Same thoughts, slightly clearer head

I think I may have been a tiny bit too bitter and angry when writing these posts.

The bottom line is that having kids means being linked to the other parent for a very long time, and you should really think it through. If you break up (and it is not extremely unlikely that you will break up, but I know what it's like; you naturally believe you will stick together, forever), you can't make major decisions on your own. You can't even decide things like where you want to live, really. If you get a great job in another town, how are you going to deal with the kids?
So I still think it's very important to have a very good relationship with the other parent. And to see things with clear eyes. And to think it through. Again.

In retrospect, in the beginning of our relationship, I know I accepted things I maybe shouldn't have, things that forced me into being someone else a bit. And now, when I feel mutilated, it's a struggle to get back to my real self. Those things have also, slowly, over the years, made the entire relationship infected, to the point where every remark is uncertain and can cause big turmoil, so you wind up walking in a mine field. Possibly infected beyond a point of no return, I don't know yet. And furthermore, the root cause of some of those things are personality traits of my partner that might make a future life as separated parents much more difficult.
When we started out, I didn't think much of those demands, of the things I was asked to do. It wasn't that big a deal, I thought that it would be OK, a small sacrifice for love to make those compromises. But maybe I should've put my foot down ten years ago and said "you're crazy, that's an impossible thing to demand of another person, lovers or not. Respect me as I am, trust me, or I'll leave you", which certainly would have been a lot easier ten years ago than it is today, when our lives have merged so much, when we have children together, and what with everything else that accumulates over the years. Habits. Whatever.

On the other hand, if I'd done that, I would never have gotten to know my kids.

On the other hand, I might have gotten to know my other kids. Or someone else's kids. Or met a wonderful partner who maybe couldn't get kids but we would be happy anyway, and I would be proved wrong, I would have learned that life-long love actually exists. Or I could have had a life on my own, with a successful career as ... well, anything. Whatever. I don't know.