Doing too much and losing the boy

Thinking about what can go wrong in a relationship, the thoughts have lately nearly fried my brain. I mean, what can’t go wrong. But the one thing I think I suspect in this case is not one I saw coming.

Years ago I read an article about women in DC who dated men on the down and out (not down low but down and out—as in no job and either homeless or in danger of). These women did all they could to ‘rescue’ these men: helped them find jobs, let them move in, found them medical care, basically tried to meet their basic needs in addition to trying to establish a romantic relationship. The outcome, the overwhelming majority of the men, well, they ran away. It was as though they could not get away from the tender loving care and back to the streets fast enough. I remember at the time I read this (it was based on a study), thinking that the phenomenon was unique to men likely to end up down and out. I assumed that many had less education and usually mental health issues (yes, I’m revealing some awful preconceptions I have regarding the homeless, but in my defense I will say that the mental health part is fairly well established, at least before Bush ran the nation into economic ruin).

Well, I recently ran into the reality of my own prejudices being busted in the most painful way. It harkens for me the scene in The Joy Luck Club (the movie, though the book captures this too) were the husband is walking out on a woman and her child and he’s coming over to discuss the divorce. Her mother meets her first and notices that she is preparing his favorite foods and cleaning the house and doing everything for him. And the mother, the Asian mother, the Chinese mother, berates her daughter! He’s leaving you, she tells her, he deserves NOTHING! I loved it, but even so I missed the message. The woman instead meets the soon to be ex hubby outside, in the rain, and tells him to “get out of my house.” And then leaves him in the rain. Of course he comes back. Again, I missed the message.

Fast forward more than a decade. I am now dating a boy who is so complicated that the complicated relationship on my Facebook page does not begin to describe it. Suffice it to say he is two years divorced, three years separated, and in a tough spot. The ex stole the kids to Europe hoping he would never see them again but tricking him with health claims and offers to one day return in hopes of money. He finally grew a pair (if only temporarily) and got a lawyer and the US state department to force her ass back here—at a cost of $100,000 and his job because he’d spent so much time there. On returning he lost the pair he’d grown and let her back into the house where he was paying the mortgage and even agreed to live in the basement, as long as he could see the kids. She slapped him in front of the kids and he moved out—into a cheap apartment with NO furniture. He was working, she was spending.

They both file for divorce. On the return he’d been given custody but he gave it back (yes, that’s right, gave it back to the kidnapper, and yes, he caved because she was breast feeding the youngest—what a crock!!!). He ends up paying her $36,000 a year in child support, she gets half his retirement of 20 years (even though they were only married three), and she gets the paid off nicer SUV and half the house (which was ridiculous given that the value had plummeted). He had an expensive, lazy, evil greedy lawyer and NO representation.

So, now we’re at last August. He meets me when I’m looking for work and feeling a bit challenged financially and uncertain about myself career-wise for the first time in my life. At the time, I was dating four other guys. Two had grown kids but the divorces were ancient history. Two had no ex-wives lurking and no kids. Given these options, I ran away from the complicated one in the midst of a custody battle right? Wrong! (One reason it’s good this is anonymous, another is that he doesn’t know so much about me still seeing one of the dudes through until Thanksgiving).

Outcome, I meet the kids and fall for them and, though he tells me one child has psychological issues following the kidnapping and the distancing from father and from English and thus does not talk to anyone besides father and mother, kid talks to me within an hour. Both kids fall for me and I for them. Things seem to be going well.

At this point, he would come to my place in the city and I to his place in the burbs. However, slowly over time, especially as he starts rehabbing his basement to get a tenant because poor dude is flat busted broke (boy can I chose them), I start helping with the rehab and suddenly, I am there more than my own place. Slowly, as I complete my consultancy work on the side (and he complains when it interrupts a Friday night when I’m under deadline), I find myself doing more and more for him. I review the legalese and edit his emails to the ex and to his lawyer. I create a spreadsheet of accredited day care sites and options for kindergarten and what, based on standardized measures, makes for a good school and what does not. I show that the ex-wife (who has NO education) has the kids in the worst day care and has registered them for the worst schools she could find if that was her goal. Upshot, he starts to make some headway in court. Other upshot, ex-wife starts to follow me in stores and stand outside my car and stare at me through the window. Freaky person. What I did not ask (and should have) is, do I want to be with someone who would have ever entered into a relationship with a no education, freaky person who has gained 100 pounds at least since leaving (though I suspect she was a fat bitch well before).

He told me he really wanted a normal family life with a wife and kids. He wanted more kids but he could not afford them. He actually told me if I made $200,000 a year, he could see having kids (he lowered that to $100,000 later). I know, I KNOW, I should have run then. BUT, I knew I could make the second figure. I also heard my biological clock ticking away. And, by that point, I had fallen and hard.

So now, I’ve painted two rooms, helped with keeping all clean, at my own expense (yes, financially challenged, but I got that nurturing bug that the lack of a full-time job is letting run crazy), again, at my own expense funded lots of outfits, books and activities for the girls (and I finally had to say NONE could go to the ex’s as she steals them and they never return). I felt for the girls as everything they wear is used and does not fit and is not appropriate for their age or gender (and I am super anti-Disney and pink). The girls now read regularly and seem to enjoy time at their dad’s more. I must say though, he is a great dad. He spoils them and has no sense of discipline, which will bite him in the future, but his excuse is that he sees them so rarely that discipline is tough. He also favors the oldest who he bonded with (the mother kidnapped them when the youngest was barely born, thus, no bonding). But, all in all, he’s a good dad.

Oh, and I’ve done laundry, cleaned, picked up, cooked, gardened, helped with the house, prepped for a multitude of parties and cleaned up after. I’ve even funded some of the rehab stuff as I felt there was a need for better tools to get things going faster. The upshot, he wobbles between “can you make tea?” and “will you tidy up?” and “don’t do so much.” So, one day a few weeks ago, I blew. I really screwed up and told him not to eat anything I’d bought and told the kids to eat the food their dad bought (he ended up taking them to three places before they got the food they wanted, they have him around their finger). He now says I’m around too much and he’s decided he does not ever want to get married and the culture clash is too great (ie: I’m too Mexican when he uses that excuse and not Mexican enough to be a real Mexican when he wants to tease about my coming here at a young age whereas he came from his Asian nation as an adult). He can’t afford kids.

So, here I am. Nine months in, a gestation period. I can hear you all screaming, leave the jerk. I will and I can see it in the cards. However, I leave the area in two months for a job in another state across the nation. I could still try to find a job closer but I’m thinking, at this point, no. I’m thinking take the job far away that’s good for your career. It is good for my career. It will be hard to leave the New England I love when it’s not cold. It will be hard to leave the properties I’ve amassed. It will be DAMN hard to cage and transport my kitty monsters across the nation, car or plane. But, I’m thinking it’s time. So, in the meanwhile, I’ll get him to do some general repairs in my places (he owes me that at a minimum) and try to force him to pay for a weekend away and generally pull away over the next two months.

Thoughts? Besides who does this lunatic think she is doing a dating page when she is so clearly clueless. I have that one. OTHER thoughts?

The numbers game

   Finally found a keeper in a boy and I commit the ultimate faux pas. I do it so naively and honestly I do not even realize my mistake until he’s brought it up, albeit obliquely, a couple of times. He asked me about dating, you know, just a general dating question. Well, amongst my girlfriends, dating is slang for a lot of different things—people you dated once or more, people you managed to talk with over coffee, guys you had a relationship with, and those with whom you were more intimate. Given the multiple ways I could have answered his query, I went for a neutral. I gave him some nebulous answer. Then, when he asked for a number of ‘how many’ I had ‘dated’ I gave a general number that could have generally fit into several of the categories I define as dating. A double digit number . . .

                Did I mention there are some cultural differences here? He is from a place where dating was not a norm when he was growing up. Though things have since changed there, he remembers his home as a place where people did not date, generally were introduced to people via family, and married for life. Of course, this description could have fit the US at one time, like maybe in the world described in A Little House on the Prairie. Add to this communications milieu the fact that, while we both live in the US and have for at least a decade each, we were each born in another nation. In each case, the other place and culture was decidedly more paternal and ‘traditional’ (read, antiquated, read restrictive) that the US. Oh, and also there is the fact that we are both now living in a hyper blue state, something I love and he generally likes. But there is still the issue of my number. . .

When he brings up my number with a slightly fearful, slightly judgmental tone to his voice, I have flashbacks to the Sex and the City show in which Miranda is diagnosed with an STD and has to chase down all her lovers to inform them she might have infected them. Ok, in light of Miranda’s fictional plight, the judgmental tone seems less distressing. However, the constant reminder that a casual attitude to dating in the US which bleeds (according to him) into a casual attitude to marriage, and thus a high rate of divorce does tend to frustrate me. See, I have spent far more time, nearly my entire education, in the US and he has spent nearly all of his education in his native country. He often raises the differences in the divorce rates as his justification for why he rails on casual dating.

Did I mention that he is divorced with two kids and I have never married? Oh, and did I add that his ex- was from another nation also, though as a former communist nation, it was less paternalistic and traditional than either of our birthplaces. What does all this suggest for our relationship? Good question. One issue is that he is quick to reiterate that couples from different cultures are less likely to sustain successful relationships. Another issue is his insistence that women jump to divorce without working their way through a marriage to try to make things last. While I agree that marriages are generally worth working for, when I brought up the recent beheading of a friend of a friend’s wife he did admit that there are some instances in which women need to leave a marriage.

It is still frustrating, though, his tendency to associate an open society with loose morals and a high divorce rate. He maintains that it is the full social support for marriage, a full family expectation combined with familial support to work things through, that makes marriage work in his home country. He attributes a low divorce rate to social norms of long-term marriages that include extended family members to help couples through difficult times. What he does not mention are the women who often suffer through domestic abuse, mother-in-law abuse, or abandonment to a husband’s hobbies. Trying to offer an example of a society outside either of our experiences that also has strong social norms and expectations, I tell him about the 25% divorce rate in Riyadh, the very conservative capitol of the conservative nation of Saudi Arabia.

So, why do I put up with him, you could ask. There are actually several good reasons beyond the chemistry between us. He is smart—he speaks four languages fluently and holds two masters. He has a good job—no small deal in this economy. He is a great father—his biggest gripe about divorce in the US is the expectation that a father pay child support without a guarantee of a father’s role in his children’s lives. He refers to this as the father of a paycheck for my ex syndrome and in this case, I agree with him that it’s not fair. He is handy—he can figure out most plumbing, carpentry, and tiling needs. I, on the other hand, have trouble figuring out which screwdriver to use; suffice it to say that construction skills rank high on my list of impressive attributes. He can be romantic—well, he could improve here but he did sent Valentine’s flowers and spring for a lovely dinner out. He gardens, both the edibles and the pretty flowers. He cooks—really yummy stuff too.

Did I mention his number is three in the restrictive sense and five in a more liberal dating definition of dating? Yes, he’s a keeper. If only I could get him to forget my number.