I'm in need of people's opinions here as I'm finding making a decision on what to do very difficult.
I'm divorced and had 2 children from my previous marriage. The marriage broke down in 2006 and it was a horrible time for all involved.
In 2008 I got together with a long term friend I'd known since I was 18 and found it easy to fall into a relationship with him as he knew everything about my children and situation.
I fell deeply in love with him and in 2010 we had our own child, which means I now have 3 children.
He is a great father to all three children and treats them all well and they are all very much attached to him.
He's never had a lot of money and never really been a hard worker but I've known this from day one and he also brought with him a number of debts, which I assumed he was managing.
In 2013 my step father sadly passed away leaving my mother distraught and with a business to run which she felt she was incapable of doing. At the time my partner was out of work so he offered to run the business whilst my mum got back on her feet.
Anyway to cut a long story short after finding his bank statements I realised that he'd been taking money from the business (even though he was getting a good wage, had his own hrs and had all petrol paid for). He initially said it was £100, then £3000 and then when I looked through statements it seemed there was £5700 going through. He said he'd taken the money to pay debts and he's bought a few commodities that he intended selling. He sold one commodity and I lent him £3700, so the money had been repaid in full and I told him he had to quit the job. This was my mum would be none the wiser and no money was taken. I told him to move out of the house and give me space to see what I wanted to do about our relationship.
My mother then confronted me and him and said there was £30000 missing! At this point I obviously told her everything and he denied taking more than £10000 and there must be a mistake!
She has told him to repay £15000 back which he is slowly doing as well as paying me back slowly for the money he took off me to pay her back.
He lived out of the home for three months and I have to be honest I found it hard work. I have three active children and I work and money was tight.
Apart from money issues he is (or seems to be) an amazing family man. He now has a job where he works long hrs but is earning good money and is truly remorseful of what he's done.
I don't feel the same about him at all and I don't trust what he says or does. But I don't want to go through a split again and I don't want my children to suffer at all either.
I'm also aware that it is not the first time he's lied to me about things....but I never thought he'd stoop so low.
I don't know what to do....I feel like it's on my head if I ask him to leave. All my mother keeps saying is that there are worse men out there but surely there must be better too!??