Dating and all the dynamics
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| Sun, 04-01-2007 - 12:27pm |
Hi All,
Decided to follow most of you from DASP to here. It seems like more fun over here:)
I was reading some of the posts and wanted to jump in and get some perspective and input about juggling all the dynamics of dating, trying to establish a new relationship, managing an appropriate relationship with the Ex, children, etc.
I have been dating Teacher as some of you know, exclusively for a year and a total of two years. He lives an hour from me, has a 4 year old DS, and his ex is a flight attendant. I have an 8 year old DS and my ex lives 2 miles from me. I also got out of an emotionally abusive relationship, and out of all the hate I felt for my Ex, evolved a very nice and warm friendship. We talk almost daily, all about our child, but its nice we got to be friendly. He also has maintained a relationship with my family. So once in a while i will include him in things only IF he has my son and I want my son there too. I still feel mindful of not wanting to see his feelings hurt and try to always be considerate with things.
Anyway, Teacher is not so great with communicating his availability, he is at the mercy of his Ex's job schedule and she is gone just about every week-end. Their son spends a lot of week-ends with his folks, so that gives Teacher a chance to see me.
But if he knows his schedule weeks in advance and doesn't tell me until the day before, I get nuts. So for example, this week-end, he told me Wednesday he was busy with his son. I was only free Friday night. I only get to see him 1x a week. I made plans with a girlfriend after work Friday and told my son and my Ex I would join them for a bike ride Sat. And tonight is my Mom's birthday, DS is with his Dad tonight so I asked them both to join us.
Thursday night Teacher tells me he is free Friday night his mom can take his son. So I tell my understanding girlfriend I will take a rain check. Then today he tells me he is free today/later. I told him I had plans to see my family and my Ex is bringing my DS.
Here is the juggling question: Teacher made me feel like I came across like I was hiding plans with my Ex, and I should have just said from the onset, I had made these plans. I didn't think to tell Teacher because 1) the other plans were last minute too, and 2) he already told me he was busy. Tomorrow night is Passover, and I did ask Teacher to join my family over a month ago. My DS is staying at his Dad's but I wanted to bring Teacher with me. So I can't feel bad about my Ex having no plans and feeling guilty. Teacher asked me before why he wasn't invited to have dinner with my family tonight. I told him he told me he wasn't free before the plans were even made. And since my DS was with my Ex I just asked if he could bring DS over to my brothers and then not to be totally rude, asked if he would like to join us. This was all just yesterday.
Help!!!! I am wondering if I am the socially challenged one here, or is it Teacher? THenf or Easter he asked me yesterday what I was doing, I told him nothing (I am Jewish, did he just realize that, lol) and then I asked him what he was doing and said something with his family. DIdn't ask me to join. WTF? Today we had a whole talk about it, and he said he eventually would have asked me to Easter. Eventually??? It is next week-end!!! Is this just normal guy behavior? Although Shrimpy's Hiker seems to have a strong clue. After all this time with Teacher I want things to be "easy" and normal. Teacher says he wants the same. I don't know...
Somehow at the end of all this, I felt bad.
Some perspective would be great. Aaggh...

Sounds to me like you both just haven't figured out how to communicate your expectations yet.