Inappropriate relationship and wedding repercussions

RadoJo

Basically, I suppose I'm asking 'is getting married more important that keeping your family together for your kids?'. If you want to leave him because he cheated, then I can't argue with that, but if you can overcome the infidelity to keep your family together, then why is marriage so important? You're already committed to each other by having children together, but if that's not enough to make you want to stay, then what difference would being married make? Is it that you want some kind of sign from him that you can 'start afresh' as it were, because you don't think you would be able to do that without some fundamental change in the status of your relationship?

ETA - I am aware that the typed word can be imbued with different meanings, so I want to make it clear that I am trying to ask these questions in a completely neutral way in the hope of gaining some clarity on what you really want i.e as questions that I think it's worth you considering in your decision making process. I'm not trying to catch you out or prove you wrong, just considering the overall dilemma that you're facing. I hope it's not coming across as badgering or hectoring as that is not my intention.

shellsuit

I know where you're coming from Gwen.

You've got the home, the children, the little family that most people desire, but for you, marriage would be the icing on the cake.

It was only when we had the little man (elder 2 aren't his) that we knew we really wanted to marry, not just for love, but for the legal side of it too.

Does that not mean anything to him? That if you marry, you'll be each others next of kin should anything happen to either of you?

RadoJo

It's not that I don't understand the desire to get married, in a general sense, but in Gwen's specific situation she is considering sacrificing her family life for it which makes me think that forgiving her OH may be reliant on his agreeing to the wedding. If that is the case, then it's prudent to consider whether it would actually make the difference - what if you do get married but still find it hard to get over his infidelity?

shell_girl

gorgeous_gwen wrote: »

I don't want to pursue this relationship if ultimately it will not end up in marriage.

Elsewhere you've said that you believe that the fact you've had children together means that you are living as husband and wife. Ultimately you have already pursued this relationship - you have children together.

I think what I (and a few others on the thread judging from responses) struggle to understand is that your forgiveness for his indiscretion is conditional. You will forgive him and move on if you get married.

If you don't get married, then you will leave because you have been 'missold' the situation.

Getting married will not fix anything that is broken in your relatonship.

Getting married will not change the way your partner feels about you.

Even if both partners want to get married, it takes time and effort to make it work. If one of them is co-erced/ pushed/ dragged/ forced into it, how succesful do you think that mariage will be?

I really do feel for you because it does come over in your posts that this is incredibly important to you. What you need to ask yourself is why?

Please think about what I'm going to ask you, even if you don't answer on here.

Do you need your partner to ask you to marry him to reassure you that he loves you?

Do you want to get married as an outward sign (to friends / family) that you are happy, or to prove to them your partner's feelings for you?

Would you be happy to get married if your partner told you he didn't want to marry you, but that he would do it to keep the family together?

If you do leave the relationship, what will you tell your children in years to come? Will you tell them it was because their father had an emotional affair (that you could have forgiven him for had he given you a wedding ring) or will you tell them that you chose to leave a partner who wouldn't marry you, but who probably would have stuck around?

Sorry this post is getting far too long now! I haven't given you my opinion about your partner's affair here because it's something you say you can get past if you get married.

I get the impression that this is about wanting your partner to feel a certain way about you, and seeing marriage as the evidence.

You can't force him to feel a way he doesn't feel.

gorgeous_gwen

Right I think I see...

I did not mean I will forgive him if he says we'll get married.

What I meant was, the forgiveness is a work-in-progress. Rightly or wrongly, at this point, I feel my forgiveness is dependent on him showing via his actions (discussed in counselling) that he understands my feelings surrounding the whole situation and is reassuring me that he IS trustworthy. This part is going well.

HE has said he wants to put off the wedding until this process has come to a natural end, ie I feel trusting of him again. What *I* want to know, is that his desire to get married is genuine, ie he is not saying he does to keep me around with no intention of ever actually doing it.

I see no point in pursuing the path of forgiveness, and continuing the relationship, if ultimately, he doesn't want to get married anyway. We'll have gone through the wringer, working hard to mend things, and then be at a point I don't want to be, ie not getting married.

THERE IS ALWAYS THE POSSIBILITY that he will say yes he does want to get married, we will move forward working on mending things, then I will find that actually, no, I can't forgive him. If I can't, then that will be that.

I can't just forgive him if he says, yes, we will get married. It's not a cure-all. Although he has done a lot to help mend the damage he caused, I am still not quite there yet. As I mentioned earlier, it is complicated, though too much to explain here; I still find it hard to deal with the lies and secrets but I understand the thoughts and intentions behind them which I *can* forgive. Probably doesn't make sense but I believe he understands why it hurt me although didn't so much at the time.

Hope that makes more sense!

January20

I suppose you can have children "by accident" if you see what I mean, but you can't get married by accident so I suppose I now (having thought about it and you quite a bit) understand your need to get married and the "message" it gives, the commitment it shows.

mrcow

I also think that over the years, you have painted a very vivid picture of what your boyfriend is like. He comes across as extremely selfish. Selfish towards your needs and feelings and selfish towards the relationship and towards your childrens needs.

I'm sorry, but I can't see you ever getting what you need fom this. He is always going to put himself and his own needs first. In the process, he also makes you feel inadequate and needy.

I so much want to suggest taking a break from each other to help focus your minds, but from the sounds of what he is like, I'm not convinced that he wouldn't use that time as an excuse to be unfaithful (seeing it as a break iyswim?). I've known men like this before. They are not an attractive proposition to anyone long term.

Good luck with your ongoing councilling. I a fearful however that we will still be having the same "conversation" this time next year, and the year after.

gorgeous_gwen

I read the last two responses after a blow-up I had with him.

I asked him how would he know when the trust was back? He replied, when I said. I said I could say tomorrow I trusted him again, he said yes, then we'd look at getting married. If I meant it.

I intended that to be it for now; but I found myself asking him, did he do what he did because on some level he didn't want to get married? He said no. I asked DID he want to get married? He said he didn't mind either way. I don't know what I think about this.

I told him I wasn't happy. The gist of the rest of the conversation was that although he has been doing helpful stuff out of counselling, I felt the onus was on me to do the mending, and it should be him. I'm stuck in this position where if I talk about how I feel about it, he gets defensive, if I don't talk about it, he thinks I'm fine and happy.

I said I couldn't face the next 50 years having the same discussions about the same things because he for whatever reason is an obstacle in resolving them. He got defensive again and said maybe I should think about all the positive stuff he's been doing (and yes, he has, I don't deny that) rather than focussing on the negative... I had to LMAO to myself at that:D

I asked him, genuinely, what did he feel he'd done this last week to help mend things? What did he think about that he thought, yes, that'd really help reassure Gwen? He couldn't say anything. He protests at the little things I have asked (he explained they would be awkward, such as calling me from work, ok so genuine reason he can't as he's busy) but what about the rest of the time?

He just doesn't think about what he can do. It seems he only thinks about it if we're at counselling, or I bring it up. Talk about a knife in the back... That is as good as saying my feelings aren't important enough for him to take time to consider. I am livid.

He's gone out now. I have been stewing over things. I don't want to react out of emotion but tbh I now feel I am being shown very clearly how much he considers my feelings about what he did. Not very much.

Tiger_greeneyes

gorgeous_gwen wrote: »

I feel his regret is genuine. I can see he feels pain for the effect it had on me. He has done a lot from the heart to help me to feel better. He's come to counselling.

I'm wondering if you're giving him too much credit? He got caught out and he knows he has to do his bit to make it up to you so is he going through the motions and pulling the right faces just to get himself out of trouble or because he wants you to marry him? It's not the latter, is it...

It all boils down to the question of "does he have respect for you?" You've already told us that he doesn't because of his infidelity. Also, if he respected you then he wouldn't have tried to justify his behaviour by telling you how good he is because he didn't go further than text sex with her. That's probably just a matter of geographics - if she lived 20 miles away, do you think he'd have stopped at just having phone sex? If I posted a poll on that one I think we all know what the results would be - and another poll for "will he do it again?". Just the fact he's avoiding marrying you and doesn't want to have relationship talks etc speaks volumes about any respect he holds for you.

If what you want is the same as what he wanted, then he'd be doing it.

scooby088

It is good you have got a time frame to get things in your own mind sorted out, i often thought with time outs in relationships it's a double edged sword really, i often think are you together or single. For me a time out is the first step to breaking up, anything could happen on a timeout on either side.