Thanks all!
What a great bunch of responses.
RW (you asked and now your going to get a novel:>)
"It's nice to find a friend like that, and he knows how to match things!
Just curious, how old are the kids? Does he have a marital background similar to yours in any critical ways? I forget if you wrote about this in the past."
My kids are 8 and 10 and his daughter is 5 almost 6. He does have pretty much the same marital background. His ex cheated for about 2 years while he clung to their relationship hoping and praying she would snap out of it. He never really talked to anyone about it until he finally moved out and drew up an agreement and then talked to a few guy friends about it. What I think is much the same story as Chris's and some other's. She was never sorry about it, she came from an abusive background (alcholic dad), she is still with the OM. She told him she never loved him, pretty much how my ex said that he only loved me as a 15 year marriage and not as a wife should be loved - ughh! She is very selfish the same way my ex was but still trys to run his life by using their daughter and I find that we do have to cancel our plans sometimes because of her lateness/selfishness. I am aware of the problems we will have with her if we ever go to a more permanent relationship and am very willing to work it out and try to make it better. He says that talking to her is like talking to a brick wall and he is never right so doesn't bother. Hmmm. He has his daughter a heck of a lot (I would venture to say more than her during waking hours and she has custody which she would never give to him - he also works very bad work hours and couldn't work out daycare) and really loves her with all his heart. He is from a good family with parents who are still together after many years, 7 brothers and sisters and I've met them all except 1. It seems to be a very functional family with no abuse whatsoever and they all remind me of my family members - joking around and telling old family stories and getting together often. Quite the change from my ex's dysfunctional family and emotionally abusive mother.
I notice some very drastic differences in him and my ex. I have to come back to say what those are - I have a vommiting child today :>)
Okay, I'm back! Okay, here we go. One of the biggest things that I see in him is that he ALWAYS wants his daughter if he can have her. My ex tries to get out of it a great deal if he can until he is guilted into taking them. If ex has the kids for a staight week like during Christmas, he won't take them for at least a week when they get back - guess it is too much work for him. I had to insist on doing alternating weekends at first instead of just when he wanted them because I knew he would not have them nearly enough and I would never have been able to make plans for myself if I did not do this. Thank God I did as I can see how it is somewhat of a problem for my new guy and his ex to not have a set schedule. This guy can talk on the phone and my ex never was able to do that much. He has called me every day probably two times a day since we've met and always has the common courtesy to call if he'll be late for anything even by 5 minutes. He is calm around my kids and me. I have never heard him yell at anyone. I'm a bit hyper so I feel it is a good force in the other direction and good for me. His number one priority is not sex, not saying he doesn't like it :>) My ex lived his life around sex. I can't explain that one too much without getting too personal but lets just say it is very, very, true. In other words he is very sensible and thinks more with his real head. He does things just for my kids and is very in tune with them - especially my son with special needs. He thinks of the types of things I do for him and really pays attention to him. He learned his whole sign language alphabet in the first month and a half that I knew him for my son. I did not ask him to do that - he just did. He know more signs now that I would expect him to know. My kids really love him. My youngest asked me if I could ask him to marry me LOL - I explained a few things at that prompting. Every occasion like birthdays, x-mas and the house warming have been mostly gifts that I had talked about wanting months before the occasion and I hadn't meant to put the hint in his ear, he just listens and pays attention extremely well. He does not live on a computer like my selfish ex. He doesn't live on the TV like my ex although he likes Seinfeld a lot :>) He knows limits and priorizes his loved ones. I know I don't live with him but this is definitely different.
"Do you find that your relationship priorities match well?
Yes, very well. I think we are both the type that like spending a lot of time together or as a family. We both love the beach, taking the kids places for fun (my ex always complained about those things) we like the same foods. We nearly always want the same thing to eat so much that is it strange. We often order two things and share them because we have very much the same tastes and we want to try a couple different things. He loves my cooking and tells me so and he is not afraid to compliment me in many other ways. We have agreed to not date anyone else and have talked a good bit about infidelity. He thinks it is poor taste to have porn in the marital home because he believes it is disrespectful to a wife. I LOVE that about him after having an addict as a husband. He is very hard working and honest - I know we all thought that about our spouses but I see more honesty and morals in him than anyone I've ever known - even myself. I hate to admit that and I think I am honest and have good morals so that says a lot. He offers to get things at the store for me when I'm out of something (my ex always wanted me to get things myself if it was at a bad time like night or something - not to say he wouldn't if I begged him to but I shouldn't have had to do that).
Tonight I told him I was going to miss a class at school that I really couldn't miss b/c the teacher said she is going to give some questions that are very similar to a test we will have next class period and he told me that he wished he was on the night shift so he could watch my vomitting child tomorrow. He said he'd have no problem doing that and you know what? I know he will do those things for me and these aren't even his kids.
"It seems that in life, we learn what we want only by finding out what we don't want."
Yup, sad to say but my ex was so good at being what I don't want that I realize what I've got now and don't intend on ever losing it. Pray that I won't :>) I'm not sure how I got so lucky but I did. He thinks we both got lucky.
There are minor things that would be great to be a tad different but they certainly aren't relationship breakers. Things like he doesn't say "I love you" as much as I'd like to hear. He says "actions speak louder than words" and he does live by that motto, no doubt. I'd also like to see him put his foot down more with his ex and we talk about that a lot. I'll take him as he is though and we'll work on his ex :>)
Charlie
