Why I'm getting separated, and why I need help.
Before we get into too much of this, I want to get a few important things out of the way first.
- While Chris and I are getting divorced and this is a less than pleasant thing to post and share, I need people to understand that my goal here isn't to "cancel" my Ex Wife. I don't want to close opportunities for her or make people choose one side or the other. I'm merely explaining what's been going on for the past nearly 6 years and why I've come to the conclusion that I did, and why I need help going forward.
- Unless you're a close, personal friend of mine, I don't want to hear your opinion on the situation or what I should do going forward. I have been called some pretty awful things by people unaware of the situation as a whole, only getting sparse details from one side of what's going on and I don't really need people telling me I'm an awful person when I'm very much a victim here, along with my son.
- Should I find people are harassing me or my ex over this, I will make sure you're firmly removed from my community and highly suggest other friends do the same if you find it appropriate to make an already difficult situation harder than it needs to be.
I’ve tried writing this out several times, but I always wind up just rambling with no structure or meaning, so I’m going to break this down into a few categories and try to keep subjects to just that topic until I’m ready to move on to the next.
Manipulation.
Back in 2018, shortly after Chris and I got together, we had a sit down to talk about more serious things regarding our relationship, things we want to accomplish, life goals, etc. She mentioned she wanted to have kids someday, and I very much did not. She got really, really sad, and when she left after coming out to visit, she said it was the only thing about me she had found that she didn’t like. I mentioned that there was a chance that could change one day, but I had to get myself sorted out and stable before I had a kid. Little did I know, this was the worst thing I could have said. When it comes to Chris, if you don’t give her a definite “no,” she will relentlessly pursue what she wants until you change your mind. For example; there was a time where she wanted a pet spider, and I’m extremely arachnophobic. I agreed to having one as a joke mostly because when she mentioned a specific kind of spider she wanted, I didn’t realize that it /was/ a spider she was talking about. But because I said yes, she wouldn’t let the topic go. She’d keep bringing it up over and over and it took me begging her, crying, to stop mentioning having the spider. She would constantly try to barter with me on it, saying she’d keep it where I’d never see it. But that would only make things worse, because if I ever felt like something was crawling on me I’d assume it was the spider and freak out. After that she never brought it up again, but this went on for like a year. She did the very same thing about having a baby, because I said “there’s a chance I will change my mind.” The entire almost 6 years of our relationship, she’d constantly bring up a baby, wanting one, stopping testosterone so she could have the baby, talking about how “I’d be a great father,” etc. It never stopped. Now for context, I have Bipolar Disorder, and as such I have manic episodes where I’ll do things without thinking about long term consequences. For example, I bought a car while on a temp job that was paying really well, and as such I got approved for a monthly payment that, after I lost that job, I couldn’t keep up with anymore. Something similar happened with the baby situation, where I said “sure, let’s have one” after we got married, while in a manic state. I had a really cushy job at the time (that was again, temp.) and we were moving into a house with her other partner at the time, Kosmo, moving in with us soon, who was more than willing to help take care of the baby. So, Chris gets pregnant shortly after I was let go of said job, just after we moved into a new house, and my mental health was on the downswing. This news pushed me into the biggest depressive episode I’ve ever been in. I felt hopeless, like a failure, and that I was doing the same thing my parents had done, which is bring a child into the world before they were ready to take care of them. I had no job, my mental health was at an all time low, and all I wanted was to just not exist anymore. I couldn’t stream as much anymore, because there were several times I broke down crying on stream due to the stress. Chris was…aware I was in a manic state. She knew I wasn’t in the state of mind to be making decisions like that. But she wanted a baby so bad so she just sprung on the chance before I came to my senses. Even now with us splitting up, she's been saying things like "I've been seeing this coming for a year" but just let things continue to happen.
What's worse is that she's involved two other people in this mess for equally manipulative reasons. For context going forward Chris and I were poly with multiple partners.
First there's Dan, he just turned 20, Chris will be 27 in September. They started dating a couple months after Dan turned 18. Think about that what you will, I find it very strange personally, but their relationship seemed harmless enough at the time so I didn't think much of it. Dan lived in the middle of Tennessee, with his family being full of your typical bigots. So when he said he was leaving to move to Minnesota with his girlfriend, they called him a pedophile and disowned him. So now that Dan has moved out here, he's been largely shouldered with taking care of the baby, and reminder; he's 20, with limited life experience and 0 prior experience in baby care. Chris will often pass him off to Dan when she's having an off day leaving Dan watching the baby a solid 70% of the time. Again, Dan is 20. He's being stripped of the ability to live his life to the fullest because his girlfriend can't handle the responsibility of a child she wanted so badly.
I'm sure you're wondering why I don't watch the baby more often, and the problem is, doing so gives me panic attacks and I don't know what I'm doing. I would still buy things like diapers, clothes and formula for him, but I can't stomach simple things like changing diapers no matter how much exposure therapy I subject myself to. I'm fully 100% aware that I am not capable of taking care of the baby in any capacity and would rather he be in the care of someone that I can trust to ensure his basic needs are met. I love him, but I am not ready for this, and I am not going to make him suffer because I won't admit to myself that I'm not currently ready to raise a child. This was all stuff I
knew was going to happen, and told Chris all of it, and she just would reply "I think you need to have more faith in yourself, I think you'll be a great father. Plus, I'll do all the taking care of him, I'm ready for this."
This was just more bartering and manipulation to try to convince me to have a baby with her, and as you'll see later, she wasn't as ready as she thought she was.
But now we move onto Kosmo, who was Chris's childhood best friend and at the time another partner. Kosmo was given this metaphorical picture of a family by Chris, and a lot of it was based off of one big lie and again, more manipulation. Kosmo moved out here under the pretense that we would all be one big happy happy family, but it turns out, Chris was leading him along and never had romantic feelings for him. Chris's hope was that those feelings would eventually turn romantic, but they never truly did. Chris had him put down over $4k down to secure our house with the intention of paying him back with our tax return, which after the IRS reviewed it, was less than half of what we were supposed to get. So she swindled Kosmo out of his money, moved him out away from his family and friends, all under this lie that she was in love with him.
This is kind of similar to what she's done to me. Had me push away family and friends she didn't like, sucked me dry of my money, all so she can continue to chase this delusional idea of a "happy family."
Negligence/Incompetence
Anyone that has ever lived around Chris for an extended period of time will tell you she's messy, and a klutz, constantly breaking things and making a general mess. This isn't anything terrible in a vacuum, but when it comes to having a kid, these things can be a legitimate danger to the baby. Kosmo and I will often spend a while cleaning up the kitchen/living room, and more often than not,
a day or two later it will look like this, and stay that way for weeks until we say something about it or clean it up ourselves. This has always been an issue with Chris, but lately it's gotten so bad that things like rotten fruit will sit on the table for days until it turns moldy, and with a kid in the mix, that's just plain unacceptable. Then there's the issue with Chris not tending to the baby's needs or actively putting him in danger. Riley went without getting his shots for 6 months (or a doctor's visit
period.) because Chris failed to renew her tags and got her van towed not too long after Riley was born.
Riley also had a skin condition that got this bad, before we urged Chris to finally take him to the doctor to figure out what was going on, even paying for the Uber ride there. Then there was a night where she screamed "WHY!?" in the room with the baby because she couldn't get him to go to sleep. Kos and I intervened and took over because Chris was no longer in a mental state where she could watch the baby. This same night, Chris spiraled into a suicidal state where she had to go to the hospital. She was lashing out at Kosmo while Kosmo was trying to get Chris to calm down and get her to the hospital, saying things like "you're awful at this" and "it makes me hate you" right in Kos's face.
After that, because of more negligence, the power to our place got shut off because Chris neglected to pay her portion of the electric bill,
for months. It came down to Kosmo and I to figure out what to do to get it back on, and after that, neither of us got any thanks after Kosmo basically used his entire paycheck to get the electricity back on. Chris is in debt to Kosmo thousands of dollars and is making no effort to pay it back as of writing this because of consistently poor financial decisions. I owe the IRS $4k because Chris filed our taxes incorrectly. When the van got towed away in the winter, our marriage certificate, Riley's social security card, and god knows what else was in it. We told Chris the police were looking at the van and it was probably about to get towed away, and she should probably get everything out of it before it goes. She didn't because she didn't think there was anything of value in there and just let it all go. My license is expired now because I don't have the paperwork necessary to get it renewed and now we've been without any kind of vehicle for well over half a year now.
I could go on and on with how Chris has screwed me, Kosmo, and several others over with how incapable of being an adult she is, but I feel like the point is well made at this point. Now bring the baby into the picture, and there's been multiple times already he's run out of formula, clean clothes, and the prolonged times he's gone without seeing a doctor of any kind while under her care, and to me it's quite obvious why she's not ready to be a parent in the slightest. Which is why I need help raising funds to make sure my son is in a stable environment where he'll be safe and healthy, which he isn't getting right now.
TW; Abuse
Chris is an abusive partner. I hate stating that so bluntly because at the end of the day, I still love her and I probably always will, but her way of making sure she always gets what she wants, by any and all means necessary, lead to one of the most fucked up things anyone has ever done to me.
One day, I stay home from work. I hated whatever job it was at the time with a large degree and no called no showed. This particular place fired me on the spot obviously and it lead to me feeling like there was no hope for me. I hated life, hated it as a concept, and more than anything hated trying to make it in a world that had so thoroughly screwed me over from birth. I was done, ready to give up and end it all. Chris was talking to me and eventually, in her words,
"gave me permission to kill myself." She was ready to let me commit suicide, because of how much pain it put her through to see me like that. Luckily, because of how fucked up my brain is, her effectively giving up on me was…somehow the push I needed to try to get my shit together? It was a turning point in my life, but it wasn't until recently how I realized…just how fucked up this all was. How so many aspects of our relationship was her trying to control me, make me who she wanted me to be, and now I'm more lost on my self identity now than I've ever been. My life has been so thoroughly tied to Chris's for six years, I've bounced back and forth between whether or not I wanted to go through with this. I've tried making amends with Chris, saying I want to try to work this out, only for her to immediately go back to not even trying like things aren't falling apart.
There's also the fact that Riley is in danger too. He's not safe with Chris or Dan. Dan has done many things to put Riley at risk without thinking about it, and even saying things like "I'll kill you" as a joke to the baby as if there's no consequence to saying something like that to a child. He needs someone that can take care of him, make sure his needs are met, and not put him in any danger.
I need out. I want out. I want to be somewhere stable again so I can fix myself and get myself to a point where I can take care of my own son. But I can't do that here. Literally this past week Chris quit her job without any sort of backup plan, and didn't properly communicate that to the rest of the house. Kos and I are drowning in debt because of their lack of responsibility towards being an adult/being a parent.
If you read this far, I appreciate your time more than you know. Please understand my goal here isn't to 'cancel' Chris but to help people understand what I've been through for six years. I haven't gone over literally everything in this document, I can only revisit trauma so much. But hopefully I've painted a vivid enough picture for you to see why I need help.
Thanks for reading. If you consider donating anything to the GoFundMe, no matter how small an amount, please know that I'm beyond grateful.
Thanks again,
Dex "TheNidoqueer" Lovejoy.
Going to answer a few questions for people concerned about the baby's well being and to try to clear up some things not clear in the document.
Q. Why did it take four adults 6 months to get the baby to the doctor?
Honestly, I don't have a great answer for this. This is a genuine mistake on my part and I should have stepped up to do more to get him to the doctor for his first appointment. I didn't realize just how important that was and that was definitely some negligence on my part. If it's any consolation, when we did get him to the doctor, the doctor assured us he was growing up "healthy and fine."
I also want to clarify the issue with the skin condition - it had been a mild problem up to that point before those pictures were taken. Nothing too serious but definitely something I was concerned about. When he did get to the point where it was that bad, he was rushed to the doctor as soon as possible - he did not sit there with those skin issues for six months, it was something we were actively trying to take but once it got that bad he was immediately taken care of. If it's any consolation his skin has not gotten that bad since.
Q. Why did you shirk your responsibilities as a father and not get him the things he needs?
This is just, factually untrue. I've re-read my document multiple times and fail to see where this part of information was gotten. Riley was never out of necessities due to my negligence - I have bought him formula, diapers, clothes, toys, etc, all while I took a step back from actively watching him while I was dealing with all my depression issues, but even then I would still watch him on occasion and even have powered through my weak stomach to change his diaper when others weren't available to help. Where people are getting the idea that I never once provided him with necessities when others weren't able to is beyond me, but I understand it's out of concern for my kid.
Q. Why are you the one taking Riley when you didn't want kids in the first place?
I'm taking Riley because he'll be in the care of Kosmo and myself. Kosmo has a ton of experience with babies and small children and has demonstrated as such his tireless efforts to keep things clean, safe and secure for Riley despite the situation actively working against him. I wholeheartedly believe that Riley will be safe and his needs will be met under Kosmo's care, and I want to support him as much as possible since he is my son and his well being is my first priority.
Hope that clears up some people's concerns to some degree. Thanks again for reading. I'll continue updating this if more questions arise.