Hi members, first of all, thanks for reading! I am in need of some real solid advise.
I little about me, I've been a single mother of 2 kids for 6yrs ,whom are now 8 and 10yrs old, and I love my kids very much, they are my world as any parent feels.
I met a guy 3 years ago with 16yr old and 18yr old, and we became a blended family about 2 yrs ago when we decided to all move to Texas
and live together for the first time. I immediately got a job in Texas, and we all moved out there because of his job relocation. The first 2 weeks in Texas was very stressful, and the third week we got in a huge fight and he told me to "get out of HIS house". We ended up resolving this and "making up", but then
two months later we got in another huge fight and he told me to leave again and get my own place, because he couldn'd deal with my son (who has very mild autism on the spectrum), and my (8yrs back then) son "farted" at the dinner table and though I and all the kids including his, thought it was a bit funny, he did not. As he threatened me with sending cops and dumping my stuff out on the street, I ended up calling my boss of my new job and gave her my resignation, packed what I could in my car, my kids, and drove back to Colorado. What ended up happening was him flying out to Colorado and telling me he was sorry, and was very persistent. As I love him, I ended up coming back after calling my boss back and begging for my job back. I ended up leaving my kids in COlorado with their Bio father (as I was going to in June for the summer) anyways and it was just 2 weeks earlier, it was a very difficult 2.5 month summer, which i will never forget.
Fast forward to now, almost 2 yrs later, and I'm still having issues about the incident. Much has happened since, he ended up deciding to move BACK to colorado, even though I didn't want to and only worked for 9 months, so had to quit my job with no job waiting for me (worse mistake of my life), also he got on medication which has made our turbulent relationship more calmer. However, other things are surfacing, such as being very bossy to my kids, having very high expectations from them, while not requiring anything of his children which are older, telling me at one point because I couldn't find a job in my field and still looking, that I need "to get your s*** together", causing me extreme stress and pressure. Also he buys his kids very nice things and it hurts me that I still don't have a job and can't get my kids things either. I feel terrible because I'm beginning to resent his kids which are really not responsible for "our" issues, and I don't want to feel like this anymore. I need a job badly, and I feel trapped, stuck, and falling into episodoes of feeling extremely low, depressed, and to the point of just running away. He makes very good money, and helps me with gas, toilettries, license registration, etc, but nothing ever really for my kids unless it's eating out and includes me. I pay for the food after he convinced me I needed to apply for Food Assistance, so I did to lessen the burden on him.
Members, does he really love me, or am I just an accessory for this man? Or am I just going nuts because I'm suffering from the "unemployed syndrome" which kills your self esteem. I feel like an outsider between him and his kids also, e.g, I'm the last to know about his/kids family events. I also feel very isolated since I've known him, he discourages me from going out, as he's not outgoing unless it's with his friends for family. I used to keep in touch through facebook with my sis, but we would get in huge arguments over it, so.....I had this thought that if I won a million bucks I'd get my own place just to have a sense of peace of mind which I feel I have not had in 3 years. I feel like he has slowly and meticuolisly drained me of everything in my life, and I don't even have the strength, confidence, willpower or financial resouces to get out even if I wanted. Or do I stick this out, and this is just a normal part of a loving relationship phase that will resolve itself again?