Take off from the widow thread

[gregory]

Originally Posted by Shooter

Actually, sex life with her is really awesome ... I can't ask for anything more from her in this realm. Totally satisfying. She's a great person too, cares very deeply for those close to her. Add to it that she's a pretty good cook and has a ton of money in the bank from her insurance payouts, and you can imagine why I have such a strong wish for something long term to work out with her.

She definitely sounds like what I call a "jackpot" (see Types of Woman - Jackpot in the Fundamental Truths about Women and Midlife Dating Today section of this site).

I mean - take all of the qualities you mention PLUS the fact that she has cash in the bank ... that is extreme jackpot material, in my book.



I've never dated a woman who had or made more money than me ... but it does sound like fun!

[Shooter]

And this would be why I am working so hard on having this relationship work. We love each other and don't want to be without each other. She's very into me and I want to keep her that way. Not only would she be a good catch ANY given day, but the finance thing is huge for me and my son. What it represents is future stability for us, as well as the potential for earlier retirement for me. She has investments currently worth a few hundred thousand dollars, and a million dollar life insurance policy her girls will draw off of to help pay for their college. Add in both of our houses to sell to combine into getting one, then my income, and you have a very decent situation. However, thre IS a bit of a prob. My girlie is VERY frugal. She lives as though she has little money at all. She was out to eat with her girls recently and decided that Applebee's charged too much for a soda, so they had to drink water instead. lol My challenge is going to be getting her to loosen up her pursestrings so we can live a little and have some fun. I'm pretty frugal myself, but I do like to have a few nice toys around. lol

[kjmudd]

Yes I would agree with Gregory.

Sounds like she could be worth all the aggravation with the kid....plus she is freaky...always a good thingk....I would stay out of the kid thing entirely...just be nice and encourage her that however she wants to handle it is best because it's her kid.

Focus on the fact that she is loaded, freaky and you like her....don't even think about the kid.

KJM

[Shooter]

Impossible. As responsible parents, seeing how our children relate to the other person, and how the other person relates to our children, is a huge part of the process. Therefore, this part of the process must be visited. If a woman treats my son in a manner that I find makes me uncomfortable, then she is likely gone. Even more so for a woman guarding young daughters. The situation is multifactoral, or course we have to pay attention to our own relationship, but the kids are a huge part of it as well.

[misunderstood]

Shooter,

I just saw a couple of posts here and didn't hit them all, but there is one important itme about the rebelious child that you may want to consider when trying to find out why she doesn't want to move. You are asking this girl to leave behind the only home that she knows with her father. All of her memories are in this home and if she leaves it, she risks leaving behind all that is sacred about him. He may be buried in that town, so she can't visit him as often. I am dealing with moving into a home of a 12yo who's father passed when he was 4 or 5. He remembers almost nothing of his father and has only the house as a portal to the past. I found this out when I tried to move into the office that hasn't been used for about 4 years. We started to discuss how to change some things around to make better use of the space and remove some old equipment so I could start using it as my office and he immediately put up a fight. After backing off for a while and approaching the situation from another angle where he would be more actively involved with the process, we are now able to move forward slowly.

I'm not sure if this is the reason, but it may be worth asking about.

[Shooter]

Actually, when it comes down to it and she's questioned on it, her main factors are what you would expect out of a 12 year old. She's concerned about moving away from her friends. Sure, she's got some emotional investment in the house, but she also has some very painful stuff coming from that house. (btw, don't know if you picked up on it anywhere, but both their girls were adopted) Her father spent a lot of time very sick there, and he also died there. In terms of where he's buried, he's over an hour away from where the house is. She (the 12 y/o) has said to her mother and to her friends that she wouldn't have a problem with moving, so long as it was still within the school district she's in now. So, that says to me that the connection with the house itself is not really a driving factor. They have a 4 bedroom house, and the room I stay in when I stay with them is his former workout room/office. My gf cleared it out awhile back. The girls balked a little at that, but understood the need to move on with some things. I need to do an update of my situation...

Thanks for your input.

[Shooter]

misunderstood mentioned on another widow thread something about a minefield, and it's funny that he used that particular term because that's exactly the word I was going to use as part of a brief update on my widow situation. When it's just me and my gf, and we're concentrating on US, things move like a well oiled machine. It's like we're doing a perfect dance routine together.... but it doesn't take long to come back to reality and realize that we are dancing in a very large minefield. The girls, particularly the older one, are highly charged bags of emotion and drama. I mean, they seem to come by this naturally, not just because of their situation. You throw in what's going on with their mother and me and man, my gf is seeing stuff out of her oldest that she has never even imagined before, much less experienced. My gf describes her as the sweetest little girl, but she is being one of the most subversive, disrespectful, hurtful little witches I've ever been around. I had two sisters (one who had to move when she was a soph in high school after spending all her school years at one school), a stepdaughter, and have known tons of other young girls, and I have never known one to turn on their mother the way this one does. My gf says the girls have never used any bad language, yet the older one turned to her recently and told her that if she made her move then she would be a miserable little bitch, and so she would make sure to make her mother a miserable little bitch as well. My gf is caught in a zone where she doesn't want to allow such behavior and wants to nip it, but then she doesn't want to make things worse with the kid's attitude by coming down hard on her. I have been going out of my way to show what could be done to help her situation in keeping in touch with her friends after a move. Cell phones, email, IM's, even webcams. I have promised that she would have use of a laptop so that she could have face to face conversations with her friends. And both her mother and I have friends and things to do in the area that they're in now, and it's only a couple hour drive, so the prospect of taking her up there for visits is very good, not to mention having friends down. The school she would be going to in my area is nicer, newer, and boasts more flexibility for her in its class availability. The neighborhood is very good, and she's a pretty and (can be) friendly girl, so I have no doubt she'll be getting acquainted with new girl and boy-friends in no time.

The younger daughter and I are forming a connection, she even had me help her pick out a dress the other day. She's unique, but I like her.

I have met a couple of gf's brothers, her mother, and several friends. The weekend of the 30th I'm supposed to meet her other 2 brothers and possibly some members of her former husband's family. She wanted his parents to meet me, but with the way they have been so far, not sure I see that happening soon.

So anyway, my gf and I do really, really well most of the time, but there are these moments that happen that sometimes threaten the peace. Last weekend she was going on about some things, and from what she said to me later she felt they were all positive things, but on my end listening to her, they felt like anything BUT positive. It really put a dark cloud over our very nice dinner we were having out, and almost messed up the whole evening. Intention and interpretation are huge factors, and it's good we're both very rational people and can sort through our dealings and feelings. It's not a journey for the weak of heart, I'll say that! I love her, though, and I still am hoping for us to be together really long term.

[misunderstood]

Meeting the family or "the other family" is not as difficult as it may seem. I was introduced to her late husbands family all at once and rather quietly. It was an annual holiday gathering that my GF holds for that side of the family to see her children so they do not loose touch. Most of them didn't know who I was or why I was there, so there were a lot of questions. Once it became apparent what was happening, there were many tearful hugs going around and well wishing. Most were happy at the prospect of her getting on with her life. This year was my third year with this side of the family and there are good friendships developing. The only time I had an issue, was when my GF's oldest son entered and the room got quiet. The elder women all commented at how much he looked like his father.

I was so comfortable with the situation that I never saw that comming. I'm still not sure why it hit me or why I haven't settled with it yet. I am growing to love these children as my own and yet, there is a presence that I need to be acutely aware of at all times.

This is not like an Ex-husband. At least with an Ex, you have a pretty good idea of where or how you might fit in. With a widow, those lines can easily blur. It's not a bad thing, but sometimes the situations can be unexpected.

Back to the original point, sorry. If your GF's relationship with the family was healthy before, it will be healthy with you. Just be the man that she loves and it will all work out.

[Phillyboy]

Ditto on misunderstood’s comments re: meeting the late husband’s family. I was introduced to some of his family very early on because my gf is still very close with them, especially his sister. In fact we had only been dating a couple of weeks the first time I met her sister-in-law. Since then, we do a lot of things together and always have a great time. Since then I have gradually met all of his family and what misunderstood says is true…they are mostly very welcoming and happy for her to have met someone who makes her happy…sure there are awkward moments at times, especially over the holidays, but all-in-all they care enough about her to understand how important it is for her to move on.

[Shooter]

Well, the trip to her mom’s place went ok. Met all four of her brothers and a couple of their significant others. Lunch went well with plenty of nice talk. Only occurrence was the older daughter rudely blurting out at one point to her mom that she needed to get rid of me for some reason she had observed. Whatever.

While we were there, my gf received text messages from her former sister in law stating that she just could not deal with meeting me yet. She wasn’t ready. So, that part of the trip was off, and we just drove back to my gf’s place. More drama ensued there involving her oldest daughter. My gf found that she had been doing some things over the past week that she was not supposed to be doing, and using foul language in texts. Of course, the daughter blamed everything towards me and her mom’s relationship with me as to why she was acting this way. Made for a tense rest of my visit because her mom was furious with her.

Anyway, this relationship situation seems to be grinding to a stalemate with regards to where it’s going from here. She is being overwhelmed by how badly her oldest is acting out about the idea of moving to the area that I live in, and leaving her friends. Her youngest is having mixed feelings, one day being ok with me and the next also not being happy about moving. Her mother and brothers all like me, but do not like her moving almost 2 hours further away from them (they are 1 ½ hrs away from her as it is). AND her former inlaws are also that far away from her now and would have much more distance between them and their grandchildren. Not to mention my gf’s friends who don’t want her to go, and the part time job she has at the local school. So, she has all that pulling on her.

On my end, I am originally from the general area that she lives in now, and when I moved away over 20 years ago, it really set into me that I never wanted to live there again. I can’t really explain it except to say that it even makes me a little sick to my stomach to even consider moving back to her area again. On top of that is my job. Now, I am soon supposed to be able to start working from home, but there is much not known about if they would let me work from home from that far away. They have said they may require me to come into my workplace if my net connection is not working well. I would be 2 ½ hrs away from my workplace, so not real feasible. In addition to that is my son and his EOW visits with his mom. I figured up that for me to drive him back to her place on Fri, drive back home, then drive down to pick him up on Sun, and drive back home again would be a minimum of 9 hours of driving time EOW, if I moved up to where gf lives. And I already know his mother would NOT be happy about me moving him that far away. My son has not established many real close friendships yet, but still may over the next year. Also, he has been determined to fall onto the scale that includes some autistic traits, and he sometimes has very negatively severe reactions to large changes in his routine… which moving away would certainly be. I really don’t want to move my son, nor do I want to take a chance of losing a steady job in the current economic environment. There are no job openings her my gf’s area for my particular expertise, and even if there were, the pay scale there is much lower than what I’m currently paid.

So, as you can see, we are both hunkering down in our own individual zones that we’re afraid to move out of. We both love each other more and more as time goes on, but we’re not clear on what to do. Just dating for the next 10 years til the kids are all out of school is really not feasible or attractive to us. Neither is breaking up. Man…nothing is ever simple for me.