“My Partner Doesn’t Want to Marry Again, But It’s My Dream”
He has an emotionally unstable, alcoholic ex-wife who brings a lot of stress to our relationship due to jealousy. This also impacts my relationship with his children (one is an adult and the other a teenager). They tend to pull away from me when she has an episode as they feel guilty about being close to me. My partner worries how this will affect his children if we move in together, which upsets me.
I don’t know what to do. My dream was to get married again someday (it took until two years together for him to tell me he didn’t want to remarry, mainly due to the trauma and financial loss from his divorce). There seems to be no compromise from his side. Should I leave? I am so scared of starting over again due to my age. — Dreaming of Marriage
What does it mean to you to start all over again? You aren’t married to this man and you don’t live together. It doesn’t sound like you’re very close to his kids. When you say you’re afraid to start all over again, that can’t mean finding a new place to live or making all new friends and family. It doesn’t mean looking for a new job. It doesn’t mean changing your lifestyle drastically (unless this guy’s financial generosity has been subsidizing it). All leaving this man would mean is adapting to being single and not having this particular man in your life anymore. If at 52, getting married again is your sole priority, and the quality of your life is dependent on achieving this one goal, then I think THAT is the bigger issue than the emotional and physical (un)availability of your current pursuit.
There’s more to life than marriage. Do you not have other dreams? Do you not have money of your own? Are there no other hobbies or interests or friendships and relationships at 52 years old that would fill your life in the absence of a marriage? I think that if you were to shift some of your focus on developing these parts of your life, the thought of ending a relationship with someone who isn’t a good fit for you or whose long-term goals don’t align with yours wouldn’t feel so devastating. It wouldn’t feel like “starting all over again,” because much of your life would simply carry on as normal. And starting all over again on the search for a husband wouldn’t feel so oppressive because the search for a husband wouldn’t be such a huge priority.
Find more balance in your life, de-center marriage (and men in general), and you are going to find a peace that will make you wonder why you spent so much time trying to bend and squeeze into someone else’s life rather than make your own what you want. If, however, this is about long-term financial security and you are really married to the idea of a husband being the one to provide it to you, I do think that you are wasting your time on this particular guy. He might subsidize your current life and he might eventually provide the comfort of living together, but he’s made clear that he’s not losing money to a wife ever again.
First of all, this is your husband’s parents, so let him be the one to figure out how to deal with them. To him and his siblings, I would say that they could either ignore the hints until or unless their parents ask them outright to throw them a party, or they could be assertive and proactive and address their parents directly. The latter, which I recommend, runs the risk of offending the parents but it creates clarity around expectations and limitations, which will reduce anxiety and resentment in the long run.
If they go with the latter plan, they could nominate one person to be the spokesperson while including the others in an email or text or phone call – whatever the main mode of communication is in the family – and say: “We know your 40th anniversary is coming up, which is incredible and we’re really happy for you. You deserve to celebrate this milestone and we wish we could help with that, but unfortunately, it’s not in our budget right now to host a party, and it may be difficult for some of us to even get to a party depending on when it would be. We wanted to give you plenty of time to plan something special for the two of you, knowing our current financial and schedule limitations.”
A nice thing you could all do is pool your contributions and maybe cover dinner for your in-laws if just the two of them go out for their anniversary. Or, if they drink, you could call the restaurant and ask that a bottle of champagne be sent to their table on you. Basically, think about an affordable, thoughtful gesture to show you care even if you can’t be there in person.
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If you have a relationship/dating question I can help answer, you can send me your letters at [email protected].
