My Lovely Man and I make plans sometimes... they are pretty much always the same... a wedding, a home, a fireplace in winter, children running in a garden, friends for Sunday brunch... Sometimes we allow ourselves to be braver... to feel less hemmed in by our responsibilities to our children and their other parent.... and we talk about long rail journeys and mountains and a Whole Other Life in places we can't live right now.
But for the most part, we are infinitely 'sensible', you know...
I think it's the fear of fucking up again that keeps us that way... we turn around and look back at our twenties and think, "There's no room for mistakes this time." Better not rush, better not get carried away, better not make fools of ourselves again.
But it's no fun...I love him like crazy and I want to be with him... I want Our Life and I don't want to wait an age for it to begin.
We are lucky enough that Our Life already has three fantastic little kids in it... So why aren't we getting on with it? It's just The Fear, that's all... it's the Not Knowing of it all...
How long are you supposed to wait? What is the proper amount of time? Do we have to wait until friends starts saying things like, "Come on, you two, what are you waiting for?" I wonder if really it's other people's approval we're waiting for.
All I am sure of for now is that mornings waking up without him seem wasted...
Tuesday 19 July 2011
Wednesday 13 July 2011
There are four people in this relationship...
What is to be done about the past, I ask myself?
Back at the beginning of our relationship, My Lovely Man and I prided ourselves on our maturity and on our good fortune... On the fact that we could manage all of the various areas of our lives so beautifully, saving the special romantic moments 'just for us.'
"How marvellous," we cried, "to have this love affair... how free, how very modern, how detached from the stress and ordinariness of the rest of life, how wonderful to be individuals again."
... and how wrong we were. As it stands, I'm having murderous thoughts about his ex girlfriend... let me explain.
I am the only one of my female friends who, when drawn into discussion about possible future forays into love, would say that I wanted a man who already had kids. It always raised an eyebrow at dinner parties... "But why would you want to complicate it like that?" people would ask, "I mean, even if his kids are great, they'll always be The Ex Wife hanging around in the background... and you don't need that!" (Shudder)
But I had my reasons. I don't want any more children myself and had become convinced that however much a man protested his love for me; one day he'd look at me lovingly in bed one morning and say, "Come on, let's just have a baby." And what would I do then? Well, I would say no of course. And that most probably would be the end of that. No baby, no love.
And so when I met My Lovely Man and we had established pretty early on that neither of us wanted more children, it was a blessed relief... for both of us. I would love him and he would love me and we would parent our own children, each person getting up to deal with their own child in the night... it all sounded so marvellous. Now, however, I am facing the realities of being with a man who has a child... but it's not the child that's the problem... he's absolutely smashing...it's the other woman... and it's driving me mad.
You see, I'd never considered it from any point of view other than how it would suit me to not have to have any more kids: no man demanding rental space in my womb, no nappies to change, no 4 am feeds, no kicking him on the way out of the bed because he can sleep effortlessly through the baby's screams...
But worse than that, I think, is his EX...
She's so bloody difficult... and she never seems to go away. And much as I initially tried to maintain a graceful, opinion-free silence about her, it fast became impossible. She's always there, just out of sight, quietly fucking up evenings and weekends with her mad behaviour... I hardly have the words to describe how much she pisses me off...
I've never met this woman, but it's clear that someday I will have to. And what will I do? With all of the information I have about her, thinking of all of the spiteful phone calls and text messages that come at all hours, the terrible things she puts her children through, and with the sure knowledge that she is vile and volatile and clawing at the man I love. How will I shake her hand and tell her how lovely it is to meet her at last? It's gonna take some serious effort. Last week she called me a 'whore' and my children 'brats'... I laughed at the time. It was just a comically clichéd outburst from a very unhappy person... but we don’t deserve that. We are not those things.
MLM has met my ex, who has been equally as vile in the past... but the huge advantage is that he lives in another country and we get on quite well these days. I try not to mention him too much. But he is also there in the background. They both are... these exes. These people we used to love. But who we'd so much rather leave behind us and never speak to again, but whom, because of our children, we have to deal with every day... a constant reminder of the past, and of the mistakes we have made.
This is the price of love in a time of parenthood... there are four of us in our relationship somehow.
Back at the beginning of our relationship, My Lovely Man and I prided ourselves on our maturity and on our good fortune... On the fact that we could manage all of the various areas of our lives so beautifully, saving the special romantic moments 'just for us.'
"How marvellous," we cried, "to have this love affair... how free, how very modern, how detached from the stress and ordinariness of the rest of life, how wonderful to be individuals again."
... and how wrong we were. As it stands, I'm having murderous thoughts about his ex girlfriend... let me explain.
I am the only one of my female friends who, when drawn into discussion about possible future forays into love, would say that I wanted a man who already had kids. It always raised an eyebrow at dinner parties... "But why would you want to complicate it like that?" people would ask, "I mean, even if his kids are great, they'll always be The Ex Wife hanging around in the background... and you don't need that!" (Shudder)
But I had my reasons. I don't want any more children myself and had become convinced that however much a man protested his love for me; one day he'd look at me lovingly in bed one morning and say, "Come on, let's just have a baby." And what would I do then? Well, I would say no of course. And that most probably would be the end of that. No baby, no love.
And so when I met My Lovely Man and we had established pretty early on that neither of us wanted more children, it was a blessed relief... for both of us. I would love him and he would love me and we would parent our own children, each person getting up to deal with their own child in the night... it all sounded so marvellous. Now, however, I am facing the realities of being with a man who has a child... but it's not the child that's the problem... he's absolutely smashing...it's the other woman... and it's driving me mad.
You see, I'd never considered it from any point of view other than how it would suit me to not have to have any more kids: no man demanding rental space in my womb, no nappies to change, no 4 am feeds, no kicking him on the way out of the bed because he can sleep effortlessly through the baby's screams...
But worse than that, I think, is his EX...
She's so bloody difficult... and she never seems to go away. And much as I initially tried to maintain a graceful, opinion-free silence about her, it fast became impossible. She's always there, just out of sight, quietly fucking up evenings and weekends with her mad behaviour... I hardly have the words to describe how much she pisses me off...
I've never met this woman, but it's clear that someday I will have to. And what will I do? With all of the information I have about her, thinking of all of the spiteful phone calls and text messages that come at all hours, the terrible things she puts her children through, and with the sure knowledge that she is vile and volatile and clawing at the man I love. How will I shake her hand and tell her how lovely it is to meet her at last? It's gonna take some serious effort. Last week she called me a 'whore' and my children 'brats'... I laughed at the time. It was just a comically clichéd outburst from a very unhappy person... but we don’t deserve that. We are not those things.
MLM has met my ex, who has been equally as vile in the past... but the huge advantage is that he lives in another country and we get on quite well these days. I try not to mention him too much. But he is also there in the background. They both are... these exes. These people we used to love. But who we'd so much rather leave behind us and never speak to again, but whom, because of our children, we have to deal with every day... a constant reminder of the past, and of the mistakes we have made.
This is the price of love in a time of parenthood... there are four of us in our relationship somehow.
Sunday 3 July 2011
You push, I'll pull...
We actually did it... we actually stood this weekend, in a children's playground, pushing our respective kids on the swings... I thought of this blog and smiled to myself.
It had been a pretty momentous day... the day our children met for the first time... but it had all gone swimmingly and there was no cause for concern... and so we took them across to the playground to play for a while.
I have to confess to having been pretty terrified on the drive there that it might all just blow up in our faces. MLM had met my kids several times: it had all gone really well, they love him to bits; I'd met his son: it had all gone really well, he's appreciated my knowledge of Star Wars. So far, so good... but now for the kids to meet.
And what the hell would we do if they didn’t hit it off for some reason...? I couldn’t help wondering if that would be the end of ‘Us...’
It was at a family day at MLM's father's house... so not only did we have to put the kids to the test, but we had to do it in front of MLM's extended family. Yikes! However, a few water pistols, a BBQ and a game of cricket soon levelled the playing field and by the end of it everyone was commenting on how well they were getting along and how it was hard to believe they'd only just met for the first time.
MLM and I sat back and watched... relieved... oh so very relieved indeed... Suddenly the future seemed to pull into focus.
It had been a pretty momentous day... the day our children met for the first time... but it had all gone swimmingly and there was no cause for concern... and so we took them across to the playground to play for a while.
I have to confess to having been pretty terrified on the drive there that it might all just blow up in our faces. MLM had met my kids several times: it had all gone really well, they love him to bits; I'd met his son: it had all gone really well, he's appreciated my knowledge of Star Wars. So far, so good... but now for the kids to meet.
And what the hell would we do if they didn’t hit it off for some reason...? I couldn’t help wondering if that would be the end of ‘Us...’
It was at a family day at MLM's father's house... so not only did we have to put the kids to the test, but we had to do it in front of MLM's extended family. Yikes! However, a few water pistols, a BBQ and a game of cricket soon levelled the playing field and by the end of it everyone was commenting on how well they were getting along and how it was hard to believe they'd only just met for the first time.
MLM and I sat back and watched... relieved... oh so very relieved indeed... Suddenly the future seemed to pull into focus.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)