well, as a single father with custody of my now 11 yr old son since he was 18 months, i have a few tidbits of advice. nothing too sentimental, mostly a heads up for whats to come, because its not over just because you broke up. Having a child involved is going to draw this out for you a lot longer than you're going to like. Give this a quick read, bookmark it and come back if you need too, but I wont tell you the normal stuff you're gonna get on a videogame forum(Buck up! or "It gets better!"). Your situation is not normal and i hate to see other people go through the hell i did. 1. your kid is the priority(duh, pretty sure you know this one). But, dont fight or argue in front of her, its not fair to her, she didn't do anything. keep your hand off times short, less opportunity for flare ups between the grown ups. 2. I HIGHLY recommend getting a lawyer, or at the bare minimum looking into your local laws about custody and how/if you can work it out by just using a mediator service. 3. Do not just start paying money out of your pocket for child support(if you are not the custodial parent), go to your local child support enforcement agency and start the paperwork to have it done through them and your work. 4. keep records of EVERY interaction with your ex. I mean EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. take screen shots of texts and upload to a cloud service, take notes in a spiral notebook with dates and times(sounds stupid, but these help in court cases), and request phone records be sent to you via email from your provider. Good luck, i check my notifications pretty regularly if you respond or message. I dealt with all of this and then some.

Last May 2 days before my birthday, I found out my wife of almost 4 years and overall gf/spouse for just shy of 7 years was cheating on me. Like you I kinda saw the writing on the wall about where we were headed but never expected that honestly. The one person I trusted the most on this planet was cheating on me? I literally could not understand how she, someone who has been cheated on before could put me through that pain like the last two girls did. She got with this kid at work, he was 20 and had the same birthday as me. On the 25th was my birthday and she didn't text and she didn't let my two boys call me. I was living with my parents again at 28. I had built a whole new life even through all the fighting I kept telling my wife I wanted to work on us. Everyday we would wake up and spit venom at each other. One time she told me I was a bad father because I have my kids cancer. (I have a genetic disorder that passes through to your kids sometimes that can cause colon cancer later in life, the boys got it too). And just like that, the life I built was in complete shambles. So naturally on my birthday I got drunk.... I got a razor and destroyed my arm. To the where it was bleeding uncontrollably. I'm ashamed of it yes but I thought it would help. It didn't so I kept going. I took pretty much every pill I could find in the medicine cabinet. The only I could think about in that time was how I should have bought that gun I wanted to get last year. How it would have come in handy. Absolutely mad shit. Started walking around the neighborhood looking for trees that were hidden enough that I could hang from and no one would see me long enough so I could go. I just hated myself. Everything about me just needed to go. The wife I cared for when she was sick to the point of death. Had stabbed me in the back. Everything I told her in confidence over the last 7 years she was texting me mocking me, how I was such a loser and bad father (which I wasn't that god damn it) call me whatever but not that but in that moment I let that feel true. At 28 at my parents with absolutely nothing to my name. No possessions or money I was starting from scratch and it felt like a mountain to climb and I wanted no part of it. On the 28th of May I sent a text through discord to my friends begging for help of something really anything. Just please talk to me. Nothing. On the 28th of may I got a text from my best friends gf. He showed her the text I sent the night before. She had been in a similar situation and just wanted to help. For no reason than because she could. We exchanged stories and I learned how she rebuilt herself after her tragedy and I tried to learn from it. I was a complete wreck now. Couldn't go in public anymore because of newly formed anxiety, which I'd never had before all this went down. Me her and her boyfriend went to the mall and I just couldn't handle it. On the verge of tears just because there was people around. They were in a store and I started panicking and left. She saw this and basically became my comfort dog lol. I found a friend that wanted to rebuild me and make me better. I felt promise in the future. Hope. For the first time in a long time I felt.....good. I started to look at myself and see what was wrong with me. To see what I did wrong in my last relationship and fix it for my next one. I found help through medication for depression and anxiety. I know I ranted a long time here but my point is it's not too late to start again in life. It's not too late to make new friends and go new places. Take some time to figure out who you are by yourself again and figure what you think you did wrong. Don't take your baggage in to the next relationship and expect it to fix itself. And if you have to pay child support trust me it's not the end of the world. There are millions of compassionate people out there who don't care about that shit. If you have a job now the time to get a better one and restructure your life. Don't be ashamed to ask for help. I called my parents crying apologizing like crazy cause I needed to come back home. They told me that wasnt necessary to apologize. I still felt bad cause I thought asking for help was weak. It's not. It's life. My wife didn't take time for herself and her situation is -blam!-ing terrible now. I would elaborate if you like to show you the road by not taking time to recover. It's a long read too and also some other stuff happened with me and my new friend....oops