should we stay together or call it quits

[lilredfaery]

First let me give you a brief as possible summary of our relationship:

My boyfriend met at work in 2007 I had just suffered a miscarriage and ended a bad relationship and he was there for me and we really connected me but he had a girlfriend who was 6 months pregnant at the time and he was strait up with me about it and it literally felt like my stomach dropped when he told me but I kept going and honestly her and the baby didn't feel real until she came home from work early 1 day about a month before she had the baby. Also he had said that they weren't together anymore but he was waiting for the baby to come and didn't want to just put her out (they were living together) what with her being pregnant in all. Also she was really abusive to him emotionally and physically. But anyways I got pregnant right when we got together and had our son in 2008 a couple of months of us being together a year. He moved in with me right before I had the baby but after he admitted to still sleeping with her. Also he almost missed our son’s birth because he was helping her move. I thought I was over all that but maybe not. When our son turned a year his ex-took off to Seattle for a couple of months and left their son with us and he has been staying with us ever since which is fine i love him like my own. But then she came back. And Basically unless she has been gone somewhere or staying with someone else he stays the night with her every week end saying it is to give me a break or he doesn't feel like driving back (she use to live three hours away but now she lives 45 minutes away). Sometimes he takes our kids with him (we recently had a daughter in June) even though he knows i don't like her and he is always trying to get me to be friends with her even after i blocked her from calling my phone because she would call or text me cussing me out every time she got mad at him for not answering his phone. I wonder if he is still sleeping with her and why he would tell me he doesn't want to be around her but stays with her all the time. Why would he want to be around some one that treated and still treats him so bad? Also she just had a baby and while I’m 90% sure it's not His I can't help but wonder.

I have tried everything to get him not to stay down there from yelling to sitting down and telling exactly how I feel to asking him to at least stay with his sister but he just said he didn't want to stay with her. And every time I mention him staying down there he just says "I'm trying" like I'm whining or something. I don't think I am, am I?

We have been struggling financially the last few months and while i do feel he could manage his money better. I know he is trying and I am to so while it’s an issue i feel like that is something that can be worked out, this whole thing with her on the other hand is the big issue for me but he acts like i am saying he’s not trying to provide or something. He is about to get a job that he doesn't even want and he said he was only taking it cause then he would be working and couldn't go down there and stay with her and wouldn't have to hear about it from me anymore and then he said he was gonna take all the overtime he could get if they offered. Although recently I have begun to wonder how much money he has because we struggle to pay our bills but he always has money to buy what he wants and I don’t really have access to his money which we did have a joint account at one time, so maybe it’s a bigger issue than I thought but at the moment it is on the back burner to all this other mess.
I'll admit maybe I deserved some of it because of how our relationship started but i guess i thought after two kids and three and 1/2 years things would be different but it's not. And this is probably not important but he always compare me to her when i get upset. Saying I sound like her which erks me, but I don't know maybe that is not that important.

Anyways these last few months we have been fighting more about all the same stuff and have hardly been intimate at all and especially the last month he leaves first thing in the morning and doesn’t get back until after the kids are asleep around 8 and sometimes way later. He is working on cars but sometimes I wonder if that is what he is always doing because I haven’t seen much money and I know he has gone to her house and not told me before. Also recently it was my birthday but he didn't do anything for me but went and spent the afternoon with her and when I confronted him about it he lied and basically tried to say he was stuck in traffic for 4 1/2 hours.

I have seriously been thinking about leaving but I do love him and I want to make things works and I don't want to take my kids away from their dad and I don't want to leave his son because I love him like my own and feel like i would be abandoning him. I have been trying really hard not to be so negative towards him because i have been lately about everything and not to keep bringing her and all that up, but it just keeps spilling out of me. I really want to work it out. I want to have that spark we use to have but i feel like we've lost it and I think he feels that way to. Even though he won't talk to me about it. I don't think he is happy and i don't know if we can fix it, I don't know if we are right for each other anymore. I was wondering if you think we can work it out and what suggestions you
have for us to do to work it out of figure out what to do next or if it is just time to call it quits.

I want to be happy and I want what is best for my kids and for them to be happy and I want him to be happy to.

also a few days ago i asked him if he was happy with our realtionship, if he thought i was the right girl for him and if he was in love with me and all he said was he knows hes been busy and not giving me any attention and that when he wants me to take better care of my self cause he wants guys to fall over looking at me what is that about confused.

[devonbrown]

I want to be happy and I want what is best for my kids and for them to be happy and I want him to be happy to.

This sentence, out of everything else, is the most important part of your story and the part that YOU should pay attention to closely.
First, you say you want to be happy. You do not seem to be happy in this relationship any more, if you ever were. Thus, I would suggest ending the relationship and just figure out how to keep him around as your children's father.
Second, you say you want what is best for your kids and for them to be happy. If they see their mother (and father) together but unhappy, that will rub off on them. Children are always more observant than people think.
Third, you say you want him to be happy. It doesn't sound like he is too happy either. Again, I would suggest ending the relationship.

The other woman (which you were at one point) is always an issue, but a bigger issue seems to be that no one in this situation is happy with it. I believe it is probably time to move on and find the happiness you want inside you first.