I Had A Child With Someone Else

Wednesday | February 10, 2010

Love Letters Relationships

I Had A Child With Someone Else

Chat.
And now … letter:

Dear Meredith,
Like all your other writers, I’m a big fan and read your column religiously. I could write forever about this so I’ll try to keep it minimal in length and detail. Here’s: my situation:
I’m a 29-yr-old single mom who met the love of my life when I was 21. We dated just about 4.5 years. It was a great relationship — the sex, passion, love, and all of the emotions. He was and still is my best friend.
Anyway, I chose to break things off because I felt as though I was young and needed to see what else was out there. I was able to date, but never truly moved on. We would continue to see and sleep with each other on frequent occasions. It was emotionally bad for both of us, as we were still deeply in love with each other.
I finally started dating someone (who I had known most my life) seriously enough to separate myself from my ex. Although I was in a relationship, I still constantly thought of my ex, and even after two years was still unable to tell new guy I loved him.
Well, surprises happen and I ended up pregnant and having a baby with new guy. I had to tell my ex in fear he would hear it elsewhere. He was heartbroken and said it was his biggest nightmare come true and that I had taken away what he wanted for us, a family.
Things with baby’s daddy didn’t go well, as the relationship in general was never that great, so we broke up. Dating new guy did make me realize that the grass is not always greener and I want my ex, the love of my life, back.
In my eyes I do not deserve him, as I’ve put him through a lot of hurt. He tells me he still loves me and wants to be with me but “just can’t.” His feelings are too hurt, he wants to get past it and move on, but feels as though I’ve cheated on him because he always still thought of me as his girl even when we weren’t together.
I can’t talk about my son around him because I don’t want to upset him when I feel things are going good. We’ve tried MANY times to end things, go separate ways, leave each other’s lives, but we always seem to end up trying again and again and again.
So here we are today, I think trying again, but I’m too scared to bring it up in fear of the “I can’t” answer. We are currently seeing each other maybe one-to-two times a week, which he says are appointments (a dig towards me) So my question is, do I continue on with this maybe relationship? With a guy I’m deeply in love with but may never get over me having a child with someone else? Or do I give up now and end up with out him and not know if there is a chance?

– Scared to lose him, South Shore

STLH, your letter reminds me of “Great Expectations.” Stay with me here.
Estella abuses Pip, drops him, procreates with someone else, and winds up alone. But (spoiler!) the book ends with Pip and Estella finding each other … and there’s this feeling of love and forgiveness … and yes, it’s just a book, but it’s a good one.
You’ve done nothing wrong here. Not really. You were bad to your Pip back in the day, but he participated. You were both young. That part of your life is over now.
He’s angry that you left him and had a child with some other guy, and that’s understandable. But he’s not allowed to punish you, not anymore. It’s his turn to grow up. He had a vision of how it was going to look (you with his baby, not somebody else’s), but guess what — visions are just visions. He can accept and love the real you (and that means accepting and loving your kid), or he can leave you alone and move on.
You want your Pip. You love him. Your Pip can either love you back and be honored that your self-exploration led you back to him, or he can bail. He has to make a choice and stick with it. No more belittling you with “appointments.”
From what I remember, the original end of “Great Expectations” did not reunite Pip and Estella. But Dickens was smart enough to know that his readers would want a happier ending, so he did a re-write. We want Pip and Estella to wind up together even though Estella was a villain during much of the novel. We want Pip to be able to get over it, forgive Estella, and love her. The question is, which ending does your Pip want?
Tell him that you’re in love with him and that you want to be with him for all the right reasons (assuming that’s true). Tell him that you’re done with apologizing for your past. Tell him that if he really just “can’t,” it’s his loss and he needs to go away. It’s time for you to live your life in the present. You owe that to yourself and to your child.
Readers? I haven’t read “Great Expectations” in seven years or so, so please correct me if I’m wrong about anything. And … is this reader to be blamed for her past? Is her Pip out of line? Should she stick around and take it? Did I just write some 15-year-old’s book report? Share.

– Meredith

Relationships