Should I let her go?

So I have been together with my girlfriend for approximately a year and a half. The beginning of the relationship was absolutely great and I loved everything about her. The only thing that i was skeptical about was the fact that she is a single mom, but it didn’t bother me that much. To make a long story short, I recently got discharged from the military and we are now living together. She works and I go to school.

Anyways, since we have moved in together, we have had our share of confrontations, but the biggest fights are always about money. I told her before moving in that I wouldn’t be making a lot of money because I want to focus completely on school and not have any distractions. By the way, I am living off of my GI bill. She said it was no problem. Now that we are together, she wants all new everything and always gets mad at me for not trying to get a job when I told her numerous times exactly how it would be.

It never really bothered me that much that she has a child, but now that we are living together, it’s a different story. Her child is a sweet kid, but I don’t enjoy babysitting on my weekends. We never have a chance to ever go out, and now that I am going to school, I feel that if I stay with her, I will never have a social life. Currently right now, the only friends I have are her friends, and although they are nice people, they are a little too grown as well.

Bottom line is, I am just starting to get the feeling that it would be better if we went our separate ways. I just don’t know how that will happen though since we still have 6 months left on the apartment lease and I’m pretty sure none of us can sustain living in it without the other around. I feel that I underestimated what life would be like with a single mom and I was denying to myself that I really want to live free from all of her baggage.

I don’t mean to make her sound like a bad person. There is a reason why I stayed with her of course. When she isn’t acting crazy, she is still the sweetest person ever. We still laugh together, help out one another and for the most part get along well. I still love her, and if I was older, I know it would be a different story. But at this point in my life, since I am a broke college student, I want to live as a broke college student should. I don’t want to have to watch kids all of the time and I want to have my own group of friends again. I feel that this relationship is suffocating me more than anything. I just don’t know what to do at this point, especially since I feel trapped.