You didn’t say what state you live in, but chances are that it’s a community property state. So that money, which is “yours” and “his” now will be both of yours if you marry.  You need to think about that, and so does he.

A mindset of one partner “against” the other is *not* going to help you set up a well-functioning marriage.You also need to think about the benefits vs. costs to the relationship of giving ultimatums about $3000 rings (and things in general).  Ultimatums and name-calling (“cheapskate”) seldom lead to the compromise and problem-solving that are necessary for a healthy relationship.I also suggest you give some serious thought to your financial relationship with regard to housing costs and support of your son.  Make sure that you and your boyfriend are in agreement on this before you undertake the commitment of marriage.  It is only fair to your son that all three of you understand one-another expectations for how the responsibilities and privileges of financial financial support, childcare, discipline, and emotional support will be shared.  Ideally you and your boyfriend will agree on the major points — if not you need to resolve any major conflicts *before* you marry.

You may find per-marital or relationship counselling helpful in dealing with such issues.  I also suggest you look at some relationship books to help you identify which issues may lead to conflicts.  (Unfortunately I can’t think of any titles off the top of my head — can any other netters out there think of any good books?)

It’s 8 school days now since my daughter started at her new school. She missed the second day, but has gone to school all other days.  She’s much happier.  Her anxiety is less, although still showing through at times.  Her co behaviour seems to be less obvious, and her tics have decreased some. She’s motivated and more organized.

She has a heck of a lot of courage.  I’m very proud of her. She’s talked with me a lot this week about the “pressure” she had felt at her other school.  How she never felt quite good enough.  Never quite fitting in.  Never quite making the grade because there was so much pressure on everyone to perform. As it turns out she’s just yesterday made the ‘a’ team for netball. She’s a terrific athlete, but had not been encouraged at the other school.   She’s impressed a few of her teachers with her knowledge and abilities.   Once again,  lots of encouragement.  She’s also joined a group who help with ‘peer relationship counselling’ amongst the year 1 and 2 children.  Oh, and she’s going to school camp for 3 days.  Initial anxiety about that has gone now as she’s made a few friends at the new school.  It’s only for 3 days and we’re busy packing for that this weekend.  (it’s Saturday here already).   I was surprised she wanted to go, but she seems to think 3 days at camp is a lot more fun than having to spend that time in the Year 6 classes back at school if she didn’t go. lol

I could go on, but I won’t.  Just wanted to say it’s been a great, big, wonderful week.  Seems to me that sometimes the so called “best” schools don’t always have the best interest of our children in mind. Praise and encouragement goes a long, long way.

ROMAN Catholic bishops accused the Government yesterday of undermining marriage by proposing that couples should enter into prenuptial agreements.

The bishops say that calling for couples to make prenuptial agreements dealing with the ownership and disposal of cash and property favours the rich and builds a failure clause into marriage.

Their response to the Government’s Green Paper questions the rationale of including measures related to divorce in proposals intended to strengthen marriage.

The Right Rev Peter Smith, Bishop of East Anglia, said: “Prenuptial agreements seem to imply an expectation of marriage breakdown and undermine the notion of total commitment to marriage. They also appear to favour the financially stronger party.”

Mgr Kieran Conry, who is involved in training counsellors for Catholic Marriage Care, a relationship counselling service for people of all religion or none, said: “It is like having a warranty on a car. It assumes the car will go wrong at some stage. A prenuptial agreement is a warranty on a relationship.

“It indicates a lack of faith in their commitment on behalf of the couple.”

The bishops want the Government to recognise the role that poverty plays in family breakdown and argue that tackling this is an “essential element” to promote stable family life.

I am one of those who as recently as this AM felt we did not have enough information to conclude that the husband was a sex addict.  With Southern Belle’s most recent post that is no longer in question.  He most clearly is a well established addict.

Hmm, well I’m far from clear about what a sex addict actually is. It seems to me that his real problem is nothing to do with sex but is to do with not grasping the concept of marriage being a relationship between equals (particularly given the verbal abuse). If he gave equal weight to her needs they would be a lot closer to a solution. In the process he might also be confusing fantasy with reality. If he was considering her needs but ‘couldn’t help himself’ he would almost certainly jump at the chance to get counselling. I guess one way of telling whether its a sex thing or a relationship power thing would be to find out how he would react to being domainated (ie turn the tables). If he’s happy to submit to
domination then use it to extract a promise to go to counselling.

Hmm. I have never known ultimatums to save a relationship in the long term. Even if they have the intended effect in the short term they tend to turn the relationship sour. My advice would be to try to encourage him to accompany her to some sort of relationship counselling by explaining that she needs help to understand his point of view and he needs to be present during the counselling (okay, so this is being economical with the truth…). This would make it easier for him to attend by being less confrontational about it. The implicit promise of an improved sex life if the problems can be sorted out (probably not a lie) might also help.

Helena vists A Therapy Clinic And Rufus’s Marriage Fails To Reach A First Anniversary.

Their Love lives have taken on a twist of Shakespearean tragedy.

For Helena Bonham Carter and Rufus Sewell, the trials and tribulations of life off screen has become more difficult than many of the Bard’s most complex plots.

The stars, who both have Shakespearean acting credits in their CVs, are said to be nursing broken hearts.  Yesterday Sewell was coming to terms with the collapse of his marriage to fashion buyer Yasmin Abdallah less than a year after their wedding.

And Miss Bonham Carter is still struggling to make sense of her five-year affair with Shakespearean devotee Kenneth Branagh, said to have been rekindled after it ended in September last year.

“They are back together, but I don’t think things are easy,” a friend said. “It’s difficult and very private.  They are in a slightly loose relationship, which may be why they’re keeping it very quiet.”

Miss Bonham Carter, who has starred in Hamlet and Twelfth Night, has been visiting an alternative therapy clinic which specialises in healing and relationship counselling.

She spent more than two hours at the centre in St John’s Wood, North London, which offers “colour” healing, acupuncture and crystal workshops.One of the practitioners attached to the studios gives counselling for couples.

Another practises ‘transpersonal psychotherapy”.

Miss Bonham Carter left looking downcast and clutching a copy of an American self-help manual.  The 1978 book To Love Is To Be Happy With, by American author Barry Neil Kaufman, contains advice on independence and self-esteem.It asks: “Do you want to be happier?  Are you afraid of being hurt in relationships?”

The central idea of the book is that individuals should let go of expectations of each other.

Everyone is responsible for their own happiness, and the happier people are, the more they are loved.

The visit clearly provided food for thought for Miss Bonham Carter, who
started her affair with Branagh, formerly married to Emma Thompson, in 1994.

He and his new love never committed to living together, and were seldom seen
side by side in public.

But last year Miss Bonham Carter declared: “I’m definitely happy and in love.”

The subsequent break-up plainly left her miserable, and she attended the premiere of The Theory of Flight, in which they both starred, alone and dressed in black.

In recent weeks, however, they have been seen together at several showbusiness events, although they were careful to leave separately.  They were even spotted kissing in the street near Miss Bonham Carter’s home in Belsize Home, North London.

When asked if they were together again, she smiled and said: “I’m not going to comment.  I never did before and I’m not going to now.  We might have been seen kissing but I’m not going to say anything.”

… Sewell, , who appeared in Kenneth Branagh’s film of Hamlet, blamed  ‘irreconcilable differences’ for the end of the marriage.

He married Miss Abdallah in a low-key ceremony in London last March.  They had no honeymoon because he was due on stage in Macbeth that  evening, and after the marriage ceremony the bride was on a flight to  Australia because her visa had run out. Days later the couple were spotted  at The Ivy restaurant in Covent Garden celebrating their marriage and  Miss Abdallah being a legal entrant into Britain.

Sewell said at the time: ‘Yasmin is a wonderful person. I feel very lucky.’  Yesterday his agent confirmed that the marriage was over a fortnight  before they would have celebrated their first anniversary. ‘Rufus is now moving ahead with his life and concentrating on his career,  said agent Tor Belfrage.

Sewell, best known for his appearances in Cold Comfort Farm,  the BBC TV adaptation of Middlemarch and British movie  Martha Meet Frank, Daniel and Lawrence, fell for Miss Abdallah  after a brief liaison with Kate Winslet. His most famous romantic  encounter could have been with Madonna. But he refused to go  out with her when she pursued him for a date.

I’ve been as ambivalent about the relationship as she has – the break-up was (possibly is) initiated by both of us. We get on extremely well but certain hard-nose realities such
as her financial situation, her being Jewish and wanting to celebrate her culture which, to my shame, I find slightly alienating, though, to be honest, right now I feel that’s completely unimportant. She thinks the web site is great and is very supportive. Since it’s pretty much a full-time job, that’s important. But it doesn’t pay her bills – I can pay for my kids but it doesn’t leave anything for hers. She doesn’t want me to give it up and certainly doesn’t want to be the reason that I give it up. I’ve been in some funny places since my diagnosis and divorce. I’ve had to work through some big issues like feeling that men get a raw deal
out of divorce which I no longer believe – but my past views have coloured things – look this is so very complex that I cannot sum it up in any way that would make any sense to
anyone but the two of us. And we talked this thing around and around so many times.

On the plus side she is a beautiful, kind, intelligent, caring person whom everybody but everybody likes her. We almost always have a ball together.

As regards the Child Support Agency chasing up her ex, he is self-employed and is very good at hiding his assets. The CSA won’t go after him because they don’t feel that he’s an easy target so it comes down to her having to do detective work and it’s unlikely that it would pay off even if she had time to do it. He’s a very nasty bit of bone. He’s just bought a
new car but can’t dip into his pocket for his own children. He is the King Rat.

I like the idea of relationship counselling – I will suggest it to her.

Since everyone tends to post relationship problems from their own point of view, and since this woman is not here to put her own, I have a few questions:

If she only wants to get and not contribute, how is it she has taken on a job?

You said: …”I am typically under a lot of stress as a part of my profession and I let
it show now and then.” How exactly do you “let it show”? And how often is “now and then”? I ask because I have known this kind of phrase used as a euphemism for “I beat
7 kinds of out of her.” I am not implying this is what you are doing, but the way you phase this is all about excusing you, rather than looking at how “letting it show” might be affecting her.

You said she: “Never had a vehicle that costs more than her previous salary for 25 years (actually 54.13 years, but who’s counting).” Well, obviously, you are – to two decimal places!!

You say she is demanding and imply she is controlling, yet you are the one telling her – inaccurately – that she can’t finance a car (and therefore have a little independence) and that she will be deported if she divorces you. Did you notice her talk of divorce was linked to 1) your inaccurate threats to her and 2) what she describes as YOUR
controlling behaviour?

I agree with others who have said counselling is a good idea. I am not trying to say everything is your fault. But I doubt very much everything is hers either and I am just trying to show a little of what it might look like from the other side of the fence because if you care about her then you care about that. In a relationship there needs to be equality -
no one should be doing the controlling. I suspect you both need help to find the balance if you want to attempt to save your relationship.

Be forgiving both to her and to yourself – financial worries are the number 1 cause of stress in relationships. I’m not talking from some ivory tower. I’ve done poverty, widowhood and been on the receiving end of an abusive relationship and I KNOW there are no quick fixes. My only purpose in posting this is to try to help you see a little clearer – hurt and anger are terrible spectacles to have to look through.

I think as far as sustainable workable relationships go it’s probably best to just write off that generation and look forward to an improvement in the next rather than boarding the republican bus – After all we are talking about a system that runs on a family rather than an elected individual. Having said that and Anne being as feisty, haughty and objectionable as she appears often to be (good hard works aside)  I imagine that conducting an intimate relationship with the Princess Royal would not be the easiest challenge for a man to put himself through.  From a distance, I would put it on par with climbing Everest blindfolded  Madonna could even be easier.

On the one hand, I think she needs someone on equal footing title wise because I am sure that plays somewhat on the commoner husbands she has had.  She is not known to be casual about her position even amongst her pals.  Then again, neither of these chaps look particularly strong willed and she could be the type that needs a good ‘Listen Anne……!” and a good talking too.

Also, I think given her position, she really does need a man who doesn’t mind backing her work up and walking a step behind, which neither have really done and givent the time and travel her work demands, must make home life difficult. (Basking in obvious new talent for relationship counselling & marital problem solving)

Of course the Governemtns response to the resultant increase in divorce statistics and relationship breakdowns is to now pour millions into “pre-marital relationship counselling”. I wonder if the counsellors will advise prospective partners that marriage carries these significant financial penalties and they would be financially better off “shacking up” and not admitting to their relationship? Under this arrangement they can have children, raise them at home and still remain eligible for significant welfare assistance.

There’s a bit of a spanner there. If a couple “shack up” together, they have to have enough bedrooms and wardrobes to be able to claim that he and she sleep in separate bedrooms and make it look thus if they are “visited” by Center link brown shirts.

The male of the partnership would be taking his fiscal life in his hands by entering into this arrangement, as when the missus goes into the SS office, the goons will attempt to (illegally) force her to disclose the name of the father before they pay her a cent.  If she doesn’t prevail against them, he will be hit by the CSA until the kids are old enough to leave home.  (Or until there is a Royal Commission and all those fucking jackbooted fascists are out of a job!)

Seems to me that regardless of whether you’re married or not, the government has all the cards and have stacked the deck conclusively in their favour.

And they claim to wonder why there are so few couples having kids these days.The only ones who appear to be doing so are youngsters, unaware of the damage which will be done to the rest of their lives by having to pay up or depend upon the government financially.

Then a little over a year ago I got a taste of the other side of the equation.  I found myself in another long-term (2 years) relationship which had died.  Our interests, goals, lives were steadily diverging, the stresses were outweighing the gains, the future looked like it would
only get worse and I came to the conclusion that although I still loved this person I wasn’t _in_ love with them.  For over four weeks my friends spent hours listening to me trying to thrash out a solution. Lots of talk, email, alcohol and tears.

It’s easy to say that the person instigating the split is making the choice and that their partner has no choice, but that’s not always the case.  What “choice” did I have – keep a decomposing relationship limping along purely on past glories and fear of not having a partner, or finish things before it got any worse

Well you don’t give a lot of details, but if this was a committed relationship then there’s a lot you could have done. For a start you should have been thrashing things out with your partner rather than your mates. Did you tell her when you felt things were first going wrong? Did you talk about it? Did you talk about what things you could try to make
it better? Did you have relationship counselling? Or did you tell her everything was fine and then just drop the bombshell one day? See I have a friend who’s been dumped both of these ways. In one instance, in a committed relationship, her parnter decided he wasn’t happy and things weren’t working out. But he didn’t walk away – he didn’t just make the
decision for the both of them – they talked – they tried to work out what was going wrong – tried to find solutions. When things still didn’t work out they went for counselling. In the end they couldn’t make it work – but they’d tried everything, and while she was desperately sad about it ending, she knew there was no other choice for either of them. So there was no bitterness, no recriminations – she didn’t have to go through the undiluted hell – depths of despair, depression, anger, suicidal thoughts, all of which lead back to the same question – “WHY?!”.

as you put it – she was spared that. And if you do care for someone they deserve *at least* that. They’ve stayed friends, there’s still a great fondness between them, they still love each other as people, and that’s the way it should be. They learned stuff about themselves and each other and grew from the experience. Although neither was happy they could take
something positive away from the relationship, they knew it had come to a natural end and they were still good friends.

On another occassion she was just dumped out of the blue – no talking – no trying to work things out – just goodbye – and there were all the suicidal thoughts, depression, the asking “why”. This person she now hates like you couldn’t believe and feels very vengeful towards him – and totally justifiably so in my view.

Making a commitment is a serious thing – if you don’t believe in it *don’t do it*. Once you have, it is, IMHO, one of the worst crimes you can ever commit against someone to not follow through with it-  it’s part of the deal and *there is no excuse*.