Robyn writes:
When I met my partner, he had been separated from his wife (no children) for years, but was completely upfront about the fact that he had no intention of getting divorced. I should probably mention at this point that he's a Catholic, though not exactly an enthusiastic one. But it's more, I think, than simple Catholic squeamishness. He says that "the only reason to get divorced is marriage and I already have a wife". He also says he's happy with me, isn't looking for someone else and doesn't want to move on. As time goes on, though - we've been together four years and I'm getting to an age where I'm going to have to make the decision about children sooner rather than later - I find that this attitude make me increasingly uncomfortable. Why doesn't he want to marry me - or even make himself free to do so and then talk about it? Is he still fixated with his ex? Or is this a neat way of protecting himself from having to make any decisions?
You've probably hit the nail on the head with the second option, though there's probably a bit of the first mixed in with it as well. He's probably not fixated on his wife in an I-Want-You-Back kind of way, but he's clearly hanging a lot of his rest-of-life decisions on the fact that he married her. You should never, though, underestimate the power of religious belief systems. The success of all the major world religions is based entirely in the power of their systems. That's how come the really, really successful religions are all predicated on ideas like heaven and hell and downfall and punishment (even if it is only coming back as a cockroach) and guiding creators when the less dramatic "sometimes we like to get together on a Friday and be nice to each other" religions tend to be quite short-lived.
People who are entirely rational can still live parallel lives where transubstantion is a fact and divorce is a sin punishable by eternity in the fiery pit. If you don't suffer from deeply-ingrained religious beliefs of your own, you will never understand it; but you'll be doing yourself a disservice by denying that they do exist, and they do color the thinking of everyone who has been raised with them, however unconsciously.
There are some things in relationships that are Absolutes for some people and Not That Important for others. Four years is quite a long time to have gone without establishing which this issue is for each of you. Or have you been in denial all this time and only just woken up? Everyone has the odd thing about themselves that is absolutely set in stone; the trick is finding compatible personalities each of whose uncompromising stances fits with the other's. It sounds like the marriage thing is his Absolute.
So, if there's any decision-making to be done, it's for you to decide whether he doesn't want to marry you, doesn't want to marry anybody, or can only contemplate marriage on widowerhood, and whether you can live with whichever the answer is. If, though, you look closely at the situation and realize that he doesn't want to marry you, or anybody else, because women are collectively responsible for the failure of his marriage, then you're never going to change his mind about that, either. And Men Who Blame Women are no more fit to live with than women who do the same thing to men.
Read Serena's latest advice here.
The Dating Doctor