You’re right. Too much of my emotional energy is going towards the wrong things.

The problem is, my child is my life, and his father will forever be a part of him. I’m having a huge amount of trouble separating the two of them.

I don’t think I’m focusing on him to avoid my own shortcomings. I’m fully aware of what they are and am actively trying to change things – He is not, and that’s possibly part of the reason why I’m concentrating on him so much.

My own family is just as dysfunctional. My own father is somewhat of an alcoholic, who has always been emotionally distant, and had a 15 year on-and-off affair throughout my childhood, and well into my teens. My mother knew about this other woman, but stayed with my dad “for the kids”. The second my youngest sibling finished high school, she moved out. There are some parallels. I take what my mom says to me with a grain of salt. She is a “people pleaser” and believes I should give my ex what he wants to keep the peace.

There is no doubt that my situation is complicated. I recently described my life to my therapist as a “giant, tangled ball of string, and The more you try and pull on the ends to Detangle it, the tighter it gets”.

Thank you for the compliments. You’re too kind.

It’s really hard to come up with any sort of plan for the immediate future, because I’m pretty much in limbo right now. I have no idea what move (if any) he’s going to make next. The ball is in his court to organise and facilitate my mediation requests. In the meantime, I’m driving myself insane with “what ifs”. I feel like I have to be prepared for every single scenario that may or may not take place. I cannot be caught off guard.

Sea island:
Thank you for taking the time to comment. It’s means a lot.
The one thing I give the father credit for is that he did provide financially for our child, every week for the last 5 years without fail. He would pay above and beyond what was required and helped me out with things like extra curricular activities, and school uniform, etc, meaning that our child had more opportunities. That is, Until the girlfriend came along. When that happened, he cut back to the minimum amount he could possibly get away with, which means the difference between my child having opportunities and not having opportunities. I’m on welfare – it barely covers the rent + utilities. If this is his attempt at punishing me, he needs to rethink. Just another thing to add to my growing evidence list of how much he doesn’t give a you-know-what about the best interests of our child. I used to call it “guilt money”. Now I call it “stay out of jail money”.

My desire to forgive him stems from the knowledge that he’s not the brightest spark in the world. He grew up in the same environment he’s trying to push on our child: his father was never there during his childhood. He was always out drinking and doing drugs and sleeping around, while his mother stayed home and raised the children. There were no rules or boundaries in that household, as his mother used him as a companion, rather than a son.
My ex started drinking daily and socially doing drugs from the age of 15, and has continued to do so for the last 25ish years without a break. There HAS to be some brain damage going on there, not to mention he once got into a drunken fight where he was beaten so severely that he died on the operating table for a minute or so and has several metal plates in his head as a result. I feel very sorry for him. And that being said, one of my greatest fears is that my child will grow up and head down the exact same path he and his siblings did. I wouldn’t ever wish my position in life on my child either. There’s a lot of stress in that train of thought, and I do put a lot of pressure on myself to be the perfect parent. I KNOW it’s unrealistic, but what else can I do? I have had it stuck in my mind that he just doesn’t know any better, and if I could just show him how it was supposed to be done, he would see the light and change his ways. Well, that didn’t work out too well for me, did it.

As for the woman in his life, I haven’t met her, or know anything about her, but I have zero respect for her. Exactly for the reasons you mentioned. Maybe he won’t treat her like he treated me. He told me several times over the last 5 years that he only treated me that way because I was “difficult”. Maybe I was/am just being difficult?

Anyway, as I have said before, I need to do something (anything!) to relieve myself of the guilt/pain/depression. I just don’t know how.

Thanks guys

Inky:
You’ve hit the nail on the head. A lot of the anger I feel towards him stems from the fact that I turned my whole life around to accomodate for this defenceless child, and I did it because I love him/her and want what’s best for him in life. I bend over backwards, often forgoing what makes me happy. Changed everything about myself for this child. He, on the other hand, has not changed a single thing. He is a child himself, dependant on others to do things for him, even though he is almost 50. He surrounds himself with family and friends who enable and participate in the same self-destructive and anti-social behaviour. If you so much as question his actions he will cut you out of his life so fast, it will make your head spin. Support what he does, however, and you’re the best thing since sliced bread. This is the part that concerns me about him moving in with the girlfriend. I don’t know her (he won’t let me meet her), but from past experience, it would make sense that she would be encouraging and supportive of his lifestyle, otherwise he wouldn’t give her the time of day. I cannot allow my child to be unsupervised in such an environment. This is the basis for me pulling visitation once I discovered what’s going on.

From day 1, I was the one ensuring that they had time together. I drove her the hour and a half each way so that he could have his “rights as a father” (he has no license and refuses to get one – he’s never said it in so many words, but I presume it’s because it cuts into his drinking time). That’s 6 hours driving in 2 days every fortnight. I have given him every opportunity to have input into the important decisions in child’s life – daycare, school, etc – yet he refuses to do so. He tells our child he will attend special events such as concerts, parent-teacher interviews, birthdays parties, fathers nights at school, sports events, etc then backs out at the last minute telling everyone that it’s too far (he attended these things in the beginning, but it all stopped the second he got a girlfriend. Coincidence? Unlikely.) I felt embarrassed for my child in September when they had fathers night at school, and my child really wanted to go and be with friends and their dads. So, I took him myself. He got asked a lot “where’s your dad? Don’t you have one?” (You know what 5 year olds can be like. No filter.), and I watched him squirm not knowing what to say. He had fun though, and I’m so glad I took him, but watching him try and get the attention of all the other dads in the room broke my heart. It was at that point I realised that I am both mom and dad. His real dad is just some guy who pays me for the privilege of babysitting my child occasionally (lol).

Yet, I’m the bad guy for not letting him see his child. I stopped bending over backwards to force the relationship and now I’m “alienating” him. I want my child to have a father figure in his life, but not this guy. And I feel guilty about all of this. I know I shouldn’t, and that just makes it worse. I fight with myself in my own head about it on a daily basis. It makes me anxious. It makes me depressed. And it makes me feel like I’m going insane.

Anita:
I’ve been spending a lot of time recently googling “how to stop being so angry”, and the number one piece of advice in every single article I’ve come across is to “forgive”. That’s what brought me here and question whether I even have a right to be as angry as I am. I’m not sure what message could be hidden amongst all that anger that I’m not seeing, but at this point I’m so desperate for some peace and calm in my life that I’m open to hearing and discussing and trying anything.

Thank you everyone for your kind and insightful words. Truely. Please, keep them coming.