Buehl, please do! I was just trying to save something of use. I'd been checking the GW all night, turned my back for 15 minutes to watch the Health Care vote, and whammo! all the posts were gone. I kept refreshing, thinking, "This can't be!"

Wow...didn't know there was so many posts on this over the weekend. I appreciate everything everyone posts on here. It really does help put things into perspective for me. I think there are a lot of reasons why BF and I called off wedding and can't live together anymore. It goes way back to when we first met really. He never encouraged me to spend any time with the kids in the beginning and honestly I never brought it up because they were with their mom most of the time. He never had them very much. So...I figured it was as most divorced parents where the kids were with the mom about 70-80% of the time. We dated for almost a year with no kids around. I met the kids after a year's time went by...they were 4 at the time. Yes..I was still hurting greatly by my daughter pushing me away and it was diffcult to be around them. They reminded me of what I no longer had. I saw them maybe 2 more times before BF and I moved in together and then I found out that the whole time we were dating not only had he been fighting their mom to be able to see them and that is why he never really had them but he was also still married to their mother. He divorced her after the second week of us living together. He lied - he told me when we first met that he was divorced. (Also I found out after being together for a few months that the kids mom was his second wife...there is a first wife out there somewhere too.) I didn't care too much at the time because I though well we are just dating...who cares. I should have known better though. That is my fault because I hung around long enough to allow myself to fall in love with him. I should have known better when who I thought was the ex-wife not THE wife was calling him wanting more money for the kids, threating to not let him see the kids ever again if he didn't do what she wanted. I had been with him about 5-6 months when I noticed this pattern of her calling screaming...then him giving in. I told him "It's none of my business but if she already gets child support..you don't owe her anything and legally she can't dangle the kids over your head and keep them from you." So he took her to court and fixed that problem. Once we had moved in together everything seemed great at first. He was helping split the bills and was there for me emotionally during times when things got tough with my daughter. Trust me there were plenty of those times and still are. He then became obessed with expensive hobbies, porsches, mountain bike riding, photography etc. Basically he blew ALL of his savings within about a year and a half. I was unaware of this and since we aren't married thought it was none of my business. He had told me that he had money put up for us to have a nice wedding and buy a house one day. The money is now gone. Still renting with no plans of buying a home and no way to really buy one anyway. The house we rent (which I am now living in because it is in my name and he can't handle the rent payments) was the only bill he was responsbile. I took care of everything else and twice he lied about having paid the rent when in fact he did not. It wasn't really the fact that he didn't have the money it was that he lied to me..then again I guess if he had not blown all of his money on hobbies he might have been able to afford the rent. So..we are already running into some road blocks. He is terrible with money and lies about it. He bought me a cell phone for my birthday and within a few months it was cut off because he didn't pay the bill. Even though it was his idea to pay the bill. I didn't run the bill up...he just didn't pay the monthly bill for it. So..I had to to go out and get new phones under my name for myself and him because he is in collections now. We had cable turned on when we moved..he let the bill go. We now have it turned on in my name because he has gone to collections for that too. Now keep in mind in the beginning he ALWAYS seemed to have his finances under control and was smart with money. I don't have good credit for different reasons from my first marriage. However, I told him that up front. I never lied to him about anything. We also had a joint checking account..after me being on it for 2 weeks he overdrew it and now I am facing collections because of that. He has done nothing to try and pay the bank off and fix the problem. It's my fault for trusting him. But....I thought well...every couple goes through financial problems...we can fix this. About 2 weeks after I make that decision to give it another go....I am told his twins (who I don't really know) are moving in full time. Talk about a ton of bricks dropped in my lap. My relationship w/ BF was falling apart already and we were in the process of trying to fix it. When the kids came to live with us-EVERYTHING turned upside down. For awhile he had been telling me how their mom was finally getting her life together and the kids were coming over EOW and then all of the sudden I am told that their mom is running from the law. Too much drama! One day he is telling me he is having child support stopped and that he is getting it since he has the kids (which he has not gone to court about yet)then the next day he says that his ex-wife's mom (the kid's grandmother) is getting the child support money. I get so confused and tired of it all. To top if off even though we aren't living together anymore-he came over this past weekend (kids were at grandma's house) and he spend the whole time on the computer. I ask myself what am I holding on so tight for??? Why bother??? I want someone who will be honest with me and love me. Not someone who loves me in the beginning so that I will agree to move in and accept their proposal of marriage and show their true colors to me later. That has hurt me so much. So...it may not be so much the kids...I don't know. I just know that I have grown inpatient with BF and that I don't have it in me to sacrifice that much of my life in helping to raise his kids. Taking on 6 yr twins is a lot of work and can be so stressful-especially since I didn't not know what I was getting myself into. I gave it a few months to see if I could handle it..so at least I can say I tried. He needs to learn to be more responsible...he is almost 40 and is back living at mom's house again with his kids. He need to learn to be a dad first before he can be a husband to anyone. He lets them walk all over him. They have learned how to play him because they know he is soft and will give in. I think he does that out of guilt because they don't have their mom. I have explained that he is not helping them though by being soft and always feeling sorry for them when they are being bad. I think letting go of him is hard because I am holding on to the way it used to be. That was not really him though. I have to move on some how. It just breaks my heart to think how things used to be and to see how they are now. I have become bitter and angry and I think at times he gets angry with me because he wants me to love and accept his kids. It was hard telling him that I can not live with his kids.

...if I went to see a movie, I would be noticing kitchens. lascatz, I do this all the time these days. I'm driving my hubby crazy! Congratulations on your happy news, spincrazy! Even though you now have a good reason to stick to a time line, try to follow lascatz and marthavila's advice and take a break, even if it's a small one. And it might not hurt to heed my hubby's advice. When I get stuck in a never-ending what-do-I-do quandary, he reminds me that "there comes a time in every project when you need to shoot the engineer and ship the product." ;-) Not that they actually do that (thank goodness since he's an engineer!) but his point is that we can fuss and fuss and fuss with a plan, thinking the perfect answer is just around the corner and we fail to realize that what we might be doing is just revisiting the same issues over and over and not making any progress at all. Besides, perfection isn't possible.

Tali, I wanted to say (I'm not sure if I did) that in my remodel I actually went with the KD because the plans were "all done" and then...the cabinets came, and they SUCKED!!! And I can't stress that enough. So many people said "make them work" and I realized how stupid that was :) And started over again. I'm going to have a stunning kitchen, with every bell and whistle, and very very high quality cabinets, and all for around your budget. I'd love to hear that you see someone else and get everything you want, including the special stains, legs, etc. I have every bell and whistle involved, including inset doors (a big upcharge) and I'm using a very high quality cabinet company, Omega Custom, which I'd recommend you look at. They do everything custom (they have lower end lines as well, you can find them on line) but one of the things I love is that the inside stains match the outside, which I really think makes a difference in a high end design (I hate to open a cabinet and see another color or thermafoil). I'm spending about $70M for two bathrooms and a kitchen. I also was able to work in a Lacanche (look at those as well as the one you like because...they're cooler heh heh) and all of the options you are doing away with because of this designer. My tile backsplash...egads have you read the freaking complaining about it???? I'm pushing $70 a sq ft! So I know you can get everything everything everything!!!! you want if you keep searching. I only mention the costs and pushing the issue because, personally I don't care about how much I spend on the kitchen, it's my kitchen and I want what I want. I might not get it all back but I don't care, I want what I want :) But for the kind of money you're willing to spend, if I were to hear that budget for a kitchen, I'd expect to see all of the bells and whistles, including that warming drawer and subzero...(buy the Lacanche and you won't need a warming drawer...they're included) Heh heh Anyhoo, I know how you feel right now, because I've been there, and it totally sucks! But I'd rather see you take that dream design elsewhere and look to other cabinets of very high quality (that's important, I understand) but get all of the goodies as well (pot filler, etc). You can afford that under your budget :) So keep working, and when this is all done, you can enjoy that dream kitchen :) Which you will deserve after this hell is over LOL