[Jinxies]

A little history: Married to X Husband from age of 17 to 32. Entered MC in Sept of 08. Separated in Jan of 09. Divorced by June 09. We are amicable, share custody of our two daughters, age 12 and 9.

My current situation: I was unhappy for the last year or so of my marriage. I was a member in an online social networking site. In 2008, I met someone online and we felt an instant attraction. After my X and I separated, I invited him to visit me. I’m in the states, he was in New Zealand.

Long story short. He moved here and moved in with me.

He’s a very “black and white” kind of guy. He’s dominant. Which I don’t mind, as I like a man who knows what he wants and has a strong personality, I certainly have a strong personality.

The problem, he’s too inflexible. He makes rules and then completely overreacts if a rule is broken, for instance, no food in the living room for the kids. Which is a rule I agree with and enforce, however, as a mom, I know when to be flexible. One night he got very angry because I let my daughter eat a fruit roll-up in the living room. It ended up being a nasty fight.

He “is bored” and the only way to cope is to drink. So he has two to three drinks every night – minimum. If he gets upset, he has more. On this night, I made the mistake of trying to take a bottle of alcohol away from him. He says that was an act of violence against him and proceeded to pour rum all over me. I took him to a hotel and told him it was over.

When I get ready for bed, I go to take my nightly meds and see that I don’t have any. He had taken all my sleeping pills and migraine preventatives (which are mild-antidepressants). I called him and he said he was going to kill himself if we were over.

I took him back, but that claim was a huge blow to my respect for him. I can’t respect anyone who is willing to throw their life away over someone else.

He tells me that I’m 100% of his happiness. His day doesn’t start until I come home from work. He doesn’t like the tv or movies… so I’ve got to try and entertain him after I come home from working all day. He isn’t satisfied that we don’t “go out” enough. I consider doing things with the kids, running errands, and other things like that as “going out” – but he doesn’t. So he tells me, “we never go out” even though in the past six days, only one day did I get to actually rest at home in the evening.

Financially, I’m tied to him, since getting divorced my finances have taken a hit. My van is paid off in December and after that, I won’t be nearly as tied to him financially, but right now, I’m not sure I could make my rent payment and debt payments without him.

My older daughter hates him. My younger daughter thinks he is ok.
I know I moved too quickly after getting divorced. I made a poor decision and now I’m trying to cope with it.

On one hand, I really want to get out of this relationship and spend the proper amount of time getting stable on my own and enjoying a little bit of my adult life on my own two feet.

On the other hand, I do care for him. He does have many positives. He loves me and cares for me. He says I’m the only woman he’s ever felt this connected to. We have a great physical relationship. He provides for me.

But, we do bicker a lot. No one has ever made me cry as often as he has. He focuses on the little things and tells me that his philosophy is to make sure all the little things are tidy and in place and the bigger things will just naturally fall into place. It’s a philosophy I completely disagree with. I think the little things aren't worth sweating over and that we should focus on the big things in our lives.

And now I don’t know what to do. I know he uses emotional manipulation on me. I know it’s probably not in the best interest of the kids… course, when I say to him our relationship isn’t good for the kids, he tells me, ‘if you had the best interests of the kids in mind, you should have stayed with [x husband]”. He says things like that just to hurt me and antagonize me.

If I wasn’t financially dependent on him, I suppose it would be easier. I don’t really have anyone to talk to and I guess I’m just looking for some advice. I’m sorry it’s so long. Thanks for your time and thoughts.