprise, is it that he won't marry you? Given that you're not happy with him, isn't that a blessing? Untangling a house purchase will be no picnic, but it's far less expensive than going through the cost of a wedding, only to hire divorce lawyers who would eat any profits from selling the house. Consider the ages, happiness and stability of your children along with watching the housing market, and create the most peaceful and loving household possible, even while you plan a long range exit strategy to sell the house when appropriate. This could be one year or five or whenever you decide that the best interests of your children would be served. But the most important thing I would consider is why you believed that you were happy enough with this man to make such a long range decision to share a home with him, only to decide that you can't enliven the same degree of happiness today. He was never affectionate even prior to this choice, so how did you cope with that before moving into this house?

Hah! I see. When I raised local dating I wasn't speaking in terms of TV shows. That's not dating, it's auditioning. 🙂 There's something healthy about getting to know a person in the context of one anothers' day-to-day lives. I don't mean living together, but just how a potential partner invests in work, play, family, friendships, and where a committed relationship can fit into that--or not.

Yay, Alex! Enjoy your liberation from the bad payer, and I hope you have a wonderful time in the new place. So glad you went pro-active and sought this change. Congrats.

I would chalk this off as having chosen to do what your Mom wanted you to do, and instead of getting mad about it, consider it the test run you needed for the outcome that you can hold up to Mom should she try to pester you again. But the key words above are 'you chose to...'. Instead of deciding that you did it under duress, which removes your power of choice, cop to the fact that you wanted to please your Mom, and you did so. That's not a 'bad' outcome, it was how you opted to handle the conflict. You came out the hero, and Mom had to eat the fact that she's the one who overcompensated. Now you can put that in your pocket, and next time Mom implies that you are being selfish, you can simply tell her that, no, you've learned your lesson about catering to a non-eater, and if Mom still wants to overcompensate, she's welcome to do that herself. You'll be bringing what you want to serve, and she can make what she would like to serve. Done deal, and good job. Take your satisfaction where you've earned it.

I'm not clear why you are wasting your time with this guy? Don't you value your time--and your Self?

I never saw the show, but I saw these two interviewed on Nightline last night. I think they make a good case for why it's important to date locally unless you are the one who's geographically free. Getting hot and heavy while assuming that the other will be the one to move to your location, or unless you're both willing to try out a LD commuter relationship, it's like setting yourself up to shoot yourself in the foot.

Maybe you could invite C to stay overnights at your place while T is visiting? Her place would be like his hotel. My own private rule is that I won't involve myself with anyone who is still involved with an ex beyond shared children. You're learning why.

Sounds as though you've been reading or hearing a lot of disinformation.

I would make an appointment to meet with someone in the admissions department of a college that's local to you, and explain your situation. They may be able to help you apply for the financial aid or help you to come up with another solution. They've seen all kinds of circumstances, so they are likely to be more creative than someone who doesn't know the education business.

I get along with plenty of people with zero romantic interest. But if I knew that they were romantically interested in me, I wouldn't pursue a friendship because their agenda would be something more. I get along well with my neighbors, my coworkers, people at the grocery store, and I have plenty of friends I'd never date. None of this speaks of a link to a romantic interest. If you play friendzies with someone who has rejected you romantically, then you are setting yourself up for heartbreak. I'd tell this guy that I enjoy him, but I also like him as more than a friend. That's why I'm walking away while we still think highly of one another. If he ever decides that he'd like to pursue a committed romantic relationship, he can let me know. If I'm still available then, maybe we can meet to catch up. Otherwise, I wish him the best. Boom! Done. You've left the door open to romance if he ever decides he wants to go there, but you've liberated yourself from wasting your time trying to read tea leaves in everything he says because you have a crush on him that's not mutual. Head high.

Speaking only for myself, this ^^^ would moot any need to know his intentions, because I'd have already ruled him out as a romantic interest. So that renders his POV about me irrelevant. We each choose the qualities we want in a partner, just as we do with friends. I wouldn't be too interested in a friendship that wasn't mutually regarded as being about both of us, so I certainly wouldn't be attracted to a guy who made everything about himself. This doesn't mean that some friendships can't be somewhat imbalanced. I think of these as 'action' or 'purpose' friends, where our interests intersect and we pursue only those things together. These are more transactional friendships, and while we might get to know more about one another over time and develop more of a caring for one another, these are not typically the friends in whom I would confide. So enjoy this friend to the degree that you wish, and don't get caught up in trying to figure him out unless he's someone you'd care enough about to pursue anything deeper. In that case, raise your feelings with him, because if you don't feel comfortable enough doing that, your discomfort will pretty much tell you all you really need to know.

Yes. Friendship is not your agenda, you want more. Or for his own ego, or whatever. He's already rejected romance with you. Keeping you around serves his purposes, not yours.

Try thinking of rejection like two equally valid puzzle pieces that don't fit together. Neither is 'better' or 'worse' than the other, they both add the same value to the overall scheme of things, and one doesn't influence the value of the other--they just don't belong together. If you can impersonalize it that way, you can understand that your job is to move forward and find the one who DOES fit with you. And you'll likely need to try fitting with many others before finding that fit, so buckle up and learn how to view rejection as the limited vision of another person rather than as any reflection on you. You're fine as you are. The right person for you will see you through the right lens for the fit to happen. You'll enjoy feeling that mutual 'click' of simpatico. You'll thank yourself for not wasting time hovering around a bad fit who only wants to mess with you to feed his own ego. Head high.

All the more reason to stay away from him and not relegate yourself to a scrap heap of women hovering on the outside of his romantic life pretending to be his friend. That only sets you up for a second rejection when he takes up with someone else. Think.

This makes me cringe. What century is this? I'm a grandma's age, and my own grandmother wouldn't have even said such a thing, much less consider it 'helpful' to a 'support' forum. We're not speaking of some innocent child who was somehow woman-handled for his sperm. He's a grown man and perfectly capable of managing his own sex life. Apparently, he did that just as skillfully as he's likely to support this baby. Give mama a break.

"...I can focus on looking forward to enjoying with someone who will be honest and loyal to me." This guy was not that.

Ah, missed that, and thank you Bolt. OP, suicidal ideation isn't something you can take on by yourself. I would make seeking professional help a condition of keeping me in his life. There are hotlines on the Internet with referral services to low and no-cost options for treatment. I'd contact those services and list a few of those to offer to him. I'd be frank with him that this aspect of him terrifies me. I'd ask that if he won't seek help for himself, would he be willing to do it for me? There is no need to walk on eggshells about something so important. Either he's willing to get help, or he's not even relationship material--so it doesn't matter what he thinks of you.

Whether a guy were to date or not date anyone else, I certainly wouldn't be interested in playing friendzies with any guy who stopped dating me.