I’m spiralling
I keep finding myself getting upset over the life I chose. I love my son more than anything in this world—he is my everything—but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t struggling emotionally with how different my life turned out from what I imagined.
I’m technically with my son’s dad, but we don’t live together. My son is already 10 months old, and some days I get so frustrated because it doesn’t seem like his dad has any real intention of building a proper life with us. I feel lonely, sad, and sometimes wish I hadn’t chosen this situation for myself. We fight constantly and can never seem to see eye to eye. What makes it worse is that he tries to control me, yet at the same time, he doesn’t seem willing to fully commit to building a life together.
I’ve had countless conversations with him about it. He always blames his financial problems, losing jobs, being broke, or making bad financial decisions. But I’ve known him for three years, and nothing ever seems to change. It’s always the same story.
It’s gotten to the point where every time he tries to tell me something about our son, I immediately get triggered and snap at him. For example, he’ll call me and tell me what I should or shouldn’t be doing with our son, acting like he knows better than I do. I end up having a complete emotional meltdown—I curse him out, cry, lose my temper, and completely fall apart.
I don’t mind him giving me his input if he speaks to me respectfully. But it’s different when he calls acting like Father of the Year when he only sees our son once a week. When he was laid off, we spent every other week with him, but even then, it still didn’t feel like real commitment to me.
I think a huge part of my anxiety comes from the fact that I live with my mom, who is 72, and right now we share expenses, which helps me tremendously. But I can’t afford rent on my own. I constantly worry about what would happen to me and my son if something happened to my mother. I asked my son's dad directly if he would step up and help us if anything ever happened to her, because I'm extremely stressed and currently unemployed while on maternity leave until March of next year. He didn't even answer me. That told me everything I needed to know.
He also doesn't want me putting our son in daycare because he thinks our son should stay home, but I honestly feel like he has very little say in that when I'm the one who needs to figure out how to support us. What am I supposed to do for money until my son is in school full-time?
I've told him that I'm going to do what I need to do. Our son will likely have to go to daycare because I need to find employment, and I want to save as much money as possible while I still have a safety net.
My anxiety and depression have been hitting me really hard because I feel like, for lack of a better word, I completely screwed my life up. The life I imagined for myself isn't my reality, and I'm grieving that. But I also know I need to stop waiting for someone else to fix things and start figuring out how to create a stable future for myself and my son.
Please tell me I'm not crazy for feeling this way. I feel completely lost, disappointed, heartbroken, anxious, and incredibly sad.