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Am I being too selfish/unreasonable in my relationship?
I've been dating my older boyfriend for 4 years. He had commitment issues (took him 2 years to actually say I love you) because he was hung up on his ex-wife and wouldn't admit it. Two years ago, she died (cancer). He says he is complete and over her, yet I found a poem he wrote her recently saying how he loves her, and how he does everything in his day to make her proud, and how she's his best friend, and he can't wait till he sees her again. We had a fight about it, he said he wrote it so his girls could read it so it would help them. But he put I love you at the end.. and what was in it discredited me. Saying he did everything for her and still loves her, and nothing past tense. He still has her death card on the fridge after 2 years, her name is STILL on his taxes, water bill, and checks, and keeps a statue she wanted thats sitting in the breezeway. I've told him please remove her from his bills, please get rid of the statue IF it means nothing to him as he claims. and remove her pic off the fridge as it's been long enough and she should come down. He hasn't done anything. He hasn't made a move to really be present with me right here today. I feel like an outcast because he hasn't sat with his girls and said I'm in a committed relationship and it's important to me, and then actually made me a part of household decisions. He's a good man, we do have fun together, I know he loves me and cares about me. But is that enough? Am I overreacting to wanting him to remove HER from off the fridge and just be present to "our" life? He knows how much those things bother me and yet hasn't done anything about it..doesn't that show that he's not fully committed to me or to us? I just want to be happy but every time I go see him.. I'm reminded of HER right in my face and how much he loved her and still does.. even though I've been here 4 years! Am I wrong? Am I being too selfish and unreasonable? I don't know anymore.
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In the end as advice man suggested, the best thing may be to go for couple counseling. It doesnt have to be officially marriage counseling but what it takes to relate to people in all relationships is just as important in a bf/gf or marriage. Also he may benefit from grief counseling because most people all react the same ways in the grief process and some get stuck at one point and never move on through the whole process. I will say that having her name still on all bills, someone who is no longer alive is really a matter of updating records with all companies involved. If his phone or address changed, or he got a new bank acct for those who have his bank card info on file for automatic pay, he'd have to alert companies of the new info. Just that one thing makes me feel prone to believe that enough though he doesn't see it this way, he probably did get stuck in the grieving process and her dying of cancer may have contributed by way of guilt feelings to compound it all.
As to the poem, I do not know if you meant that his writing 'I love you" made you feel discredited or whether it was things he made in comparison in the poem about her vs you. If the latter, then yes, there is a problem. If he said I love you, like you were told, it really all depends on the situation. Is he the type of person who builds friendships and relationships with people easily where he views them as the same as blood family and treats them as such and also emotionally allows himself to love them, each in their own way? My 2nd husband is like that. He his an ex wife. His daughter moved with him choosing to not finish her teen years living with mom. that should say something about Moms personality and how her relationships were with daughter and husband. She lives out of state, was an orphan and has no family other than his parents, him and the daughter. He will always love her as family, as a person but at the same time, I wasn't a replacement for her, I was a great improvement, a step up in relationships for him. I have nothing to be jealous of. If she needs emotional support and calls cus she really has no one else, I leave him to take the call right then, dropping plans and she easily takes changes and disappoints much harder and falls apart and gets depressed and needs to hear some calming advice from a person who knows her well. She truly doesnt want him back and says so. She knows he drives her nuts because their personalities differed in too many areas and yet theres nothing wrong for us, we get along like two peas in a pod, I couldn't imagine a husband any better than him. So it really depends if he is that way about saying I love you to people in his life now and from his past. Heck i even know and am friends with some of his old girlfriends who are married too whom he will s till tease and say I love you but right after he'll explain that he loves them as a friend but that he loves me as his current wife and doesn't enough in his actions and words to prove it. If this boyfriend as an adult is not giving you the affirmations you need to hear, then you might let him know its one of the ways you need to have his love for you confirmed. We can't erase our past, it is what it is. Expecting a person to remove every little thing in their life that is a reminder of their past could be unreasonable. It depends on the circumstances. So again, if her photo is the only one on the fridge, he may be still living in the past and trying to keep her alive in ways that help him cope which means he's not over grieving and he's not ready for a new relationship. If he has dozens of photos and other things stuck to the fridge, kids pics, a shot from an office party, a christmas family pic sent by his best friend, etc...then having his ex wifes photo on the fridge is not out of line. If he has no photos of you anywhere in the house displayed but only hers, again, he's got some issues he needs healing with to get past. So whatever the multiple issues you brought up dear, it all depends on the details of the situation, the context in which these things occur that will determine if there really is a problem or not. And thats why seeing a professional short term until this is figured out and resolved is important. You are not too selfish or unreasonable as far as i can see. After four years with him, you should be able to feel really secure with your position as his girlfriend. I am 6 yrs now with new husband and I am secure in my position but its not because I worried over his actions or pics he still has of her and daughter from his past on our computer. That is all part of ones memories and past, good or bad. Even tho I had an abusive husband, there were moment early on where there are pics of good happy moments and I won't toss all the photos just because he's in them and I need to move on. I moved on in my mind and heart. I wouldn't ever want to have to deal with the ex again. I don't feel like a wife or even an ex wife, I care about my ex more as one would care like Jesus does for another human being, wishing them well and sometimes their own bad choices or disease steps in to make for a miserable life when you have moved on. So it may only be that if he truly loves you, what he's doing is not showing he loves you in a way that you can easily interpret. And here I would ask you to check out a link of the 5 basic love languages that we each have one that mainly makes us feel loved. THE problem is when we choose to epress our love to others in exactly the same way we want to have it expressed to us that we run into issues with the other not feeling loved and really cared for. So look it up, the five love languages, or heres a link, see if it helps, and discuss it with and show to him. Hopefully thats all thats needed. If its more serious, a counselor will be needed.
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Are you being unreasonable? The answer is yes and no depending on different factors. One thing that significant others of divorced men and women need to remember is that when children of that marriage are a factor the ex will always be the third person in the relationship. Even when that ex is deceased he or she remains in the relationship because of the children's presents. It is the ex's responsibility to raise the children to remember and honor with love and fondness the deceased parent. This is where you could be being unreasonable.
Now I am not a doctor and definitely not a psychiatrist or psychologist so I cannot say with any certainty why your BF has the feeling for his ex that he has. My best guess is some type of guilt that the divorce may have caused cancer that took her from them. Also people grieve in many different way. While two years may seem like a long time it may not especially if he somehow feels responsible. This would be where you could or could not be being unreasonable. It would depend on the why he feels the way he does.
What I suggest is you both seek counseling. The reason for this is for him to find out why he is still grieving for his ex and to find a better way to handle her death. For you both to come to terms with the fact that his ex is going to be in your relationship because of his children and for you both to find a more comfortable way to handle it. Your request to take her name of his bills is not unreasonable or to remove her Mass card from the refrigerator. The statue in the breezeway is something you might give in on for now.
Find a qualified Psychologist and have both joint and single sessions of therapy.
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You both need counselling, together, and him alone.
You are crossing the line into 'unreasonable'. She's his dead wife, and mother of his children. She will always be present in that home. Period. She cannot be erased.
But that doesn't mean all of his behaviors are acceptable. You are both getting stuck in your ways, and you are feeling so strongly about these fights. You are both wrong, and you need an independent moderator to help him deal with his grief, and to move forward together.
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