(Throwaway account) I want to start off by saying that I don’t need any advice, but I do want opinions from unbiased perspectives. I’m also sorry, this might be long and a bit confusing, but I’m trying my best to explain.

I (21) met the father(27) of my child (2) about 3 years ago online. It was a toxic relationship from the start but I was young and I didn’t really know better. To make things a bit short, after a while of dating and moving to another state with him I found out he lied about his age (said he was 19 at the time we met when he was actually 23) and lied about his name. At the time I felt I was too deep to leave, I was in a different state with no job or family.

After a while the relationship started getting physically and mentally abusive, he would locked me in the bathroom for hours saying “I was not behaving” he would he would slap me at times if I yelled back at him, he would drag me out of the house, he would yell at me about not having money, even though he quit his job a week after I started working and I was paying for everything, there were many times were he would get mad at me over not having sex, and make me feel bad until I said yes. He started cheating on me with multiple women, I caught him multiple times but would feel forced to forgive him. He gaslight me into getting married, telling me he needed this and that this was going to be good for us, even followed me to work that morning all so I could say yes. Fast forward a year and I found out I was pregnant, at 19, I was devastated. I did not want to have the baby, I knew I just was not ready and we were in a bad relationship but he forced me to keep it, drove me back and forth to work, made me share my location with him, and would even show up at my job if I didn’t answer his text/calls. (I want to make clear that at the time leaving just didn’t seem like an option even though I had reached out for help multiple times, I was just scared)

Being pregnant was not easy, we would argue many times a week, even stop speaking to each other for weeks at a time. After the baby was born, it was no different, he wouldn’t help, he still didn’t have a job, we were broke and barely getting by. One day police were called because he started yelling at me while on the highway with the baby in the backseat because I didn’t have money for food. I told him to pull over and walked away but he followed and left the baby alone in the car. The police basically made me look like the crazy one, a week after he packed all of my things and dragged me out of the house and has not let me see my daughter since. We went to court but the court gave me visitation under his discretion.

Since that day, I decided that God or something saved me from a much worse situation with that man. And something in me just felt so disconnected, I’ve tried wanting to get my daughter back but I just don’t want to, I genuinely do not want to ever see him or her for that matter if I have to go through him. It’s something that I feel I cannot get past, I have that man, and maybe I will never feel at peace with myself for choosing this but I cannot bring myself to be in that position. So tell me, has anyone been in this position? What were your choices? I decided to not reach out to have her and I’m considering going back to court and giving up my parental rights. But everyone thinks I will regret it, and I’m being selfish.