What should I be doing now (Time to Move on?)

[Coconut]

The kicker is how to not put D first in a relationship with someone who isn't her mother. The dynamics there are a bit different. Single dad first, everything else second place. I'm guessing from what you're saying here that THAT isn't going to work, either.

Where's the balance? Since you've lived it, and it was an issue for you, what's the "right thing" look like?

East, a balance is tough to find. But some highlights of what bothered me were:

My primary Love Language is acts of service. When first Married, my Wife started laying out work clothes in the morning for me to wear, it was a small gesture but I loved loved loved it, I had never had anyone do that for me, I let my wife know how much I loved it. About 2 months later, it stopped, but everyday she still laid out my sons clothes. I wasn’t devastated at the time, but I missed it, and brought it up twice several years apart during our M, but didn’t have the tools to understand why it bothered me or how to communicate that with her.

Early in our M, W would do the laundry, mine, hers and sons. In fact a few times I would do some laundry and was asked not to with attitude because apparently I don’t know how to do it correctly (I only turned whites pink once in my entire life). Slowly, my laundry was getting done less and less, my sons was still getting done weekly but that was it. My W is a bit of a shopaholic, so she could go over a month without laundry, but I have a weeks worth at most, and I found myself conflicted of doing the laundry myself and getting chastised or just re-wearing some clothes. After BD, she actually said she always did my laundry every week and I think she actually believed it.
One thing that worked well for us is that since my son was so young when we got together, and he started calling me dad on his own, we were equal parents in our eyes, so I didn’t have a problem with her “siding” with him in stupid arguments, but I would not suggest siding against W unless you really need to put your foot down.

I guess my thoughts overall are that kids are not the rulers of the family, you protect them, make them feel loved and make them feel safe, but not letting them get their way doesn’t mean you’re not doing any of the above.

There's also this idea that losing your identity to be no more than "parent" means you're a good parent to your kid, but I'd argue otherwise.

Neglecting a spouse in favor of kids is going to erode connection with your spouse. And making children the central focus of families tends to create kids who are entitled and somewhat helpless.

I completely agree, my W spoiled our son and do EVERYTHING for him, if I would ask him a question, she would answer it. If I asked him to make a decision on something, she would make it for him. He became very unmotivated, to the point where he wouldn’t mention a project due for school until the day before it was due, and W would stay up all night to do it for him. I went to bed because my stance was that he can take the F, get grounded and learn that he needs to take care of his responsibilities. He’s a great kid, just finished 11th grade and he was Athlete of year at his school, 4.8 GPA, he’s taken 1 or 2 College courses a year all the way through highschool and has a good social life. But he puts everything off and then stresses last minute because he didn’t do what he was supposed to.

Thank you for posting Cadence.

It's good you spoke up. I would hope a partner would do the same for me in a loving way, because I might not be realizing what I am doing because reality is, its been just me and her since she was a baby, and yes, she has been the center of my universe for that reason.

Ginger, it is good I spoke up, looking back I realize that I had a pretty good grasp on what was bothering in my M, I just didn’t know how bad allowing those things fester was, and I didn’t have to tools to really be able to communicate them to my W.

Loving your child to death and showering them with “Love” isn’t the same as allowing them to control the family. You just have to be careful you’re not spoiling them with your “Love”. My way to show my love for my son was to turn life events into “Life Lessons”, consequences, how to deal with altercations, doing things you don’t want for the sake of others, and most recently relationship advice.

He told me a couple of weeks that advice I gave him when him and his first gf broke up was the best advise he’s ever heard. I told him that it is common to be infatuated with a new gf, you want nothing more than to be with them and get more and more of them. The problem is, that in only spending time with that other person, you lose yourself, and when the infatuation wears off you are no longer the person they were attracted to in the first place.. The happiest relationships are those where each person is happy on their own, then they come together to share in each other’s happiness, but to do that you have to also spend time apart.