Love Shouldn’t Be a Choice Between Me and Your Child

There’s a kind of love that isn’t really love at all it’s confusion wrapped in longing, desperation disguised as devotion.

When someone gives a man an ultimatum—“Pick me or your child”it’s no longer about love. It becomes a power struggle, a test of character. And the truth is, if a man can look at his own child and walk away just to keep a relationship, he was never ready to be a father to begin with.

As a woman, I’d never ask a man to choose between me and his child. And if that choice is ever placed in front of him, I’ll step back not because I’m weak, not because I’m giving up, but because I refuse to compete with an innocent soul who didn’t ask to be caught in the middle. A child should never be a bargaining chip in adult decisions. Period.

If a man chooses me over his child, what does that say about the future he’s capable of building? What happens when I’m no longer convenient? What happens when life gets hard again? Love that comes at the cost of integrity is not love worth holding on to.

And to be honest, I deserve more. I deserve to be with someone who doesn’t have to be told to do the right thing. Someone who loves freely but doesn’t abandon responsibility in the name of romance. I refuse to be the reason a father becomes absent.

I know what it feels like to want to be chosen. I know what it’s like to crave that kind of reassurance. But I’ve learned that real love doesn’t ask you to destroy someone else’s foundation just to build your own. Especially not when that someone is a child.

I won’t be a second option. I won’t settle for love that comes with conditions and casualties. I’d rather walk away with my dignity than stay and lose myself trying to win a place I was never meant to fight for.

Love shouldn’t be a war zone.

And I won’t be collateral damage.