Forever the Other Woman

I met the love of my life when I was 18 years old, right out of high school, and at my very first job as a telemarketer. I had no idea what I was doing with my life, or in general, really; I just went with the flow of things and hoped I had the street smarts in order to make it on my own. I left home at 17 and had no idea what this whole life thing had in store for me. I got my own apartment, a job, had a good friend and figured everything else would simply sort itself out. I was right, to an extent.

While in the break room at work I started talking to this guy who seemed pretty mellow, down to earth and possessed the qualities of exactly what I was looking for. We started hanging out nearly every night after work and while I didn’t know exactly what I was doing, I knew that when I was in his company, I was happy; perhaps the happiest I could remember myself being in years. He understood me and most of all, he understood the person I was, even though at the time I had no idea who I was, what I was doing, or what I aspired to do in the future. While I remained pretty much clueless about life and about myself, he already had a place in life and he was already in the middle of living it. At nearly 10 years my senior, he was a husband, a father and was going to be a father for the second time upon meeting me. While this friendship (and a little more) was pretty easy on my side, for him, everything was ten times more difficult. He was in the middle of a separation and as months pressed on, he was divorced. A few months later, we were together full time and I knew that the part of me who had no idea what I was doing escalated a bit, but I was happy and as far as I could tell, so was he.

3 years later, we’re still together and couldn’t be happier than if we had been molded for each other at birth and had been placed together by some sort of god who said “Hey, the two of you would be perfect for each other, have at it.” Our relationship was by no means cause for his divorce, but I’m here to tell you that being in a committed, going to be married and do the whole forever and ever amen relationship with a divorced man who already had a life set in stone before they even met you is hard work; perhaps harder than I had first anticipated.

Sure, I had thought about what being in a relationship with a divorced man was going to be like and looking back at it now, I think that in some respects, my thought process had been a bit skewed. I don’t necessarily regret committing myself to a man who already had what you want for your life, but thoughts tend to weigh down on you sometimes. If you think about something too much, eventually everything in your mind gets turned upside down and inside out leaving you believing that everything you thought would happen in your life will not, despite being told repeatedly by the person you’re counting on that you can have what you strive for in life, but sometimes you tend to think that it won’t matter anyway.

Throughout the past 3 years our relationship has been great except for one key element. Most women dream of their wedding day when they’re very young and think of what their family will be like when they start to create their own. I wasn’t like this growing up. I never wanted to get married, but I’ve always wanted to have a lot of children; I wanted a big family because my family growing up was so screwed up. After spending the past few years with my boyfriend I’ve come to realize that I do want to get married, I do want to have kids and yet I find myself consistently talking myself out of wanting those things because he already had it. He was married and got divorced, why would he want to get married again if his vows fell through the first time and because they fell through the first time, what’s to stop it from happening again? He has kids. While he is currently going through an ugly battle to even be able to see his kids, he’s a father; he already helped a woman through pregnancy and labor twice, so again, why would he want to do it all over again? Is a different woman really enough to want to subject yourself to something that already failed? Are you, being the second woman this man settled down with, not as good as the first one? Of course the first one failed, but that doesn’t put the endless string of questions at bay. Simply being with a man who is a decade older than you and who already knows what these life altering moments feel like is enough for the endless string of questions to never go away and the longer you’re with this person, the longer the string of questions gets it seems.

Because my boyfriend already had his perfect American family, his family refuses to let it go. My boyfriend is very family-oriented. In the past 3 years, I have seen and been around his parents more than I think I’ve been around anyone in my family throughout my entire life and nearly every time we go visit them, I am told about his ex wife and his kids by his mother and frankly, that not only gets old after the first 12 months, it gets irritating to the point where you feel as if you are being put down and warned off of even thinking of marrying or mothering children with their son. When we are around his parents, I do not feel like a girlfriend, I feel very much like a friend–A sometimes burdening, unwanted friend that makes his parents think to themselves “Why is this girl always around?” Of course, his mothers constant offhanded remarks that no one should ever have kids and more importantly, I should never have kids is also a bit disheartening.

All of these aspects of life leads up to the elephant in the room. Having a relationship with his children B.H. (Before Holly) Three years of a relationship, living together and talking about the marriage I am certain will never come is not enough to even begin to mull over the idea of having a relationship with his kids; or so I am gathering. While I can be there as a shoulder and a pair of ears when my boyfriend needs to talk about how infrequently he gets to see his children and I can be the person whom his mother likes to put down (inadvertently, I don’t know) about children coming from my womb being completely unwelcome, I am not allowed to even be seen by his children. At 3 and 4 years old and having my father’s girlfriend of 10 years being more of a mother than my biological mother ever was, I am a firm believer that the earlier his children know of me and are around me, the better. They will grow up with me being there, knowing who I am and developing a relationship with them. His ex-wife, however, has told me on the phone the one of two times I have ever spoken to her on the phone without being called a whore, that I will not have a relationship with them. It is because of this that I feel like a sheltered participant in a relationship that I feel I should have an active part in.

Throughout the past 3 years I have figured out who I am as a person and I know what I aspire to do with my life. I know what I want, but some aspects of what I want in my life will have to be filtered through a man who I am under the impression ultimately gets to decide what I get. Some days I think that waiting it out is the answer. I know that I love my boyfriend, he is the great love of my life and I hope he is always in my life but I do not want to have to give up on key elements I wish for my life to have. I do not believe that getting married will change me being able to have a relationship with his children, nor do I believe that it will stop his mother’s frequent offhand comments, but ultimately I hope that the amount of time that passes helps my boyfriend understand what I hope for my life and our life together and hopefully it doesn’t mean that I will forever be treated as “the other woman” or the woman who is around but certainly not welcome. I also hope that I stop feeling as if I am a silent participant in a relationship I know full well I should be an active member in.

While only time will tell, how long is too long before you find yourself giving up on what you have always wanted and when do the endless list of questions become shorter? Ultimately, when does something become concrete and something you can count on?