TLDR: I have both the proof that marriage and kids is a good AND a bad idea. My mother and my father got me but they fought over money and custody and kinda made my childhood a little like hell. Meanwhile, my father successfully built a familly with his wife (my step-mom) and got my brother and we are now a loving familly. Its hard to discard the belief that marriage and raising kids is a good idea when thats exactly what I want in life.

Disclaimer: I do not speak nor write english perfectly so please no comments about that.

I am in my early twenties. I live in Canada. I was raised partly by a single mother and a father that eventually (when I was three years old) met my current step-mom. Both eventually got married, decided to bring my little brother in this world (I consider him to be my brother since we are both very close and I never liked the idea of not being "fully" brothers). They seem to be very happy. Here's my story and why I think the way I think.

My mom is an incredibly energetic and passionnate person but she is also diagnosed with a borderline personnality disorder. My mom, at some point, wanted a child and my father always knew he wanted one too so he gave her a child, me.

The shit show started.

I'll spare you the details but long-story short: they both went many times in court to fight for custody, money, medication (had a severe eczema problem), and other bullshit I forgot about. My mother raised me saying my dad was a complete asshole, manipulator, traitor, and narcissist son of a bitch. From the time I started to communicate with my mother (4-5yo) to my teenage years, I heard this story over and over again. She printed a horrible image of my father and my step-mother in my head, and it'll take a lot of time to scrape it off. The older I got, the wiser I was and I, unsuprisingly, realised my mother was a the one true manipulative bitch.

All this has partly destroyed many good moments and memories of my childhood and has also put a lot of pressure on my relationship with my father, my step-mother and my brother (although my brother was spared of all this shit because I love this little boy and will love him all my life and even kill for him if I have to).

Now we get to the point I want to talk about: marriage.

My father met my step-mother when I was 3yo. My father told me he never believed in true love and that marriage was a load of bullshit. Lmao. He got married 5 years into their relationship, I almost missed the wedding because of my mother's bullshit excuses. My brother saw the light about 6 months later, so yeah he was at the wedding too in some way. Now they've bought a chalet, they've almost paid their house, they're planning multiple projects, and yeah they fight sometimes like everyone does, but they talk and they solve things and even if, I guess, things gets sour, they're always there for each other.

One day I had a discussion with him: -Hey dad! Why did you decided to get married if you did'nt believe in true love and marriage. -Because your step-mother stuck with me when all the crap and bullshit of custody and money with your mom was going on. She knew in what kind of situation she had put herself into, well not really but still, she raised you like you were her son. She was there when things got tough.

He then said something that is now stuck in my head and bugs me:)

-I am the luckiest man alive. I still think marriage is bullshit. Its a fucking miracle that I found her. If you have the chance one day to find someone like her, keep her and never let her go.

So here I am, wondering if its a good idea to raise a child with a potential fucked-up women like my mother was, while still constantly having the proof that it might be possible to build a familly like the one I have the chance to be in right now.

I always wanted to have a child. It's not that I don't trust myself for being a good father, because I know damn well I'll be a fucking super-hero, I just know I will always have this fear to give my sperm to a woman that might eventually change for the worse and end up destroying one of my goals, if not my ultimate goal in life: building a loving familly, spared of all the bullshit I endured in my childhood because of my mom.