Troubled and Abusive Relationships Forum

I met a girl about 6 months ago. Right away we hit it off and began spending almost every day together. After about 3 months we talked as though we may get married one day. For the most part, things seemed great.

A couple of things did bother me, however:

(1) her temper. She is very easily angered. Although the good times were fantastic, we fought quite often. 99% of our fights were started by her after she'd become angry at me for something (she will agree with me on this). She told me the reason why she is always angry at me is because I am always doing "wrong things." to me it seems like she looks for petty things to be angry about.

(2) she is technically married. I say technically because according to her, after being married for 6 months things didn’t work out…she left him…and she hasn’t seen him for 5 years. For some reason she never bothered to get divorced.

To get back to the story, three weeks ago we found out she’s pregnant. We talked about things and decided we’d get married before the baby is due. I then bought her an engagement ring. However, she has done nothing with regard to getting divorced (she hasn’t talked to an attorney, she hasn’t planned a timeline, she hasn’t saved a penny towards getting it done). I keep telling her that it could take months to get divorced (assuming it’ll be uncontested) and that she should get the ball rolling. Her excuse for doing nothing is that she can’t afford to pay for it. Because of that, I looked up an attorney who would charge ~$600. She still claims that she can’t afford it. However, I just found out that she bought a round trip ticket to miami to visit her mother in june for her mother’s b-day. How is it that she can afford that, but not a divorce? Why does she feel it’s more important to visit her mother than to save for a divorce? I suspect that she wants me to pay for the divorce myself.

100% of what we do is paid for by me. She justifies it because (1) I make more money than her (though only $15k more annually) and (2) i'm the man. I can live with that to an extent, so I never ask her to pay for anything (and she basically never offers). I’ve literally spent thousands of dollars over the past 6 months on fancy dinners, gifts, etc. My credit card bill has doubled since we began dating (not including the engagement ring…tripled if I count that).

Lately, however, we’ve been fighting about money nonstop. She made plans for us to eat out with two other couples (friends of hers) last saturday. That seemed fine. About 2 hours before we were to meet up, she told me that the restaurant requires me to wear a jacket. I was shocked and asked what kind of place this was. I found the menu on the internet and realized that dinner could easily cost me $150 just for the two of us. I was upset, but not at her per se…just in general. She became angry that I was upset, called me cheap, and said she’d cancel the dinner. I told her that we could go, but that i’d like us to watch what we get, skip appetizers and dessert, and try to get the less expensive entrees. Again she called me cheap and told me that if she were limited in what she could order, she didn’t want to go. She said the dinner was supposed to celebrate our engagement and I didn’t care about us celebrating. She cancelled the plans and then continued to call me a cheap person.

I became so angry because (1) she spends nothing on me while I spend crazy money on her (and if I defend myself by telling her that, she says I throw what I give her back in her face), and (2) she told me with regard to her divorce and buying plane tickets, her money is her business and I should keep out of it.

The hypocrisy drives me crazy.

To add fuel to the fire, last week she told me that when we get married we should maintain separate bank accounts. We should each help pay for the common bills, but since I made more money, I should pay more for the common bills. Her reason to keep things separate is that she doesn’t want her money being used for paying off my bills such as my student loans. Nevermind the fact that my student loans paid for my education, which is why I have a larger income than her and, according to her, should pay more bills – that irony seems to escape her. We argued about it for a couple days and finally she relented, but only after I found out this bombshell: we have to send $500 per month to her mother in miami. Uggggghhhhhhhh. Now we’re going to have her mother as a financial dependent for the rest of her life?

Anyway, so two days ago, we were fighting about her divorce, or lack thereof. It drives me crazy! I said “i just don’t understand why you think that visiting your mother for her f'ing birthday is more important than seeing to it that we’re married before the baby is born!”

she then latched onto the fact that I used profanity to describe her mother’s b-day, and has been angry ever since. I apologized and told her that I didn’t mean to disrespect her mother, because her mother has nothing to do with it. I was just expressing anger. She refuses to accept the apology, and refuses to acknowledge that my concerns are important or that she is partly at fault for our problems.

I’m at the end of my rope. I’m miserable and don’t know what to do. When I think about her antics, I become angry and want to tell her that she is the most manipulative and selfish person i’ve ever met. At the same time, she’s having my baby and I what I want more than anything is to have a normal, healthy relationship and to raise our child in a two parent, loving environment. Two weeks ago we went to counseling, but it didn’t really help. It was nothing more than an opportunity to complain to the therapist about each other. I didn’t feel there was any constructive advice offered…and that’s what I need: advice!

I'm sure her version of events are different: she'd paint me as controlling, abusive, mean, uncaring, etc. I become so angry sometimes that I fly off the handle. A few days ago I lost my temper when I wanted to talk about our problems (i.E. The divorce, when are we going to find a place to live, etc)...She just wanted to talk about my supposed insult of her mother. It drove me bonkers so I jumped up and threw a couple of her things...Nothing was broke, but she immediately labeled me as abusive. I just get so angry over what's happening.

Need Advice...(long)