I’ve been in that situation where I was smitten with a woman (and in a vulnerable state after a traumatic experience) and she was an emotional leech who just wanted a handy fuck-buddy that she could manipulate.
Here’s the thing, as far as she is concerned, you are the best of what’s left. No way you can build any kind of relationship with that as a base.
Do what I wish I had done a lot earlier:
End it.
Tell her its not fair on you to be used like this and walk away from the whole deal. Cut off contact completely.
It will suck now and be damn hard but less so than when she eventually ditches you once your usefulness to her runs out.
I’m going to hazard a guess that she’s pretty much a third daughter status to the ex. Rather than have her move out and all the further drama it would cause to the kids and himself, he tolerates her for the sake of his family.
Banging a married guy is still sleazy all by itself, and she even cheated on THAT guy with our hero. So she’s still a dishonest, disloyal, unprincipled person even if her babydaddy knows everything.
I may have been a bit harsh, bad mood and all but I have a real problem with people who don’t respect other people.
She knows he has feelings that she doesn’t share and she needs to at least set boundaries, no sex, no crying on the shoulder, no begging him to stay, etc. She is taking advantage of him, and granted he lets her, but I think the bigger responsibility is on her not to use him.
She is sending a mixed message, I don’t love you but let’s go to bed. I will never love you but let’s hang out and sleep in the same bed and it’s not right but let’s do it anyway.
The only true statement I hear her saying is, ‘I’m not ready for a relationship’. Then she is carrying on three at the same time.
I would tell her she needs to concentrate on herself for a while and give up all men period. She is not doing right by anybody, including herself.
The OP asked, I told him what I think.
Leave that crazy bitch alone.
An outline would be preferred, actually.
Is anyone else’s BS-meter pinging? I feel like WhyNot’s is a little. The logistics of this seem weird and ill-fitting. The chronology of the boyfriends and baby-daddys are muddled. The kids aren’t being taken into consideration at all. Her attempt to be responsible and going back to school and yet being a domestic trainwreck. I’m not saying the entire thing is BS but maybe the OP is leaving out key details (ironic) or writing it in a superwarped perspective.
Mine? Nah. I’ve got friends in triads overlapping with quads with singles on the side. I’m used to far more convoluted dynamics than this! Just bear in mind that not everyone’s relationships fit into neat little heterosexual monogamous boxes, and strange isn’t nearly so strange.
Now, of course, heterosexual serial monogamy is “normal” in that it’s more numerically common, so it’s very probable that there’s some lying, cheating or at least self-deception going on somewhere in here. It’s just not stated in the OP, and I’ve learned never to assume. Everything that’s actually been *written *indicates honesty as far as it goes, ‘sall I’m sayin’.
The part that bugs me (well, one of the parts that bugs me) is how she reacts when the OP tries to look after himself and get some distance from her - then she digs her claws in even deeper. That is a very unhealthy dynamic, in my opinion.
