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Originally posted by david.michael Imagine my situation: I'm currently married (legally), and I live with my now-girlfriend (I am in the process of dissolution). Her and I have been together for a year. She has a 15-month-old daughter, whom I have been around since she was 3 months old. They split up before the daughter was born (maybe even before she knew she was pregnant...not sure.) Her father is a decent guy and is still in the picture for the daughter's sake. So, I HAVE to deal with my ex and she HAS to deal with hers... there's no real way around it. We are forced to go with number one, and so far it has worked out very well. There's still an occasional (very minor) hiccup, but, we are both very open and honest with each other. You should be too (and it sounds like you have been.)

Ugh, I need to vent about this somewhere, so I might as well do it here. I just need to bitch about stupid people.

I'm (kind of) currently dealing with something like you're going through right now. Fortunately, from both my perspective and my girlfriend's, I'm not having to put up with anything from any ex, and her ex has the IQ of a jart so ... not too worried about him either.

My girlfriend has a daughter who'll be turning 3 in a few weeks, and over the period that the relationship has been developing we've gotten pretty close pretty quickly. Sometimes she calls me "dad" (although usually "her Bobby") and I've done everything I can to play a strong parental role in her life, and I almost care for her like she is my own daughter now. (Go figure, before we were together I was out for weekends at a time and laughing at the thought of even being in a relationship, let alone one where a child was involved. Funny how these things work out) Aaanyways ... we've talked here and there about the two of them moving into the city to live with me, and real dad didn't take to the idea of having his daughter living in a big city so well. We've now been in-and-out of court for a few weeks, with more dates forthcoming, because essentially he's miffed that he's going to lose his custody rights and have to pay some sort of child support. He's lied to a judge under oath about stuff, he's accused me and my girlfriend of patently false things in order to try and keep some sort of leverage in the situation ... it really fucks me off that he's putting his own personal interests above his daughter. (Keep in mind he now apparently has another child with his girlfriend, whom he lives with).

I guess what this boils down to is: thank fuck I don't have to worry about any influence from my gf's ex. That, and I hate him. Oh, and it's actually pretty cool to be a dad.