Help- Engaged and Freaking out...
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| Fri, 01-23-2004 - 2:48pm |
The problems we've been experiencing lately are making me think pretty hard about what I'm getting into and I really need some advice from a third party.
I have been the biggest financial supporter (if not the sole financial supporter) for over a year now. My fiance decided he wanted to start a lawncare and landscaping company (he has over 9 years of experience) and I gave him my full support (before we were engaged I might add). So for the past year he has worked very hard to try and get his company up and running and making money but it has been a very slow process. He worked maybe 2 days a week in the beginning and towards the end of summer he was working 3 or 4 days a week. Once Winter hit, everything has all but dried up and he's barely pulling in 300 bucks a month.
The thing is, I'm still very supportive in making it work out for him. I don't mind being the bread winner (even though some mornings it sucks to get out of bed so early and kiss him goodbye all snuggled up in bed). The problem is managing the money.
We have been living pay check to pay check and three months ago I got laid off. We had a horrible time paying bills and rent and even had to pawn some of our possessions to be able to keep our apartment. But in the end, it worked out and all was well. I finally found a job (although I won't get paid for another 3 weeks).
Recently we found out we were going to be running into a lot of money. My fiance's great aunt died and left him a car and $1000. We got the car and earlier this week found a buyer who would give us 2400 for the car. But the person isnt able to pick up the car until this weekend so that is pretty much up in the air. I also found out I was going to get 2000 back from taxes but I'm waiting on my W2 form.
So we have all this money coming our way. And its so relieving and so exciting. We had to borrow money from my parents to pay this months bills so you can imagine how good it feels to have money again and not have to worry about pawning our possessions or asking people to give us financial help during this time.
But what was supposed to be a happy time has turned into the worst fight ever. It's basically like this.
I want to get the money, put it in the bank, make sure we can cover rent and bills and whatever necessities we might have, and then talk about maybe spending a little money on fun stuff and saving the rest.
My fiance apparently has already started spending the money before we even have it. The $1000 check from his Great Aunt is apparently in the mail somewhere. The money from the car won't be obtained until the car is actually sold this weekend (people back out of these things) and I haven't even gotten my W2 form to file for my tax money. And rent and bills are due in 9 or 10 days. He went out and bought a brand new set of golf clubs (he went and played golf with my dad ONCE and decided he wanted to pick up the sport). So he bought clubs, a bag, a towel, golf balls, etc. All of it amounted to around 500 bucks.
Now, I'm all about spending the money. I want him to be able to buy something nice because we've been broke for so long. But I'm worried because we now only have 300 bucks to our names and who knows when we will get all this money that is coming our way. And not only that, but we have to put at least 1500 of that money towards 2 tickets my fiance got 3 years ago that went to warrant and he apparently forgot about. They were minor...no inspection sticker, no insurance card. But now they are each 600 bucks a piece for the ticket and the cost of letting it go to warrant.
So I sat down and talked to him about it and he immediately got very defensive and started yelling that he was sick of having to come to me like I am his mother and ask if he can spend money. He's depressed because the lawn care business isn't working out. He feels like he's become Mr. Mom because he's home all day and I'm at work so he winds up cleaning the house and doing laundry more often that I end up doing it. He wants to get a job to help out, but he has to wait until he can pay off his tickets (again when we get the money) so he won't get arrested at his new job. So he's having a rough time and I see where his frustrations are coming from.
But the fact of the matter is, he's spending money we don't have! (mainly my money although I'm trying my best to see it as our money now that we're engaged) And here it is 9-10 days before our rent and bills are due and I'm praying that at least one of the checks gets here in time because he spent our rent and bill money on golf clubs!
I've tried to talk about it and work out some kind of shared sentiment about how we should manage our money and I can't do it because he starts yelling about me acting like his mom. I don't think his mom would be consulting him on managing her money. So of course I get upset and give up and go to my corner and worry about how the heck we will ever be able to live a life that isn't so high stressed when it comes to things like being able to keep our cars, our apartment, our electricity turned on (by the way our phone was just turned off because we have yet to come up with the money to turn it back on).
So I'm wondering if I'm getting into something that I shouldn't. I've heard that most marriages end due to fighting over money and a part of me wants to just give up and say screw it, buy whatever you want and whatever happens happens. But I have no doubt we will lose everything we have if I stop trying to be the responsible one and I'm not sure I want to live my life fighting about how we need to make our rent and bills priority.
I don't know what to do. Should I stay, should I go? How can I talk to him about this if everytime it comes up, I end up accused of acting like his mom and things turn into a yelling match. I'm just frustrated and tired and could use some advice.

I am all for following your dreams and starting a business if you want to, but in order to do that, you have to have something to fall back on just in case it doesn't work out. That is why it is called a calculated risk. To start a business, you KNOW things will be slow the first few months/years so you save up money to cover yourself during the slow times. When he decided to start a business and he expected you to foot his bill, that is the time you should have protested. But I'm assuming because you love him and you're engaged, you wanted to be the ideal girlfriend/fiance and pay his way, but look where it's gotten you now.
Seek counselling, sit this man down and tell him calmly how you are stressing over this situation and how it's affecting your relationship. Please seek counselling and learn how to manage your money and relationship together, it can be done.
I don't mean to be flip, but I'd tell him that you completely understand his frustration, but his "retail therapy" solution is unacceptable under the circumstances.
I wish you the best of luck and kudos to you for working so hard at your job(s) and on this relationship and for being so realistic!
It's like this....he has these tickets that prohibit him from getting a job of an 8-5 variety, or a conventional type. Those tickets are what 'caused him to start a business' - he wouldn't have to deal with the potential risk of arrest, if he owned his own business. HE'd rather own a business -that apparently he didn't research and discuss with someone successful in the field, than pay the $1500 tickets, end the potential of arrest, and get on with his life.
Before that...how the tickets came to be, and why they're so in arrears is really an issue. He didn't get the tickets doing nothing but obeying the law, and he didn't prioritize the law any more post-tickets than pre-tickets. His attitude is "if I can get away with it, I will"...what he doesnt like is inconvenience or consequence.
He doesn't like owning and running a business that isn't successful, but he doesn't know that success is a method - not a situation or circumstance. He doesn't like the results of owning an unsuccessful business - no money, doing laundry too often, etc. and he feels like a 'teenager on a leash" and so he's in rebellion.
Now, honestly hon....$5k or something like it sounds like alot if you've got next to nothing and been borrowing from parents...but the reality is $5k could be run thru in 3 months without much of any effort at all.
But if you look at the pattern - here's what you'll see. You've been prioritizing how you feel about being the primary breadwinner, and kissing him goodbye while he's snuggled under the covers. And those feelings and your management and monitoring of them have been your focus...which isn't totally inappropriate - how you "feel" about him is relative to whether your relationship works out!
But....he doesn't prioritize and value and take action in a pattern of responsible, goal focused, self-aware, factually assessed living. That's evident by him getting the tickets and not dealing with them promptly becuase it didn't "impact him at the time".....that's evident in his starting a business without adequate reseearch to know that a lawnservice in the winter months is going to bring in nill (I've worked construction and even in my totally green to the industry state I knew that in cold/wet weeks/months - we'd not be making money!), that's evident in his being upset, considering you his mother and him on a leash monetarily - none of that is the thinking patterns, emotional associations, rational logic of a self-aware, responsible, successful, secure, happy, complete, andindependent man.
It's pretty evident he's emotionally driven...whatever he 'feels' like is what he does, he let's other people deal with the consequences. Pretty typical when you're 12-14 and you're supposed to outgrow it. However, lots of people don't mature past it because everybody in their lives is so enamored with their potential, and how good being around him makes them feel, that they eliminate, alleviate, fix, or deal with the consequences of his actions - which they're not that fond of - but oh well, affiliation with him is worth it.
You're there right now. It's not hard to be fun, happy go lucky, carefree and generous and gracious when everything is going your way, or at least none of the negativity your actions result in is your negativity to deal with.
So now he's out "repeating" his pattern...spending money he hasn't got, without a plan to pursue ending this business if that is his choice, and getting a job except via you two paying off his tickets with money not yet in hand. That if it doesn't materialize - they won't be paid, he'll be stuck with the business, that makes no money, he'll be further in debt and on a shorter leash financially, resenting you more, and making your life living heck.
There you have it....if you marry into this - the pattern will repeat itself. You've got to look outside of situations in order to see the full issue at hand. situations don't occur in a vacuum, they're not a result of intentions.
People do what they do becuase they want to do it. Their values, priorities and boundaries justify and entitle their actions, feelings, thoughts, decisions, words, ideas, and desires. Those same values determine their character,conscience, integrity and honor in every regard and venue.
So you do know that you're not alone, and so that maybe you can learn by example...here's the "result" of my fourth marriage at 27 that lasted till I was 35. I had a job and paid my bills - but being underpaid and over-respponsibliity laden as a single parent with a lack of education in a small community - my parents covered my shortfall (basically, my parents supported me in great part - but I didn't realize that at the time). I've been him, in part too - you'll see this here. You'd have to know the whole story to see it cleary however.
He lived in a poverty level shack, holding a blue collar 8-5 job that he really didn't like, and he had a few buddies and they were constantly "padding their racing canoes and kayaks on the river. But...we met. We cohabitated...I paid a majority of "our" bills at his sub-standard level of living house becuase he wouldn't move, and I couldn't afford better on my own. I paid the majority because I had a child - 2/3rd of everyting was my responsibility, despite the fact he made more than me. That should have told me something -it didn't!
Our dad's died within amonth of one another, he wanted to start a business becuase he belived that having been in construction all his life (his grandfather and father had owned road construction companies and he stillworked in road construction but for the city) he was sure he could succeed, particularly in the small town that knew his reputation thru his forefathers. The inheritance we got between us two was $40k. $10k of his went into the business - the other 10K was "reserved" for savings. My entire $20k went into the business -plus all my tax returns. I paid all our billls....all his money that he made from the business went back into it. That went on for 8 years...while we got further in debt due to his mismanagement.
For four years i laid asphalt, drove trucks, worked on construction sites, shoveled based and dirt by day, paid bills and drank myself into an alcoholic stupor by night, and turned around to start it all again at 4:15am. 6 days a week, 14-16-18 hours a day. This was all so that he could "run" the jobs, have lunch with potential clients, and supervise and bid. Meaning he did very little manual labor, and he did very little of anything but walk around looking and feeling important everwhere he went. Now...he didn't go to pick up parts, or get fuel...because we owed those creditors money and he didn't want to be concerned with hearing about that. And every time he wanted a new piece of equipment he'd hound me to sign the loan papers na din a drunken state to placate him, I would.
6 years into this marriage, I sobered up. I stayed another couple of years to recoup my investment and/or make the business succeed, and see if we could develop a relationship. None of which was anyting he wanted to do or make a reality - so of course it iddn't happen. You can't make someone live "up" to sacrifice, effort, work, and honesty - you can only live at their level of laziness, dishonesty, lack of effort and work.
Sober...I worked harder than ever but smarter than ever, paid the bills despite his screaming that I was disobeying him, got an entire construction crew to regard me with respect and admiration based on how I conducted myself and how hard I worked. He somehow forgot to mention to the bankers and lawyers he'd been dealing with that I'd sobered up but who cared, he had "money"!
Two years later I left...we didn't share values, standards, priorities and boundaries, we didn't share a defniition of a great life or how to achieve it. We were at odds...I didn't scream, yell, curse, or fight...I simply refused to do what was "wrong" by my standards. That angered him beyond comprehension and he defaulted into more emotionally driven destructive action to our business and my child than ever before.
I left, without the inheritance, giving him on paper the federal tax debt and the assets of the business. I walked away with a car, a solo racing kayak, a doubleblade, a cat, a very dsyfunctional relationship with my child, and a low-paying job.
But, I worked 8-5, paid the bills on time, lived in a style that didn't require me to be enabled or propped up by someone else's largess, pursued learning to paddle the boat really well, tried to raise the chid and didn't enable him when he returned to drugs...did all the things everybody thought was impossible for me to do - without alot of effort. Living by values rather than by emotional need has a way of making ding the right thing easy.
Two years after the divorce, the IRS came calling. WE as a couple owed $40k in unpaid and unfiled taxes...he as an individual based on the following two years of total disregard for employee taxation payment owed $100k+. He fled....he sold th eeuqipment, kept the cash, enver paid the bank for the loans, evaded the IRS. He didn't have to move to do it- he simply had to do what he had always done. Blame someone else and that justified his "butt saving" actions....and I was left to deal with the IRS.
They held me liable for the $40k...as I knew they would. He'll never work again where his social security number is involved - he cannot, federal tax debt garnishes all wages, and he's in severe debt. They have no "use" of throwing him in federal prison because he's not going to produce any better result in there, than out here. So he basically just has to live at a standard that doesn't disturb him a wit, and he'll be tax free and debt free the rest of his life, despite his actions, decisions and words during the 8 years of our marriage.
However, I cannot live owning nothing, having no retirement, not holding a tax paying job, not pursuing a successful and normal life....so I settled with the IRS and am making my payments. Prior to their seeking restitution - I had many self-imposed restrictions ue to my ethics. Federal tax debt supercedes a great many normal debt boundaries - to marry would have put all of "his" assets in jeopardy and risk - so I did not date from 35 to 39. No point in dating if you cannot form a relationship. I could not own a home, save for retirement, or having savings of any substance that was evident to the audit process. To do so would have had them seizing my property and garnishing my wages trying to get the entirety of the $40k that is owed by "us" out of me - they don't care who pays but that it is paid!
So there you are dear....you're looking at a lifetime of living at his standards, with is actions, dealing with his ocnsequences. Notice it doesn't disturb him to have gotten the tickets and disregarded them despite the negative impact (he doesn't like ht impact - but not enough to get responsible across the board).
He's quite right - youo're his "mother". If you'd stand back you'd realize that like a single mother you're going to work so that he has an "easier life"...youre paying the bills, dealing with the hassles, trying to find solutions....while he piddles in a season of non-productivity at a business that earns nothing because "it's not his fault he can't get a job, he'll get arrested!". YOu're now managing the budget. The list is endless.
Here's the thing....what you're doing is a dual-edged sword. It's called "enabling" - the more of his consequences you bear and fix becuase they impact you and if you don't do something the results to you and him wil be horrendous - the more of those very same types of actions he'll take, and those types of situations he'll get into.
Yet, if you let the entire house of cards come crashing down with you inside - you're going to bear the enormous brunt of debt, bankruptcy, dissolution of future options and potential...you can't afford to do that.
There is a solution...it's hard to see, it's harder to do. The house of bricks is at some point due to his actions going to fall in upon whoever is inside. He'll surely be there. At some point he'll do something you can't fix or undo and the results will bring the shaky facade of the life that you've got down around your ears. When that happens - ifyou're standing there - realize he's not ging to start rebuilding the house. He's ging to look at you and place the blame for this happening on you- after all, you've fixed or eliminated all the other negative results of his actions. He'll likely leave you....because nobody is attracted to theri mother - and nobody is desiring a partner they have a need of. He'll have long before found someone on the daily path of his life that thinks he's sweet, fun, cute, sexy when he sweats...and she'll be flirting and paying him all kinds of "much deserved" attention by his way of thinking. When the security that you two have built comes crashing down due to his actions....he'll leave you for her, or his parents, or some other source of no -obligation benefit.
You however will be left with the fallout of the actions. You'll be wnating to hold a job that allows for saving and retirement, you'll want to own a home, you'll want to have credit options, you'll want to have financial security, you'll want to have professional status, you'll want to have a desirable public and profesional and personal reputation. If ANY of that is available to you once he's destroyed what you've built - you'll be a fortunate woman. And if it is ever available to you if you're inside when the bricks come falling in - it'll be because you got focused, goal oriented, you began to sacrifice in ways and dimensions you've never considered so that you make double time to rebuild a foundation on which to place a structure of security that is your life. You won't be out there at 20-something having a good time, flirting, dating, and enjoying your life. You'll be out there at 30 something doing nothing but owrking to pay the back bills, and filing paperwork to rectify your credit, and pursuing bank loans of small status so that you obtain credit in your own name, and you'll be at the mercy of handouts for quite awhile, perhaps even living at home with your folks (hopefully with no children but almost surely if you have them you will live with them unless they can assist you financially).
I'm not saying don't marry...well, I am......but I'm saying rethink this whole thing.
"The greatest relationships are those in which the desire for each other greatly outweighs the need for each other." Dahli lama
Great relationships are based in equality, mutual benefit,honest communication and are only possible between two complete, successful, secure, happy, independent people by their own definitions, efforts, means, and standards.
If I can help, let me know.
Erin
quickblade14@hotmail.com
Tell him that it is time to grow up and behave like a man. That he must return his purchases, or deal's off. Don't threaten unless you are ready to go. Let's see how he pulls it off without you, anyway. Sorry for my lack of sympathy for him. I have been with someone like that.
Wow. I don't know what to say. I guess I'll start by saying thank you. Everything you said in your letter has been the same fears that I have had haunting me lately. I feel like I'm getting into a marriage with a very irresponsible person. I think you are totally right about the lawncare business. Maybe he started it because he knew that he had tickets and couldn't go out and get a real job. And that kind of hurts.
I have to admit you brought me to tears. And as I was reading your reply my fiance happened to call wanting to know why I didn't come home for lunch and read some stupid letter about our fight over the golf clubs (obviously not a I'm sorry letter from the tone of his voice). He obviously has perfect timing...well not so much for his interests I guess.
I can't imagine going through what you've been through and I don't think anyone would ever chose that path towards debt and back bills and trashed credit ratings. Being a single mother the whole time just makes your story even more heart breaking.
Now I'm kind of numb. I feel like you just told me everything that will happen that I have feared will happen since this whole mess started. I don't want to be the responsible one, because truth be told, I'm not that responsible. And being teamed up with someone who is even less responsible than me...well, I guess you are right...its a disaster waiting to happen.
The sad thing is I know you are right. I'm so numb right now and maybe even a little depressed. But at the same time, I can't help wondering if there's anything else to be done, any way to fix the problem.
I love my fiance with all my heart. He's treated me like a queen on every other level. I can't imagine meeting anyone else that is so intune with my wants and needs and so eager to make me happy. But the truth is, this whole money issue is starting to feel like its bigger than all of that. And after hearing from you, I'm even more scared than I was before.
I don't want that for me. But I guess what hurts me even more and breaks my heart and makes me cry is that I don't want that for him either. He's too good of a person to go down that road. And I can see him making his way right into your story.
So I guess my question is...is there any hope for him? Is there any way to help him? He deserves so much better, he really does.
So he got a job working for a lawncare company as an employee for two years or so and did alright, managed to keep his house and truck and stuff. Then he got laid off and he could afford to renew the lease on his house and he had to sell his truck and move in with a friend and basically stay on their couch for three or four months.
He had a hard time finding work and ended up working at a restaraunt for awhile and then quit to go to Colorado with two of his buddies for a month. When he got back he had a harder time trying to find a job and got really depressed, spent all of his money, had to sell the cheap car and only car he had and his Dad wound up bailing him out of the situation and getting him set up in a cheap apartment and giving him 1500 bucks for a car.
So he started working again that Spring and did ok but then his boss got nailed for insurance fraud and he lost his job again and then we started to talk about him opening up his own lawncare and landscaping company (no partners, no loans, start from scratch).
So we did well that Spring and summer. Not too bad he managed to pull in 1200 a month by the end of Spring and close to 2000 by the end of summer and then when winter hit...well people don't need someone to cut dead grass I guess. So he put up Christmas lights and took them down for people in the community and it made a little money.
But the problem was he was never actively trying to save ANY money. It was spent and gone immediately. So when I got laid off and he was scarping by on money from putting up and taking down Christmas lights we were severly broke.
And now that I'm working and we ran into a bunch of money, I just don't want to see it spent so quickly when who knows? We could wind up broke just as quickly as we wound up with money.
I think there's hope IF you draw a line in the sand NOW.
People do what they do because they want to do it. Their values and standards and priorities justify and entitle their actions, feelings, thoughts, decisions, words, ideas, and desires. Those same values determine the character, conscience, integrity and honor in all situations and venues.
That's why people find themselves repeatedly in the same "positions" in different situations. They're using he same reasoning patterns, and value orientations to get the same "results" no matter what.
Yes, he could change....the reality is if he did it wouldn't be a behavioral change but a values change. In which case you'd find he'd be more self-aware and self-accepting and might easily not want the same things he has up to now in life, his values determine all that is listed above and then some...you'd easily find that he wants a totally different lifestyle than you've got now, he'd very likely have different goals.
I can't do this justice - but living life from a position of needing an alliance to have "independence" is a very debilitating modus operandi. YOu can't stand back objectively and admire, respect, accept or understand people for who they are - you're too much in need of an alliance to review them in terms of anything but "self-benefit".
The standard and level that HE lived at prior to you - that's what he's capable of, waht he prioritizes, what he desires and accepts as "good enough"...what's good enough for im will be good enough for you - he won't work harder "for you" (at least not without resentment and only temporarily) than he does for himself.
Don't think I had it that rough...I didn't. I did make it that rough on myself yes, but primarily on the long list of people who I used and destroyed in every capacity on my "quest for independence at their expense".
I've been him.....I've had the unique option to actually accept the responsibility for my unrealistic, irrational, irresponsible behavior and deal with the consequences of it in the last marriage - ONLY because I had changed prior to the marriage ending at all. I knew what he'd do before he did it, I stood there knowing I wanted to "clean the slate", I knew it was not "penance" for my previous wrongs, nor would it eliminate my feelings about my previosu actions. I simplly looked at a bigger picture and realized - I want to be 45 and free of tax debt, I want to give he child I neglected, abused and ignored someone to look at as a guide and mentor should he choose to come out of the dysfunctional chaos that I taught him was 'good enough to live in'. I wanted to have a great life...I'd been trying with every intention of doing it and almost did accomplish it -to drink myself to death from 17 to 33. I didn't believe in actual suicide, I believed in a protracted and prolonged death march. I was a little ahead of schedule, Ididn't want to die until my child was 18 (not sure why - I had no relationship with him and still don't) and at 33, I had literally wasted my life, my options, myself and my health and finances away to the point that self-destruction wasn't all I was accomplishing - I was impeding he progress of a man who'd gotten with me ONLY to be provided for to some degree and his willingness to dispose of me permanently in a situation where I'd have beeen locked up for eternity in a rehab with no release possible was the ONLY thing that straightened me out.
I sobered up to get out. I got sober and realized getting out wasn't good enough...I had to stop wanting what I wanted...not just stop drinking what I had been drinking. I sobered up and got rational...and he got pretty irrational, emotionally driven and drove himself straight into a pit I dno't share, but easily could have...had I stayed. I realized I had to made right what was possible so that I could have a great life by my standards. I didn't want to live avoiding the IRS, I didn't want th eoption never to date to marry because of the debt, I chose to stop running the day I turned around the faced the addict I was.
So yes, he could change. I'd tell you what you'd be told in Al-Anon or CoDA if you went there - don't fall for someone's potential for it is not what you'll be living with or in. Do realize that you're responsible for your own destiny and those you align with determine in great part where you'll end up - no matter how smart, ethic, hard working, or responsible you are.
If you're not willing to accept who he is, and how he is...review the life that he led prior to yu and realize you're headed for that standard or lower should you continue alliance and if that upsets, disturbs, or terrifies you - get out.
I learned alot on the water, in a solo racing kayak. I learned to control myself and the boat - not the river. the river didn't ensure my safety - in fact, it could surely ensure my death if I did not conduct myself while on it with resonsibility, integrity, skill, and intelligence. I learned one thing you'd do well to adhere to - my mantra is "no slack, no mercy, no regrets" - I take that into competitive environments and dominate becuase it is a factually driven and assessing approach with only a win in mind. I don't win by underhanded tactics. I win because I have no slack in training, and when I am not winning in the race, I remember the diligent and fortitude that took me thru training and I not just 'press on" - I speed up. I show myself no mercy...there is no good reason "not" to have an excellent race - win or not. I take no prisoners - it's a solo boat and there is no room for anybody but me, and there is no need for anybody but me. And I have no regrets to the approach - both in training, racing and life - it's served me well.
With others, I show them much mercy - their faults are accepted, but the consequences are not mine to bear. I show much slack - your goals are your own to set and you'll reach them or not based on your pursuit of them....you determine your goals and your method by which to pursue and achieve them. And in that approach, none of us have any regret of alliance.
I learned in the most difficult of water...there is more than one path that will safely and swiftly carry you thru - but ONLY if you utilize responsible intelligence. Otherwise, there is no path that will take you safety.
So, it's entirely up to you. one thing you cant say is that you're getting in unaware or uninformed. YOu know precisely what he is.....and sometimes that is why dating is so difficult. Two years ago I dated the most sexy, charming, witty, intelligent, humorous, sensitive, caring and intelligent man.....we shared interests, we shared viewpoints, we shared a great many of hte fundamental things in life. I didn't start dating - until my path was clear enough that I could discern between want and need ofa partner - I wanted to desire my partner, not need him.
This man so literally was everything I thought I wanted I couldn't imagine my good fortune. I enjoyed the giddy high of infatuation - it lasted quite awhile. Intelligently we didn't cohabitate or comingle anything of vital necessity to us as individuals during that first year. I couldn't imagine a bettter date, a better mate, a more ideal situation...until.....I got a closer look objectively at the reality of his world.
In tax debt (okay, tehre's a good way to put the fear of God in me!), still legally married, a very loosely structured plan for the future, with no present financial security, and being he was emotinally driven to a higher extent than me (who isn't) often his actions weren't on the "plan t succeed" - they were on the 'path of feeling good right now". Never confuse instant gratification with success -t hey're totally unrelated.
I realized that no matter how much I admired him as a person, how much in common we had...the reality is if responsible and liable to and for one another - I'd be reduced to a state of fear that was equivalent to my drinking days. It's one thing to be spontaeously wisked off to Cancun...but realize that same proclivity and priority might easily mean that your plans on Friday night go by the wayside iwthout notice if something "more fun by his standards" comes along.
It was an endless review of the facts, it took two years for me to decide that withut regret, I could give him up. To be honest, there was no commitment or talk of it due to his situaiton in full. I'd gone from growing excited by his spontenaety and unpredictability and charm and sex appeal....to considering it de riguer....to perceiving it as "somewhat of a hassle"...and at the end it was "an intolerable trait (along with a few others).
So I do know where you are....but I never lost sight of the fact that I was as responsible for me in "real life" as I am in my most desired life out on the water - in that solo boat.
If I can help, let me know.
http://www.hullspeed.net/journal/feature_story_v2_i3.html
Erin
quickblade14@hotmail.com