Lisa, from Illinois (submitted May, 2004)

Name: Lisa
Home state or country: Illinois

Hi,

I am currently engaged to be married to my fiance who I LOVE dearly.  He was married before and he also has a 13 yr old son.  We dated for 5yrs before he proposed so I knew of the issues that were in his life, such as a bitter, resentful ex-wife, manipulating son and an aggressive family. 

But when he proposed to me I accepted because I absolutely positively want to spend "THE REST OF MY LIFE WITH HIM" and only him.  But no soon after we were engaged issues began to rise and these aren't new issues they are the same but now they are affecting me personally in a much greater way than before (when we dated for 5 yrs). Common issues include his family disrepecting his (now our) household and his ex-wife not allowing him to see his son.  But these issues seemed to clear up when addressed, he spoke with his family concerning the disrespect and we took the neccessary steps to prevent his ex-wife from violating child visitation.

I guess, everything began to arise when he told me that he did not want to move out of the state because of his son, he wanted to stay here until his son graduated highschool, after that he would want to move out of state. I was upset, very upset, I understood the fact that he wanted to stay here until his son completed highschool (as any good dad would do, I guess), but I didn't want to stay here.  Now this is about a year after we'd decided that we were moving out of state when I graduated college.  The reality of having to adjust my life to his, let alone his sons life, came in FULL view.  Oh, and it was ugly, I prayed and prayed and made the decision to continue and stay.

To be honest I know that marriage is ALL about acceptance and adapting to the other person and to say that you accept someone, that means (automatically) that you are accepting that person and EVERYTHING that comes along with that person and that is NOT an easy thing to do.  I've constanly asked God to help me deal with these situations in a mature, adult manner when they arise (and believe me they are arising quite often) in reference to his son and his ex-wife, but there seems to be no cure/balm for the way that I feel towards the both of them. 

His ex-wife has called to my job and threatned to see me, and threatned to call and try to make trouble for me at my job and not only that she's made it known that she does not want me to be a part of her sons life or my fiance's for that matter.

His son is selfish, manipulating and materialistic. He doesn't call his father on his birthday, or Father's Day he didn't even come to his graduation.  Now I know the majority of people would imply that "hey it's his mama's fault" but I disagree, yes she does have control over him but I TRULY beleive that this child is just selfish and does not care about his own father the way that he should. What makes me completely angry is that being that his father is 1)in his life consistently and has fought for that numerous amounts of time and 2) cares for him without regard to anything he says or does, just makes me look at this 13 yr old and HATE him and his attitude towards him. 

When people say "are you going to ask him to call you mom" I say, NO WAY, I don't have any children and do not want any at the present.  Futhermore, I would not want a child that acts like him anyway.  I know these feelings are obviously WRONG and maybe even immature, but I can't help it, it's just the way I am/have been feeling.

It's hard to LOVE someone so much that you want to spend the rest of your life with them, but you hate/can't accept what's around them.  I ask God all the time, why, but then again it was my choice from the beginning.  I just wish he did not have a child, I think things would be a WHOLE LOT better, but would they?  Who knows?

I can't talk to my fiance straightforward about it, because each and every time I try it seems as if he feels guilty about his situation or something because he ALWAYS, talks about what he has to accept concerning me like my family.  But like I told him that COULD NEVER compare with marrying someone who has a child because that's more responsiblity, more consistent conflicts, more of everything.  Futhermore, my family, 1) does not call or even live 2 states near us.  They live far away and I only see them once or twice a year and he sees them when I do or even less frequent. However, his family lives here and his son does also.  I told him whenever you marry ANYBODY, you AUTOMATICALLY GAIN IN-LAWS, I mean you can't beat that, everyone has a mother/father/sister/brother,etc.  However, when you've made a decision to marry someone who 1) has a child from a previous marriage and 2) has a renstful, bitter ex, that's AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT BALLGAME.  But he doesn't understand and I really don't expect him to, because he has never lived/been in the situation, he can only spectate.