Your Baby’s Father (and mine)

I know every relationship is different, but I feel like I made a mistake with mine. My daughter’s father and I met in the 7th grade. By 8th grade I felt this sort of connection with him, and it went all throughout high school. He was different, you could tell he dealt with a lot of problems, possibly at home. I felt this need to help him, and I guess that’s the first part where I went wrong. I wanted to make him happy and I did feel love for him. 10th grade was when we started our actual relationship. I was ecstatic. I loved his smile and his sense of humor and just seeing him happy made my heart flutter. Of course every relationship has its up and downs. Our downs began with trust issues when I caught him in his first lie (and about a girl, how fantastic for that to happen in your teenage years huh?) I still stayed with him. Because I wanted to be with him. Fast-forward a few months, he brought up sex. I’ve always wanted to wait until marriage because of my religion and because it seemed like the ideal thing to do. He basically pressured me, and that was a flag I missed. After the first time, he didn’t really have to pressure me about it since I thought “Well I already did it once, why not continue if it makes him happy.” He isn’t religious, but still he said that for our marriage he would be willing to get baptized (if that even made a difference) and I thought to myself “Wow, he’s willing to do anything to be with me.” We always talked about marriage before I fell pregnant, so when I did get pregnant I automatically told him that I wanted to be married before I had our baby. Again, as if that would make a difference *big eyeroll at myself.* So we got married. He didn’t get baptized, which I didn’t really expect him too anyways. When you get married, it’s a commitment, you work through everything life throws at you. In between our marriage and now, there have been more lies and actions that have caused me to lose more trust.  His actions recently caused him to get kicked out of the house (since we lived at my parents) and since then we’ve still had problems and have solved some. But currently, I don’t even feel loved anymore. The feeling is gone. There is no effort being put in to see me. He sees our daughter simply because he has t watch her while I go to school. But that’s really it. I’m not happy in this “relationship” if it can even be called that. I’m coming second to friends and drinking along with my daughter. And it’s the most depressing thing I could go through.

So let me end this post by saying, no matter how deep in love you think you are with your significant other, don’t be so quick to marry them. People change, feelings change, priorities change. Give yourself time. Find yourself first, and when your significant other finds themselves, then decide if who they become is who you want to be with. Your child does not need you and your significant other to be together. As a child of two parents who always fought, I can say that I would’ve rather had my parents separated and happy instead of together and miserable.

If any mama’s are going through tough times whether it be in your relationship or some other problem, remember to stay strong.

-K