This is long one…..I have to explain my situation to get to my issue…
So, I got married a few months ago. My husbands previous wife passed away of cancer. He has 2 little girls that I absolutely love. They moved in with me and my mother in May. Everything has been going great. Like any new relationships, it comes with its own challenges. I have had to deal with lots of different emotions. I was very happy until about a few weeks ago and I’m noticing I’m taking a nose dive in my emotions. We are very good with communicating…actually I am. MY husband has Asperger’s and has trouble putting his feelings into words many times. We have dealt with many things until now and I feel we are on solid ground. We both love each other.
I came from a previous bad marriage 10 years ago. I had vowed to stay single and then met my husband and we fell in love (fairly quickly). I love his girls like my own. Never think of them as not mine. (I have always loved kids). The 6 & 4 year old daughters both love me too. In fact they seek a lot of my attention! Which I try to give to the best of my abilities. Due to his situation previously, he did not do any disciplining with the girls and they had absolutely no order in their life. We had many talks ang agreed that they needed to be discipline soon, if we didn’t want them to turn into Brats. That’s where they (almost) were, when they came. These past few months, they have both come LONG way, and have changed drastically for the better.
So, when I got into this relationship, I knew, his girls were always gonna be his #1. And I have made them my priority as well. I had hoped that I would at least be equivalent or at least come close to them. He tells me I am, but that’s not what I see in actions. And I have brought this up multiple times. It gets better for a few days and then takes a nose dive.
PS: He favors his older daughter WAY more than the younger one. When they moved in, the younger one was used to playing on her own, or finding her own activities to do, since daddy and older sister were always playing board, video games etc together. The older one has an extreme case of sibling jealousy and my husband does not see this. For eg; when the older one hits the younger one, and the younger one defends herself, the younger one is the who gets yelled at by daddy because she should not be yelling or fighting back. This is true and I try to teach her this as well, but the point is, he will just tell the older one-Don’t do that and walk away. When many times the younger one ends up in time out or runs out of the room crying. So naturally, my mother and I have kind of gravitated towards the younger one. Now by all means, I never let the older one not have any of my time, or treat her bad or not play with her. I just try to play fair with them both and am trying to teach them what being fair really means. The older one is a serious child. She has been through trauma and has had pent up anger and attitude issues etc. She has been in therapy since July. And she has gotten a lot better than she was. The younger one is a social butterfly and goes and talks and plays with everybody.
Anyways, What I am getting at is, I am feeling at a loss. I know my husband is trying his best as he can. He really is. But I am feeling deprived. I am craving some alone time with him. Which we barely get 30 mins at night when we are both extremely tired and barely have any long conversations. In fact most of my communicating/telling him, has been through text messages and notes. He works from home and so plays with the girl(s), throughout the day because work is not busy. However, the days I am home (i work a weird schedule), work is always busy. I didn’t think anything of this until just recently. I am starting to feel like he might be avoiding me a little. (or maybe I’m just creating these thoughts in my head).
Currently I’m feeling like, I’m always gonna be deprived of love and attention I want. We didn’t have what most couples do. We did not have a lot of 1-on-1 between ourselves. MY in- laws try to help and take the girls some weekends, before school started. I can see my mother-in-law sees or feels something is off. I have heard her make remarks to my husband. We all have great relationships between us. I absolutely love my in-laws.
I’m feeling like I’m not destined to have the love in my life that I am craving. And I have therefore recently, gotten very down. To the point that every time I got to use the restroom at work and home, I cry before I come out. And I am already on depression meds. I really feel happy I have gained new relationships and feel like I should not be getting depressed. I feel like I am not appreciating what was given to me. And yet….