Is it all worth it?

[lease26]

Im new to this whole forum thing... Hi everyone.

Ill get into why it is im posting... I have been with my bf dor a little over 2 years now. The first year was magic! Ive never felt this connection with anyone before in my life. I honestly feel as though this is one of those relationships you find once in a lifetime. And from what him and I have talked about he feels the same. When we first got together we saw alot of eachother... we worked together and i dont have my license so he ended up giving me rides to and from, and we worked about the same shifts. 5 months in he got his own house on a piece of land that his mother gave to him and he asked me to move in. So i did. We never really discussed the whole playing house sorta deal, mortgage, bills, oil... so money has always been something we tend to argue about.
I left the job and it took me awhile to find another one, only to realize that i shouldnt have left the 1st one so i came back. After the point things started to become stressful and we fought more and more. But all in all we were both trying to make things work because well we both love eachother very much and cant imagine life without one another. After i came back it was only a few months before some changes were done to the staffing... alot of people were let go and then people who were there went up a level... he became a supervisor making it a conflict of intertest for me to stay there. If i had never quit in the first place then i could have stayed but when i came back i had to take a lower position. So i had to be let go.
They hired younger high school girls to replace the ones who were fired and well things continuesly got worse for us. He started talking about how he felt trapped in life, not just our relationship but in his entire life he felt like he was stuck... how he didnt know if he wanted a relationship anymore but at the same time he didnt want to lose me. He kept saying he was torn. And me still feeling as though nothing could come between us didnt really hear what it was he was trying to say to me. So he ended up cheating on me. To make that part of the story short. And that was it we were over. I was completely devasted. I thought i would never get over it... we live together, and well i wasnt making enough to move out right away and going back to mom's wasnt something i could do... (I would have but she didnt have the room) So it was painful, i had to still live with him i moved to the couch and put all my belongings in the spare bedroom and i tried to be gone most of the time. But it hurt when he didnt come home and i knew he was with another girl.
After a few months of this him and i started discussing problems that we had never really given our full attention to and really started getting closer than we were before. We werent back together yet but it was obvious that he still loved and cared for me, he always said sorry for what was happening he didnt intend on hurting me he was just confused. He stopped sleeping with other girls and although we werent a "couple" to say... things were feeling like it was going to go back in that direction... so all seems good and i was slowly starting to get over what had happened. He has never lied to me so trusting him has never really been difficult.
Then when everything appears to be looking up... im pregnant. I only slept with one other person while we were apart... but it was back towards the begining and we used protection. So the baby is his. About a month after we found out he asked if i wanted to give things another try. We both kind of saw this as a sign that maybe we were supposed to end up together. Its hard to explain, but we both asked for a sign, something anything to show us if we were meant to be together a week before i took the pregnancy test... and neither one of us knew that the other prayed the same thing around the same time until after i found out. So i figured it was worth giving things another try. It just hasnt been easy... with all the extra feelings and hormones im having right now and his busy work schedual and his new best friends who happen to be girls that he slept with while we were apart.. its hard to take all at once. What happened hurt so bad, ive never felt pain like that before. Ive been trying really hard to not assume things and to not be overly paranoid but i do slip up occasionally. Its just the stress of being pregnant and the stress that he deals with on a daily basis im worried that he will just give up because its to much. Im afraid that ive put all this effort into a relationship thats doomed. I love him with my entire soul... the connection between us is unbelievable we both can feel eachothers feelings before we even see one another. We can finsih eachothers sentences without thinking. And we both fit so perfectly into one another that it would seem stupid not to fight for this. But latley he doesnt seem happy, he seems distant agian, and hes never been good at talking about whats bothering him. Ive tried taking as much of the stress load off of him as i can so he no longer dreads coming home. but still im worried that hes having second thoughts.
I dont want to stay together just because we are having a child. thats no reason to be together it would make both of us unhappy ad would not be good for our baby... I want to be with him because he makes me proud to be myself, because the good times we have our the best ive ever experienced and because he is the only man who has ever treated me with love and respect. I dont want to lose him, any suggestions or maybe some insights...

[uberinquisitive]

I highly suggest you read Eckhart Tolle's "Power of Now" and "A New Earth." Oprah is also doing a 10-week seminar with Tolle about "A New Earth." You can watch all the archived webinars for free here (you do have to register).

I also suggest you read this page about Sedona's Method's suggestions on surrender.

I also suggest any book by Byron Katie - check out her website, which also has videos of her showing "The Work."

Why am I suggesting these resources? Because you need to develop "space" between your thoughts and yourself. This space will help you go beyond your current mindset.

If you go through these resources and really let them soak in - you will realize this situation has nothing to do with your bf or the relationship. It has everything to do with YOU.

[Angela]

First of all, welcome! I hope you get what you'd like to get here, and I hope you give as well. So far so good!

Your story is a good object lesson for when someone tells you: "I'm not sure if I want to be in a relationship anymore." For all you ladies and gentlemen out there listening, when someone says that, run! Get out, and get out immediately. Do not waste anytime second guessing or singing the chicken opera. And whatever you do, use birth control!

For you, my dear, you're in a situation of your own making, and it doesn't sound like you're blaming him, which is great. You are so focused on the man, you didn't say much about the baby. Do you want to have a baby? Are you happy or dismayed about the pregnancy? Do you think the man will be a good father, whether or not you're together? Are you able to support yourself and a child if the guy flakes off (which seems like a pretty safe bet.) I think that despite whatever might happen with the guy, you would be very wise to take immediate steps to make sure you're covered as far as being able to take care of the baby. If I were you, I would talk to this fellow right away about how much responsibility he's going to take for the baby (assuming you're going to have it), how much of a commitment you're both willing to make to each other, and what you're going to do about raising the child if you don't stay together as a couple.

Whatever you do, don't take anything for granted! You can be very sure that whatever you are thinking about this situation, you can't read his mind, and you can't count on him doing what you think he *should* do.

Best wishes to you, and I hope you and your little one and very well.

[lease26]

Thank you uberinquisitive for replying. And thank you for the recommendations. Maybe you are right, i do have a bit of an anxiety disorder. And maybe changing my way of thinking could very well be what I need. I have felt like I needed some space, from what i could never really figure out and i always just thought it was from him... I will definitly look into those books and ive already bookmarked the page you suggested to start reading it. Thank you agian.

[lease26]

Thank you Angela for your reply as well. You are right about when someone says that you should just get out. And in every relationship ive had before him ive done just that. I had kinda the Marilyn Monroe reasoning... leave before you are left. But with him its very different. Whatever it is between us is powerful enough to keep us together through all this, cuz like i said i would never have stayed if i didnt believe that there was something worth staying for.
Agian you are right, i do not blame him for what has happened. And the reason i havnt talked much about the baby is because i wanted to see if there was something i was missing between him and i. The babies health is doing very well and we will be finding out next week what it is we are having. We are both excited more than scared now. At first it was a big scare neither one of are ready but neither one of us believe in aborting a life that was created from love. In answer to your questions i have no doubt in my mind that he will be a great father. Hes always been a family oriented man and so i do not worry about that at all. We have had some discussions as to what will happen should him and i not work out. We have mutually agreed that we will not stay together just for the baby... that cannot be the only reason. And we have decided on joint custody should something like that happen. I have alot of family support if we do not work out for places i can stay til i get back on my feet. Financially i would not be able to support myself let alone another life at this moment. My job has cut my hours due to my being pregnant and having restrictions of what i can and cannot do. So im currently looking for another job to save some money before im out of work for a few months.
I do agree with you though and since this winters break of him and i i have some to the conclusion that i do need to make a back up plan should we not work out. But maybe i should have explained a little further into why he felt like he needed out of the relationship he is going to be 21 in june. He has owned his own house now for 2 years. I have been living with him since it has been set on the property. He has been in serious relationships since he was in 7th grade. He dated a girl from 7th to 12th. And then they broke up for him to get into another relationship for a few months and then when they split it was only about a month before he met me. I am going to be 24 about the same time that our baby is born. I have had alot more relatiosnhips than he has and ive had more sexual partners as well. We have been completely open and honest to eachother about our past. And not that im making excuses for him i just want you to see that hes not a bad man and that this mess that happened did hurt him as well as me. Although sometimes i do focus on him to much and thats probly why it hurt me more. But when i was 19/20 i was in a serious relationship that i backed out of because i wanted to be free to sleep with whoever i wanted to come and go as i pleased and basically to do whatever i wanted without feeling like i needed to tell someone where i had been. And essentially what happened is he felt about the same. Not so much with the wanting to sleep around but he just wanted to be free of everything. Which i think alot of us could understand. Its never been me that he wanted away from. It was the relationship, the house the fact that he felt like he just turned 40 when he turned 20. The want to be little agian. And i believe his little break made him realize that abandoning all your responsibilities isnt going to make everything better. He has told me that no matter what happens he doesnt want to lose me out of his life. He wants us to always keep our friendship even if we dont make it as a couple. I on the other hand am the one whos not sure i can do that. I will never keep his child from him or his family. But if him and i dont work out im not so sure i could be friends with him. Which is a big part of why i joined this forum to maybe open my mind a little more and realize that if i lost him i dont have to lose my faith as well. I love him more than ive ever loved anyone, in a healthy way im not pyscho and i let him have his space. Since this winter he has alot more freedom to come and go and hang out with his buddies without me. Before *because we share the same friends* I would always want to go to. And now when he tells me he just wants it to be a boys night i go and hang out with my mom or with my girlfriends.
But agian thank you so much for your reply i do appreciate it and it has given me something to think about.