More of a rant/personal gripe about being broke all the time. Posting this to communicate how hard this is for me. I understand that many other people have things far worse than I do, but it doesn’t diminish the pain I am feeling.

My (52m) ex (33f) has been dating the same guy for the last year or so. They are exclusive, and she has introduced our 6 yo daughter to him.

Apparently he is quite wealthy, as my daughter and her mom are often spending the weekend at his gigantic summer house in a well-to-do beach community in an exclusive area “down the shore” in NJ.

Conversely, when my ex left me I was just starting my cyber security career after attending grad school to get an MBA with a concentration of MIS. I make a just -slightly- below average income for someone at my experience level since I don’t yet have enough years of experience to get the certifications that would really boost my income (still need one more year).

That income that I did bring in has been severely hjacked, however, by student debt repayments and a rather high child support payment. Both of those payments come out post-tax, so it ends up being that I take home only JUST enough for bills, rent, and food. Almost nothing is left over after that, so I never go out to eat, cannot afford to see music or movies, and cannot travel to see friends or relatives, or even rent a cabin to go camping with my daughter or anything like that.

I don’t have fully split custody, I only get to have my daughter 4 or 5 nights a month, plus one extra dinner per week. I would love to have her more but I cannot afford a lawyer so I don’t see that happening any time soon.

Meanwhile my ex’s BF gets to see my daughter more than I do, is constantly buying her presents, taking her and her mother out to expensive meals, and taking my daughter to amusement parks and other attractions. These are all things I would love to be able to do for my daughter which I thought I would be doing with her, but cannot afford to do any of it.

I’m really glad my daughter is getting to experience those things, but then she starts comparing me and what I can do for her and the ex’s BF and I always come up looking like I don’t want to do those things with her and she gets upset. She’s only 6 so how can I even begin to tell her I’m doing what I can?

I know it doesn’t sound like much but I’m so frustrated and sad I can barely stand it. I work really hard and have nothing to show for it, and I can feel my daughter slipping through my fingers.