KittyKat

Hello to all!
I am new here and have spent the past several hours reading as many posts as I can. I could sure use the wisdom of this board. Before I get started, let me send a Happy Mother’s day greeting to all you mom’s out there.

Ok, here goes:

My girlfriend and I met six years ago. We have a 13 year age difference. I was 36 at the time, she was 23. I didn't pursue her because she was so young. She pursued me.
During our first six months together, she lost her job, moved to another state to live w/ her mother, I bought her a car so she could travel to see me (hers wasn't reliable), she eventually moved in w/ me and then she got a job right away. After only four months, she suddenly quit her job w/o talking to me about it. She has a son from a previous marriage (it’s messy) and somehow, I ended up paying her child support for her. After a few months, I told her she must get a job and pay for her own kid.
She did get a job but kept it only a couple months. Because she helped me with a family situation, I agreed to pay her child support for her help (at this time, she wasn’t paying for anything. Not food, gas, utilities etc. She wouldn’t even clean the house.)
After my family crisis ended, I told her she needed to get a job. That it was too much for me to pay my bills and her bills with my salary. A few months went by and she got a great job. A job she kept for a year. During her final few months, she decided she wanted to be a CNA. She worked and went to school. Her job wanted to promote her and said they would be willing to work around her school schedule.
But no. She decided she then wanted to go to nursing school and she couldn’t WORK and GO TO SCHOOL at the same time. So she quit work.
Up to this point, we had been together 2 ½ years. During this time, I also found out she was into the D/s lifestyle (Dom/submissive) and it caused a great many fights between us when I found her spending most of her time in chat rooms which I thought was what was causing her to not help out around the house.

Moving forward.
After she completed CNA school, I told her she must work until nursing school started the following year. She got a job, but quit after 2 days. Without telling me. I came home from work early one day and there she sat. If I had not come home, I have no idea how long it would have taken her to tell me.
Then she wanted to start a business. I gave her the money to do so (and yes, all this time I had been paying for everything, including the child support and I was the one cleaning the house). Before she got the business off the ground, she said she couldn’t do it without help. After much debate and discussion, I quit my job to help her. To my surprise, we did very well. So much so that we were able to take trips to Disney World and a trip to the West Coast. But alas, after four months, she informed me she no longer wanted to stay in the business. I told her she needed to work. Her excuse? Since she had her son all summer, she wasn’t going to work and miss spending time with him.
This angered me to no end. Our relationship should have ended right then. In fact, it almost did. I told her she needed to leave. She gave me the guilt trip of me throwing her and her SON out on the streets, etc.
She then started being the kind of partner anyone would want. At least for a couple of weeks anyway. She actually kept the house clean. But after her son had been here a few weeks, she went back to being the same old person: staying up all night on the computer, sleeping half the day, not working, not cleaning.
I continued to keep the business running, but was pulling in sometimes not even half per month of what we were making with both of us running it. The business was run out of the home on the internet. She stayed on my back to “get a real job” that would pay for everything. And told me she would never feel secure in our relationship until I put her name on my house. I told her she needed to get a job. That I was doing all I could. Then she threw a fit because I told her I didn’t have the money to send her and her son to Disney World before he went back to his dad’s. Needless to say, I ended up putting the trip on a credit card. I ended up putting nearly $20,000 on credit cards because my income wasn’t enough to keep up 3 people. I ended up taking a mortgage out on my home, which I owned free and clear, to get out of credit card debt and to go to truck driving school. She still refused to work, even after her son left for the summer because she said it was pointless to work only a few months before her nursing school started in January.
So we sat down and made a plan. I would take care of everything financially for the next two years until she graduated (or I should say, I would CONTINUE to take care of things financially) and in two years when she graduated, we would fight for full custody of her son together and with her working, I would take a few months off for a well deserved break.
When I graduated, I got a job right away. I was gone from 5-6 days at a time and home for 1-2 days. When I’d get home, I would clean the house and turn around and leave again. We fought constantly. Then a couple weeks before her 1st semester was over, she got kicked out of school. Why? Because she missed too many days. Why? Because she stayed up all night in the chat rooms and was too tired to get up and go. Luckily for her, she was a straight A student and her teachers liked her. So they invited her to come back and re-do the semester w/o having to file another application.
This infuriated me. I told her not to expect her son to come and live with us when we planned since it was going to take her a year longer than expected to graduate. She had blown it. And since it would be nearly another year before she would go back to school, she needed to get a job.
She didn’t.
We continued fighting. It was horrible. Every time I’d ask her to leave, she’d become the perfect spouse. Though her “good” behavior never lasted for more than a few weeks. Another summer with her son came and went. I continued working and coming home to clean up their mess. She continued staying up all night, chatting online.
Things came to a blow when the summer ended. I told her I would no longer pay her child support. I told her she needed to get a job and take care of her responsibilities.
Know what she did? She got a job. Know why she got a job? Because someone she had been speaking to online all summer told her she needed to in order to save our relationship.
She didn’t get a job because it was the right thing to do. She got a job because some online person told her to.
I will now fast forward to the beginning of this year because you guessed it: She worked 3 months and quit since school was starting again and I continued working 60-80 hours a week and coming home to clean on my one day off. I spent nearly 2 ½ years doing that.
I did put my foot down last Sept. and told her she needed to get a student loan. Major fight ensued. I refused to co-sign the loan. In the end, she did get the loan (I think more out of fear of not having a place to live instead of doing it because it was the right thing to do) and this past November, started paying her own child support and gas back and forth to school. I continued paying for everything else.

She informs me Janurary 1st that we need to move. That she had done some research and found that she needed to move back to the County where she use to live in order for her to have a better shot at keeping 50/50 custody of her son. I told her I needed to think about that.
Here was my thinking: I have twice taken a mortgage out on my home to get out from under debt from having to pay for everything. I now have to refinance yet again because of even more debt from being the only one working (credit cards, a new car for her because a teenager ran into the other one, normal bills, child support from the past four years and a small farm of animals). We can’t go more than two weeks w/o a major argument due to her behavior and laziness.

I told her that I didn’t want to move. I told her I wasn’t going to leave my family home. I told her since I didn’t know how her ex husband was going to react to her springing on him, out of the blue, that she intends having her son live with her two wks on/two wks off again (as stated in their custody agreement), that it wasn’t worth moving an entire household and all my animals (not saying how many, just know I take in strays) just to maybe have to move back within 6 months. I told her it’s only an hour away, she should get an apartment first, tell her ex her intentions, then wait and see what, if anything he does (he told her this past x-mas he INTENDS on taking her to court when she graduates to get more child support out of her). I do not think he’s going to be gung-ho about going back to their court ordered agreement. I honestly believe he will take her to court for full custody (he likes that child support every month, especially since he just built a new home and hasn't sold the old one). She let him bully her into keeping their son and she only gets him every other weekend right now and during the summer.
I told her that after a year, if her ex husband didn’t cause any problems, I would most certainly move to live with her. That I would even be willing to buy another home (and have TWO mortgages myself). I told her there was no reason why us living an hour away from each other, after I had been on the road for over two years, should change our relationship.

Huge fight ensues because she says she needs me to help HER around HER house and to drive her son back and forth to school and be there with him at night while she’s at work.
She breaks up with me and refuses to move out of my house. Meanwhile, I’m still paying for everything because it’s all in my name. After a couple of months, I aggravate an old injury and have to go on temp. disability. While out of work, I find out some things I don’t appreciate (has to do with her online chats). I can’t take it any longer. I pack her bags, get the car keys from her, take my house keys and tell her to leave. I give her the web address to a car rental company and tell her to make plans (I had already checked at the clerk of courts office and was told since she didn’t have a rental agreement and didn’t pay rent, she was considered a guest and if I asked her to leave and she didn’t, the sheriff would consider her trespassing).

Her tears and plea’s wore me down after many hours. I told her she needed to either get a job until she takes her nursing board for the state, or she needed to keep this house clean to my specifications. She said she would try to do both. All her promises went right back out the window after two weeks. I am suppose to be on bed rest. I can’t stand or sit for more than 10 minutes without great pain (makes it hard to drive!) but guess what? Who do you think is doing all the shopping for the home? Who do you think is cleaning the home? And guess what? Who do you think went right back to chatting online?

I tried to get her to help me around the house. I’ve pleaded with her. I’ve told her I don’t expect her to take care of the animals. All I want her to do is clean up after her and her son. All I ask is she keep common areas like the bathroom and kitchen clean. They pile dishes up, he leaves crumbs and wrappers all over, doesn’t pick up or put away his toys/video games (he’s 11 yrs old), laundry piles up in the kitchen. And now she expects me to put her moving costs on my credit card (roughly about $3500) and expects me to let her have the new car (though it’s in my name).
This six year relationship has put me $100,000 in debt. I just refinanced again to wrap everything up into one low payment and my temp disability barely covers that. I still have to figure out how to pay for food and utilities until I’m able to go back to work.

To sum it all up: Six years, around 10 break-ups w/ her never leaving, more debt than I care to imagine, friends who tell me how stupid I am, me doing everything around the home, me constantly telling her how her behavior is affecting our relationship, her turning everything into MY fault and how I should fix it. And most importantly, I do love her. But for the life of me, I don’t know why.
She graduates this week and the moving thing is suppose to happen in July/August. And yes I know there are two sides to every story. From what I can gather, her biggest complaints about me are that I don't listen to her feelings and I'm not consistent about being patient with her.

Suggestions anyone?

Green-Moo

Suggestions? Well I know you love her, but if you don't start to stand up for yourself and stop giving in to her every demand you'll be bankrupt. And then what will she do?

It sounds like your girlfriend knows when she's onto a good thing.

It's drastic, but would your relationship survive if you lived apart for a while?

berlinlife06

WOW! Well, I think you should try the long distance thing and see how it works out. But you should stop giving her money. You have to take care of you and your debts too. At least try not loosing your house. She has been the cause of your financial problems and a life without real pleasure. I'm sorry but to me that is not love.

tater03

I would have to agree that it is time for you to worry about yourself and your finances. I would try the long distance and let her try to support herself for once. Good luck to you. I hope it works out for you in the end.

KittyKat

Thanks to all who have given suggestions. She doesn't have a choice but to move, for her kid. I do have a choice. Yes, I do love her. But since I'm creeping up in age, I do worry so much about the future and finances. She has already been hired at a hospital and will start in August. I actually believe living apart, even if it's only an hour drive, will greatly help our relationship and provide her the opportunity to do things on her own.

confusedinTX

I gotta say you are very patient. Most people would not have done nearly as much. I guess my thoughts are if you lost everything would she take you in and take care of you like you did her? Unless the answer is yes maybe it is time to find someone who will. I'm sure you can find someone who can be a good to you as you are to them. Sounds like you have earned it. Good luck.

drax

Hi kittyKat
I love you as a person, but i strongly agree with you that YOU ARE DEFINATELY AN IDIOT. Is she that good in bed that you cannot dump her?, because there are many fishes in the ocean for Gods sake. SHE IS USING YOU PERIOD. Wake up buddy.

KittyKat

Yes DRAX, I have often felt used in this relationship. Another example would be today. As I said, she chats everyday online for hours. She carried on, what I would call an affair, with another guy for several months. It carried over from the computer to talking on the phone and texting each other. After I found out about it, I told her it was me or him and the computer. She chose me. But I've wondered if she did only because she had no where else to go. This just happened a month ago, when she ended it with him.

When she wanted to chat again, she said she would keep logs so I could see who she was talking to and what she was talking about if I wanted to.

Last night, she talked to the guy again, but turned off the logs. When I asked her about it today, she said she was wrong to turn the log off, but that she did nothing wrong.

In her eyes, she says that because she is here w/ me, that should be good enough and I should trust her. That anything she does online isn't real. BUT, because I'm not wired that way in my head, IF I WERE to flirt or anything like that online, SHE would consider it ME cheating. But it's NOT cheating if she does it cause she doesn't think it's wrong. But because I think it's wrong, it's cheating if I do it.
Then she says I have ruined her graduation day because of my accusations.

And to another previous poster, yes, she would take me in if I lost everything. But at the moment, I feel like a glorified maid and babysitter for her.
I don't understand how if someone loves you, they would continue doing something they know hurts you.
That's not love to me.

pigpen

Door Mat.

You have given her every reason to believe you will always pickup the pieces. And absolutely no incentive to do otherwise.

She plays on your guilt and force the son card. I am sure you care about them both. But you did not create her irresponsibility.
But you did create your own mess. You say you have done it all "for her' but that is just another way of saying you did what you did becase you could not live with the consequences. Now you see that there are other consequences to your own actions debt).

You seem to already know what you want but you ar not getting it because you have enabled her for a long tme.

What does she give you that you can not get elsewhere?

It is so easy to play the game "if you do THIS I will do THAt" but once the game comes to an end when one of you fail in your commitment. In many ways you have both failed. You have failed to stick to your guns. She has failed to deliver on all her bargins. The is the adult game of "If you dont do this I wont be your friend any more"

I know how to play this game all too well.
You can not force her to do what you want. You can not make her grow up and you can not love her into taking responsibility for her own actions.

I have spent years and years playing this game. No one will ever win. Least of all you.

It is hard to stick up for yourself. Especially if you carry the weight of fear and low self esteem around.

You mention your age and worrying that you can not find another woman. She uses you and walks all over you with guilt and neglect. Is she really the best you can do? Its not much better than eating from the trash no matter how pretty the wrapping.

To top it off, she really isnt being a godd role model for her son.
she uses him as leverage both against you and her former husband. Whether she intends to or not she has her self a nice little pawn that gets her an awful lot of what she wants without really trying. How sad for him!
Perhaps the childs dad is a better role model and would be better living with his dad full time.

Take responsibility for your own actions - stand up for yourself and realize that all you have is yourself. If you choose to continue this relationship - accept that she will always be exactly as she is now. There will always be a "reason" (excuse) for being as she is. You can accept responsibility for her (she wont), or move on. But if you take her on again realize that you do it for your own selfish reasons and you will get exactly what you have already seen.