Hello all,

At the behest of a friend of mine I am writing this post to get your honest feedback on my “situation”. I welcome all input and I do not get offended easily so feel free to “football in the groin” me. So here goes: For over a decade and a half, I was in relationship with my high school sweetheart. We got married and eventually we got divorced. No kids. It was completely amicable, there was no BS fighting about assets or anything. We essentially grew apart and went our separate ways. I left the city I was living in with my ex and moved to another city to pursue school and work.

After about 8 months of being single and being relatively promiscuous I met someone. For me it was love at first sight. She had everything that I wanted in a woman and the relationship was amazing for the first 6 months, so I moved in with her. She had a daughter who was 9 years old, but the father lived on the other side of the continent where he was not really involved in her life. I never thought of myself as someone who would date a single mother because I personally though it was messy and maybe I would not be able to relate to the child. However, it turned out that her daughter and I got along very well to the point that she called me “dad”. I tucked her in at night. Drove her to and from school each day. Made her lunches and did homework with her each night. I really loved her like my own child. I would have died for her. On an average day…the daughter and I spent about 5 hours together. Often significantly more than my GF did with her daughter. Being the rational individual that I am, my GF and I got pregnant. It wasn’t planned but it was reckless, so I have no one to blame but myself.

I noticed on several occasions following the pregnancy that my GF was being dishonest with me, she would constantly borrow money from me without paying me back and would have massive mood swings, often verbally abusing me in front of her daughter. I attributed a lot of this to the pregnancy and didn’t confront her as to not cause her any additional undue stress. By nature, I love debate and confrontation but, in this instance, I didn’t want to engage. 3 months later, we (GF, the daughter and myself) went on a short vacation together and we had a big fight over finances as it relates to the baby. I am fairly well off, but she was not. She had recently finished a length court battle with her ex for child support. I had no problems paying for things during our relationship as long as it didn’t get out of hand and there was some gratitude involved for sending her mom money, buying her daughter’s school uniforms (despite an annual income of about 60k she sent her daughter to private school, which I really respected), books and generally paying for all household expenses.

So here is where shit hits the fan:

We have this fight about how our arrangements are going to look when the baby arrives and I was wholeheartedly planning to marry her, so we can plan as adults to raise a family together. It turns into a big thing and she brings her daughter into it. I left the house and stayed at a friend’s house for a number of days, only to receive hateful e-mails and text messages. After about a week and half of being insulted daily, her and I met at a restaurant to discuss things only to be insulted in person and be jerked around for hours about the meeting place leading up to the meeting. I realized at that point we were not going to reconcile, and we should be planning to live apart, at least for the time being. My only ask was that I get some of my underwear and toiletries, but she refused to let me come over to pick them up. I had a key, but I didn’t want to go there without her consent. My parents and friends got involved and they recommended that I go there with the police to request things like my passport, tax returns and other essential documents. I went there specifically after her daughter went to bed (she had a nightlight that went off like clockwork when she was asleep), so she would not be exposed to the police and this atrocious situation. Believe me when I say…it took every measure to ensure her daughter was in bed and texted my GF that I was downstairs with the police to pick up my things. Guess who was standing at the foot of the stairs holding my toiletries 5 minutes later with sleep in her eyes. Her daughter! The police and my friend who accompanied me all said the words “disgusting” under their breath when it happened.

I ended up going to stay with my parents for the few weeks to get my head right, but I texted / e-mailed her every day to inquire about the baby and her health to occasional replies. A few weeks later, her friend called me to tell she had a miscarriage. She has an ulcer and a few other minor medical conditions that may have contributed to the miscarriage, but even now I blame myself. I got on a plane and went to take care of her, staying at a hotel nearby so as to not be in and out of her daughter’s life. That weekend her daughter went to stay with one of her friends and we decided to resume being together under the condition that she would go to the doctor and we would go to therapy together. Her daughter came home on the Monday after school and we were all back to being together.

A about a months passed as I tried to get her to go to see a GI, gynecologist and a therapist to help her with her health and the postpartum symptoms she was experiencing. She took time off work and I was left to take care of her daughter as started telling me she was suicidal. She spent most of the day in bed crying and sleeping. After a few days she was convinced that the only solution was to get pregnant again, but she had not been to a therapist or a doctor to determine the underlying cause of the miscarriage. I refused as she did not address her health as she said she would prior to us getting back together. She would argue with me and often do it in front of her daughter, so I really had no other choice but to leave again.

2 years have passed, and I have dated a quite a few women in the meantime, but I am still deeply in love with her. With my ex-wife it was almost like flicking a switch to “off” and I was over it. With my ex-GF its completely different and it has led to me often being depressed and disinterested in women all together. Recently she texted me that her mother passed away after her and I have not spoken in almost a year. I did not know her mother as she lived in another country. Why she texted me after a year to tell me that perplexes me? I can’t seem to get her out of my head and there is a dull ache that I attribute almost entirely to them not being in my life anymore.

I should wrap this up before I start to ramble…but thank you for your input / abuse / thoughts / recommendations.