A bit of a long rant … LOL
One thing I LOVE about TV shows like Jeremy Kyle, Maury, Trisha etc is that they show you how NOT to have a relationship! These people get on national TV and swear blind that person “A” is the father of the baby and that they are a million percent positive because they only had sex with that one person. They rant and rave about how he has been a “deadbeat dad” and not there for the baby, then the DNA test results come through and oooopsie he’s not the daddy and they are a big fat liar. The BEST ones though are when the woman is testing anywhere more than two people for DNA. I’ve seen some shows where a woman has got the seventeenth man to be tested for paternity of her child and it’s ridiculous! HOW can you sleep with that many people in such a short space of time???
AP originally laughed at me because of my addiction to these types of TV shows (I even sky plus them LOL) but he can see now how when you watch this sort of trashy crap, it truly makes you grateful for your own relatively “normal” life! TV shows like this always lead to long and in depth conversations about our relationship… and every single time… every single time I watch Jeremy Kyle or Maury Povitch, I am so fucking thankful that I have a man like AP!
The conversations that we have about the intrinsic part of our relationship are that it must be built on honesty, respect, trust and the ability to TALK to each other or you have to walk away. Love and friendship and a fantastic sex life are just a bonus, but you HAVE to have the others. I look at these sad pathetic excuses for people on the Jeremy Kyle show and I am damned glad that I got me a good man.
Just the way he speaks openly about his own opinions of these idiots on Jeremy Kyle (and apologies to any readers who have BEEN on Jeremy Kyle, but I’m sorry – you deserve the judgement!!) He will sit there and say things like “You can’t judge him for being a crap father if you knew he was an idiot when you met him. YOU were the one that opened your legs for him!” Ohh I could go on!
He spends a lot of time shouting at the TV (we both do at these frigging idiots!!) and we’ve joked about how an IQ test should be mandatory at the first midwife appointment for every single pregnancy. If the parents combined score is over a certain number then she is are sent off to be weighed, measured etc … and if they score below that level, then they should be sent the other way for an immediate D&C!
It opened up the natural conversation between us this morning about DNA testing. He has said to me right from the very start of our relationship that he would always want to insist on a DNA test of any child he is the alleged father of. In the very beginning it hurt me deeply that he would want even ME to get a test because surely he trusts ME? But … the more Jeremy Kyle I’ve seen, the more I am actually inclined to agree with him. I’ve thought about it a lot over the last 3.5 years that I’ve known AP (and longer since I’ve been watching Jeremy Kyle!) and I’ve come to realise that if a DNA test was mandatory at birth and recorded as part of the birth records, it would solve a HELL OF A LOT of problems. Even if they just start from current births from the date the law is passed and then offer it to births over the last 12 months, then the last 3-5 years etc to have the option of a DNA test to put on record with the birth information. Obviously there are issues then with absent fathers, adoption, fostering etc, but the basic idea would work, and with the volume of people signing up … it could probably be done cheaper too.
I told AP this morning that if we have kids, I would have absolutely no issue whatsoever with a DNA test.
He was a bit surprised totally stunned. He replied “you used to have a problem…” I said yes I definitely did USED to have a problem with him wanting a DNA test, but that I had realised it was no reflection on me and didn’t mean that he didn’t trust me. It was just for HIS own piece of mind. I knew this about him getting into the relationship, so I’ve had a long time to think seriously about it. I told him that my only condition is that it is done within the first 24 hours (assuming a problem free birth!) so that results could be back, he could put his name on the birth certificate happily, and we could all start to bond as a new family.
It is so very easy for a woman to lie and pin a pregnancy on a man who is NOT the child’s father, and before DNA testing was available … well, we’ve had the conversation about how we dread to think how many men are out there bringing up kids that they don’t realise aren’t biologically theirs. I know damned well that I am not going to be sleeping with any other men, but only *I* know that and all men have to take that on face value. With DNA testing so easily available, why wouldn’t they want to be 100% sure?!
If I find my eyes wandering then it means that something isn’t right in my relationship and as I proved when I tried and tried and tried with my marriage … I put the effort in where it counts to make it right, it was just that my husband didn’t. It took me three years, a few one night stands and an affair to really learn the full lesson, but when it gets that bad you have to walk away.
Our relationship is growing much stronger day by day. I’ve purposely started telling him if I’ve had a drink in the evening and we haven’t even talked about it beyond that really… it’s just something I have noticed. He doesn’t ever ask me how much I’ve drunk and I don’t feel the need to have to tell him! He knows I will only drink up to a point when I’ve got the children in the house (couple of glasses of wine or 2-3 vodkas) so that if the worst happens, I am still capable of being compus-mentus enough to call for an ambulance if I am not fit to drive! As I said … we haven’t even talked about it like that – he just seems to be happy enough that I’m being up front if I am having a drink at home. I have no reason NOT to tell him, and I’m happy to do that.
He’s giving me more leeway for just being my ditzy self who often occupies her spare thinking time in a glittery fairy land somewhere… so I sometimes miss what he has said or haven’t entirely been concentrating while he has been explaining something to me. Instead of him being pissy with me about not listening to him, he gets that sometimes I exist on a different plane of pinkness whether I’ve been smoking the wacky baccy or not! I just shoot him a goofy smile, tell him I love him, that I missed that last bit and could he repeat it? He grins back, pats me on the head and says he loves me too. Ohhh he gives me credit for my intelligence … don’t worry about that … but I think he really does actually get me.
In the past this would have been huge argument potential, but now it’s more of a passing conversation and that’s massive. Our relationship has definitely moved on a few notches over the last few weeks. He is a lot more relaxed and I am working at not looking at the negative but seeing the positive instead!
Today we actually even talked about how many children we’d both like to have, bearing in mind that I have two already. It turns out that we are both thinking around the 2-3 mark, but two would be good and that if we had a third (my fifth in total) it would depend on situation and financial circumstances! It was good to know that we were both on the same page there. I’d always assumed it, but it was great to sit down and talk about it. We talked about contraception … about how our current method (my pill – cerazette) seems to be working for us as we’ve been using it for a year and about how we’d both want to plan for a baby – hence the contraception! I was the one to mention that if an accident were to happen then it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, but that both of my children were very much planned and I’d want to keep it that way.
It was really good to have that conversation … I know it helped me, and if it even helped him a little bit in the same way of thinking that yes – finally I’ve found a partner that thinks the same way I do and wants the same things from life that I do, then our relationship can only get stronger from here.
It’s partly why I don’t want to live with AP just yet and why I think working towards the idea of moving in together in a year is a good thing! I’m in love with the idea of living with him just now and I want to keep it that way. Besides, I still have a lot of self-stuff to work out before I am in a place where I want to be living with anybody other than my children! I currently have the best of both worlds because I get a great mix of time with my children, time alone with my boyfriend and also that little bit of space to myself in the evenings when AP doesn’t come over. I like it like that, so for right now that’s how it is going to stay!
I’m in a happy place! Don’t worry, I haven’t put my rose tinted specs back on or anything, but I am feeling very lucky to have what I have got, and firmly believe that I should carry on working hard to make sure that I keep my relationship, my family AND my independence all at a good and well balanced level because THAT is what makes me happy!
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