Hey Reddit, I often look to Reddit for advice and never post but I feel desperate to know if anyone has been in my shoes and how they have handled it. I hope this is the right place to post this as I feel one of you may be able to relate to me. I will try my best to make a long story as short as I can, me 25F and my partner 25M got together when we were 17 years old, a year and some into our relationship I became pregnant and we now have a 6 year old child together. Our relationship in a sense is similar to the other stories you read on here, we both basically were forced into our adult lives very quickly and promptly together and for a long time it was okay, we handled it pretty well and for the most part as a team (for a while). Well pushing some years down the road our dynamic becomes more hasty as I am taking on the role of being the parent for everyone in the house, the “grown” man that I felt like I was with had kind of just slipped and reverted back into someone who no longer strived to help take care of our environment, eventually I was paying the whole load of bills, and he wouldn’t marry me after all this time although he kept promising me for our entire relationship he would, there is much more to it but in the long run although he loved me, he didn’t want to step up to being the man of our home. Anyways I’m aware of what has brought me to leave him, I’m not questioning if it was right or wrong, I couldn’t continue to feel like an unequal in a home that I was the sole provider for. He has always been a loving and silly father, a little lazy but I have graced him with the fact that we are young and everyone is living life for the first time. So where I’m getting to with all of this is we broke up the last week of February due to my birthday being ruined by him (my last straw), and I had really been pushing for him to move out about 2 weeks post breakup, of course this turned into something that was dragged out longer than it had to be and he was there until the first week of June, finally just moving back in with his mom. Come to find out he has been having sexual relations with a coworker since mid may and bringing my daughter around her and her kids since the second week of June behind my back and I only found out about her through my daughter telling me she was seeing this lady and her kids. These last 2 weeks we have finally become way more respectful in our interactions and working hard to get along for coparenting but I can’t help but feel wrong that he’s already bringing my daughter around his rebound that he met while he was still trying his hardest to lay in bed with me..
I am very alone in life, my family is quite toxic and unreliable, my dad died when I was 4, my mom has been a deadbeat drug addict almost my whole life who I have been no contact with since my 21st birthday, I don’t have any friends other than a coworker or two (how stable is that though?) because I really centered my life around my family and hitting our goals, I genuinely thought we would be forever… I work 8 hours a day, 5/6 days a week and my drive there and back is 40 minute both ways, I don’t have very much time for hobbies or friends as it is with my job and my daughter and I don’t think I can really afford therapy as much as I want it right now (I have done therapy in the past not opposed just can’t afford it right now). I KNOW there are so many people that have gone through similar stories and pathways in life and I guess I just need to hear that it’s going to be okay? I feel like I have lost every part of myself and I actively made the choice to leave this guy because I refused to live being treated like a doormat with a hole for the rest of my life but I did genuinely love him and our family and I’m having a really really hard time mentally with all of this. I want to be strong for my daughter, but I cry alone at night and wish I could call my mom or something but I will never speak to her again. What do you do when it feels like the weight of the world has collapsed in on you, you have no other human to look to for ANY kind of support other than yourself? I keep journaling and videotaping myself venting and watching it back to find a form of therapy, walking and hiking when I have the free time but the pain is strong and vibrant on a daily basis, I think it would be easier for me mentally if he wasn’t fking literally another mother and playing with her kids before even getting out of my house and trying to bring our kid around her after me leaving him for not being capable of being a strong leading figure in our own household, but I could never lead him in the first place only myself and I’m aware. I need to hear someone else has been somewhere close to my circumstances and made it out okay and kept the peace for your child because everyday I have to fight to tell myself I can make it another day, I don’t have anyone except my daughter, she doesn’t deserve to see me this way and I never try to portray myself anything other than smiles and rainbows but I actually feel really insane and it’s building up really badly… if anyone has some kind of advice I’m listening.
TL;DR how to carry on with life and coparenting when you have no emotional support around you or time for anything other than work and your kid?