Sorry it's long but i'm desperate.......My partner of 8 years left today because I begged him to.
I felt so sick of that suffocated feeling you get when your miserable and feel like you cant get out. I honestly think I was close to a serious mental breakdown.
I'm one of those people who has always been a bit of a doormat, i'm kind and forgiving and it seems that this just leaves me wide open to being mistreated. My close friends who often see me hurt do say that I need to say no to people more and put myself first. Not just in my relationships but with my family and a volunteer role I do beside my job.
He's gone now and I do feel like a weight has been lifted but now i'm thinking WTF will I do? How will I manage? I have 2dc. DD is 13 and DS is 8. They have both heard lots of arguing over the last 6 months and to protect them I have to refuse to respond to him which means I never get to say what I want to as it will fuel the argument and they will suffer.
For info neither child said anything when he announced he was leaving and one never looked up from the phone they were using.
In 2014 We met and he moved into my house (my sole mortgage)
in 2015 we had our baby DS7 (Elder child is from a previous relationship)
In 2016 he cheated (one night stand)
in 2017 He gambled all his savings
In 2018 he admitted he had been sniffing cocaine ever since we met, 4 or 5 times a week and I kicked him out
In 2019 he came back as a reformed character (just better at hiding his issues from me and I fell for it)
Since then I've been supportive, tried couples counselling, tried to hold my family together and everyday pretended that i'm ok and today something just snapped. I realised I'm not ok and this situation is not ok. We were arguing and he pushed me, it wasn't hard but he has done it once before. (for info he's never done anything else physical) My tipping point today was that I'm working from home and have the kids at home and he finished work early to go fishing. I told him on his return that he was a selfish and he says he has a s**t life and that its like being in jail. I realise now, that to him I will have seemed like I'd lost the plot and gone crazy over a couple of hours fishing but this was just the icing on the cake for me. Id struggled all week and then it just tipped me over the edge.
I'm financially independent, he does not and has never contributed to the mortgage and luckily I didn't marry him, I own my own car outright and I have a decent job that works around the kids. We only have one shared asset, a small cheap motorhome (4k). I think I kept our finances separate as I knew this day would come but what do I do now? We have always gone 50/50 on bills and shopping and I gifted him 5k recently for his business. I'm happy for him to keep that but I don't want him to try and say anything else in this house is his.
I'm just sitting here trying to enjoy the feeling of relief I've waited so long for whilst also doubting my decision making. I'm even so pathetic that I'm worried that it's his birthday next week and I will have spoilt it.
Please can you advise me what baby steps I can take to move forward and ensure I don't end up back in this situation. Any support is appreciated. I'm sat at my desk and I can hear my kids giggling outside, this should feel differently than this panic i'm feeling surely??
AIBU to have lost my s**t over over a bit of fishing?
YANB Its a build up of shit things and you need to be free of that