BuffaloGal

what the motivation for enabling is? Because I was not raised with this. In my family, love never meant getting overly involved in others' lives; if anything, I was left entirely too much to my own devices when I was growing up. I learned, you're on your own, and you darn better be able to rely on yourself. It never occurred to me to try to take care of anyone else too, other than my child. Anyway...

I went to pick up my daughter last week at a local coffee house; my aexh and his gf dropped her off.

I asked my aexh what he wanted to do about the next exchange, and he began to tell me what time he had to be at work and his girlfriend said: "That's MY responsibility!"

And I thought: No, actually it isn't, and you aren't doing yourself or him any favors by getting involved. But she wasn't being deliberately pushy, I don't think. She really does believe it's her job.

I didn't say anything, or get quietly angry (and believe me, that's progress). If it's a problem, it's their problem. She told me what time she could bring my daughter to our meeting spot, then she text messaged me this morning to entirely change plans and have me pick her up tomorrow instead way out of my way... in their neighborhood.

I don't get this. I mean, I get not giving a rip about my plans or putting me out of my way, that's nothing new. But jumping in to take care of his life at every possible turn? Granted, understanding is overrated, but from my vantage point, it looks like she thinks if she puts enough effort into making things cushy for him, that he'll break down and marry her... or at least, get comfy enough not to ever want to leave. Does this not look like a losing proposition from a mile away? She doesn't seem tired, but the amount of effort that she puts in would exhaust me. I'm not being snotty. I really don't have that kind of energy. I can barely take care of me and my daughter most of the time.

Now this is not a woman who really needs to rearrange her life around my aexh (or any specific man). She's beautiful, interesting and somewhat of a minor celebrity among a specific group in our city. She has a lot to offer, she could well sit back and let the fellows come to her; even my aexh. My guess is, he'd make an effort for her if he had to. Instead, she's showing my daughter that it's a woman's job to be the super responsible party, that men are incompetent and need to be taken care of, and that it's normal to take on the devotion and hard work of marriage without any such commitment from one's partner. I interact with them very little... but even so, in conversation between the 3 of us, this woman cannot go five minutes without saying, "I'll do that!" in some form (of course, my aexh can do 90% of this stuff she takes on. I've seen him do poorly an adult and a father at times, but I've seen him do perfectly well at other times. As for being a mother, last year I got blue in the face trying to explain nicely to her what parts of parenting were my job and not hers, and then I got tired of being nice and became ugly about it).

Can someone who's been there tell me, and I'm sorry if this is offensive, what on earth one expects to accomplish by arranging one's life around taking care of the responsibilities of another adult?