Its not as simple as it seems and its not as black and white either.
I will have to go back to the very beginning when we met.We fell in love - he first lied about being in the army and my friend saw him cleaning windows- he said he was embarrassed about being a window cleaner anyway a few months later I leant him money for a flat.After 4 and a bit months together- me and my 2 young boys were going to meet him at his new flat but he never phoned me plus I discovered my jewellery was missing.
I spoke to his dad and he told me my fella was an alcoholic.He had asked me to marry him and I thought we had a future and he had disappeared. I had a call 10days later saying he was in Belfast.
8 months later he turned up one night saying sorry,I will tell you where the jewellery is .I wouldn't let him in at first but after a couple of hours talking at the window I did.
One thing led to another and we ended up having sex, I had started seeing my ex teen sweetheart from years ago just a few weeks earlier so I had to end it with him.
2 weeks later I found out I was pregnant but the hospital put the date of conception before my alcoholic ex turned up.I had only slept with my childhood sweetheart once so I had to tell him I wa pregnant and he denied it and said he didn't ant to know, it couldn't be his etc.
My alcoholic ex said he wanted it to be his child and to bring it up etc.It was all very upsetting and stressful but he was still drinking heavily.He left me alone as I requested to get on with my pregnancy as stress free as possible, As I looked at my daughter the day she was born- I knew she was his and the hospital had got it wrong.He came to see us a couple of times before he moved back to Ireland- he was still drinking a lot.Anyway he got sober after 24 years of drinking and we spoke on the phone daily now he was at AA and sober- he told me all about the steps etc , in the meantime he asked me to do a dna test and I did and got the results 2 days before xmas- she was his.
So miracles do occur- his baby and he was sober and when she was 6 months old and he was 10 weeks sober he came back to the town and I had sorted a flat out for him.
But because he was newly sober he couldn't cope with a relationship right then and asked me to wait for him- we tried to pick up where we left off but we couldn't , so I agreed to wait- and in the August, 8 months after he came back to England we started up again.As my daughter got older he would have her overnight, he got a job, so we became a 'normal' couple so to speak except we lived separately.
But it wasn't plain sailing for long- he started pushing me away sexually and intimately and I ended up in a sexless relationship due to his impotencey- he admitted it after a couple of months pushing me away.So again I had to wait for it to be sorted. This went on for about 2 years- sex a few times that's all.
He thought we should move in together as we thought it could improve things- sexually it was just the same ok for a bit and then just nothing for ages with the impotency/intimacy issues arising.
We both weren't perfect he would get annoyed at me for not being clean and tidy enough and I found out - through snooping that he was taking out loads of debt and when I confronted him he said if I snooped again he would kill me.
About 2.5 years after we moved in together again- sex was back on and the reason for this was he had started smoking pot and his libido came back.
In the meantime our daughter had a schoolfriend that lived round the corner whose parents hit her violently in front of us so we decided to report them to the NSPCC but because the incidents happened at our house and at the horse riding lesson- it was obvious it was us- they damaged his car/ threw bottles at the windows/shouted stuff as they drove past and they lived 2 mins walk / loads of silent calls.We decied to move so we rented my house out and moved to the next town.My daughter had to change schools as their daughter and our dd were arguing about it at school and their daughter hit mine so that was it.
(but my boys kept the same high school)
We had seen a house to buy around the corner from this rented one but it was more expensive than my house that I had had for years so I was short on the deposit.- so we borrowed the difference on credit cards - dp leant me £12k on his and I borrowed the other £20k.The house was just in my name as he was self employed plus I had had my old house for 6byears before he moved in. We were arguing a lot and he kept being abusive to me about stuff- tidyness but I accepted him for his faultsand didn't keep going on about themSo after months of stress and selling my house and buying a new one and loads of things had gone wrong with the solicitors and mortgage company finally in August 2017 after 5 months of false starts I signed the contracts on the 4th of August- my ds and dd and him were away in Ireland on holiday that week so I had to phone him that morning and say we have done it.My eldest ds and me stayed at home to sort stuff. I was so happy and relieved it was sorted plus the night before he had hinted at buying me an engagement ring.
That night I picked them up from the train station and when we got home he told me he wanted to leave me and that he wanted his £12 k back and money for when we all lived together and that he wasn't moving out till he got all his money that I owed him. I couldn't believe it- he decides on the day that I had signed the contracts to back out.Then the week after he says I didn't mean it, then he said I do mean it but I just feel guilty.Then there was a big row between my eldest and him(they had a tense relationship at times) and he went to live at his dads for 2 months till I got a house to rent.
The day I signed the contract for the rented house he asked me if I wanted to start again- he didn't know I was moving out till I told him that night-unbelievable- I said no as cos of my son and the argiung and verbal abuse plus he may change his mind again,So I left, we still hadn't sorted out custody for our dd.My son came back from his dads and me and my youngest son moved in the rented house.When my ex and dd came back from visiting his family- he wanted her 50% but because of activities she was with me slightly more say 55%.He kicked off and wanted her 50% and she wanted to be with us both equally. It broke my heart to not see her and still does.i LEFT October 2017
6 weeks after I left the house in the December 2017- he contracted double pneumonia and nearly die, he had no wages and no benefits.I paid 2 houses bills and mortgage and rent for 3 months till he got his benefits and then continued to sort all the bills/TELEPHONE CALLS- ALL VERY TIME CONSUMING and they all came out of my bank account as he wasn't well enough to do it plus we used to go out the 3 of us sometimes so I GOT TO SEE MY DAUGHTER MORE WHICH WAS GREAT.
There seemed no chance of him getting better - they thought he had fibromyalga and he thought that was it for ever.I did feel sorry for him and I started thinking maybe their is a future for us together- we were getting on ok. Now its December 2018 , he had been 9 years sober and apart from one time the year before when he had a drink - nothing,
He told me he was going out to get drunk that night December 23rd as he was ill and whats the point etc he said.
I was waiting in anticipation as I hadn't seen him drunk In years and to be honest when he was drinking he was a bit wild etc and I liked that.
But he told me that he was going to ask out a woman and that it was dd schoolfriends mum. I was really upset as I had spent another year looking after him with no choice as there was no one else but on the plus side I got to see my dd more and then I felt used and then he asked someone else out.
I heard nothing more about this woman from school and I kept on sorting out his bills etc. He started drinking and overnight he got better amazingly enough.
One night he asked me to meet him at the pub - he said that dd schoolfriend had seen texts between the 2 of them and my dd had been teased at school- you are going to be step-sisters anyway they had decided to not go out etc but a few weeks later my dd said that my ex, dd, the schoolfriend and her mum were all going out in the Easter holidays.
I said I thought you weren't going to bother and he said we have only had a coffee and a few chats .Do you think she would go out with me after what I did to you and what her ex did to her(her ex called off the wedding 3 weeks before).
In July I found out that they were seeing one another- my dd had never told me about all the days out etc and people at the school knew. My ex said I thought you knew, well I didn't, I naively thought they were friends and to give him the benefit of the doubt thought that they must have started seeing one another after the April conversation.
Now he was fit enough to see women I cancelled all his bills from my account and said he could sort his own bills out.He was annoyed that he now had to sort his own bills , he said I didn't think you sorting out my bills meant that I couldn't have a relationship with anyone else.He did pay me to sort his bills.I had been wanting my own house back for months and he was waiting for a flat on the social housing to come up.Eventually he got a flat, I moved back here.I paid him his money back and £2k for the diy he did at my old house.They split up as he came to tell me they had split up- I said why you never told me that you were going out so why tell me u have split up- he wanted to borrow money.
I had a few dates with someone and when he found out he bragged about how he was seeing 2 other women behind his girlfriends back.
I was pleased they had split up as I get to see my daughter more if hes not with anyone and its a small school so that its not as awkward for me that he is dating one of our daughters school friends mum- which really is not ideal.
About 4 weeks ago my ex was annoyed at me cos I had kept him waiting whilst he picked up dd and I wrote him an email to see I had wasted years waiting for him- waiting for him to come back after he disappeared, waiting for him to get sober.Listening for months over the phone in the early sobriety days. Waiting for him to be ready to be in a relationship, and then added to that all the debt to get the house.Then a year having to sort his finances out cos he was so ill. Chatting every night on the phone to keep him company cos he was so ill and had nobody else.- He couldn't even be honest with me saying he was seeing someone else- cos she is at the school it is worse than someone else if u know what I mean.
And when I moved back to the my house that I bought I found a valentines card in the cupboard from his girlfriend that he had left- so they had been seeing each other before April- even tho he denied it at the time.He has since admitted that they started seeing each other December 2018,So I wrote him an email listing all the waiting I had done .
When I asked him about it the next day- He said 'It means nothing to me'
Of all the things he has done I felt so hurt that I have totally washed my hands of him in every way but for my daughter.
Although he is entitled to some benefits he is fraudulently claiming one benefit.With a past fraud conviction he would possibly go to prison and then I would see my daughter more.Im not saying he isn't a good dad but he talks to her like an adult and she knows far too much that a child shouldn't. So do I tell on him so I get to see dd more and this is the main reason.Mine and dd relationship is affected cos we don't spend a lot of time together-50% and our relationship needs more but his relationship with her wouldn't be affected as theirs is different and he has even admitted to me that he can see a rift between me and dd.He let me have her a bit extra at Christmas but isn't going to again.
If he got caught for benefit fraud- I WOULD HAVE HER MORE.SHOULD I DO IT?