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.