Extended burnout after the fact
Sorry about the long post, I just need to vent. And figured maybe this would be a good story to balk at for people.
I (34F) and my ex (42M) divorced a few years ago. We met when I was 22 and he didn't have his daughter with him, she was living with his sister in a different state while he got "settled". Her BM wasn't involved at all- had a history of sending her back after a few months the couple times she decided to take over custody. Multiple felonies including child endangerment. Long story short: When I was 24 she moved in with us full time and was 8 years old.
I didn't know what I was signing up for of course, but I definitely didn't think that I would become the defacto parent when this happened. I don't mean that I was involved in decisions, I mean that my ex almost immediately upon getting custody started backing off and would field decisions regarding SD through me. Both physically and mentally he proceeded to remove himself from parenting over the course of a few years. Including signing up for a shift that was at night and on the weekends- until I was doing anything that even smelled like parenting.
I made the appointments, I signed the forms, I went to the appointments, I did the school shopping. I knew the friends and their parents, I helped with the homework and projects. Cared for her when she was sick. Funded hobbies and clothes and did all the Christmas shopping. When I say *anything* that looks like parenting I mean it.
I was so sucked into basically being a single parent that worked 45 hours a week that by the time I had a moment to breathe and look at my situation SD was 13 and I was approaching 30. I couldn't tell you where the time went. I don't think any parent can.
In the wake of massively unaffordable rent hikes in TX post-covid that shot us up an extra $700/m, we had moved into a house in OR that I had, alone, gotten us into. It had belonged to my grandparents before Grandpa passed and it sat empty for a year while Grandma stayed in a home. It needed work but it was better than being homeless and Grandma needed rent $for the house.
Ex had grown into being angry and loud before, and SD had vocalized it to both of us that his outbursts scared her. Which killed me because my dad did the exact same shit- but no amount of discussion about this with my ex solved anything. But he grew to be violent with objects- not people- around the time we were prepping to move into the new house. Broken door and window from throwing and punching. I wanted out right then, but couldn't force myself to leave behind a scared child with no other obvious options for a parent. So I sucked it up (yeah yeah I know)
Time flew. About a year after we moved to OR, and around my 31st birthday: my ex pulled me aside and asked to break up. I was baffled, but not saddened, because I had asked him maybe three months before if he wanted to break up, because that's where I was at (I'd been having a bad episode of anger on my end where I ended up yelling very very loudly at him about being taken advantage of) and he'd said no. Not at all. [Insert generic I can change speech] and I'd agreed we would make one more effort.
But I wanted out, and getting broken up with by my ex, and SD was 16. So I agreed that yes, this relationship was over and not worth trying to save. Then he asked for time to figure out a living situation for both of them. I said okay. He would proceed not to even tell SD about the breakup (and ask me to also wait) for ALMOST 5 MONTHS. Much less looking and saving for a place. Please note that man makes a little over twice as much as me.
By the 9-10 month mark post breakup, I'd met someone. And we dated for about 8 months before I finally broke and opted to move out... Of my own home. since I couldn't get my ex to leave. So I moved in with my new beau. And went as NC with ex as I could unless there was an emergency with SD. This was a mistake. I've been living with my boyfriend for 9 months now.
My ex STILL thinks I'm the defacto parent. After years of discussions with him about his present absence in his own daughter's life. I had to call the school to tell them to take me off of her file and to add her dad like 3 months after I moved. Turns out he'd never signed up for any of the school emails or emergency contacts. They had contacted me because she had missed so much school they were about to auto fail her.
That's the history. The real vent is:
My ex called me last weekend to do 2 things:
ask for money and to borrow my car...... Because he wrecked his truck. To which I said no, we use my car, and I need whatever money I can get to pay back the $3k debt to the old apartment from the damage he did to it. (I'm paying because they got to me after being denied by the other two. Neither my ex or our old roommate were willing to pay.)
to let me know that he added me back into SD's contact list at school because he was moving an hour and a half away but SD was going to live with her friend for the last year of HS.
Which means that less than a year after I left, he decided to leave his daughter with a friend because I was close by and so "she has another parent nearby it should be fine." This is exactly how SD's BM operates as well. So I rudely suggested I saw this coming because neither of SD's biological parents seem to have any interest in housing and raising their own child.
I'm livid. I'm trying to start over at 34. I spent my 20's raising someone else's child and now in my thirties I'm spent. I'm autistic, and ADHD, and the decade of my life being taken advantage of, spoken down to or about, and putting myself aside has severely impacted me in ways that are only now becoming an issue. My ability to handle stress is shit now that I've had a few months to experience calm. I'm always anxious. I can't sit down. I feel guilty if I take more than an afternoon for myself.
I'm out, but not out enough, and I'm so. So tired. I love SD but if I could tell my younger self not to get involved, I'd do it in a heartbeat.