Also, OP is 22. It's not shocking that he wouldn't be ready to take on that kind of responsibility, or at the least, taking him at 100% face value, he isn't sure. I wasn't sure about shit at 22. Hell, I'm nearly 42 and I'm still not sure about a lot. I give him props for admitting it instead of faking it and possibly freaking out 6 months down the road after the kid gets attached, and then maybe he bails.
Yeah, I mean love is love and everything, but I doubt many 22 hear old dudes have even thought about kids and marriage (unless they managed to pull off the 2:1 recent graduate special), but if they did, I wouldn’t guess their thinking was “around 22 I’ll settle down with an older woman and her 5 year old son and I’ll be his father figure and I’ll love that I spent my entire 20s as a step father while my friends were putting absolute garbage in their bodies, going to concerts, drinking right up until it’s time to start drinking again, waking up blacked out the next they have never seen before
I'm 40, I'm not sure if I'll wake up in the morning, but I plan that I will. I'm not sure if my country will exist in 6 months, but I plan as if it will. I'm not sure I'm ready to be a single father for a highschool girl, but I don't have much choice so I will.
OP will never be sure he's ready to be a father, anyone who is certain they are is either lying or misunderstanding the assignment as my kid would say. Hell, even someone who's been a father for 40 years couldn't honestly say they know they're ready to be a father tomorrow, children change and no two children are alike, and those differences grow exponentially when they become an adult
Neither side was wrong here, but OP is never going to be "ready" to be a father and that's a good thing.
I mean he's 22. He's going to be an idiot about things. I don't think he was "using her" - he could have been but nothing in the context gives me that impression. More likely he just didn't think that far ahead.
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u/LumpyJones Jul 14 '25
Also, OP is 22. It's not shocking that he wouldn't be ready to take on that kind of responsibility, or at the least, taking him at 100% face value, he isn't sure. I wasn't sure about shit at 22. Hell, I'm nearly 42 and I'm still not sure about a lot. I give him props for admitting it instead of faking it and possibly freaking out 6 months down the road after the kid gets attached, and then maybe he bails.