RE:robinwv - the thing is , he is ALWAYS gone. He works 5 day a week full time and 3 or more nights a week also, so sometimes it is days before we see each other besides in passing, or in bed asleep...so i am always alone at home with the baby going to all his medical appointments ( he is medically challenged ) and we rarely get to spend time together already. When he was always at home when we first got together, I was happy for him to go do stuff but he never would. That was pre-baby. Since baby and working full time + now, it's like some big puff of "I'm the man" jumped right into his chest and now he thinks he is the man and I am the "little wifey". He tries to get me to go out with girlfriends, but I really would rather just go out with him, because I think the same way that jenny_alabama feels...when you get into a relationship with someone involving a family and make a committment, that you should do things together, he had plenty of time to "sow his oats" without me, and yes, it is about the "without me" part lindakimy...I told him exactly that... I asked him how it would feel if I just came home and said, well, I am going to go out with a bunch of people and you aren't invited, but he says he would be happy if I did this, he wants me to go out. We cannot agree on the views we each have separately. I don't begrudge him for wanting to go out, I really don't, it's just BS that he is trying to force us to have separate friends, I feel like when you are a couple that you should have friends that can go out with both of you, not just one or the other. It seems to me as if he wants us to both act like we are single and like if I don't go out with him and his friends that he can keep things from me. Although I trust him, it seems shady to me that he is pushing so hard to do things separately but NEVER wants to go out as a couple. There is not one time that we have ever went out in 2 years without someone else along. I couldn't even get him to go out wiht me on Valentines day when i offered to pay, or on my birthday when I had to go out with 2 coworkers the 1st year we were together...we went and had pizza one night,at a little pizzaria restaurant, but our son was in the hospital and we were sick of hospital food and walked to the place. I guess I am just really confused why like I asked him, Why am I less important than people that you have known for such a short time. These guys he wants to go out with all work in club environments and would lie for him in a heartbeat. They seem to think that the "little woman" should be kept in her place. You can only imagine the fireworks that have flown through our household over time. We finally came to an agreement, only because I told him I am not going to sit at home while he is out all night and I am sitting here having more and more time to stew over the situation. I am not cool with it because I think if he were to have gone to dinner, gone ANYWHERE when we could have, it would have made a huge difference in how I felt about it now. He didn't even come back to the hospital the night our son was born like he had promised when I told him he could go "celebrate" with his "friends"...I didn't even get to hold our son because I was so upset about being left alone when he said he would be back that all I could do was kick in my post partum depression and couldn't eat, sleep, and cried for 3 days straight. I still haven't let it go, although I have forgiven him, I will never forget the disappointment and how his word can't be trusted. He has told me before when he went out that they were not going to a strip club, but lo and behold, where did he 20 minute me until he would get home for 3 hours. He has blown his trust with me, so it is hard for me to believe what he says. He is so vehement about me having a negative reaction to anyhting involving him and doing things he knows I would be upset about if he excludes me purposely. He agrees to something and then it just sucks for me when he breaks his word. Then I am just being a B. There are certain friends he has I would be cool with him hanging out with, but I have seen the others first hand cheat on their girls and I think the company you keep can influence you when you have been hanging out with them all the time. I wish I could put blind faith into him all the time, but I have been burned before, and also been on the flip side where I was married before and I was the one who always wanted to go out without my ex-husband, but we also went out together, and so did he. I guess I am just more upset because he is so adamant that he needs more time than the 16 hours a day he sometimes spends with these guys but can't spend a full 16 hours awake with me. If he is at home, he will sleep for 12 hours straight sometimes and I still don't even get to see him. But he professes to love me so much, I can even see it in his eyes. I guess he is just sending me mixed messages, because I love him as much as he says he loves me, but I am proud to take him everywhere with me. I am excited to spend time with him, and I just don't understand why I am such a noose around his neck when I tolerate where he works around naked women all day long, a nightclub all night long, where when one night I went to hang out with him for a friend of ours bday party there, that he "warned" me right before he left and I was going to come up after dropping the baby off at the sitter, that not to get jealous if women were hitting on him and flirting with him. Then to get there and a woman I was sitting beside at the bar proceeded to let me know how hot he was, etc. When I said yeah, I know, he's my baby's father. Then her story was, well, you should be glad, because no matter how much I hit on him he never takes me up on it. When I mentioned it to him after we got home, he says he never noticed he hitting on him. And he wonders why I doubt him. Go figure. I really do trust him, but as I told him, I do not think as long as works in this environment that he should be too upset about me questioning him or wanting to go along. And if he makes a big deal out of me going, that he shouldn't be surprised if I get a red flag warning going off inside my heart.

Just a quick comment. We kept the same ceramic tiles that had been down for 40 years. We liked them and they are no longer available. We only had 24 - 12" octagons left from the original purchase. Daniel, our miracle tile guy, added the tiles for the 2 ft. of additional floor space we needed and he made it with one left over. There was some slight color mismatch between the tiles that had been down and the tiles that had been in a box, but he matched the old grout perfectly. I agree that the GC should do it now for all of the above stated reasons, but, just in case, the grout can probably be matched pretty well. Also, keep any extra tiles for later, just in case. The tiles toward the front of the picture toward the carpet are new.

I have a pillow in my guest room. It says "he loves me, he loves me not...it doesn't matter, I'm all he's got." Everyone gets a kick out of it.

Honey, please look very strongly at this man. I too was in the same boat several years ago. Re married, step children both sides. I had a son, he a son. It was rocky from the get go but I stayed stong. I knew he loved me, but both children were artists at stirring things up. Mine was no angel as I found out later. That was where I believe he started drifting away. I went to others for advice and got the same thing. He's no good, he's having an affair. Bottom line, get rid of him. Well, I never had that chance. He died several months later. He never complained about illnesses. He did get dizzy and sometimes would pass out. In those days doctors dismissed it as he was drinking and smoking too much. Problem was he hardly drank but every now and then he would tie one on and never smoked. at the funeral his very close (single)friends paid their respects. One that I was also very close to I pulled aside and had to ask if he knew of my husband having an affair. In no uncertain terms he stated no way. He did like to look and flirt as you put it but while they were out all he talked about was me and the kids. But he also felt that he was not part of the family that I brought into the marriage. He said that I spent alot of my time treating my son like an adult while brushing my husband off to the side, My parents were domineering and like to controll things. My son ran to them if he looked sideways at him. Of course, I had to hear about it. He also stated that he thought my husband had been sick and in alot of pain for some time because he did see him go through changes. He would tell them about his pain but did not want to worry me. His joking around came less and less. His mind was always racing thouugh all kinds of things going on. They joked that it was my nagging causing this and wrote it off as such. While cleaning out his things i came upon some things. He was always trying to make things better for me and the kids. He was working more hours, taking odd jobs around town, he was pawning and selling some of his things that i knew at least he held dear at one time. This was all found through receipts and notes. He had planned a getaway with the family. It was all there in black and white. All this through what I found even later what must have been excruciating pain. I;m not going to bore you with more. I found notes and cards to me that he never gave me. They would go on and on about how much he loved me, his hapiness with me, his fears of the future. He had always had a hard time saying his thoughts. These letters were poetry. I do want you to get one thing out of my mistake. You know this man more than any of us do. At least I would hope. Take a good look into his soul. I knew what was in my husbands soul because that was why I married him faults and all. He loved God, his family, and his friends. Yes he drank every now and then and would overdo it the same as yours. He was a flirt and I knew it. He flirted with everyone young and old, pretty and not so pretty. That was part of his charm. Again, that was a reason why i married him. Everyone loved him. That church was packed. Now all I have are the lovely memories of him and the one nightmare that wakes me up often. I listened to others that did not know him the way I did. You get a second chance to look through your eyes and heart and not through others.