38 & 26 .......

New member here - looking for random, healthy advice in my relationship. I am 38 yr seperated (filing divorce) female who has been involved with a 26 yr male for 2 years. Yes, I was still living with husband when we met and started a frienship - no I was not in a traditional marraige. We knew it was over, discussed and delayed seperation until our son was older - or indefinately. We lived fairly happily in that state long before I met my YM. Once I met him and our relationship developed, he expressed strongly - several times -that he would like our relationship to go to the next level - live together, etc. After a year, I moved out (with my son) into a small loft apt. My Ex and I get along better than ever - my son has adjusted - as have I - but not without some major challenges and lifestyle changes. My son is attached to him, and I love him. Prior to our relationship I was quite cynical about love, given my situation. He coaxed me to learn to trust and beleive in love again - and happily ever after. I have been moved out for nearly a year - and while we talk about it, we have not made any moves in the direction of happily ever after.......as a matter of fact -- I have yet to meet anyone in his family (his Mom refuses to meet me until I am officailly divorced) and I know only one of his friends (who hates me and feels I am somehow taking advantage of him, I am not moral because of my legal status of marraige, etc). I have asked him not to focus on that relationship as it is destructive to our relationship - but he declines. He associates often with this person. I love this guy to the end of the earth - but yes, this concerns me. My family knows him, my Mom loves him - my son is attached to him. Did I mention that I love him? I am a good dedicated Mom, a hard worker, an honest loving person and yet I feel that I have been judged by people without good cause. He is good to me - and Ive no doubt he loves me. We have fun together - and are very much at ease with each other...........
SO....... all that being said - WHAT DO YOU think?

Just give me someone that Loves me and I Love them.....

And Everyone in the Whole World can Judge their dam heads off......

It wouldn't bother me!!!!!!!!

Is this your 'Only' problem.......;)

Well, I do feel more vested in the relationship in the fact that he has been exposed to my family and son and I have not met his family. Also, is it horrid for me to want him to not have contact with his friend who hates me?

Well, it shouldn't really be a competition as to whos family meets who first......Perhaps you need to give them more time. Just because Your family are 'ready' doesn't mean his are......

And 'Hates' is a very Strong term here. There has to be a little more to this situation. If you think this 'hateful' friend is Influencing him 'against' you......Well, do you wanna be with someone so 'weak' minded anyway??? Ask yourself.

Plus, I don't agree with people telling people that they can't 'see' someone. Obviously he likes this person, so if you Love him, I think you should respect that. Is this person another 'female'.....?.....dont have enough info to advise anymore than that.......

No, the other person is male - very dominating male. Yes, he often talks against me to him and I find it very disturbing. For me it speaks clearly of his choices in terms of demanding respect - both for me and himself. I feel like I put myself and son thru a major change for the chance at this relationship and this is a small thing to ask - this person is fairly new in his life - a year and couple months. If he calls and I pick up my YM's cell phone he hangs up on me. Does very inmature things. THey do a bar thing that I am no part of weekly - and I think that bothers me too.

Look, all I can really suggest is that you start working towards being "Unbothered" about this whole thing. If this person knew that it was bothering you so much......Which Unfortunately, he probably does......Well, that is just fueling him on to further unsavoury actions.....

So, I guess the only thing here is to probably 'pretent' it is not bothering you.......Try focusing on how good the relationship you HAVE is.....

Perhaps your 'detatchment' of the whole friend issue, could even turn it around. Some people can get a certain amount of satisfaction from annoying others. Well, dont give him his satisfaction......Let him go annoy someone else. Who know, you 'could' end up being friends even.....

Its good for him to go out 'without' you......This is 'healthy' in a relationship, you both need to go out with friends separately......

Try and just let it go......There are other worse things that could be happening.....:)

No, the other person is male - very dominating male. Yes, he often talks against me to him and I find it very disturbing. For me it speaks clearly of his choices in terms of demanding respect - both for me and himself. I feel like I put myself and son thru a major change for the chance at this relationship and this is a small thing to ask - this person is fairly new in his life - a year and couple months. If he calls and I pick up my YM's cell phone he hangs up on me. Does very inmature things. THey do a bar thing that I am no part of weekly - and I think that bothers me too.

That seems to be insensitive of your boyfriend to continue to put you in situations where you will be in contact with his friend to some degree and treated negatively.

I'm sorry that you're stuck with having to deal with that behaviour.

I chat with a friend that I've gone on several camping trips together with and when he learned that I was flying to Germany to meet a man who was a year younger than himself he told me on MSN "if you start dating a guy that young I'm never going to speak to you again, that's just wrong."

I made the mistake of looking to my boyfriend for some supportive words and showed him what my friend told me and instead of getting support from him I ended up putting the fear of my friends in him :(

Then I had to explain that my friend's opinion would not change anything about how I feel towards my boyfriend. I was impartial to continuing the friendship with the guy who I camped with and would have stopped communicating with him if I had been asked to by my boyfriend. But what ended up happening was that my boyfriend saw that I was not persuaded by my friend to abandon ship and my friend actually grew to accept that age gap relationships are acceptable :)

I hope that your boyfriend's friend grows up a bit soon before he becomes an even larger obstacle in your relationship. Maybe like my friend, he will learn to see things differently over time and start to treat you with more respect.

Welcome to ageless!

Thanks so much! Here's to hoping yours continued success.

My feelings are intense on this and stem (as I have been thinking plenty about it since the original post) from my boyfriends lack of action on the subject.
I am more hurt by that than anything else. He deals with it by trying to live a divided life. I feel like he is most likely worried about what some of his younger friends will think of me - and uncomfortable about me getting to know them. That is what hurts. I am not saying that this is the case - it is how I feel. I would only hope that he would do what you have done - if not, we just might not work. I hate to see something so rare end for such a reason.

Ive always admired the sheer honesty and openness of random people over the internet. When you remove body language, identity, and realtime response from the equation, just about all fear vanishes, and people become extremely open about things they keep secret to themselves in everyday life.

Have you considered talking to your boyfriend about the very things you've typed here. You've explained very clearly to us what you see, how it makes you feel, what you fear; and have done so without placing an ounce of blame on your significant other.

I should think your boyfriend extremely priveliged to hear all this for himself. And, of course, since you are both in love, he will not seek to use this information to hurt you, but rather to help your relationship.

Have faith in yourself, your boyfriend, and your love. Talk to him. Be as honest and open with him as you are with us. :)

I think it will be hard for a man of 26 to not be conscious of what his best friend thinks and especially his mom. This is still not fair on you I know.

Could you maybe talk with your boyfriend about making future plans and how to deal with his friend. It's best to let him know how unsupported you feel in this situation. Were you planning on getting divorced? Why not ask your boyfriend if that would improve things?

Take care and best wishes.

No, the other person is male - very dominating male. Yes, he often talks against me to him and I find it very disturbing. For me it speaks clearly of his choices in terms of demanding respect - both for me and himself. I feel like I put myself and son thru a major change for the chance at this relationship and this is a small thing to ask - this person is fairly new in his life - a year and couple months. If he calls and I pick up my YM's cell phone he hangs up on me. Does very inmature things. THey do a bar thing that I am no part of weekly - and I think that bothers me too.

First of all, did he know what's going on between you and his friend? and have you told him about what bothers you? Because if he didn't know what was going on then he can't take any actions to improve the situation.

In my opinion, however, if he did know what was going on and didn't do anything about it, that would be insensitive to allows such negative treatments to occurs.
If he didn't know, I think you should talk with him about it and let him know how you feel about the whole situation, and will see what happen.

LabRatIve always admired the sheer honesty and openness of random people over the internet. When you remove body language, identity, and realtime response from the equation, just about all fear vanishes, and people become extremely open about things they keep secret to themselves in everyday life.

Have you considered talking to your boyfriend about the very things you've typed here. You've explained very clearly to us what you see, how it makes you feel, what you fear; and have done so without placing an ounce of blame on your significant other.

:)

This is 'very' relevant information Labs......I too feel that it is far 'easier' to type my feelings.......than to actually 'speak' them.......the Words, for me, jus don't seem to come out.....LoL ;)