aqua mama seeks advice over baby daddy drams with aries

oi. short version, or at least an attempt:

me: aqua sun, cancer moon, leo rising

him: aries sun, aqua moon, libra rising

our relationship started as work, he hired me to help run his business...my life was imploding, we became friends, i moved in with him then we became best friends, people called us husband and wife, we got called out on our sexual tension a bunch but it was strictly platonic except for the heaps and heaps of tension. a year and a half in, boom, huge fight (he randomly went off on me over not knowing where a restaurant was and it just escalated till i had him drop me off), no contact for six months. i was heartbroken, missed him so so so much. started talking again but never really mended over the fight or understood what it was really about, we started being initmate a couple weeks later, i was pregnant within two months, had big plans to raise our baby together then things started to deteriorate. i thought we were taking it slow, giving each other space to work through things, turns out he had gotten with another woman, a mutual friend who he'd known since before he'd even met me. i found out when i was six months pregnant and stopped by to talk about the baby, she was there at 7am, in his bed.

i was HEARTBROKEN and HUMILIATED. the fact that he had gotten with someone else didn't sting nearly as bad as finding out it was someone i considered my friend, someone i'd been confiding in, and that neither of them thought fit to effing tell me about it. the rage, sadness, embarassment...not to mention being pregnant to the gills and alone. just writing about it still gets me feeling fiery, and i have to admit, i'm more upset with her than i am with him. he and i have a lot of history as friends, and he's the father of my child, she and i were just forging a friendship, and i'll likely never trust her again. i think very little of her, as a person. she never thought to apologize but messaged me after my son was born to tell me what a great mom she thought i was gonna be...and this is one of the people who used to call us husband and wife so, to my mind, she's either heartless, a total idiot or both.

so blah blah blah, it's been tough. i was an emotional wreck, i cried constantly, took to social media and outed them, moved across the country to have my baby because i was too depressed and ashamed to stay nearby them and i needed the help of family and friends. in the course of trying to manage things with my baby's father, things just got worse and worse. and i admit, i went off on him several times...but i would kinda expect that if i were him, and to my defense, i was hormonal af, i'd been deceived by people i really cared about, i apologized and i've done my best to be kind to him since. he got sick and had to be hospitalized, i expressed concern & offered him advice, he lost his driver's license (again), i keep a copy (because he's always losing it) and sent him a scan. whenever he's wanted to see his son, i've let him. a lot of our friends had trash to talk about him, i don't allow any of it around my son and even stopped talking to friends who like to speak ill of him. i'm not perfect, but i've tried really hard to be as fair and kind as possible. really hard.

as for him, i know he loves his son and i believe in my heart that he still cares about me. aside from spilling my heart online (about a relationship that was bound to come out anyway), i haven't wronged him. he's been financially supportive but it's consistently late, he seldom communicates and has only seen our son like...4 times in 14 months. he served me with custody papers, i got a lawyer and went through this massive emotional turmoil, then he emails me that he doesn't actually want to go to court, and hasn't tried to see his son since.

okay.

so i miss the hell out of my friend. i was super attracted to him physically and he expressed a mutal attraction to me, he made the first move when we became physical, but he was always closed off sexually and...not very tender or passionate, which surprised me because he was very much both when we were friends. he said i was the only reason he could stay sane, because he had someone to talk to, and we had plans to buy land and build a home together. he saved me when i was at my worst, we shared a home, we worked and travelled together. when i first got pregnant he even told a mutual friend that he was excited to have another child with me down the line. so i dunno. when we starting sleeping together, he shut down in a certain way and even startd being kind of mean, i can't explain it. and i shut down too, i got really depressed because the eay he treated me hurt and didn't make sense...i could tell we were going south and i didn't know how to help it. we pulled it together a little bit but when he told his mom (also an aries, used to love me but then we had a falling out) that we were pregnant she was super upset about it and berated him for two hours about how he'd ruined his life and how i was unfit to be a mom because i have a history of depression (of course she loves the baby now and acts like a total kiss ass to me). after that, he came home super depressed and started being a dick. all downhill from there.

i'm tired. i've been raising our son alone for the past year and i'm exhausted, physically, emotionally. thinking we were gonna see each other in court over our son broke my heart anew, and i told him that, that i was let down by both of us that we couldn't do better. i don't know how things are with his girlfriend, but he wrote to me that he has almost no joy in his life and that one thing that brings him joy is the idea of me being happy. that struck me as odd, considering how gung ho he was about his lady friend, enough so to move her into his place behind my back and warn me to "never compare" myself to her because she's so great.

so. i've tried. i email him photos and videos of our son regularly, so that he can see or boy is doing well, and a regular budget. i work but not nearly enough to support myself and the boy on my own. he's got deep pockets and he used to be really free with money, claiming he would always hold us down. recently he's been flip flopping, paying less, paying late, and he still doesn't see the boy, which breaks my heart because i know he loves him deeply and i want my son to have his father. me, if you can't tell, i'm good with words, and i've poured my heart out so many times i have nothing left to say (and perhaps going silent would help?). in all honesty, i'd like to try again with him, not only so that my son can have a home with both his parents, but for me, so i can have emotional and physical support, and for him, so that he can be with his son, and i can help him learn to be a parent. our relationship was weird, we were domestic before we were ever a couple and we definitlely had issues...but we know each other very well, there is a lot of love between us and wholisticly, it was the best relationship i've ever had. i still love him a lot, even with all the pain. i'm an amazing mom, and i think the fact that i've done such a good job so far makes him feel...like...animosity towards me, not to mention his guilt about his own actions and upset with me for putting our business online. i've apologized, i meant it, i keep our private stuff private now, i didn't tell anyone about the custody stuff...i'm doing my best to smooth things...but i dunno. it seems like nothing helps, like his ego is so wounded he refuses to engage at all, even for the sake of his son, excpept to start more trouble by filing paperwork on me when he didn't even mean it...

so. advice, please. i'm not so broken up about him getting with someone else, like i said, he and i have history, we know each other's families, we have mutual friends...and honestly, i don't have high expectations for his relationship with homegirl 'cause she's like...a repeat of one of his exes and an obvious rebound. i think he got with her out of convenience and to fill a void, and maybe that's just the hater in me talking but based on what i know of him and the fact that she had no expressed interest in being with him till he'd gotten me pregnant, that's my read. i know that what goes down between me, him and our son has only very little to do with her. i know he loves his son, he was there for the birth and the way he held our boy was the tenderest thing i'd ever seen, he didn't even wanna give the baby back so he could go use the bathroom. i think he stays away out of fear and self-doubt. i also know it's up to him, to decide to be decent to me as a co-parent and present for his child. i've done my best to make that easy for him, but eh, nothing i've done seems to help, and i'm sure my leftover hurt and resentment has something to do with it. i cannot change him or force him, i'm just looking for what i can or should do, because it seems like everything i've tried has either done nothing or totally worked against me. so yeah, thanks for reading and any advice would be so greatly and deeply appreciated. best to you all.

It does sound like he got really freaking scared and ran. That's what it sounds like to me, and now he probably feels like shit about it, and thinks he can't fix it. Or he is just a major dick. I don't know which. It also sounds like he listens too much to his mom, and that probably doesn't help his head either. Maybe try to express to him that this can be fixed if you really want him back. That it is up to him.

Just for the record, just because you've gone through depression doesn't make you any less worthy. Don't let any of that go to your head. That's the kind of crap that causes depression in the first place. 🙂

As an Aries myself, our mom's our usually really important to us. So it's a tough one. I take my mom's advice, but I always do my own thing. She never tells me what to do, just to follow my heart. So it's important to tread carefully here because family is really important to an Aries. One of the worst things a person can do is insult or threaten our families in anyway. We have to figure out their flaws ourselves as no parent or person is perfect.

thank you, i appreciate your response. dealing with the situation has been really...hard. really hard. i dediced to stop trying, after i posted this message, and just do my best to go about my life without concerning myself with him anymore. it's odd to me, being this way with someone for whom i used to have so much comfort and understanding. but i have to accept him, and the situation at hand...nothing can be forced...