agonyaunt | (no subject)

(no subject)

Dear Amy: I’m writing in reference to my recent engagement.

I was alone for a long time and met a woman at work and fell deeply in love with her. Two nights a week, she comes to my place for dinner, and we are intimate.

Then she leaves at 10 p.m. Two months ago, I asked her to marry me and she said yes!

But our situation is very unusual. She lives with the guy she has been with for 15 years. She has two children with him. They are not married and she told me there are no feelings or intimacy between them — and I believe that. But she still sleeps in the same bed with him. I haven’t met her kids and my place is too small to have them.

So when she comes to my place and we are intimate and then she goes home, I have a hard time dealing with that. I try not to think about it, but sometimes it gets the best of me.

Any advice? Am I being a fool?

— Foolish Fiancé

Fiancé: There are different categories of fools. You are in the “fool-for-love” category. Being a fool for love is nothing to be ashamed of, but because you seem to be suffering from love-induced temporary insanity, I’m going to bluntly try to set you straight.

This is not going to work out. In fact, marrying her would be the worst-case scenario for you, because then you would be with someone who is both dishonest and morally bankrupt.

She has children, and she is already stealing time from them to be with you, but if she is the kind of person who would fully abandon her children to be with you, then this is not someone you could build a healthy future with. So far, you two don’t seem to be even considering their welfare.

People do cheat on their partners, but if she is engaged to be married to you, every time she goes home to her family and sleeps with her partner, she is now cheating on you. That's why you're struggling.

At some point, you will have to emerge from the bubble you're in and get real about your prospects. I hope you aren't too emotionally shredded by then to find a more suitable partner.

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Ooohhh, this one made me SO MAD!!!

Amy is really reaching, and I hate her nasty, judgmental advice.

I’ll start my response by saying that I am *assuming that the facts are as the letter writer stated them* — obviously, there’s a possibility that someone is lying.

Did Amy forget that the US is in a housing crisis right now?

A single mother with two kids would likely have a very hard time affording an apartment or house, unless she’s wealthy. Living with an ex may be her only current option.

(My ex-husband and I have been divorced since our adult daughter was a toddler, but he’s been our “shadow housemate” for over a decade — he has a job that keeps him on the road for 10+ months a year, and contributing to the shared household made more sense than spending it on a random roommate who might steal his stuff or be an unsafe person to open his time-sensitive mail.)

Sleeping in the same bed is a bit much, but sharing a bed platonically does NOT equal “cheating.”

The LW didn’t say whether or not they had discussed changing their living arrangements upon marriage, and Amy had no reason to claim that the fiancee was intending on “fully abandon[ing] her children.”

I’m hoping that the LW isn’t being lied-to, and the situation definitely deserves some major conversations and fact-checking… but Amy went off on a tear with a lot of speculation about stuff that was NOT in the actual letter.

WORD.

I don't feel I could advise LW without at least having a coffee length conversation but AMy's advice is equal parts vitriol and bullshit.

she is already stealing time from them to be with you uh, what???????????????????????? my parents were divorced, w/ joint custody, so maybe it's a bit different but like... literally there were alternating weekends I wasn't with them + some days each week, and then also they had like... lives and friends, so sometimes they'd get a babysitter or I'd stay alone/with friends? Going out 2x a week isn't ~stealing time~ from your kids!?!?!

That being said, I do think it's probably a bad idea to get engaged to someone with kids when you haven't met the kids? Though I do see how it would be awkward to make introductions when you still live with your ex. I'd probably advise LW to have a long engagement to feel things out with the kids and (presumably) new living situation... idk I think this is stuff you would talk about before proposing! But better late than never.

Yeah, I definitely wasn't stealing time from Oldest when I was dating eventually-became-Spouse, or when I did other activities that weren't work or childcare; I was taking a break and getting the company of other adults so that I didn't burn out as a parent. My kids are not entitled to all my waking hours, and I can spend time away from them for things other than work.

Yeah — is their father not a parent??

The idea that a mother is “stealing time” from her children by going on two dates a week is… certainly a take.

Right??? Agree on all of this, especially the record scratch in my head when I got to "stealing time from" the kids.

One thing I would like to know is what the kids think of their parents' relationship. Even taking everything said at face value, it seems quite possible that the kids think of their parents as the equivalent of married, and their reaction to their mother marrying someone else would be proportionately strong. Unless they were born before their parents moved in together, they can't be more than early teens.

Or, you know, once you assume LW's lover is a liar, maybe she's made the whole thing up and has no partner or kids at all. Seems like a very good way to keep a relationship safely distant, though why you'd then agree to be engaged is not clear to me.

Also, are they still working at the same place? That sounds complicated. They probably both really need their jobs, and a dramatic breakup would be inconvenient there.

Yes, the impact on the kids is HUGELY important here. Also that these two star-crossed lovers managed to GET ENGAGED without LW ever meeting the kids. Like, the cart is so far in front of the horse here that it’s halfway up the next block.

What I wish Amy had written:

Dear Fiancé: I have many questions after reading your letter:

How long have you known your fiancée?
How long had you been dating before you proposed?
Have you ever done anything as a couple other than have dinner and sex at your place a couple of times a week? Do you have common interests outside the bedroom?
Have you talked to your fiancée about your feelings of jealousy/insecurity regarding her still living with her ex?
Have you met her ex? Does he know you two are dating?
Have you and your fiancée discussed your living plans for after you marry?
Have you and your fiancée and her ex discussed how custody of the kids will be handled?
What are your fiancée's virtues? What are her faults? Do the former give you enough reason to keep a relationship going even when the latter are driving you up the wall?
Have you talked about your finances? Can the two of you afford a living space with room for her children? Could the two of you support her kids if her ex decided to bail now that you're in the picture?
Do you have compatible ideas on how to spend your leisure time (and how to allocate said leisure time, because see: kids), how to manage the household, what level of mess and of clutter is acceptable?
Are you ready to be a step-parent?
Do you want biological children? Is your fiancée on the same page as you are?
Seriously, how long have you known your fiancée, and how much time have you spent together that wasn't having sex?

At the very least, if you can't say to your fiancée "hey, I'm really uncomfortable with your still sharing a bed with your ex; can you tell me what's up with that? would you and he be amenable to getting separate beds while you're still living together? also, I'd like to spend more than two evenings a week with you; is there any way we can arrange that?", you shouldn't marry her at this time.

See, THESE are excellent questions!!

Setting aside Amy's judgemental nastiness...

If the genders were reversed: i.e. LW were a woman who fell in love with a man at work, who comes over to LW's place 2 nights a week for dinner and sex; wouldn't we say this relationship should raise red flags for LW? Or am I missing something here?

(I keep tripping over she still sleeps in the same bed with him because even though it's platonic, there is still imho a level of intimacy shared.)

My guess is that they’re living in a place with one available adult bedroom.

If there’s a spare bedroom and they’re choosing to sleep in the bed together, that’s another story.

(I know WAYYYYY too many people who can’t move out after a breakup, bc they can’t afford to do it.)

I can buy them sharing a bedroom; it's the bed part that gives me pause.

That said, we don't know what the living space is like; while all the apartments I've lived in had enough room to squeeze two twin beds into the bedroom, that wasn't the case in my brother's apartment when he lived in NYC.

“Stealing time” from the kids? For fuck’s sake. The kids are not going to dry up and blow away like tumbleweeds if their parent has outside activities a couple nights a week. Plenty of parents have social nights, sports leagues, religious activities, or other outside commitments a couple times a week and it’s fine.

To be clear, I don’t think they should rush into getting married — there are a LOT of conversations to be had first, including meeting the kids and working out what they eventually want to do about housing.

Amy went off on such a wild flight of conjecture that I had to object — leaving kids with their other parent twice a week isn’t “stealing time” from them, there is no indicator that she plans on “abandoning” them, and she isn’t “cheating on” the LW by sleeping in the same bed as her ex without sexual contact.

There are definitely some red flags! But so much of this is potentially related to the horrifyingly-high cost of housing in the current economy.

I agree that Amy is being harsh but some of you are reaching a long way to try and prove her wrong.

If the LW's fiancée's relationship with her ex is platonic, why hasn't the LW met him?
If the LW's fiancee is planning to commit to the LW, why hasn't he met her children?
Why do they never meet in public?

Given none of these things have happened, this is not an honest, above-board relationship. This is one person cheating and one person daydreaming.

Yeah, Amy's answer is objectively bad, but it feels like that's because she's struggling not to say, "bro, you're the affair partner. She's cheating on her "ex" (probably still married to him!) with you and lying to you both." Because there isn't enough info here to say that for certain sure - but it sure is hard to say anything else in response to that story.

There definitely need to be serious discussions about all of this --

castiron's list had great questions.

(I was wondering "Does the ex know he's an ex," myself.)

Amy's advice was still (1) awful, (2) assuming a bunch of facts not in evidence, and (c) sexist (with the stuff about "stealing time from" and "abandoning" the kids, who were with their father.

Yeah, I hate that line about stealing time from the kids, and I don't doubt that sometimes people continue living together after a break-up, but man, if the genders on this were reversed, I wouldn't have hesitated to say that LW was clearly a side item. Even taking the story at absolute face value, this doesn't read like a sustainable situation, at least not without a lot of planning and adjustments.

Yeah, like, even if the ex wasn't in the picture at all, how do you get engaged without ever meeting the kids she lives full-time with? Don't marry this woman.

I guess it's just wild to me that she would get engaged w/ that being the case, but then on reflection, cheaters don't really plan these things out.

It's also another way to string him along, if she is that sort of person. Or to string herself along.

If you're that kind of person, and there's no way to turn him down without risking the lies falling apart immediately, you say yes. At least it punts the consequences further down.

it just seems so complicated and stressful!

I certainly wouldn't do it just for sex but then I don't understand a lot of the bad decisions people make for sex!

But thinking of some of the tangled webs of lies I got into as a teenager with executive dysfunction ... you just repeatedly make whichever decision seems likely to lead to less stress in the moment (lie) and then next thing you know you are in way, way too deep and don't see any options other than continuing to prop up the lie.

rereads the comments Where did anyone say LW's engagement was definitely a good idea? Amy's advice was sexist and thus useless; that doesn't mean the opposite of her advice would necessarily be right, and I don't think anyone said so.

No one except the LW thinks the engagement is a good idea. However, I was surprised how many people seemed to think the LW's fiancee was actually planning a life with LW when there is no evidence of that in the letter.

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