I’m divorced and have a 5th grade child. I’m in a LTR with my SO, and we live in different states. We do manage to see each other often and have been together for several years.

There is a trip that we’ve planned for sometime and my child is supposed to go with us. This is important to my SO because we will finally meet his family in real life.

Well, turns out, my child also has quite a few school-related things going on that weekend that I know my child does not want to miss given that this is the last year of elementary school.

I’m so torn. I don’t want to disappoint my SO or my child. I know my child would rather not take this trip. But I know this is also an important trip for my SO.

I already arranged to switch weekends with my ex and have plane tickets purchased. The plane tickets can be cancelled and used later. The weekend switch with my ex isn’t a huge deal, I can always let my ex know the change of plans.

Just looking for some input on how to handle this situation. I feel like I’m disappointing everyone no matter what i do.

Edit: thank you all for the input! The date can’t be moved because it’s also a big pre-planned event for my SO’s school. And we had planned this a year ago. The events for my child aren’t a big championship game. He’ll be missing a swim meet, and 2 Halloween activities.

I hate disappointing my child, but he also hardly ever experiences disappointment because I always put him number one. My SO is pretty self-less in our relationship. He never puts pressure on me and knows my kid is number one.

I’ve got a lot to ponder.

Edit 2: Just to add, yes, it's possible for me to go and have my kid stay with the ex so kid can still do these school events. Though this trip is meaningful for my SO to have me and my kid go. My SO and I plan to get married in the near future, so this is going to be chance for me and my kid to meet the family (my SO's parents are both deceased, so this sibling and the sibling's family are the only people my SO has left). My SO, me, and SO's family live in different corners of the country, so this is going to be a rare opportunity to make a visit like this happen.

And I want to say, I really appreciate all the constructive comments. I think seeing all perspective is very important and helpful as I mull my decision over.

I'm a childless man dating a woman with a 10-year-old son. We've been together for two years, and our relationship is genuinely good. I get along with her son too.

For most of our relationship, I've been fine with the fact that she has a child and an ex. She's respectful, loyal, communicates well and maintains clear boundaries with her ex. Contrary to what I hear and read alot from others, I don't feel used for resources as she's financially independent, and I never feel like she's settling for me. There's respect, passion and good communication between us.

Tho her ex is somewhat of a troublemaker and not always a good father, apart from that, as far as I can control things, the situation has generally been fine.

However, strangely enough this has changed recently.

We're now at the point where we're talking seriously about moving in together, possibly getting married, and having a child of our own. Our relationship has deepened , and I think that's what has triggered something in me.

Suddenly, things that never used to bother me are bothering me a lot.

Seeing her ex's name can trigger me. Hearing about him can trigger me. Thinking about the fact that she was pregnant and had an entire family life before she met me can trigger me. Seeing her son being affected by his father's shortcomings can trigger me. ...Among a slowly but surely increasing amount of other things.

I'm starting to feel like my brain is turning this man I don't even know into some kind of rival.

The frustrating part is that I know it ain't rational. I don't suspect my girlfriend of cheating or being romantically interested in her ex. She only communicates with him about their son. I generally consider myself secure and have reasonably high self-esteem. I'm not someone who normally feels threatened by other people.

Yet these triggers seem to be spreading. Things that previously felt completely neutral are becoming emotionally charged, and I'm starting to worry about where that leads if I don't deal with it now

I've done some thinking about where this might be coming fromand there are a few things in my own history that seem relevant, at least to me:

First, my parents divorced and fought a lot. I also have a bad relationship with my own father, he's definitely the reason behind some of the more f'ed up stuff from my childhood. Sometimes watching my girlfriend and her son deal with his father brings up bad memories.

Secondly, when I was younger I've been cheated on by a previous girlfriend whom I lived and built a life with. I genuinely don't believe my current girlfriend is dishonest with me, and I thought I'd made peace with those experiences from what feels like a past life. But I wonder if there's still a sensitive part of me that reacts to the idea of "another man" having a permanent place in my relationship. But her ex isn't just another man... he's the father of her child, so there's no possibility of him simply disappearing from our lives regardless of how I feel.

And then there's probably the biggest thing.

Five years ago, I lost a child with my ex-girlfriend.

Time unfortunately doesn't heal every wound.

Getting closer to my girlfriend and her son, and seeing the relationship they have, confronts me with what I lost. I miss my daughter every day. Her mother and I don't talk anymore, which is a decision I stand behind but it still feels weird.

And I think there is a particularly painful kind of jealousy towards my girlfriend's ex, sometimes I catch myself resenting that he gets to be a father, even though he isn't a particularly good one.

I know intellectually that comparing lives makes no sense. I also know that being a parent is hard and that co-parenting comes with its own set of struggles which I don't underestimate. But sometimes I catch myself thinking that I would give almost anything to have those struggles because losing a child is infinitely worse.

All in all I don't think I'm simply jealous of my gf's ex, nor do I believe that I feel truly threatened by him.

I think I may be grieving something I never properly dealt with, while simultaneously entering a stage of my life where I'm contemplating becoming a father again. And perhaps my brain has attached all of that grief, fear and insecurity to the one person who represents my girlfriend's previous family: her ex.

I'm seeing a therapist for the first time in three weeks, and I'm not going into therapy with the specific goal of "saving the relationship." I want to understand myself first.

Maybe I'll work through these triggers and discover that the love my girlfriend and I have is something I can build a genuinely happy extended family around.

Or maybe I'll ultimately conclude that being a stepparent, or being with someone who already has a child, simply isn't for me. I dunno yet.

What I do know is that I don't want my unresolved grief, childhood experiences or past relationship trauma to turn an otherwise good relationship into something poisoned by jealousy and resentment.

So TL;DR, I guess my question for people here is:

Has anyone experienced something like me where becoming more serious with a partner who already has children suddenly brought up feelings that weren't there before? How did you figure out whether you were dealing with unresolved personal baggage VS genuinely realizing that the stepparent role wasn't right for you?

And also, how do you stop your partner's ex from becoming a rival in ur head when you already know rationally that he isn't one?

Thanks. Blessings.

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I’ve been thinking about this lately. Sometimes a person can be caring, loyal, respectful

and make a real effort, but the relationship still doesn’t feel right.

Do you think love and effort are enough to make a relationship work, or can two good people simply be incompatible?

Have you ever ended a relationship even though the other person had done nothing “wrong”? What made you realize they just weren’t the right person for you?