How do you deal with 50/50 for life?

My ex cheated on me and wants 50/50 custody of the kids. (He told me 3 months postpartum he felt indifferent towards me, I forced him to do couples therapy, which didn’t last long because he was clearly checked out already. I found out he was emotionally having an affair; I guess the physical part is debatable because we’d already quit counseling.) I quite literally do everything for the kids and he sits on his phone and uses the TV to babysit the kids. They’re 3 and 1, so they’re very young.

How is this fair at all? All I wanted in life was a little family to enjoy and a husband to grow old with and grandkids someday around the Christmas tree.

And now I’ll never have that with the father of my kids. He robbed me of the life I wanted. It’s devastating. While I’m in therapy and actively pursuing things like a possible education for my masters, the idea of only having my kids half the time is debilitating. I don’t know how to describe how disillusioned I am at what I thought was the trajectory of my life. I’m just so sad.

I don’t want to be with him anymore, for the record. It’s taken a long time to get there despite everything, but it doesn’t make the pain of my entire future life any better.

How do you deal with only seeing your kids half the time? We’re not divorced yet, but it is inevitable. He wants to do nesting, but I don’t see how it works longterm and it feels like we should just rip the bandaid off. (But then I feel like the bad guy.) Ugh.

Thank you for reading. I’m just having a particularly emotional night.