Hi all. Girlfriend left me and our daughter.

[Marauderrt10]

Hi everyone. My names Chris and I'm 25 years old. The last year has been very very rocky between me and my girlfriend. She cheated on me with her ex boyfriend shortly after we had our first child (she's one now) she cheated on me with him in December of last year and said some pretty mean and hateful things to him about me over text messages. So I took her to court to get custody of our child because she became alcoholic and somewhat psycho at some point (saying she will kill me and my family if I take her) Dumb mistake on my part she wanted to call it off and work things out with me, so we both agreed on a mutual understanding. Shortly after that I noticed she was being very secretive of her phone. So when she went to bed I looked at it and say she was talking to other guys and went so far as to go over one dudes house to watch movies with him. I confronted him and he knew nothing about me, she told him she was single. He has other issues with his family and shortly after he moved away. I gave her another chance just because we have a beautiful daughter and I don't want to to thru that crap again. Dumb on my part I guess. Everything after that point has been OK I guess till last Thursday, when she told me she is leaving me for a woman (she's bisexual) and that her and I don't really have anything in common and she's not sure what she wants. So she left and we've been talking on an off, and at some point she says she misses me and that she just needs space (her father is VERY controlling of her, her whole life) right now. So I haven't really been bothering her much besides the fact that I tell her I miss her, I love her, and that Our daughter and I will be here if you come back.

We have been together for 3 years and the first year was phenomenal, we had great sex the best ever actually (both of us said that) and right after she had the baby everything changed. Is she just suffering from post pardum depression and needs someone to fill the void? I work 40hr a week pay all the bills and buy her whatever she wants (she has expensive taste gucci bags, Chanel, Dior) all the expensive brands. She is now 21 but had the baby when she was 20. She still blames me for taking her to court and for making her a mother at the age of 20.

I am just having a very hard time with all this. I don't know if she's just doing this to make me super jealous. I do admit I probably could have been there more for her emotionally like she says I haven't been. But there are only so many hours in the day for me to do things when I'm not working.

I just need some advice if I'm doing the right thing by giving her another chance after all this? I really want to be with her and have our family last. I want to make sure I can do everything to keep me from pushing her away. What should I do?

 

[trashKENNUT]

Marauderrt10,

Sorry if this is straight to the point.

1)Take custody of your child but let her have visitation, often.

2)She is 21, she wants to explore but finds your money helpful.

3)Try not to take her to court, So you better cut things off or lessen it.

The thing is and you do have to make the decision yourself is that i have seen a lot of couples married early, religious or in-love couples married for three to five years and then end up going separate ways. Whether she loves you still, i do not know, but i do know that she wants to move on the next phase of her life, which is unfortunately exploring, since she is young. So i do not want you to blame yourself, nor do i want you to blame her for creating such drama so you can let her go.

this is not easy, especially with the legal issues, but yea...

Zac

 

[Marauderrt10]

So do you think she wants to move on with her life and never get back together? Is that what I should be doing?

 

[PinotNoir]

No, she's lost all of her chances. Cheating on you multiple times? Dump her ass and walk away. If she's living with you, tell her that she has 3 months to GTFO. But, stay friendly with her for the kid's sake. Is she better now about alcohol? If not, I'd try to get full custody if that will create a better environment for yourself and your daughter.

Don't let this get you bitter about women, and don't let it affect how you treat/raise your daughter.

Meet new women. Approach during the day, online dating sites, Tinder, whatever.

She has no respect for you as a man or as a person. Leave the situation. The past is the past.

 

[trashKENNUT]

Marauderrt10,

So do you think she wants to move on with her life and never get back together? Is that what I should be doing?

PinotNoir actually said one thing which is important, "Environment". As much as we care about people, and which in this case here, as much as you care about your daughter, IT would be my hypocrisy if i were to ask you to not give your girlfriend visitation while you bring new girls home. That's pretty much creating a bad environment too if you bring new girls home and your daughter wonders what the hell is going on.

But everyone has to live. So it's important that your girlfriend is allowed to visit your daughter because she needs her mummy, and to compensate you and your dating if you leave her.

Let your girlfriend go. I can only advice you. It's bad enough that she is struggling to get out of this entanglement, and she is already taking your money but it's another when things are already this bad. You can only make your own decision, because you in the relationship.

People do not usually like relationship advice, and i can tell you this.

Zac

 

[Marauderrt10]

Thank you both of you. I think her feelings stem far beyond my own at this point. Like I said he father is very controlling of her life. He is pretty much forcing her to do things by taking everything away from her, not letting her move back home etc. Every time she is in a good mood and he calls she instantly turns into a bitch for the rest of the day.

Could he be a contributing factor to everything? Not saying I'm going to get back together with her until I saw some Hail Mary type stuff coming out of her. But at least I know she does care. She messaged me today saying she wanted to see the baby, I politely asked her if she was still deciding to move out or not, the end of the month is coming and I'm not going to be living in a 2BR apartment if it's just going to be me living there (the baby stays at my mothers the days I work) so she got upset and said she's an emotional wreck right now and that she wants to be left alone. What does that exactly mean?

 

[Franco]

Marauder,

Could he be a contributing factor to everything? Not saying I'm going to get back together with her until I saw some Hail Mary type stuff coming out of her. But at least I know she does care. She messaged me today saying she wanted to see the baby, I politely asked her if she was still deciding to move out or not, the end of the month is coming and I'm not going to be living in a 2BR apartment if it's just going to be me living there (the baby stays at my mothers the days I work) so she got upset and said she's an emotional wreck right now and that she wants to be left alone. What does that exactly mean?

Not only does it sound like this girl is quite crazy in the head (lots of red flags that would have kept me far, far away from anything serious with her), but it also sounds like you set a lot of bad expectations with this relationship. But don't feel like you're inferior in some way for not noticing these things; LOTS of guys get sucked into unfortunate relationships with women like this. They have a way of keeping men around, even if the red flags are right in front of the guys. I cringed when I read this part, though:

I work 40hr a week pay all the bills and buy her whatever she wants (she has expensive taste gucci bags, Chanel, Dior) all the expensive brands. She is now 21 but had the baby when she was 20. She still blames me for taking her to court and for making her a mother at the age of 20.

You should never, EVER be buying women random gifts like this (especially expensive ones). You got stuck in the trap of becoming her provider (the guy she dotes off of for money and a place to live) instead of being the man she desires (who not only satisfies her sexually, but also wears the pants in the relationship by not letting her control you, your wallet, or your actions).

Given that you two ended up having a child together, I think Zac's advice is actually quite useful. You definitely need to distance yourself from this woman as much as possible, and the only times you should ever see her are when she wants to see her daughter. Beware though: every time she sees you, she might be wildly emotional (in either a sometimes seemingly positive but most often negative way) to try to get what she wants from you. It's up to you to set some pretty hard rules about where you two stand, and that you no longer give her money or provide her with financial assistance, and that her visits are simply to keep your daughter happy that she can see her mother.

In the meantime, you need to find a good babysitter for the weekends so that you have time to go out and meet new women. Don't let this young, inexperienced, and crazy-in-the-head girl suck the life out of you.

That's my advice. Hope it helps!

- Franco

 

[Marauderrt10]

Thank you for the very informative reply. I have already told her numerous times that she is not getting anything out of me since we aren't together anymore. I told her she is responsible for herself now. Her parents honestly want nothing to do with her anymore and I'm already past that point.

What I still don't get is she was nothing like this the year before we had our child. I don't know what happened but she is not the same woman I fell in love with.

 

[Franco]

Marauder,

What I still don't get is she was nothing like this the year before we had our child. I don't know what happened but she is not the same woman I fell in love with.

This can probably mostly be attributed to her youth and inexperience. You fell in love with this girl JUST before she hit the usual female period of "I want to go out and drink and meet guys and explore my sexuality" phase, which is obviously not a good time for a girl to be settling down. In the case of very religious girls, they are usually brainwashed enough to the point where they are happy with settling down very early, but I've often seen guys tend to break up with (or divorce) these girls after a short period of time since they are usually too "innocent" for them; it just takes the guys awhile to realize that.

I know girls like to claim (adamantly) that they are different, and one else is like them, but in reality, most girls are the same when it comes to men and relationships. A lot of them go through the same phases and emotions in their lives around the same periods of times, and it can mostly be attributed to the way society and the media has pushed us to follow the same paths as everyone else. Is it necessarily a bad thing? Only if you don't try to understand it and instead try to fight it. The best thing you can do is understand that there are almost always trends in people's behaviors based on their age and social experiences (which usually share a common trend).

Anyway, don't think about it too much. If anything, think about the fact that you discovered this side of her now rather than years down the road when things could have been much more difficult for the both of you (and especially your daughter).

- Franco

 

[Marauderrt10]

Marauder,

What I still don't get is she was nothing like this the year before we had our child. I don't know what happened but she is not the same woman I fell in love with.

This can probably mostly be attributed to her youth and inexperience. You fell in love with this girl JUST before she hit the usual female period of "I want to go out and drink and meet guys and explore my sexuality" phase, which is obviously not a good time for a girl to be settling down. In the case of very religious girls, they are usually brainwashed enough to the point where they are happy with settling down very early, but I've often seen guys tend to break up with (or divorce) these girls after a short period of time since they are usually too "innocent" for them; it just takes the guys awhile to realize that.

I know girls like to claim (adamantly) that they are different, and one else is like them, but in reality, most girls are the same when it comes to men and relationships. A lot of them go through the same phases and emotions in their lives around the same periods of times, and it can mostly be attributed to the way society and the media has pushed us to follow the same paths as everyone else. Is it necessarily a bad thing? Only if you don't try to understand it and instead try to fight it. The best thing you can do is understand that there are almost always trends in people's behaviors based on their age and social experiences (which usually share a common trend).

Anyway, don't think about it too much. If anything, think about the fact that you discovered this side of her now rather than years down the road when things could have been much more difficult for the both of you (and especially your daughter).

- Franco

your definitely right about that. I do know she is also depressed about the fact that someone else is giving her daughter a better life than she is (my mother) and that she can't really do much for her at the moment (she has no job) I find that response idiotic because there will always be someone out there who could give your children a better life than you. Bill gates obviously could give my child a better life than I ever could, but it has to do with much more than financial gains to make your child happy. I see that but I know she doesn't,

 

[trashKENNUT]

Marauderrt10,

Hopefully things are running slightly better. We try to help if possible.

Zac

 

[ray_zorse]

Just chiming in here from personal experience & from my research that helped me to come to terms w my own r'ship breakdown -- partners often go cold and become dismissive & controlling (refusing sex etc) or start to become verbally or even physically abusive just after having a child. Or to a lesser extent just after getting married, having 2nd child, buying a house or a business, etc. The reason they do this is because they were on best behaviour before. Once they have you "in the bag" so to speak, and you cannot escape, they do not have to put up the same level of effort to keep things sweet in order to control you. I highly recommend you read "the verbally abusive relationship" by patricia evans. I'd also recommend "emotional vampires" by alfred j bernstein (I'm going by my memory but pm me for details & further resources). Also do what everyone else said, it's sound advice. I personally couldn't avoid going go court & will be paying the lawyers for some years to come, but i'm glad i did, however it's an exhausting journey and usually is resolved by negotiation on the courthouse steps in any case, so it's best to simply negotiate without court or lawyers. also do a post separation parenting course, you won't regret it I am sure. cheers man, all will work out for the best

 

[Chase]

Chris-

The first year sounds like love bombing - see this article from Drexel:

Spotting (and Avoiding) Cluster B Women

With a woman who's borderline, the initial period is like heaven on Earth - she's head-over-heels in love with you, crazy about you, and brings you to a higher high than you've ever felt in your life before.

Then, as you become increasingly attached to her, she starts to become less and less warm toward you and more and more cutting and hurtful, insulting and demeaning, because the nature of a borderline individual is to feel desperate need toward those they aren't certain they "have", followed by disgust and disdain the more they feel like they "have" you and you aren't going anywhere. But if you start to pull away, they go into fear of abandonment mode and try everything in their power to win you back again. Then they get you back, you gradually settle back in and they start feeling like they "have" you again, and the happiness wears off and they start treating you progressively worse again.

BPD actually manifests more as a woman ages into her 20s - it might not manifest at all in her mid-teens, for instance, and by the time she's in her mid-20s she's in full-blown BPD crazy land. Most women who are BPD start to mellow out in their late 30s and early 40s, though if someone is BPD she is BPD for life.

These women are inveterate sex hounds and do not commit, though they will go crazy if they think that YOU are cheating on THEM as well. So long as the only ones cheating are them, it's okay, though.

Chances are, if you actually want her back, you don't need to do much aside from move on with your life while she's gone, and wait for her to come back again, because she will keep coming back every time she needs what you have or rebounds out of another "abusive" relationship (everyone is "abusive" to her - in fact, the other men she dates will hear about how "abusive" you were to her: how you forced her into motherhood, took her child away from her, whatever else she can charge you with).

I'd advise you to keep your daughter away from her, though, because BPD is a result of emotional trauma in early childhood, nearly always from a BPD parent. If you don't want your daughter acting like her mother, she needs a stable home, not a cluster B mommy. BPD parents also place their children invariably into one of two possible categories (since they are only capable of seeing the world in black and white): scapegoat, or golden child. Each category is debilitating for its own reasons, since the golden child grows up believing she can do no wrong and is utterly perfect, and gets slapped down by the world and probably never recovers once she's finally out of mommy's control and has to deal with a world that isn't nearly as impressed with her as mommy was; meanwhile, the scapegoat carries a lot of wounds from growing up with the knowledge that everything she does is wrong and her mother's suffering is completely her fault.

I'd also recommend Shari Schreiber's article intended for those who find themselves in perpetual giver / rescuer mode:

Do You Love to be Needed, or Need to be Loved?

Anyway, sorry you went through this; I know it's confusing and crazy and an emotional roller coaster ride, but once you realize you're attracting and attracted to people who are "broken", it's kind of an interesting journey to start investigating why that is that you are drawn to people like this, and what you need to do to fix it.

Chase

 

[trashKENNUT]

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