i know i have been unreasonable, but so has he, come and help me sort out this mess

[NewspiritsFromOldghosts]

I have opened partners credit card statement this morning, that is the bit where i think i am being unreasonable.
here explains why i've opened it though.

Basically his statement shows he has not made a payment on his card for three months. He told me the balance was fairly low, less than £500. It's actually more than double that.
And he is still insisting that we get a foreign holiday booked this week for half term.
He has saved £500 from a tax rebate he got last month. The holiday would cost about £900 plus spending money. He has said he is taking a further £500 from his wages this month to pay for his spending money and expects me to do the same.

I am so angry that he has lied about the card and is being irresponsible enough not to agree to delay the holiday.
He is just about to lose his job, (his fault) we are in a recession and christmas is on the horizon.

I am so sick and tired of his teenager attitude to money.
We both earn a really good wage yet he lives month to month because he wastes all his spare cash.
His card payment is only £37 if he wanted to just pay the minimum. (it's a low interest card at the moment).
He spent more than £60 this weekend on himself on drinks and food etc.

This has been a recurrent theme for the whole time we have lived together. (4 yrs now)
I pay the bills and worry about them, he spends his cash and goes absolutely mental if i point things like this out to him.

For example, last month i came home to find he had put the heating on full blast and was sitting in his shorts.
I have always paid the energy bills, i turned the thermostat down to 19 which is more than warm enough. We are not in the depths of winter yet ffs, he wnet mental, turned it back up again and started spouting off lots of crap about how mean i am and if i don't want to keep our kids warm he will pay and i can fuck off.

He is constantly irrational and selfish, i don't want to have sex with him anymore as i am so pissed off with him all the time. He in turn is pissed off because i won't have sex with him....

I think it is curtains really, but i need to find a way to try one last time to sort this out for the kids really.
If i leave, he will lose the house and probably his dd as well. At the moment we have her most of the time as her mum doesn't cope very well, but this is mostly because i am here. I am the one who chases up her school issues etc, buys clothes, checks homework ad infinitum.

Any practical advice will be gratefully received.

[Tortington]

i'd be like " off you fuck then" bye

[NewspiritsFromOldghosts]

(snort). You do make me laugh, but seriously, i want to at least see if i can make it better for the kids before i call time permanently.

I have finished it before. A few months ago i worked out what i was entitled to from the house, told him i wanted out and this was what i would accept, (it was approx half of what i would get if we sold), he followed me around the house screaming the word cunt repeatedly at me...

[Tortington]

what a nice man

you must be so proud this is the role model you picked to stay with - for your children.

[MsHighwater]

Could some kind of counselling help? Or is there someone else whom he'll believe if they tell him he is being an immature, irresponsible d*ckhead?

Otherwise it sounds as though you are only considering staying for the sake of his dd (your dd, presumably, is OK as she'll still have you), which, though laudable, is doubtless not enough on its own to save your relationship.

[andiem]

I agree with custy he needs to grow up and you need to ship him out anyone who called me the c word would be out of the door pronto

[Cappuccino]

well the relationship means a great deal to it if shouting 'cunt' at you is how he chooses to win you back

bizarrely it worked

if you care about your stepdaughter talk it through with her mother, say she can come to stay with you in an honorary 'aunty' relationship - if that's what you want to do

I would not settle financially for less than you are entitled to. Not when he has been such a twat with money. Go to a solicitor. Pack his things. Do not take his verbal abuse.

if you want to give it a last go, sit down and tell him what you need to change & give a time limit on how long you stay to see if it does. But at the first 'cunt' he uttered, I would be packing his stuff so fast he'd end up in the case as well

[MsHighwater]

Custardo, only one of the children is the OPs. If she walks the partner's dd loses the person who might be the only responsible adult in her life. I can understand the OPs reluctance if she truly believes that to be the case.

[unavailable]

WHY do you want to "try one last time". HE should be doing the trying/ changing, but all he does is lie to you and abuse you. Is there anything worth saving about your relationship the way it is (not the relationship you want to have)

[NewspiritsFromOldghosts]

I'm not proud custardo. It's all a huge complicatedd mess.

He dotes on his daughter but in the wrong way, ie he spoils her and feeds her constant sweets and treats rather than being a normal run of the mill parent. Him and his ex are in competition i think for dsd's affections as social services have just given her mum until january to sort out her own living arrangements otherwise dsd will be here permanently. So, they are both trying to make their respective homes the most attractive option for dsd, which i think is where this holiday thing comes from.

He is actually really good with the kids in a lot of respects, ie he takes them both swimming every sunday, plays with them etc at weekends. Will attempt dinner if i am not here.
He's not brilliant but he's not awful to them either.

The screaming cunt thing wasn't when the kids were here. Not excusable still but they didn't witness it.
If anything dsd's mum is worse for that type of behaviour as she will happily scream abuse at partner in front of dsd.

I think i feel very responsible for dsd having a stable home as she has never experienced this, and also dd has no contact at all with her father, if we split she will lose the only father figure she's ever known.

Although reading that i realise i sound faintly ridiculous.....
Oh buggery.

[NewspiritsFromOldghosts]

things about the relationship that are good;

he is good fun to be with when he is not being stroppy.
he does genuinely want to give the kids a good life but because he is so stupid about money he makes it difficult.
He is very protective of all three of us, he will drop everything if one of the kids had an accident for example. (when dd broke her arm at school he left work straight away to come straight to the hospital and sit for hours, fetched clothes etc as she had to have an operation.)
we did have a good sex life until recently.
i know he does love me, but tbh if he really loved me he would get anger management i think.

[Cappuccino]

well you need to sit down, one last time and say

we are not going on holiday

you have been lying about money to me

this relationship has one last chance and then I am gone. I will stay to sort it out for x amount of weeks because of my affection for your daughter. After that you are on your own.

Make it obvious you are serious. You have already cried wolf once.

if you have kids together - by this I mean you are jointly responsible for caring for each other's kids - you should be sharing the money. If money is the big sticking point, take control of it. Make him use his tax rebate to pay off his cards, set out a family budget, and tell him to stop behaving like a single bloke with his money.

If there is any crap, just walk away. Repeat, repeat, repeat, This Is Over Unless Things Change. This does not sound to me like change. This is over unless things change. Don't engage with teh shouting. Just repeat it, again and again and again

[NewspiritsFromOldghosts]

Thank you capp.

I think that is the best advice really. Ok so practically speaking i will need 6 months to save a months rent in advance plus deposit.
So, i will sit him down tonight and explain we have 6 months to change things or it's over. Permanently.

I am going to have to put an end to the holiday idea. It's so utterly not possible at the moment. A cheap cottage in cornwall or somewhere similar would be an option i suppose if i need to compromise.

Thank you ladies. Much appreciated.I feel a bit better now.
Will let you know how it goes.

[wannaBe]

so you told him it was over, he ran round the house screaming c-u-n-t at you so you stayed? .

[NewspiritsFromOldghosts]

NDTH - it would be easier for me to leave than to try and get him to leave. If i have to go i would like to make it as easy as possible for all of us.

[Cappuccino]

hang on

you have bought the house together

if you do leave you need to see a solicitor to sort that out, not just wander off and leave him with the fruits of your careful budgeting

[exasperatedmummy]

How old is this man? 17? FFS, he sounds awful. He sounds like he just wants to go on with no responsibilities and he has found someone who will willing step up to the plate. Sometimes it works in relationships where one partner (often the woman) totally looks after the money side of things. But this usually involves joint accounts, her having TOTAL control over the money and him checking that extravagent spends are OK. Thats how it worked for my mum and dad, my dad would hand over his wages at the end of every week and she would take out what they needed to pay the bills, the rest would go in her bag - it worked for them. It doesn't work like that in this house, DP is in charge of that sort of thing but we are SHIT with money and i keep saying maybe i should take over, but to be honest im such a stress head it woudlnt work.

As for the C word? OMG - is this the sort of language he usually uses, that sort of lessens the crime in one respect. I remember posting on here once that my DP called me a Cunt. Got lots of outrage, BUT looking back, i was unfair because he was stressed beyong stress, i wouldn't shut up so he siad to me "are you some sort of cunt". Not quite the same, and we are not afraid to use the C word in this house, obviously not in front of DD, so its not such a big deal if you see what i mean.

Personally i think he needs to prove to you he can hack it with the money otherwise you are going to have a very stressful life together. He needs to grow up basically.
Do you think he can? He didn't respond very well to you saying you were going to leave - was he desperately upset or was he just being a bully? I would tell him, NOW, that you both get some relationship counselling and COMMITS to and carries out a stricter spending regeime where both of you have equal input. I am very bad when it comes to money, if i go to the whole in the wall and it is there i think Yay, i can spend it then - DP is not like this. But that has bitten us in the bum in a big way. So you NEED to get this sorted.

I guess the telling thing in this instance would be, has he done anything about getting another job? It would be very easy for him to turn into a true teenager and sponge off you for his keep too, pretty soon. This needs sorting and it needs sorting NOW

I hate to be cruel but to be honest, i would find his "teenage" traits a bit of a turn off, im not sure i would want to spend my life, and bring my children up with, someone like this. I feel desperately sorry for his DD but at the end of the day, there is little you can do for her - although i do know of a person who actually got custody of his step children because their mother was unable to cope.

[exasperatedmummy]

As for a cheep holiday, why not try a caravan site, i think haven do some very attractive late offers. A cottage in cornwall probably wont come cheap tbh.

[hotbot]

nowhere in uk is cheap ...... stay at home its the 1st step to understanding that there are consequences to debt and if you dont have the money you cant spend it. compromise is having a couple of nie days out at home with the kids.

[hotbot]

nice?

[kiddiz]

Haven may have some very attractive late offers...it's a pity they don't have some very attractive holidays to match. I speak from experience!

[NewspiritsFromOldghosts]

thank you once again ladies, especially exasperated mummy.

He has already been incontact with some agencies and he does have an interview lined up so he is doing something about the job. He is going to be sacked because he can't stop rowing with his boss. (anyone see a theme here?) Although, i have to be fair and add that she was and still is being completely unreasonable. The gist of it is that she has told him he must be on call 24/7. His contract mentions nothing about call out duty, he is a contract manager so should actually be last on the escalation list. Last weekend he got 11 phonecalls on Saturday evening from her demanding he go and unblock a toilet at a building in the city. He had had a drink so wouldn't have been able to anyway, but she should have used the call out engineer in any case. There have been lots of similar incidents over the last few weeks.

I agree i would need a solicitor if we split. I already have a caution against the deeds so that i would be protected in the event of a split.

I think the cunt episode was probably mostly him being very very upset. When he's really upset he becomes angry rather than show his upset if you see what i mean.

He would never go for counselling. He thinks it's all too namby-pamby. Only because he doesn't understand it though.

lol Kiddiz! We have had a september haven experience i would rather not repeat.