Yes , definitely those two will have problems. Apparently i remember her telling me the night she was leaving that she signed some sort of contract stating that if there was a fight like this again then its straight divorce...i thought about later andi'm still laughing! I went for marriage counciling for a few months. My husband refused cause he had issues about councilors since his previous marriage failed and he looks at them as a last resort. I personally like saving something at the beginning...no point in waiting till the end...there might not be anything to save at times! Anyways...i realized that i had alot of negative peopel coming around. I remember when a particular friend came around , after she left we would get into a major fight...and then we'ld think back why we fought..and it would be over something stupid. Then of course we realize it was her! She would come over and dig info all the negative stuff and it just oozed from her....i started to cut her out of our lives. Then low and behold she was caught drinking and driving. she left our place sober and was arrested that same night. Keeps changing her story...she's out of our lives. We've dumped others and my husband and i finally spoke about everythign last night from A to Z. we realized that we need to keep positive people around us. Not people who can't handle their problems. We all have problems...its just how we handle it. So yes, our time is spent with more positive people. My friend was the last string left hanging...:) i was so relieved this morning. She was not on the couch sleeping...didn't have see her at night. Got my routin back...my husband said the same thing as he walked out of the bathroom naked from a shower. I started to laugh, i told him we are not tkaing anymore stray dogs. They can go home to their moms! Cheers to relaxing!!!! and i'm glad for all your thoughts. I am just amazed how some people can marry and just live like that! wow!

cindy pond, Your comment about my doctor discussing it with me made the think back. I've been on the antidepressant since my mid-40's. At that time my doctor told me she figured my sex life was pretty much over with anyway. Now that I think about it, that wasn't a very nice thing to say! I still go to the same dr. office my particular practitioner has changed twice since then. Perhaps I'll talk to my new dr. about this. The thing is, Zoloft has worked very well for me for a long time so I hesitate to mess with that. Also, per my first post I never did have a strong sex drive in the first place. Now that I'm going through menopause I doubt it would make much difference even if I could switch drugs. Part of me wonders then, if I have no sex drive why am I complaining about not having sex? Because even though my husband assures me he loves me, and I believe him, I still feel unloved because of a lack of intimacy. I don't think he really needs intimacy honestly. So then I feel like I would just be making him do it to appease me, and that's no good. If I try to talk to him about this it will only put more pressure on him to again appease me, so I don't say anything. I have asked him a couple of times why we don't have sex anymore and he says "sex isn't everything" and mentions the hormone and drug interactions and says he just doesn't think about it anymore. But then I wonder if that's a lie because of the fact that I accidently caught him masturbating so he MUST think about it. When I think along those lines I think he's just bored with me or with our routine or maybe I just disgust him. But those tables could be turned so I can't be judgemental there. I realize all of you have made suggestions and I am making excuses. I guess this has become my venting place for my frustration because I am afraid to talk to any of my girlfriends about it.

All of you ladies are so right!!! I am so thankful I found this forum, to give me the courage to do what I knew inside I needed to do. After my last post to lilysuzanne last night, I sent him a text message (he was at his mom's with is kids). It was around 2:30am... if course I couldn't sleep. The text said basically I couldn't be in this relationship with him any more & I would talk to him in the mornign when he came home. This morning, we had that conversation. I did break up with him. As bad as I hurt, I feel that much more liberated. He kept saying stuff was about his kids, but as I pointed out to him, nothing he said correlated to his children. It was all about him and his fear(s) of committment, "manning up", and DEMONSTRATING his love for me. He referenced the times less than four that he has attempted to do family oriented things with me and his children. He said his son feels uncomfortable because of tension that he feels, and felt 1 or 2 other times when we were all together and his father and I were upset with one another. I reminded him that we have NEVER argued in front of or around his children; not even when we were all the same house. He said, it was "ONE" time his son flet like we were angry with one another and it made him feel uneasy... Now, everytime I am around he (his son) gets that feeling. My answer to that was: 1. The only way to overcome negative feelings is to be consistently positive, and taling advantage of those moments when the opportunity presents itself. 2. The tension his son felt was the uneasiness that we all have being on pins & needles around each other the less than four times I have been around them. Moreover, my BF does nothing to counteract his son's excuses. 3. He knows just like I know, that if a child hears bad things from BioM for years and dad does nothing to counteract the negativity, then the child will feed off of that. He said he knew that I have never done anything to disrespect or hurt his children. His children would respect me in my presence, BUT he needs to make sure that his realtionship with his kids is guarded. He is concerned about how they "view" him. To me, that was a bunch of mumbo jumbo. Another excuse! His children will always love him. All he has to do is do what is right. We went on and on--- so much was said... but the bottom line was that I told him I just couldn't do this anymore. He agreed that I was a selfLESS person, and had given up a lot. He left the house, but called in 5 minutes trying to confuse me... but I held my ground! He said... "Everytime I think we are making progress in our relationship, and getting closer to the goal of marriage something comes up to step in the way of the plan." I know his goal was to catch me off guard and say to myself, "Self, you are moving too fast. Slow down. He was about to ask you to marry him. Give him a little longer... another chance." Luckily, I could visualize every post on this forum from last night. I almost gagged, that he thought after all we talked about that I should wait one more day to move "closer..." Is he crazy? Wait! Let me answer that... YES! He is CRAZY! 9 years is long enough. THANKS LADIES, and angelz DH (for giving me a man's POV, whiched helps me to seal the deal).

In my opinion, it all boils down to maturity of the children and age-appropriateness. Tell children what is appropriate for their maturity level. My DS's mental maturity is vastly different from FSD's. Even FDH and BM have commented on it. Not that it's bad, but we have to handle things differently with each child. FSD is probably about 2 or 3 years behind in her maturity, mostly due to excessive sheltering from her parents. For instance, she was talking to a friend on the phone (in my bedroom, rolling all over my bed, while I was folding clothes) this past summer and her friend was talking of going to Greece with the extra-curricular group that FSD used to belong to before she moved. This friend told FSD that they have nude beaches there. FSD said "is that the name of it? Like Galveston Beach?" Her friend told her that it was a beach where people don't wear clothes. She says "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH, I get it, EWWWWW". I don't necessarily believe that nieviety (sp?) to be a bad thing. Actually, I find it refreshing in a world where too many people grow up too fast. But there are other things that her immaturity causes massive problems. Homework, schedules of her different activites and so on. DS, on the other hand, is over-aware of what goes on between his father and me. For instance, last year when X and I were going through CS issues, DS tells me in the grocery store "can I have yogurt? We have the money now that my dad is giving us more." He then proceeded to tell me how his dad was going to have to get another job and wasn't going to be able to be involved in his sports anymore due to having to work more. UGH! I hadn't been talking to DS about what was going on, but X did so I had clean-up duty. So I say "Okay, bud, here's the deal. Dad hasn't actually paid any of that money yet and the courts haven't decided exactly how much more he will be paying. So we will not be spending any more than we have to. And in any case, the courts won't ask Dad to pay any more than he is able to". I only told him what I thought he should know and could handle. Nothing more. I could've said "Well, your DAD has 2 vehicles and we only have one and he's complaining about having to pay a few more dollars to support HIS son when he's been getting away with it for the last 3 years. Oh, and by the way, he thinks his motorcycle is more important than you. He makes sure to make that motorcycle payment, but doesn't make sure to send his money for you." I could've said that. But that would only hurt my DS who looks up to and loves his father.