# Torn about what to do and believe



## lildeath (Jun 3, 2011)

my boyfriend of 5 years who I have a 3 year old daughter with has had what he calls a 'make out session' with a female co-worker. He insists there was no actual sex. He had told me he was going to a buddy's place to play guitar because I get paranoid if he has female friends and instead went to her place, alone, with her to watch a movie. He is now telling me he regrets the affair and wants to have our family back, but he needs 'head space' and wants to move in with his buddy (who lives in the same apartment complex the OW lives in) temporarily for a couple of months. He says he needs time to grow up (he does not drive and didn't graduate high school due to anxiety issues and he is 26). He says we have been drifting apart over the past year (my father was very ill and passed in Jan and my mother has terminal cancer so I admit i've been distracted and not concentrating much on our relationship. We have been seeing a couples counsellor for about 4 weeks and he insists he still wants to go and wants to work things out. He also told me he feels like I'm just a friend and a roommate. He said when we make love he feels it's nice but just sex. He also needs me to drive him out of state Sunday to visit his mother who just had neck surgery. I've asked him to leave his job since the OW still works there and they interact regularly but he says he feels comfortable there and doesn't want to throw away our relationship on a simple fling that won't work out. I'm debating leaving him up with his mother for a couple weeks to get his much needed 'head space' but this will more than likely cause him to loose his job. I can't tell if he's telling the truth about wanting to grow up to be a family again (which is what he is telling his mother as well...I'm very close with her and she's told me he's called her crying about the situation). I'm torn between wondering if this is the end and he just can't tell me or if he really does want to work on things, and if he does, why can't he stay here to work on them. If I leave him up there for a couple weeks, his job will most likely fire him and I don't want to have that held against me as well. I just don't know what to do...does anyone else have any advice??


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## Syrum (Feb 22, 2011)

You need to say, "actually I'm not sure I can forgive or want you around. You have betrayed me and proven you are not trustworthy. If you are 100% in this relationship and willing to do whatever and I mean whatever it takes to prove how much you love me and value our family I would consider taking you back. At this point you don't seem like a good man or a good option and I know I deserve better." If you say that you have to mean it. At this time he sees you as a back up option and he's doing nothing he should to repair the damage he has done.

After you do that you need to treat him like you have split up, give him visits with your daughter, get him to pay child support, do not drive him any where and start having fun and moving on.


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## lildeath (Jun 3, 2011)

One of the issues is that he says he has fallen out of love with me. He continues talking to this OW (albeit it's on a casual and only friend basis...nothing 'iffy') but I can't get over that he had the EA/PA and doesn't seem to value our family enough to stick around and work on things instead of run away for 'head space' for a couple months. It makes me feel like he will be testing the waters with her and if things don't work out that way it'll be back to me. I have a spy program on his phone (please don't lecture about privacy I had to be sure of what was going on and protect myself physically and emotionally) and I can record surroundings on his phone. He knows about it now because I've confronted him about things I've heard (such as him moving out) and has said that as a way to prove he was willing to work on things he would keep that on and still continue counselling and start 'dating' again to try to get that connection back. It feels like an ultimate betrayal to me because not only was there the affair, but when I need the support the most because of my mother's cancer and father's recent death, he feels the need to distance. I am torn between leaving him at his mothers in hopes he will see how it feels to be abandoned or if it would change his mind about supposedly wanting to try to regain our relationship. Basically I can't decide whether to leave him there for a couple weeks or go with what he's telling me and his mother and let him have his space and work on things beginning with dating again.


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## BulletProof (May 27, 2011)

WOW. I can honestly say, with 100% confidence, that I am going through the EXACT SAME situation with my fiancee. We have a daughter together, and recently, beginning in March, she grew very distant and began going out to friends houses and spending the night, and going to the clubs and what-not, leaving me to care for the baby on my own. She said the same things yours is saying :She has fallen out of love with me, needs "space" and has begun an EA and PA with her ex-boyfriend from 3 years ago. 
We are still living together, and we share one car (I own it) but we are not technically "together." We are simply living under the same roof. My heart breaks every single day I come home and see her, and breaks again each time she goes out, because I have that gut feeling she is going to see OM. I don't want to leave because of my daughter, but I also have a place to go because I do want to get out of there. If I were to leave I would take my daughter, considering she doesn't do anything for her anyway. But unlike your situation, mine doesn't want to work things out, she wants to be single and "do her own thing" the way she has always done before me and the baby. In other words, she wants to act as if she is single and no responsibilities. She lies to my face constantly, and actually thinks I'm dumb enough to believe it. She also didn't graduate high school and is 26, and is EXTREMELY materialistic and all about how she looks/how skinny she is/how hot she looks in a skirt. So count your blessings, in some ways. Atleast he says he wants to get back to being a family. I would say, for your sake and the kids sake, try to work it out. Don't give him a long leash though. Be firm with him. Give him an ultimatum, tell him "Look, it's either you want to be here with me, where your family is, or you don't PERIOD. When you're in a committed relationship with kids, you don't get time for "head space." You work through it with your significant other.

Again, like I said, at least he says he wants to get back to being a family. But words are empty. If he backs them up, then you know he means it. As for me, my family has been torn apart, along with my heart and the little sanity I have left to hold on to. I have a little girl who I can't bear to be apart from, but have to live with a demon in order to do that (atleast until I file the paperwork)

Hope this helped.


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