(EDIT: Sorry for the wall of text. I just started typing with no structure.)

It's nearing my 5th kid's 2nd birthday and the woman I had it with is getting married soon.

I hit basic TRP tenets early in my very early 20s and living it. I'm in my mid-30s now. Back in the early 00s I hit it big during college, which I dropped out with some stupid internet idea that I helped build up (as a programmer) with a few business partners. We sold out, and my share was bought out for several million, and thankfully I left, because that company crashed and burned afterward... like so many dotbombs out there. My bank account is nothing outrageous but has been easily retireable since then and only grown.

Anyway, I had a steady girlfriend who I think I gained through honest means, and at the time she thought I was going to be a bajillionaire... I think she convinced herself that I was going to dump her ass and got herself pregnant. She said she was on the pill and then it "didn't work, honest." One of those things. She was trying to tie me down, I was a decent guy but marriage wasn't in the cards. I would have proposed but her friends had big mouths and ready to talk, reading between the lines, it seemed whenever she talked to them about the relationship, she was bragging more about the upcoming payday than any of my other qualities. (She thinks I'm much poorer now due to how the company faired).

Was with her for 3 years total (most pre-baby) before I decided to leave. Thankfully, whatever we had didn't count as common law marriage, and I just had to pay child support. With my modest wealth, it came out to way less than what I gaining in my stock portfolio each year. If I spent it on ferraris and shit, yeah, I would get poor fast, but I wasn't living off of it or buying that garbage. Vacationing is mostly boring to me and so I kept working.

And since I wasn't an world class programmer admittedly, I financed a small contracting firm with someone else as manager (don't want to put in boss hours, not for me) and me as an employee that can come and go as I please and more important get paid to stay fit, quasi, and not waste away in a chair like I see happen many.

Anyway, that relationship left me jaded and I bounced between women. At the age, I had the luxury to completely ignore single mothers, but with my cash and my area, I wasn't adverse, like my friends, to get someone pregnant. Raw dogging it was more fun and I could say no to committment easily and nicely - monthly child support was nothing to me at my income bracket. I didn't reveal my financial situation beyond having just a nicer car than usual for my age - low end new BMW in 20s, something better now. And I didn't like being tied down, so my apartments didn't scream money in the bank.

None the less, I had several relationships where the women tried to surprise me with a pregnancy, and were surprised when I would just offer child support. I didn't need to save money by making them my roommate (What savings really, though?) and proposing marriage or whatever committment they wanted.

To spare reading out my uninteresting love life, I have 5 kids by as many mothers. Didn't set out that way, but by the 2nd one, the arrangement suited me and I actually sought it. Spread my genes far and wide, that sort of thing.

What redpilled me were the women themselves and how they moved on. Please understand, none of these women are trailer trash or anything like that. Ones even religious. I didn't want cheap women because they bring drama and I hate drama.

Anyway, without fail, after our falling out or they got the clue I wasn't their uncle money bags and not interested in supporting them financially in any way, they'd find some dumb schlub to be their true love. We kept in contact and they even believe the true love angle themselves I think, trying to convince themselves of the narrative they spin out.

And yet. I don't have custody of the children obviously, but I come into their lives when I want, and I act and am treated like Santa Claus. Their stepdads are working their asses off, and I come in with a better gift, or I take them on a better vacation than anything they can provide. And the kids always recognize me as "Dad" despite their stepdad being there for them 24/7 and I might not see them for 3 months at a stretch.

Thing is, I never tell them no in person. If momma wants something for them long distance, like me paying for violin or piano lessons, I never say yes. Saves me a lot of money on stupid shit. But come Christmas or their birthday and I get them some high end yamaha (violin) or whatever and give it to them in person and they remember that. They don't remember their step-dad driving them everyday to practice or paying for the lessons themselves or putting up with recitals and all that. But they remember Dad giving them the best violin there was.

Or the best two weeks summer vacation down in Cancun when Step-dad could only afford to bring them to some local area waterpark. And yet in end effect Step-dad(s) had a way bigger time and cost investment in my spawn than I did. The poor saps. I just got invited to my daughter's Father/Daughter dance. Her stepdad can go if I "really can't make it." So yeah. And I don't get yelled at (by them) if I miss a birthday or recital or whatever and it makes the next one I come to that much more special for them. It's like the ultimate drawn out cuck situation for these men.

And it's revealed in other ways. It comes out either quite explicitly or just in gestures that the mothers' favorite kid is the one she had with me quite frequently. My first two women were non-career, so they had 1-2 more kids after me, pondering a 3rd. The others were more career women, at first, and they'd only have one more with their new husband "to make him happy" or some other lackluster phrase.

3 of the 5 also cheated on their husbands with me again and it didn't take years of marriage either. #4 was willing but the way she let herself go doesn't do anything for me. 2 of them even went on vacation with me years later on, on the excuse to their husbands that they wanted to watch over their kid. Afterall, I was "the jerk" who "abandoned" them and that type of stuff, I wasn't a threat although they never seem happy when I'm around. The wive's even got the husbands to finance it because I wouldn't. Again, poor schlubs. I feel for them. It's obvious I got action from their wives they didn't.

And it helps with new women I meet. Seriously. I'm "such a great dad" I've been told. In truth, I invest very little. But women like the mirage their seeing, as long as I don't hit them with the exact number I knocked up. I'm seemingly providing and that's all that matters.

But for all this, I'm really dreading the future. I think I would have been happier with one woman and a really big family. You know, when I get old and people to take care of me and the other way around, a devoted woman at my side. But the way people throw their old folks in a nursing home and such, I don't think this culture produces people with such values. Too quaint. And my own kids I think would abandon me if I ever turn out to be less than Santa.

Idk if it could have turned out any other way. I don't really know every tenet of the red pill, I'm sure I don't agree with every single one, but based on my experience, I think it's an indictment of the human spirit once basic survival is met and all needs fed and the soul turns toward navigating sheer luxuries and vice while being starved of substance. Or humans were always this way. No clue.

It's a bit sad tbh but my situation is a lot better than those other guys doing my work for me. Challenge my view, I guess. Or analyze my experience a different way I am.

EDIT2 TLDR:

First 2 relationships fell through before marriage but after getting pregnant/giving birth. Became financially independent halfway through the first so I didn't mind knocking up women (I'm weird) and just paying child support with no other long term support. Had 3 more kids with others likewise. I get to come and go, and yet sporadically act as superdad to my kids, affording them better stuff/adventures than their later always available stepdads. Most of the wives have cheated on their husbands for me again. Ultimately, it doesn't make me happy and I dream of a traditional big family, but I feel better off than the poor schmucks married to my baby mommas. TRPish but not overly proud.