Bad breakup and custody issues, need advice on both.

[redsoxfan22]

Me and my girlfriend have a two year old son together, he is my jr. and loves his father, I do good to him, take him to every appointment necessary and raise him the right way. Me and his mother have had ongoing issues in the relationship and at times I stuck through it mostly to avoid custody battles, and partly because I love her (this is irrelevant now). The final straw came when her and my mother got into it and she disrespected her, she has since went out of her way to point out how I am a no good father and calling my mother every disrespectful term you can think of, I lost it and really cussed her out badly, she moved out and ran off with a girlfriend who brought her 2 hours away to who knows where. At the moment I am looking for a job and will get one soon, she has no job and is now in custody of our son (nothing is legal but physically). The only thing she has on me is that I have been arrested and am unemployed. I am in college while she is a HS dropout with no GED, my parents did so much for her and our son while her parents have never seen him, I study psychology and realize she has issues from her lack of parenting, issues that made it impossible for us to be happy together, it is sad because my mom was more of a mother than her own but she is a selfish person who will point out a few little things she does but ignore the major physical and financial help my mother provided, just about everything she says is an exaggeration on how nobody ever does anything, when its so far from the truth. She refuses to go to therapy and blames me for her problems, despite the fact that her parents did drugs, had molesters around her, and eventually lost custody of her, I fought hard as a teen to get her out of the state custody and to give her a good life and as an adult she denies it all (or brings out the few bad qualities I have).

So now I have only kept contact to see how he is doing and when and how I can see him, she is hinting at the idea of not letting me and his ONLY family (from my side) seeing him. On top of that calling me and my mother every cuss and derogatory term possible, again I dealt with this for 4 years mostly because I feel empathy for the fact she was raised poorly, and doesn't know better. But I am done with being put down and getting every good aspect of our relationship written off because she is a drama queen. All of these shows like Maury influence her into calling me a dead beat father and it is sad that our son has to suffer as he loves me and his grandparents.

I had him at a young age and I never regret such, but I highly regret having him with a troubled, uneducated, 'ghetto' woman. She would always use my things (car, tv, whatever) and make the biggest issue if I touched her own, she crashed my car and told me to get over it on Thanksgiving and it has been downhill since. I talk to her as communication is very important but she is very good at spinning my words and getting offended. She only knows how to yell when communicating because of how she grew up and has a limited vocab restricted to cuss, cuss, cuss. She knows how to instigate and get me to yell (and it takes hours, even weeks to get me to stoop there) and whenever I did she would focus on it despite the fact she lives by that lifestyle. I know I sound biased ranting about her bad qualities but I feel she has gotten away with many bad habits that I myself would admit and be willing to discuss, she refuses to discuss on her part making a one sided relationship. I am very scared that the courts will take her side as again she is a very good manipulator who can get people to believe she is perfect (the reason I fell for her in the first place) and I am the devil. She only enjoys negative company, people uneducated and ignorant as herself (reason she wasn't compatible with my family but still kisses her family's ass, yet they wouldn't care if she dropped dead) and I know she will rush to bring a man (or men) around my son and repeat the cycle she was in. She is very lazy and forces me to clean 90% of the time, sometimes refuses to put warm clothes on the kid because she has weight problems and is always hot (I live in MA where it is 20 degrees). She also will settle for giving him cookies and juice boxes (capri sun and kool-aid) over healthy food and good juice/water. (She has this issue herself but now will make him do the same.) Those issues are really tearing me up as I had to fight her over it here now and I quote her "I am free" so she will do as she pleases.

I really feel she is a good mother but a troubled person with psychological issues, I said to her face she was a good mom and I wouldn't run off with him but she does just that while saying I am the worst father ever. Sometimes I struggle with understanding if she realizes what she does by being negative and selfish, or if she is just poorly raised and imbalanced mentally causing her to not understand. The fact that she will kill me over spilling a drink on her shirt but laugh at her crashing my car (that I use to take our son everywhere) bothers me severely, I am recently broken up so sorry for the long rant, I needed someone who I didn't know to vent to and the internet does that well. I know I need a job and to go to court but any other advice or similar experiences to help me out? I have a long way to go finishing school and raising him and do not want to go crazy and lose my happiness in life, something that has been sucked dry for 4 years now.

[reeba]

Get ready for 16 more years of child support. And if you want to keep in contact with your child, prepare yourself for 16 more years of hell. There is absolutely nothing you can do.

What is done.... is done. Hope next time you have sex, that you wear a condom and put in an extra dab of spermicide for 'just in case'. People need to think a little more about the potential reprucussions of their actions. Sex sometimes has a very unwanted side effect - children, child support, and having to deal with the person who was just to be a fling for 18 years.

I don't know if being a psychologist/councelor is the best career choice for you. You tried to be the 'knight in shining armour' to this girl, and you wonder why she doesn't appreciate you. You can't save everyone, and you can't expect hugs and kisses all of the time.