boston.com Love Letters - I'm Afraid For Her to Move In.
Posted by
Diva (aka Diva)
Jun 8 '11, 07:12
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Meredith,
I am a divorced father of a young child. I had a particularly rough marriage that had me on the receiving end of quite a bit of verbal abuse and a few incidents of physical abuse. The divorce wasn't much better and I had to fight for fair visitation. All the while, with mounting legal expenses, I lost my home to foreclosure.
During the divorce process and in the months following its completion, I had two relationships. The first one was with someone who had commitment issues. The second relationship was long-distance and had all the early signs of becoming just volatile as my marriage.
Needless to say, neither of those relationships were healthy and I turned to professional therapy to attempt to figure out why I kept finding myself in situations where I allowed other people to walk all over me. Therapy helped me make a lot of positive changes in my life.
Last fall, I had managed to pull myself enough out of debt to make the decision to move back out of my parents' home and get my own place. Shortly after that, I met a great woman. She is supportive of me and understanding of my deficiencies. Where I am forgetful and a daydreamer, she is organized with lists and has her feet firmly planted on the ground. Most importantly, she is amazing with my child. I think she will make a great step-mom someday.
There are a few problems that I am wrestling with, however. I have felt constant pressure from her about when I am going to be comfortable moving in together. I am in my 30s and she is in her late 20s, and I think that maybe she's feeling more urgency to make that leap than I am.
I have tried to explain my side of the situation, which is that I have only just gotten myself out of the financial mess from the divorce, and just moved out on my own, and that I need time (for both myself and my child) to settle into this new situation. More importantly, I feel an overwhelming responsibility to prove to myself that I can handle life on my own before having someone else move in with me.
She is uncomfortable without a timeline, so I recently suggested that at some point, we should maybe think about spending a few weeks with her staying at my place just to see how it goes.
At first she thought it was a great idea, but now she's upset about it because she already spends most of the week at my place and doesn't understand what more could be learned from spending a few weeks here. Perhaps she is right, but the idea of it made me feel a lot more comfortable and prepared to have a discussion about where we're at. After all that I've been through, I need reassurance that I am making the right decision and not rushing into anything.
I am disappointed that she is not understanding to my need to take it slow. Is she right? Am I making her suffer and wait because of my relationship history? Or am I just doing what I need to do to make sure I don't repeat the mistakes of the past?
� Thrice Burned, Once Shy
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