A
female
age
,
anonymous
writes:I have been seeing a man I have know for a while for the past 4 weeks, and it is really special and lovely. I was friendly with the 39 year old Mother of his child who has been trying to pair us off for a long time (I was too cautious), but since I started seeing him she has been causing problems and even flirting with him in front of me. He is 54, I am 50 and neither of us has had a relationship for a couple of years. Part of why it is special and lovely is we have been adult enough to talk about such things as taking it slowly and deciding not to have sex too soon. The result of not having sex has meant we have had a really special and lovely level of intimacy, whilst chatting a lot, getting to know each other and having laughs, plus kissing cuddling and teenage heavy petting! Unfortunately there have been a lot of disruptions from the Mother of his child. We have only had 4 dates, and each time she has demanded he do something for the child on the same night. This week he dug his heels in and said he wasn't prepared to cancel with me and would do what she wanted on another night. I told him I didn't mind changing the night to avoid agro, but he said he had already agreed it with her. The result being that she sent abusive messages to both of us and has threatened to stop him seeing the child and go to court for access. He is now too scared to see me because this has happened before when he didn't give in to an ultimatum and he made a clear decision then that he did not want to go to court to avoid stress for the child. He explained to me that he would rather give up access than go to court. But of course given the choice of having access or having a girl-friend he is naturally choosing the child. I have had a very distressing week. Particularly as I had been friends with the baby's Mum and also did a lot to help, running errands etc, and being careful to stay out of their domestic arrangements. He pays maintenance voluntarily, looks after the child 3 times a week and for a full week when the baby's Mum goes to stay with her boyfriend - he even drives her to the airport and drives her into town when she wants to go shopping). They have never been married - she fell pregnant when they dated for a few weeks - but they do co-operate as parents (sometimes!) and he has always wanted things to be on an amicable basis. I have now been forced to take sides as the baby's Mum says if I am seeing him now she has fallen out with him (which I believe she engineered deliberately) she cannot maintain our friendship. This of course is another way of preventing us from seeing each other. Basically we have both been threatened. I have to respect his decision to accept her demands in order to not have access taken and avoid court issues. When I realised that I was not going to be able to see him any more I decided I had nothing to lose by standing up to her bullying messages (on top of everything I received a demand to pay her rent in as I normally do then go to her house and return the paying in book and her key). I tried to compromise, saying I would meet her half way and there was nothing that couldn't be sorted, at which point she threatened to send the police round to get the key and the rent book. So I decided to try and keep my man and turn the tables on her, so I replied with a message saying "After what you have done to me this week, you have a cheek asking me to walk all the way to your house to put these items through the letterbox. I cannot give them to J because he is too scared to see me because you have blackmailed him not to by threatening him to stop seeing his child. I do not stop you from seeing your man so don't try and stop me seeing mine. Meet me to sort this or it is war". Being the person she is she just hits back and sent the police round! So I politely handed over the paying in book and key and apologised for their time being wasted, explaining I had copies of messages and would not be filing a counter-claim for harrassment. Around the same time, my man called and said he would come round. She had called him and told him to! (Hmm!)I have had a week of exhaustion and stress and was so worried one day when he had received the threat to stop him seeing his child because he was depressed and had the baby with him at the time and you read such stories of Father's doing drastic things when threatened with losing their child. Having spoken with him last night I am reassured that he would never do anything to harm the child and would still give him up rather than have the child affected by court proceedings. We briefly discussed his rights (which are limited outside of court action). I really want him to stand up to her but can't ask him to do this and he is still scared she will just go to court if he does. I am writing this because I don't know what to do. I feel I need a strategy. At the moment I am giving him some space as he wants to try and deal with her this week-end, but he said she had told him to end it with me that night and I feel he might do so under the circumstances. In some ways I could accept this, for now, although am terribly upset. But in other ways, I want to be there for him. He has friends he can talk to, but it is not the same as someone who can give you some love, listen and understand. It may be that we can see each other 'on the quiet' for a bit, but he is stressed out, and nervous about this and what she might do. What should I do? I don't want to give up. The baby's Mother is a widow - her husband hanged himself - and I am now beginning to see why. Bullying is not illegal (under these circumstances). What can I do? I need a strategy. Since writing this he has spoken with her and agreed to all her demands except the one to break up with me. This means he has to spend all his week-ends with her doing couply things like shopping for the child, spend Sunday evenings with her without me and that he is not allowed to see me when he has the child (which is Wed, Thurs and sat). As I said to him - you mean she wants you to be her husband?! When he came to see me to tell me this he was like a robot - not the same person and said she had told him all sorts of things about me to put him off me, such as I would get pregnant on purpose to trap him, that I'd had a fling with a younger man and was therefore a risk to children! It was awful and somehow it seemed to have affected him - not knowing who to believe. I got upset and said he was questioning my integrity - that I was hardly likely to fall pregnant at the age of 50 and when not even having sex with him, and if he was really that worried about it he could have a vasectomy. We were both exhausted and unable to keep talking about such stressful things, but left after a hug. I couldn't see him Sunday as he was doing his bit, and haven't heard from him since.I am stunned and devastated. I have cried myself out for two days, nit been able to go to work or even out of the house as I can't face people seeing how I feel. Despite my years, I had felt like a teenager in love. I am now aware that she was jealous of our happiness and thought that if it was serious it would not be convenient to her to share her child or risk him having another child to support. I cannot believe he will behave like a husband as and when she wants, have no life of his own, while he pays child support and she goes to France once a month to stay with her boyfriend. I think it is over between us because something had died when I saw him, despite me not wanting to give up and let this aggressive, selfish, bullying woman disrupt my life and our happiness. I am still numb too as in less than a week I have been betrayed by a friend and lost my man. And it's like the ghost of him is still here with me and I'm waiting to see him. The house feels empty, even though he only came here three times. The memories are so strong and he is gone. I still keep thinking there must be something I can do - I can't let another human being affect my life in this way, and stop me seeing someone I want to see. i am also confused and unable to think clearly. Part of me is angry with him and has no respect for him for giving in - for selling his soul so to speak. And part of me is trying to accept maybe this man isn't right for me if he couldn't find a way to deal with this. And I feel dropped and rejected after the love and support I gave when he was down. I feel guilty for thinking he is weak. He is quietly spoken, gentle person, but perhaps I ambeing a fool and there is still something between them and he is fobbing me off. I know now why she was so jealous. Because she had always told me he had wanted to marry her when she was pregnant. He says that wasn't true and was quite surprised so I believe it. So he didn't want to marry her, but she saw us in love - it must have made her insanely jealous, and she is effectivwly trying to taken him from me. Apart from my one little stand via that message, I am not a fighter either. I was waiting to see what he does, but he hasn't called me for two days - not even to see how I am. I have a horrible feeling he has gone into denial that we ever meant anything, to protect his own heart. Is there anything I can do to get back the man I fell in love with? It was the best thing that has happened to me for a very long time.
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (15 October 2008): Thank you so much for your clear insight into all this - it is something that is hard to see when I am in the middle of it all, but yes I have had some of the same thoughts - that there is some kind of unhealthy relationship between them, and that he does need to deal with things. Part of my angst was recognising that for all he needs to deal with things, she is a particularly difficult person to deal with (you are right our friendship was fine until you say no to something then she gets abusive until you give in) and it's partly why I wanted to help him, despite feelings for him. But because I was involved with him, if I tried to advise him to deal with things legally or any other advice, I risked being like her - telling him what to do - and of course it may look as if I had some ulterior scheming motive. I had talked it through with him when it happened and pointed out the same things that you did - that this would keep happening if not dealt with, whether it was me or anyone else. And thank you for saying sorry - because it is somewhat of a Shakespearean tragedy (or too stupid for words except for the fact that my heart is in shreds). The only thing I can hope is that by not having contact he will have time to reflect on the situation without having to think about the relationship with me - and see clearly. He is intelligent and wise, but also doesn't deal with his fears sometimes. I suppose I have to wait and see what happens. Maybe he will surprise me and be strong enough to say - 'I need to sort this out for a while if I'm going to try to have a relationship with you'. Or maybe he will find it easier to just drop me and not deal with it. And yes I am wondering if something started up again with them when he started seeing me, and that no-one is telling me the truth and I have ended being a bit of a scapegoat. The behaviour issues you describe, and the triangulation thing, I could see. My one regret is that I didn't keep our friendship as friendship and been a neutral support (he needs help with this, yes, and doesn't have anyone to help) until his situation was clearer and more sorted and maybe then we could have had a relationship. But it just happened - like it does when cupid strikes - even though we had both been avoiding eye contact for months. Whether he carries on seeing me or not, I hope for his sake he doesn't stay in this pattern with her. I know he has tried to stand up to her before - he's not happy about driving her to the airport to see her boyfriend, or taking her shopping to buy new clothes when she is going to visit her boyfriend. But if he says no she gets aggressive and can be convincingly assertive about her rights and needs (even though deep down you know it is completely unreasonable). As I pointed out gently - he was not being treated with respect. He knows this and he knows that some of his friends and other people whose opinions he values have said the same to him. But he feels trapped and one of the ways manipulative behaviour works (I had a taste of this myself with the errand running demands) is that her demands are so constant - that you (or he) never get time to stop and think because you are trying to deal with normal everyday things, work and all the stuff she bombards you with as well. Yes - I should run. Am definitely staying low! But part of me feels protective towards him. For all his seeming weakness he is a kind person and falls for it when she turns on the taps and cries (like a spoilt child). I also pointed out to him that things could be so much worse for the child when aged 5 if this keeps happening - that he needs something formal sorting. But (and I guess this is an effect of her abusive behaviour) he still can't quite believe that she is anything but a good person deep down - to believe so would be to face the fact that the person caring for his child is unpleasant, and that could probably tip him over the edge, so I guess he goes into denial or just hopes he can handle it all. And this is partly why I am still worried about him and want to be there for him. I could suggest he see a professional for help but I think he would see that as a patronising insult. Whether he knows it or not, I did him a favour by standing up to her threats with my message, and putting in writing, because I think she will never dare to threaten such things again, realising that I could have alerted the authorities to the well-being of the child under those circumstances and she could have had the child taken away. So I guess I gave him up at that moment and dealt with her myself. But perhaps I didn't do him a favour - am a bit of a bull in a china shop. If I'd stayed out of it then - oh shit! As you can see I am still a bit confused, despite chilling for a couple of days - and am still up and down, not knowing what has hit me. To wait or to do. I guess if you don't know what to do you have to wait. Thank you so much for helping me work through this. But even knowing what is best to do and accepting it can be heart-breaking. I am just hoping and believing that something (be it a God or whatever) will bring some natural justice or solution to all this.
A
female
reader, pashanoodle  +, writes (15 October 2008):
 Your post makes me want to tell you to RUN. You are all adults but what you are describing sounds like schoolyard crap. You can decide whether you want to 'play games' with this man and the 'mother of the child' or not. There is obviously a long standing and ingrained pattern of behaviour between the man and the mother of the child...and it is a mess!!
This woman is behaving like this because she is threatened by you. She sees her comfortable life and her control over this man as under threat (and rightly so) and so naturally she wants to bust you two up. What's in it for her if you and he fall in love and enjoy spending time together? Right - absolutely nothing. She's currently got him on a string...she won't want that to end.
She has used that child as a pawn since she got pregnant by the sounds of it - which is really sad. At the same time it is NOT your problem. This man of yours needs to examine his role in allowing her to do this - he has reinforced her controlling, negative behaviour by constantly giving in to her demands and threats. only HE can change this...which means being very strong and very determined (and probably going through a lot of s*#t too). If he can't do that he is not going to be able to have ANY relationship - that's the fact! It's time he took some control back.
He says he thinks court would be too stressful - can it really be worse than what is going on now? Does he think this child is not aware of the nastiness and threats? I doubt it. Is he really prepared to sacrifice a chance of happiness to keep the peace with this woman?
He has as much legal right to his child as she does. She cannot stop him having access. The only way to stop the game playing is to get legal advice and deal with this access issue via the courts.
I am left wondering if he is actually WANTING to spend his 'family time' with this woman... you must have wondered about that too? Is he having his cake and eating it too? She may not be his wife but he sure is behaving like she is - what 'hold' does she have on him? The child cannot be all of it - cause that can be dealt with. He needs to think about this.
As for your 'friendship'with her - it sounds like it was great...whilever you were doing exactly what this other woman wanted. Perhaps not really a friendship at all? I wouldn't waste your time on her anymore - she's shown you where you stand. I would not enter into ANY conversation with her at all - particularly in relation to your man. It is none of her business - the ONLY thing she has the right to discuss is her child, and that;s with him not you!
Have you heard the term 'triangulation'? It's when there are three people involved and one of them is getting in the ear of each of the others to drive a wedge between the other two...so she sides with him against you - then turns around and sides with you against him....he's clearly been victim to this if he has let her fill his head with stupid stories about you. My advice to you if you do end up in a relationship with this man is to decide from the outset that NO MATTER WHAT - you and he are a team, you and he back each other, even if you don;t agree with something he's doing or saying you back him in front of her...you NEVER (either of you) let her SPLIT the two of you - that's what she wants, that's how she gets her power.
This is really tough for you, but unless this man you feel so strongly about is ready and willing to sort this other woman and the custody issues out (he's currently making excuse so as to not have to really face stuff and do the hard stuff)then there is no hope for you two. I think it will all be too hard for him though. I'm sorry.
He really should think about getting some professional advice on how to deal with this woman and his child. His child is going to suffer in the long term if this mess continues.
If he can't make some solid steps forward on this - you should let him go - you deserve better.
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