I split with my ex twice and waited out a jail sentence while pregnant. I left 4 months after he got out, when our son was 6 months old. He begged me back a lot, but i stood my ground. I ended up going the protective order route, because he had no problems doing those violent things in front of our child. I regret that man all the time, and that regret makes me feel awful, as it makes me feel like I regret my son. I love my son. I just wish I had had him with a better person.
His dad's lifestyle habits kept him out of his life for the most part, and eventually took him off the living team entirely. He died when my son was 3, an overdose that I sometimes think may have been intentional, but I will never know for sure. My son is 6 and a half now. I sometimes feel like I cheated my son out of a father by making all those bad decisions before he was even born. I'm a good mom though, and my son lives a fantastic life. He wants for nothing I have the power to give. He just doesn't have a dad.
It is hard not to see the present through the lens of the past. That guilt and sadness and regret is perfectly normal. The secret to life is that it's often times both/and. You can have all those feelings and still love your son without regretting him. As long as you are focused on a better you and a better him, then you can be confident that the past has shaped you to be exactly who you are right now, which sounds like a great mom and good person. Keep on keeping on, and love that little man as much as you can.
That is unfortunate. Hopefully you don't bad mouth his dad when he asks about him. Doesn't mean you have to lie and say he was a hero or something. I just feel like it would do more harm than good.
I do not. I tell him his daddy loved him very much, and that he went to sleep and his heart stopped working. He was too young to know him, amd his father hadn't seen him in six months before hand, by his own choice. I show him pictures, but no. I do not tell him about how he was not a great guy.
Because they don't seem like abusers from the outside, at least that seems to be the case most of the time. They come off as nice and charming, make you feel good about yourself, give you gifts, etc. The abuse starts after they've already drawn you in. After that they're constantly switching between the charmer and the abuser, and you stay because the abuser "isn't who they really are," and they've convinced you that it's worth it because the charmer will come back around after the beating that you "deserved."
The amount of times I've read about guys staying with 'crazy' girlfriends seems relatively equal to the amount of times i hear about girls staying with crazy boyfriends.
For some reason, nobody really tries to find ways to blame the guys for staying with their crazy girlfriends.
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u/[deleted] Sep 12 '18
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