Wow, this one is really hard. Normally I'd be massively on team DTMFA for a situation like this. LW is being exploited, and she's in a situation that is definitely not going to improve if they get married or have a baby together. She also sounds like she's very close to despising her boyfriend, and in some ways sees him as a child, (with that raising my man pseud) and that's a death knell for a relationship.
But the kid! I know, advice columnists often (correctly) tell writers not to stay in awful relationships "for the sake of the children". Children are better off if their parents divorce than if they have to grow up in an atmosphere of mutual animosity. The problem here is that if LW breaks up with BF... she has no legal rights and very little prospect of any continued relationship with Mikey, the child she's been the primary parent of for four years. C&F is right to point out that she's already made a family with BF, that she is already in some ways a single mother. But there are no good solutions here. She can't set herself and Mikey free and voluntarily become an actual single mother because that would be better than her current life. She can either stay in the horrible draining relationship or she can abandon her stepson to be raised by people who aren't fully present as parents.
It's hardly an unusual situation, women trapped into dysfunctional co-parenting without officially having custody. Not getting pregnant is good advice, but she already has a child with an unsuitable father.
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But the kid! I know, advice columnists often (correctly) tell writers not to stay in awful relationships "for the sake of the children". Children are better off if their parents divorce than if they have to grow up in an atmosphere of mutual animosity. The problem here is that if LW breaks up with BF... she has no legal rights and very little prospect of any continued relationship with Mikey, the child she's been the primary parent of for four years. C&F is right to point out that she's already made a family with BF, that she is already in some ways a single mother. But there are no good solutions here. She can't set herself and Mikey free and voluntarily become an actual single mother because that would be better than her current life. She can either stay in the horrible draining relationship or she can abandon her stepson to be raised by people who aren't fully present as parents.
It's hardly an unusual situation, women trapped into dysfunctional co-parenting without officially having custody. Not getting pregnant is good advice, but she already has a child with an unsuitable father.