Recently separated from the mother of my child; her and I had been together some 5 years and the last three of them were spent raising our little boy. We were never supposed to stay together, I had broken up with her the week she became pregnant because she was an excitable BPD train-wreck and I was tired of the love-bomb/discard cycles we were on pretty regularly. The day I broke up with her I picked her up at a mall she was wandering aimlessly at (in a manic-depressive split) and took her back to my apartment and we fucked and I nutted in her and I basically told her we were still broken up, but I was open to being friendly.About a month later and of course we're hanging out again (because I'm co-dependent and at the time really didn't know how to break something off with someone like that), and she starts feeling sick around me and viola she was pregnant.Needless to say the baby was the single best thing that ever happened to me and stepping up to parenthood has been a defining feature of who I am today. I wouldn't trade it for anything, but his mother is a mess and drove me miserable (it is my child, we took paternity recently). We separated on a few occasions early on, but never stuck to breaking up, as I always wanted to be around my son. About two months ago I finally snapped after all whining and verbal abuse, we had an in-house split where I was sleeping in another room and we were being amicable like strangers. She ends up pissing me off a few times around my birthday and I figure it's enough, so I install tinder and start talking to other women.One night I go out to see someone, knowing she'd find out, knowing she'd get pissed enough to toss me out, and of course all of that happened.
[Cont.]>>31696946Now the thing is, the chick I started seeing, I was completely transparent about my situation with. I explained everything and she was cool with it as long as I was being transparent. So the weeks went on and me and this girl really start hitting it off and we just communicate a million times better than my baby's mother. I say fuck it, lets keep this relationship going, but as my son felt my absence more and our custody schedule became regular (3 days on 4 days off and then reversed). I found it harder and harder to juggle both my baby and this girl. The girl likes me a lot, like could talk to me all day and spend all week with me ( she at least wants to spend my weekends), now the thing is this chick is a transplant from another city, here from her studies and first job in her career. So she's emotionally lonely, has great roommates and friends, but seems hyper-fixated on me. This starts to rub me the wrong way as I have to tell her we can't hang out (shifting schedule with the baby conflicts with our weekends, etc). She plays understanding but I have to endure a lot of "I miss you" texts and some mood shifts that, honestly, I have no emotional reserve for. The separation still weighs on my conscious constantly, and I'm really only satisfied when I'm around my kid and here I am having to be emotionally available for this girl I met a month and a half ago. This week I found myself lying to my sons mother about needing my weekend off to make it so that I could see this new girl and it's like, I don't know why I'm doing it anymore, the novelty of sex and hanging out in a living room wore off. Her understanding character and supportive-to-a-fault demeanor has become this millstone around my neck and I found myself sick to my stomach over the idea of me not seeing my son for this out of towner with likely no real reason to stay here (I wont leave this city unless I'm taking my baby with me).
>>31696946So yesterday we were texting and we got into it about co-sleeping (I'm a maniac about child raising, very much have a child-centered approach to the entire thing, co-sleeping, breast milk, home schooling, no ipads/no modern television or youtube rot) and she has this pathetic passive aggressive way of getting upset, where as I'm used to people yelling and name calling, she becomes like this sassy Karen about shit, and that triggers me to just put my phone on silent and ignore her for the rest of the day. This morning I woke up and she was saying she was worried for me so I told her I panicked about everything I'm juggling lately and I needed space and quiet. I went on to ignore her all day, even after she said she loved me. I just didnt look at her text ( she had only sent like two responding to my morning reply). All this and she texts me around 8pm to ask "are you going to come over at all this weekend or what?". I tell her I need to focus on my child and studies and that choosing her over him made me feel awful and panicky, that I still needed my space and silence. I left it at that and she wrote some wall of text asking if we were broken up.I have all ability to just never look at her messages again and forget about it, re-align my focus to more important things. I disabled my ig, I could just block her number, it should be that easy but here I am typing this fucking long ass post to see what strangers think of the situation, Lmk
>>31696946I don't read blog posts on an advice board.
>>31696983Thanks for not reading, it's obviously for whoever would.
>>31696977I have young children so I get where you're coming from. And from years with your ex, makes sense that you're in no mood for a needy chick.>I tell her I need to focus on my child and studies and that choosing her over him made me feel awful and panicky, that I still needed my space and silence. I left it at that and she wrote some wall of text asking if we were broken up.Either break up or ... How about telling her "what if we switch to being friends with benefits? I'm flattered how much you want to spend time with me, but my son is my favorite person in the world and biggest priority. Please try to understand - major changes in my personal life recently. It feels awful being away from my son, and need to focus on providing for him now and in the long term. I like knowing you, but need you to understand that the little guy is my #1, there's no way around that."
>>31697293That would be the most reasonable response but I feel like with how she is, she'll take that and just continue to sink herself into me. She's 27, educated, and within reach of someone who isn't afraid to parent. I want to be a decent person but I'm jaded from how women take decency and use it as a platform for their control.Like it doesn't sit well with me that she knows my exact situation and can be this fucking pushy, it's either ignorant or self-serving, regardless, I think our start was two intimacy starved people just being glutenous and I can't live on that. Thanks for the advice bro, I'm going to at least give her a response tomorrow and it'll likely be a mix of what you said but with a bigger emphasis on me not wanting to be with anyone right now.
>>31696977If you can't talk to your Wife, it sounds like you don't trust her enough to be vulnerable around her, and if you think telling her you're panicked about juggling everything lately, and that you need space is being vulnerable, you don't know how to communicate your emotions properly. Nothing wrong with that, but you should think about that more.
>>31697641Its not my wife. It's like the rebound girlfriend. I don't have serious ties to her and yeah I'm in a kind of emotionally vulnerable place and I'd rather not have to keep getting into it with this woman I met a month or two ago. She's not family and is proving to be more demanding of my time when I've made it clear that things are all over the place and I need some space and quiet in my head.
>>31696946The best thing about you as a human being is you love for your child.The worst thing about you as a human being is your willingness to give that up for a few good fucks.
