[BentMonk]

Hi guys. I'm not accustomed to putting my personal business up for public opinion, but since the lives of four children are involved I thought I would consult you good people.

I have been with my fiance and her four children for six years. When I first met this family, the children were not well behaved, did not do well in school, and two were misdiagnosed with ADHD. My fiance's family have a very low opinion of her as a person and a parent due to the many bad choices she continually made in her life and the children's. To be blunt, they consider her to be a liar and a thief. I was met with a good deal of ambiguity and skepticism based on her previous choices in men. Over the years the children's behavior has improved dramatically, and everyone is better than they were before I arrived. My fiance's family gives me total credit for these changes.

My fiance and I have had completely different parenting styles from day one. I am strict and by the book, and she is permissive and forgiving in the extreme. I never saw this as a bad thing since most of the time we balanced each other out, and did a fairly good job of preventing the children from playing us against each other. This is not to say that we didn't have disagreements, on the contrary, there have been many, some much more heated than others. However, none of these disagreements ever reached the point of being a deal breaker. It was usually me who got mad, vented, and got over it.

There have been several times that we have reached a decision together on a course of action concerning things other than than the children, and my fiance immediately went behind my back and did the exact opposite as we had agreed. The two most severe instances concerned borrowing large sums of money from her family. The fact that she had done this with her two previous husbands and not paid it back, were one of the reasons for their low opinion of her, and uncertainty regarding me. I did not feel at all comfortable borrowing money from her family, especially given the history. We decided together that we would find another way, and as soon as I was otherwise occupied she borrowed the money from them anyway. I fault her family as much as her for giving her the money, but that's another issue. Again, I got mad, vented, got over it, and moved on. As I said this has happened numerous times, the money is just the most serious example.

I recently lost my job. This has of course made things very stressful financially. In the months that followed, my fiance continued to spend money on recreational activities and our small vacation as if we were not having any financial problems. Several times I asked her if we were doing OK financially. Each time I was told that things were very tight, but she was working over time and we were getting by. At this point I should note that while I handled some aspects of the finances, since my fiance made much more money than I did, she handled the bulk of those responsibilities. Well, two weeks ago I was awakened to the news that our van had been repossessed. I had noticed that Ford Credit had been calling, but my fiance assured me that she was taking care of it. The truth was she went three months without paying them anything. I was furious at her lack of responsibility, and the fact that she lied to me when I asked her about it. She apologized and asked for forgiveness. Once again, I got mad, vented, got over it, and moved on. Although I was and am still hurt over what I see as blatant dishonesty and betrayal of trust.

Despite all of these problems I still felt that my fiance and I were working as a team concerning the children and school. We had agreed that since we have very bright children who are in advanced programs and the like, that no grade below a B would be deemed acceptable. The consequences for a C or below would be loss of privileges. It occurred to me today that school has been in session for a while now, and I had yet to see a single report card. To satisfy my curiosity I called my children's schools and inquired as to when reports would be distributed. I was told that two had been sent home, the most recent being right before the Thanksgiving holiday. When I asked what the grades on those reports cards were, I was told about several C's and D's. This seemed strange to me since just the other day I asked about report cards while my fiance and two oldest children were in the room, and was assured by all that they hadn't been distributed yet. When I asked my fiance why she felt the need to lie to me, she said she didn't want to cause me any further stress.

I am currently extremely hurt, furious, and considering leaving my fiance. I feel that she has lied to me and completely betrayed my trust. I can say with a clear conscience, that I have not lied to her, hidden anything from her, or done anything behind her back in the six years we have been together.

I am not asking you folks if I should stay or leave, just how you would feel, and how you might handle this if you were in my situation. I'm sorry this is such a long post. Thank you for taking the time to read it and respond. Peace.