Cat,my friend. I am glad you happened to venture by wink.

Thank you for that post. And that very personal post. I know what you went through was every mothers nightmare and something you cannot fathom unless you walk through it.

You said that and that's kind of what what made me so upset today with him. He said something that hurt me immensely. A place that is the worst place to go for me. He had criticized my parenting. Probably my biggest fear in dating an letting someone in again. Go ahead and tell me I'm ugly or even go ahead and cheat on me. But this is what I was afraid of.

He did not do it from a bad place, he did it from an open and honest place. But it's unfortunately twisted my feelings towards him right now.

He has lived with a woman and her child before. But he has never ever lived through what I did. I am doing the best with what I have. I am not perfect. My child is stubborn, can be disrespectful to me and is spoiled. I know this. I have been raising her alone without support (my best support being here, actually) no mom to turn to for help, no husband, no siblings. I have made lots of mistakes. I continue to make mistakes. But he has not walked in my shoes. And I take great pride in what I have accomplished. I take pride in not taking my own life when I wanted to die after being abandoned in the worst way. he will never understand. If I can take pride in anything, it's raising my daughter under the circumstances in which I did.

Now, he is right about some of the things he said. I know he is. I need to follow through more with my punishments. It's not even her behavior he was criticizing. It was how I handle it.

I am trying to process these feelings right now. But if I had to look at him right now, I would probably have difficulty.

It is my fault for letting him into our lives so early. I took a risk. I felt in my gut this wasn't a mistake, but I may have been wrong. It's my fault for letting it going as fast as it did. It felt right for once.

Hills I am not willing to die on: the holiday meet the parents thing. I understood this to a point. I had a hard time with it because this is what he chose to pull back on when he was going full speed ahead.

Hill I am willing to die on: respect for what I've gone through and conquered. He doesn't need to understand, he just needs to respect it.

That all being said, I heard what he has to say and he was right about some of it. He offered support to help me. he doesn't want to go anywhere. We were fighting today beacasue he thinks I am pissy for no reason and just taking it out on him. I explained how I am glad he spoke to me and communicated but it was a lot to digest and some hurt.

As far as him and D9 goes, I suggested maybe we need to take time away from spending it with her around. He doesn't want that but respects it if I do. Just the other night, I was grilling, we were teaching her how to ride her bike and they were playing a serious game of hop scotch and I really couldn't have felt more contented.

We have been ok since, but I don't know how I am feeling about him. I have a pit in my stomach. He has been actually having lots of fires today. he always lets me know when he goes and when he gets back. He just texted me to say he was starving and he was going to eat, but he wanted to let me know he was back safe.

He seems to want to make this work. Most back out pretty fast. he seems to want to stick it out. Most run out on me.

All I know is I just know what I am doing half of the time. You can sit there and say "this is how I'm going to have an R,I'm going to take it at x pace, I'm not introducing kids until x time" but it doesn't seem to turn out that way. On paper I could perfectly figure out. I continue to envy those who get to be married to the parents of their children. I envy those who have the knight in shining honor swoop down on the single mother and her child. You read it, but I guess I never really believed it.

If this doesn't work, I am seriously done until she is out of the house. I cannot keep going through this. We can't.

Cat, you and your man have a very deep understanding of eachother. I know it was so hard with you being where you needed to be. But I also never doubted no matter hard it got, you would make it through. You both respect eachothers feelings. I think it's a must.