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I am in a relationship for 17 years and have been living with my significant other =(SO) for that long. MY SO has recently reconnected with his half-sister after 30 years. she is 35 and he is 43. She is a manic depressive and has OCD. After making the connection, he is now on a mission to 'save' his sister as she was all alone up in ME. Needless to say, without any input from me, they both decided to have her move in with us. He bought his house 3 years ago. I have a heart condition in which I am still going thru procedures since 2004. I am at a loss why I have been placed on the back burner after all these years to accomadate a 35yr old woman, who has been on her own for a very long time. She has gone thru 2 marraiges and has 2 children, one that was adopted and the other, all her rights were signed over to the husband. She has just moved into our home yesterday and I am at a loss as to finding out what my role is, now that this person has moved in. I am so angry and upset and my feelings of being trapped is only causing me unnecessary stress. My home has been invaded by this unwanted person who is a stranger to us both. We do not know her. She just surfaced on Facebook. This is someone who is heavily medicated and I have to worry if she is going to have a good day or a bad one.I feel his & her conversations about all this moving in should have included me. I have been literally been dismissed from anything going on with her moving into our home. The house is not in my name, but I am on the Will along with my SO's son. He has dismissed me in marrying me and getting the house together and now this. He says he loves me. I'm not too sure anymore. I now need to know what role is now that she is here. My SO says he does not know how long she will be here, which could be years. I am ready to pack up and leave, but at the moment, I am in not a healthy position. We have had arguments about her moving in and all he says is "I need to do this". My SO tells me this will be for my benefit also as she will provide company for me. I dont need company nor do I need someone telling me what I NEED. I have two grown children from a previous marraige and they are there for me when I need them. So, I dont need company from a 35 year old woman who sounds like she is 10 years old. She is mentally disabled and I am on medicare due to the heart condition.My SO will be starting school next week and I am home with this mental patient 24/7. It's not fair. I love him, but if I have to leave because of this, then I will. I have to think of my overall health, which at this time, he is not. I cannot get anymore sick over this and I need some suggestion on what to do..I hope someone can assist me and I'm sorry for writing a short novel. Thank you.
In a previous post, I wrote that partners may feel certain obligations to each other as part of their relationship, but they shouldn't feel too much like obligations, in the sense that they feel separate from or on top on the relationship itself. If they do, that signals a problem in the relationship, because one or both partners may be taking an external view to the relationship, as if viewing it from outside of it and seeing its "limitations" and "requirements" as binding, rather than an internal view in which the partners fulfill each other's needs out of love and appreciation for each other and for their relationship. In brief, you should want to do things for your partner rather than feel you have to.
Let's look at this from another angle: What about expectations in a relationship? In a sense, expectations are the flipside of obligations; if someone has an obligation towards you, you usually have an expectation that that obligation will be fulfilled. Again, this is similar to rights language in moral or legal philosophy; if Bob has a firm duty towards Barbara, then Barbara has a right (or claim) to have that duty fulfilled. For example, if Bob has a duty not to steal from Barbar, then Barbara has a right not to be stolen from by Bob; if Barbara has a duty to help Bob (perhaps based on a promise or other commitment), Bob has a claim on Barbara's assistance.
Now if Bob and Barbara (or Bob and Bill, or Barbara and Betty) are romantically involved, Bob may form expectations regarding Barbara based on obligations she has toward Bob (and vice versa). Ideally, these expectations—like obligations—arise naturally out of the nature of the relationship and the partners' understanding (hopefully discussed between them) of where the relationship is. For instance, Bob shouldn't expect complete openness and honesty, or frequent PDA or sexual contact, if the relationship has not progressed far enough for these to become reasonable expectations. And if the relationship has progressed far enough to generate expectations of those things, that should be based on a mutual understanding of the relationship—not necessarily spoken, but clearly understood by both persons.
As with obligations, an ideal relationship does not involve expectations that are not implied in the relationship itself; in other words, partners in an affectionate relationships can expect love and support, partners in a physical relationship can expect a certain amount of sexual activity, and so on. (I don't mean to imply these two are mutually exclusive, of course!) The point is that these expectations should arise naturally, and should rarely be mentioned as such. If you feel you have to say the words, "I expected you to...," there's something wrong—either your partner didn't realize you had that expectation, which means communication (spoken or unspoken) broke down somewhere, or your partner no longer wants to fulfull an obligation he or she once did happily. Obviously, neither is good for a relationship, and it's probably time to have a good talk between the two of you.
As I've said before, personally I dislike obligations or expectations in relationships. I don't want the person I'm wish to feel she "has" to do certain things for me; I want her to do the things she wants to do out of her feelings for me, as I would like to do for her. If you have to ask your partner for something (or not to do something), you never know if he or she does it (or not) just because you asked, or because he or she really wanted to do it. Ideally, partners will feel free to do what they watn to do, including things they want to do for each other, and if their feelings are strong and they are truly compatible, their actions will be as well.
Looking at it a different way, what your partner does or doesn't do without asking him or her to tells you a lot about that person, good or bad. For instance, if you have to say to your partner, "I have a right to know" something, consider why he or she didn't tell you already and why you had to bring it up. (The fact that you expect to know this may also reveal something about you!)
This may seem naive and overly romantic, and few couples will actually achieve this blissful harmony, but that doesn't mean we can't strive for it—isn't that the dream?
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