Tags

, , , , , ,

To be perfectly honest I’m more okay than I have been in a long time. I know where I stand, and I know what I mean to Ryan (My younger son’s father). I hadn’t had this much time with him in four years, and even then it was only a few hours, stolen moments in between huge spans of waiting.

This was the third time that my son (O) has met his father. O is 3 and his father until this week has been stationed overseas in Korea and then Japan. The two previous times the O met his dad, we had maybe a total of an hour together each time. Both were related to Ryan’s deployment and us happening to live close to where he was shipping out and in from through the US. Ryan never seemed fully comfortable with the concept that this was his child, but always did well with O and was always sweet and comforting to me in those times.

Yet the chemistry never died between us. There is always this pull, this passion between us, despite him being the most vanilla guy I had ever dated. He was always a good guy, though not always a nice one. His biggest mistakes were trying too hard to please everyone, trying to not dig himself into a hole for loving more than one person at a time, but falling for people who were highly possessive. I was not really an exception to that rule as I am highly possessive, though not as jealous as many about sexual things.

In July of this year things changed. Raina came out and fussed at him, told him how he was a complicated issue to her, how he had shown care and interest in her but never really addressed the issue that O was his, that he couldn’t just show interest in me and expect me to be ok with it when O was being neglected. Surprisingly, it shook him and he started paying child support voluntarily at the end of July. It scared the crap out of us to have him suddenly so interested in being a dad because of the loss of control with O’s life, but he came here yesterday to sign and file an affidavit of paternity to legally assume responsibility for O.

Our time together was good. We curled up together and talked. He admitted to still being in love with me and that we would have to work something out with his wife about his time with me and our son. I know it won’t be easy on her accepting me as part of his life, but I know that I need him to be a part of my life, particularly his son’s life. I know that she will have a hard time sharing him, but I made sure to write her a nice message on FB yesterday after he left to thank her for letting him come on his own, to invite her to be a part of O’s life because she was such a significant part of Ryan’s life. I really feel much more secure about where I am with him, even though I know his wife has a long way to go to be really ok with the situation.

At least I know he loves me and loves our son. That is the most I could ask for in this situation. I don’t want all his time or affection, his wife is far more compatible with him for that and I would probably go nuts with all his little quirks on a day to day basis. Puppy is far more compatible with me for a long-term relationship and as he and I discussed last night, he knows I’m always coming home to him, that I won’t leave him and that I need him in my life. Puppy’s way of handling my situation with Ryan has been exactly how he should have; he has given me space and let me come to my own comfort level with things. He has never pushed me to get child support from Ryan, even though it would have helped us out quite a bit. He has never pushed me in one way or another whether I was involved with Ryan, even knowing the complexities of Ryan dating and then marrying the other woman he was involved with who has never been fully comfortable with my presence in his life.

I have to be thankful for both of them right now, Ryan for being able to mature enough about all this to volunteer his support for our child and want to be more involved in his life, and Puppy for knowing me well enough to let me make my own decisions and judgments without pushing me and making me do something stupid because I felt trapped; he knows that creating limits for me or pressuring me to do something is a huge trigger for me to do whatever I’m not supposed to do.

I was smiling yesterday, genuinely, happy. I still feel that today, just a sense of being ok with this, of really being ok and that things in my life are going better than they have been in a long time.