Not sure if this is going to work

[25yearsmlc]

Maybe the other part of this is that if I start putting pressure on myself to know if I love and respect him,

I think in ANY r, you'll need to know if you love and respect your partner. It's sort of a no brainer at some point---b/c if you don't know then, at some point the answer is, "no". Do you kwim?


then I'm just going to get cold feet and never really give this a shot. I do love and respect him, but there's an enormous amount of pressure right now too -

Sorry ESN, but I don't get this^^^ "Enormous amount of pressure."

Where are you getting it from?

Can you see that on this site, nearly everyone has a child and a WAS, or was a WAS, etc. So we're all taking risks, some with more children, or more financial risk, some with less. But we all risk our hearts...what "enormous pressure" do YOU feel, specifically? Can you identify it?

And who are you comparing yourself to? To a 25 y/o meeting another 25 y/o and they both have great jobs and know what they want out of life and all goes smoothly?

If that's your image, then accept it's not possible now. You do have a child, and you are 40. And that's alright.

Luckily, you are not 60, in a loveless marriage OR non committed r, having raised a child but w/nothing in common now with the baby daddy, other than the grown child....that could be you too...THAT would be depressing.

And, THAT would be pressure.

Right now it sounds as if you are financially self sufficient (correct?) and you found peace in your life without bf, so, where is the 'Enormous pressure" coming from? Isn't HE risking a lot too?

What if the pressure is all from you?

isn't that a set up for failure as well? The "pressure" sounds like fear to me.

I now have 5 brothers, 3 are in their 2nd m's.
I have 3 sisters and only 1 is in her first m, along with me.

ALL who remarried, had kids and married someone else with children so there are step children too. Its VERY common these days,

and people still meet, & they actually fall in love, even after the age of 50, & they commit, and have kids AND OR blend their families.



I'm 40, I have a child, most men I've met have kids - the complications and things that need to be worked through there are ... well, complicated.

it's the norm now, ESN.

The two 25 y/o's who meet and fall in love and marry and face no obstacles, are and always have been, rare.

But falling in love & committing is usually the easy part, at any age...


And I guess what everyone is saying is that it's workable when love is present ...

Not really what I'm saying...

What I am saying is, it's workable and enjoyable when you love each other deeply AND YOU GET, OR ALREADY HAVE THE TOOLS for making a healthy r work.

I know many couples who loved each other but who did not last together.

One or both had a trait that sabotaged the r, and did not repair it in time, or ever.

Like a healthy person who gets infected, and who never sees a real doctor and never takes the anti-biotic made just for this bacterial infection; '

but instead does everything BUT take the medicine...they get leeches and they bleed themselves and try to "burn the fever out" and they get sicker...and it's too bad b/c once upon a time they were healthy

just as some relationships were once healthy and then got sick or injured,

and it just needed the right medicines (tools) to get better and heal, and to learn what spreads the infection so they could avoid the same problems as before...

Just as many people died before they developed anti biotics, many relationships die b/c people don't avail themselves of outside resources.

there's a resource you resist and you don't mention or answer (the DB/DR book) and I really find it increasingly curious.

What is it about solution based approaches that you don't like? Give that a second before ignoring, b/c it's really intriguing to me.


And when you say you have not seen success stories or healthy m's or know of any, there are stories around here of many...and on other sites too. Do you not know ANY relatively happy couples?

as in, People who would remarry their spouse if they could do it all over again?

I would not go the self taught route so much when there are so many helpful resources and you've both done that a lot but still lack the tools for new ways of behaving

and besides, are you really wanting to put yourself in a role where you are "teaching" him how HE can be his best self?

Not really your job, plus you want to focus on your own work, correct?

Life's a lot easier when we just work on US and don't take on the "burdens" of others' and they don't take on ours.

Hope this makes sense.