I haven’t posted for a while but I’m still reading the threads, and processing everything. So it’s now three months since I left AH and have lived alone with my four children in a rented house. I’m doing ok! I’m struggling financially though and barely surviving. (Had to sell jewellery and borrow money from my mum to make ends meet). Two daughters have disabilities and I’m a full time carer.

AH hasn't paid any child support at all. I don’t think he can afford much and I know his two businesses are going down the pan rapidly. I’m still admin on the Facebook pages for those and I see the complaints coming in. Missed appointments, no shows, no responding to emails/ phone calls etc. He’s lost grip. He is however desperately trying to prove he’s a good father by attending all the school events and he’s even keeping a written diary of things which I guess is a good thing. I think that’s all for show though. He got his folder out in a senco meeting about our daughter with highlighted things to ask about - wow very impressive. But to me, he’s still bitter and oozes this angry energy every day.

Still it’s heartbreaking to see him falling to pieces when I’m actually feeling ok. Why do I feel so guilty? He avoids me, he clearly doesn’t want me to discuss money because when I dared to mention that a bill I’m still paying off on his behalf (credit agreement on a boiler at the house he’s now living in!) will bounce unless he can pay me his response was “oh well **** happens”. He blames me for all that’s going wrong in his life because I’ve left. Yet he didn’t even bother to fight for us. He occasionally rings me when he has an issue - expecting me to help him. His car wouldn’t start and he rang me to ask me to text him the phone number of a recovery garage even though he was at home and had WiFi! I suggested google. He replied “you know I don’t do google”. Another time he rang me to ask me to step in last minute for a job and bail him out where the new girl he’d supposedly hired for a client hadn’t turned up. I couldn’t do it I was in a supermarket at the time and she was already 45 mins late. Those times he calls me “love” like I’m his best friend!

So my next “step” may well be getting legal advice however I know that if they force him to sell the house to get me my share of the equity it will probably make him homeless and even more bitter and resentful than he is now. It’s actually a serious reality that he may default on this mortgage and the house would be repossessed though.

When I broach the topic of money he goes red faced and shakes and starts ranting about his credit card bills and mortgage and how broke he is. So I’m scared to mention it now. The house he’s in was one we rented out and we agreed he would have it so the kids had somewhere to stay with him as it’s three bedroom and the mortgage is cheaper than a rental property for him, but he’s not had them there once yet. I’m not that bothered tbh as he’s still actively drinking anyway) The cats by the way that he had are ok right now. my oldest daughter goes to check them.

Its a horrible situation. I feel like if I seek legal advice and they write to him that will then shatter any last hope I had of an amicable parenting arrangement and at least the current situation where he’s picking the kids up for the school run each day (he drinks in the evenings) they get to see him and maintains a certain “normality” and routine for them. I have tried to be reasonable and accommodating and he has even been allowed to stay and have an early tea with them when my son had cooked tacos in school and I invited him for lunch on Father’s Day -so I feel I bend over backwards but get nothing in return from him but a brick wall.

I see that I’m asking too much from an alcoholic. I’m aware he's sick and this behaviour is probably to be expected. I’m just shocked at the speed of which he’s letting his life go downhill and feel my horrible codependent side tell me I’m responsible.

thanks for letting me vent xx

Thankyou everyone - I feel a LOT better for reading these replies and it’s put it into perspective again for me. Yes .. how ridiculous that he said he doesn’t do google! But he says stuff like that a lot! “You know I don’t like filling in forms/ringing people up to discuss tax / doing the tax returns” and so on. Now he’s got debts coming out of every corners - non filing of tax returns and fines building up. Yes it’s pathetic. He’s 56 years old! I was with him 15 years but he’s always been single before he met me he wasn’t in a long term relationship. He must have managed then.

to answer the question about him barging into my house. He does still walk in IF someone’s left the door unlocked. I’m very careful to lock it but he always tries the handle and yes would totally still walk in without knocking if I didn’t. I do need to find my backbone don’t I 😬😩. Writing this down makes you realise how weak it all sounds. But yes I have been pitying him and feeling so guilty.

I had had a terrible panic attack about three weeks ago too. I had got lost driving at 3.30am in the dark and my sat nav stopped working. I thought I was having a heart attack, I pulled over at a garage and I hyper ventilated and everything went black. I honestly have never been so scared in all my life. My daughter and her boyfriend drove two hours to find me and bring me home. I was in bits. It’s never happened before. I felt so grateful that AH went to collect my car for me as he is still insured on it. He did do that for me. I felt I couldn’t mention money for a couple of weeks after that as I felt indebted to him for that. He also came round with the strimmer and did my lawn! It’s weird. Like little favours done to keep me sweet but then money is mentioned... and boom he’s off sulking and angry again.

this thread really resonated with me. Thankyou. I’ve actually had a really tough emotional day today. I decided I needed to see a solicitor as I’m so desperately short of money. I decided one last time to reach out to AH when he dropped the kids off (i intended to actually just ask him if he could give me anything at all to help bridge the gap as it’s a week until I get my next pay. He started pleading poverty again. So I tried to gently suggest we had “other options” this required spelling out so I said “well how about we sell the house and use the money to pay off our joint debts and both start afresh?” To which he was outraged at. Apparently he’s sold everything he ever owned and this is the last thing he has. (It’s an interest only mortgage that ends soon, and he won’t be able to pay off the balance in two years time so it’ll have to be sold anyway!)
i suggested he could rent in a cheaper area which is still just as close to the kids. Again - utter rage. “I’d rather be dead than live in that **** hole” then he said that I was talking AT him and telling him to do these things. He kept trying to walk away. I pointed out that he was trying to escape and this was why I felt unable to have a two way conversation with him. I said I’d be forced to get legal advice if he refuses to discuss it calmly without loosing his rag. He said he has tried his best but it’s never good enough for me. Then... sadly I lost it. I started crying. I said to him he hasn’t tried at all! And how hurt I was that he never put up a fight for us. He let us walk away and didn’t try once to put things right. Big mistake. He saw it that I wanted him back. That wasn’t what I meant. I meant that he’d just not been prepared to change. I told him that he’d continued to drink despite me telling him over and over how it was destroying our marriage.
The quacking started. How he doesn’t drink “every night” anymore. He suggested he move in with us and sell the house so we can start again! I was honestly sobbing so much I thought I’d break and he hugged me. I’m ashamed to admit it was nice it’s what I really really craved - but no. I didn’t give in and I said no. I’m sorry but it is just too late. It’s not going to work. He looked gutted but I’m in NO doubt that this was the intermittent chicken game once again. Of COURSE it would be convenient to him to move in with us again and pick up where he left off! It’s not going to happen.

I feel emotionally drained and my eyes are bloodshot and swollen. I’ve cried so much today. I feel like I had to get that off my chest one last time before seeing a solicitor. He can’t say I ambushed him now. But I do feel incredibly sad it’s come to this.

thankyou everyone - yes this is true and a good reminder. He also bought himself a £300 carpet, a slow cooker and a new mattress for £120. I don’t deny him one of those things but they weren’t essential and he could still sell his guitar worth over £2,000 or his Tag Heur watch. I’ve sold all my jewellery and had to borrow money from my mum to pay bills. He’s also joined a bridge club in a pub - pints don’t come cheap do they? Yes he will be spending a LOT on booze.

It would be easier if I hated him. But I don’t. And my kids heard the row which I regret. They didn’t hear the details but I had to reassure them all is ok tonight because they were both upset and I said “we were just fighting over a letter, We made up. It’s ok we both said sorry”. It’s tearing us all up.

I suspect he will pay me a token something in the next few days to try and “prove” he’s stepping up. But I’m aware that it’s gonna keep coming back to this.

Yes. It’s staying locked