AITA for being glad my ex isn't in my child's life.
My ex and I were together for 14 years, from a young age. During that time he cheated on me many times with different people, he hit me, gaslit me, guilt tripped me, threatened me, forced himself on me, tried guilting me into sex at age 11, blaming me for everything, I had to find out he was cheating instead of him telling me, I was kept a secret from his friends and family when he had other girls round or was cheating on me with a friend, got a girl pregnant while cheating on me, made me lose my self esteem and confidence, belittle me, got aggressive over small things, never let me make decisions, I had to ask his permission to do anything, hit me with objects including a laptop round my head, cheating on me was my fault, and many more things. These were all before I got pregnant. After I got pregnant, I told him that I had enough and left him, the baby was the kick in the butt I needed. During my pregnancy he kept asking me to meet up for sex, that I should take him back despite him having another 2 girlfriends (1 being the other baby mum). After baby was born, he kept using my child to guilt me into taking him back, he said I should let him move in with us and be a happy little family like he's always wanted, threatened to kill himself if I didnt take him back, said I clearly never loved him since I wont get back with him, saying his life is meaningless without me and im the love of his life, best thing to happen to him, he told me that his family knew aboit our child but they didn't and then he got angry at me for telling his mum, I asked him for child support and he got angry and said that he only would if I got back with him, threatened my child. When my child was 2, I found out that not only did he have a couple of girlfriends while I got pregnant but his other baby mum was 8 months pregnant with their second child when I got pregnant. As far as im aware her and her kids dont know about my child, even now. I have thought about telling her but when she found out he and I were still together after their first child was born, she got her friends to give me hassle and tried to bully me into leaving him and I dont know what he would do if I told her. He finally stopped when I went to the police aboit his harassment and told his mum that I would go to court to get child support, as far as she knew I didn't ask him for child support and that I got pregnant on purpose to screw him over. This is the same excuse he told me about his other baby mum. When he did contact me telling me to not take him to court and to retract my police report, he had the nerve to tell me that hes happy now and that im trying to ruin everything, etc. I honestly just wanted him to leave me alone and pay child support as it's the least he could do. So he spent almost 3 years trying to get me to take him back and getting angry at me for saying no despite having not only multiple girlfriends who didn't know about the others and having more kids with god knows how many other women. I cant 100% say he would abuse my child but I know for sure that he would've kept abusing me infront of my child, so I am glad that he's not in her life and hopefully never will be. I've had mixed opinions aboit this, some people understand why I'm glad but others have called me many things and think I'm being a terrible mum because of this. If my child does ask aboit him in the future, I will not lie to her but I will not stop her if she wants to find him.
Posted Oct 14, 2025, 12:45 PM UTC