I have been with the woman of my dreams for almost 2 years.

We came together while she still lived with the father of her little girl although they were seriously on the rocks (sleeping in separate rooms for over a year amongst other signs that the relationship had ended) and when we met we fell madly in love and she left him for me.

He tried to use guilt and her maternal instincts to manipulate her and it worked once � she went back with him but it only lasted 2 weeks before she was crying on the phone to me that she wanted me back.

She has always had her ups and downs, as a single parent of 24 years old that�s expected and from time to time she has needed some time off from our relationship but it always came together in the end.

Most recently she has been spending time with her ex, just as friends and kinda doing the family thing with him a little which I have no problem with but now we have split up because she says that she needs to work through her guilt about cheating on him with me and then leaving him for me, especially with a child involved etc.
She says that its not that her family is not together so much as how she went about it that makes her feel bad to feel good with me.

It is obvious to me that he has been pushing her buttons instead of respecting her willingness to have a friendship with him and her space as an individual.
She is at this stage consumed with guilt and taking time off from ALL relationships.
Obviously I'm devastated, we have a wonderful relationship and I really want it back but more importantly I want her to be able to remember the reasons she left him and be confident that she did the right thing.
We were discussing marriage about a month ago and it�s been a real blow to me to have everything turn around this way �any advice..?

The only thing I can say is that anytime you cheat on someone and leave them for someone else you can at least assume there is a good chance this will happen. If you read a good portion of posts on here you will see that love is not logical anf it is VERY possible she still has feelings for this man whether they had problems or not. The good guy does not always come out on top. If he is pressuring her and she wants time off YOU have to be the one to give it to her. You are the one who respects her. This is not a game, you can't win by strategy you have to be a really good person who loves her regardless of the outcome (whether she chooses to get back with you or not). Sounds like you guys had a less than ideal situation but it also sounds like you might have created one. She never had a chance to "get over him" and if she jumps back to him she wil have the same problem in reverse. In all honesty it sounds dysfunctional and the best thing to do is do the right thing form now on for yourself. There is no magic cure.

SM,
I agree with SchoolMommy. If she is having second thoughts about getting back with her ex then i would tend to think that it may have appeared over with but it wasn't. Otherwise she would have had time to get over him (because you said it had been a year) With him living with her it isn't exactly going to be easy for her to stay away from him. She gets confused everytime she goes home. Sorry but it is time to start looking out for yourself. Sorry for you.

sorry i have not been very clear - she left him 2 years ago, we have been togehter ever since. i expect there will always be a bond between them - they share a child but there are also very good reasons why they split up ...twice. but that was 2 years ago as i said.
i think that what he is doing is emotional abuse and its ignorant because upsetting her directly affects his daugther, its also childish because he is clinging to the one thing he has left with her - the ability to create guilt.

she is not considering getting back with him, she said to me that she will never go back into a relationship with him but that she wants to find a way to be comfortable friends for the sake of their child mainly and probably also for the good times they had.

i dont understand it all...

I don't mean to sound hateful, but you can't possibly understand unless you are a parent yourself. She needs to be able to have an amicable friendship for the sake of their child and that does bond them for life. If she is having second thoughts of being w/you, you have to face the fact that she may not be ready to get married to you and you may have to move on alone. She doesn't have the luxury of thinking only about her happiness because she has a child. If you feel that she just needed time to sort through things, my only advice is to be patient. Otherwise, it may be time to move on w/your own life. Sorry!

My point is that no matter what the reasons were for her leaving him it does not always mean that she is going to stop having feelings for him. She may not and I hope that is the case for you. From the outside looking in here is how it appears:

You live together two years. You pop the question. She realizes that if she marries you her chances of a cohesive family are over. She wants to see if it would have worked.

I can't blame her nor you for feeling the way you do. I am just saying that the way you guys handled your relationship in the first place seems to have bit you in the tail.

Does not sound hopeful for you.

Just be prepared to take care of you.

Hey, I am over my ex. never want anything more to do with him, since he feels the same way about me. You seem pretty caring to be able to go with someone who has a child. I'm single, over here buddy. Ha ha. NO. seriously. I hear what you are saying, but as a mother, if my ex. truly wanted to be with me 2 years ago, I would have jumped. Not because I was ever happy with him, that didnt matter anymore once our daughter was born. If it meant that I would have to be miserable in a relationship with him, I would have done it. Just because once I got pregnant, the only important thing was what was best for my daughter. Having her mommy and daddy in the same house. Not fair, but true. Seems like the woman on this board have the same opinion.
You are a stellar guy, though.

Mmm, then I would have to disagree with the women on this board.
Having biological mom and dad under the same roof is not the be all and end all of a childs emotional wellbeing.
I have seen it too many times with friends of mine whose mother (or father) blames them for having ruined their life, its hideous.
As a parent, your first priority is to ensure that you are a happy, well adjusted roll model.
This may mean leaving the biological father of your child if the relationship is not working. It�s unfair to put yourself through hell �for the kids� only to have a growing resentment �for the kids� as result.
Your children will act out in their own lives the things they see you do so make sure what you do is look after yourself, be kind to people and ensure that you are a happy person, if you want your kids to be happy and well adjusted then make sure that you are because they will only learn it from you.
Staying in an abusive situation for the sake of a child will rob the child of a home (it will just be a house), a mother and a father and it will rob the both of you of your child because you will have allowed outdated stereotypes to dictate how you should live your life and that child will eventually become a symbol of the hell your life has become.

Like I say: I have seen it many times, mostly with women because usually it�s the woman who gives up her career/social life/dreams for the sake of their child unfair as it sounds.
These women reach menopause and their resentment for their offspring usually peaks at this stage as now they are left with an empty home (kids grown up and moved out) that they gave up everything for and they feel their life has been a waste. And they blame it on their kids.
I�m not saying that this is the cycle that every mother goes through I�m just saying I have seen it and its really sad.
Obviously no ones situation is the same and there are variations this way and that but the bottom line is that YOU need to be happy, confident and well adjusted otherwise your kids don�t have a chance of being any of those things.

�hee hee the sane one: I can assure you I didn�t know she had a kid when I fell for her but once I found out I was so crazy about both of them that I consider it to be a bonus!

thanks everyone for your responses, i really appreciate your sharing your point of view with me

I don't think any of us are saying that having a biological unit is always better no matter what... If that were the case many of us would not be on this board.

I think what we are saying is that if she wants to try again (even if it is the wrong chioce) there is nothing you can do about it.

If this does not work out you can use it as a learning experience... don't cheat and take you rtime going into relationships when the first one has not ended nor has the other person had time to "get over" the ex.

Good luck. You seem like a great guy and I hope things work out for your happiness.

I have one more thing to add to these comments. I told my son's father that I never wanted to be with him again since he was cheating on me in the same breath that I told him I was pregnant. Not all of us are wanting a cohesive biological unit if we don't feel that would be what makes us happy. If he wanted to make a go of it w/me, I would have to decline for reasons of not ever wanting to be w/anyone that made me feel the way he did. I have the greatest part of him that will ever walk on the face of the Earth, and I couldn't be more grateful. If he ever decides to take his cranium from his posterior and want to be a part of his child's life, I would more than encourage that.

I agree w/you, SM. A biological family isn't always the right way to go, but there are those that are hopeful that it will go back to the original family unit. You can't change their mind. It isn't wrong to want that, but it doesn't always make sense.

I disagree w/the point that you made about when we give up things for our kids that we end up resenting them for it. I have given up more things than I can count, and would do it all again tomorrow for my son. It is what you do when you become a parent. The world is no longer about you. It is about this child. I will say that there are people that resent their kids, but that is a personality thing, not a having to give up things that I wanted to do thing.

I hope this works out in the best way for you, because you do seem like a special person, but you would have to understand what it is like to be a parent to understand why she feels the need to sort through this. Good luck to you!

Now that I am away from my former relationship, I see how happy I am, and your right, the happier I am, the better it is for my daughter. I see that now. At the time I thought it was the "right" thing to do, staying with him I mean.
The part about giving up things, and being resentful later? I agree with Ty's mom. Once I got pregnant, my world shifted. I was so self centered before I had my daughter. I dont do half the things I was able to do BC(before child) and I do miss some of those things. But I would rather have her in my life, then to be as frivilous as I was. The was I see it, I got the chance to do those things, I was 29 when I had her, and now its my turn to focus my life on making sure she is ok.

hi, i am resurrecting this thread because i need more advice in light of new developments.

it seems that she now wants to have no contact with me whatsoever, she says there are too many emotions and its getting in the way of the possiblity relationship or friendship in the future.
thats ok, its no great but you cant force someone to hang out with you right?

the reason i need advice is because i know for a fact that she has been drugging with her ex
he has been an addict for over 10 years and that was a big part of the collapse of their relationship in the first place.

she has spoken to me many times about the deep regret she has of the days when she first got together with him and he introduced her to hardcore drugs and how she cant beleive that she was that person etc.
he is alot older than her and its disgusting that he would taint someone so young in that way when she obviously looked up to him at the time.

but now she is back there doing drugs with him and i dont know what to do. i know that i should just move on and let her walk her path etc. but there is a little 3yr old girl involved here who i happen to love very much and i cannot turn my back.

my question is this: do i call her parents and tell them what is happening?
her mum especially is very keen on her reconciling with the ex but i dont think she realises that she is trying to do whats best for her granddaughter whilst pushing her daughter into he arms of an addict.

i have had to switch off my emotions with regard to this. its utterly soul destroying to see this happen but i cannot let it kill me, which it will if i allow myself to feel it.

what i need to do is find some way to stop this madness, its going to end in a disaster and i cannot live with knowing that i did nothing ...

Have you told the lady that you care about how you feel, that if need be you can accept not being with her but that you cannot accept for the sake of her daughter as well as her that she is on drugs again? If that doesn't work then would her mother trust you enough to take your word that she is doing drugs? and if that also doesn't work a tip to children's services (anonymous or not) might be in order if you can prove that they both are using drugs.

Remember that no one can get another person to stop for any reasons. The only way she is going to start making rational decisions is to decide for herself it is time to stop. Even if you contact her mother and and do convince her of what is going on, she will still need to reach whatever bottom it will personally take for her to change. Even if you call CPS there may not be much they can really do, unless living conditions are bad enough or something along those lines. Should you make those calls is your choice.

I have so been there up until 11 years ago with drugs. I still today deal with my daughter's mom's choices. Losing custody of her kids even has not been enough to change her, she still has not hit the right bottom yet, if she wasn't my daughter's mom I wouldn't even deal with her choices in any fashion.

I say look out for you at this point, make the calls if you feel the need, and then look elsewhere for someone to share you emotions/life with.