To move in, or not to move in?

[jenrose29]

Apologies as this is long, but feel it is best to explain everything in the initial post to get the best responses!

My partner and I have been together for 2.5 years, we met a couple of months after splitting from our respective husband and wife. He has two kids aged 4 and 5 and I have a 4 year old. My ex husband was abusive and when I met my partner, he offered that I rent his house as he was moving from the area to a different house and his wife had moved to a different house with a new partner. My daughter and I moved in and were very relieved to be away from my ex husband, but a few days later my partners wife began entering the house when we weren't there, leaving abusive notes, taking away the curtains, turning off the water/electric, rifling through our things etc. She gave him a lot of grief and we had to move back in with my ex husband/her father who then continued to be extremely abusive until we managed to get a place in a hostel a few months later.

In the meantime, my partners wife demanded the full amount of child maintenance each month and he paid it, despite having the kids for half the time. He also continued to pay the £800 mortgage on the house. She would be very abusive about me (despite being the one that cheated on him and left him!) and he would never defend me. My daughter and I eventually were able to get our own house and we moved to the area my partner was living in, around 30 miles away. My partners wife did several nasty things, like reporting me for benefit fraud when I first got out of the hostel and was getting back on my feet, she reported him to the police for paedophilia for taking a picture of the kids in the bath, she stopped him seeing them for 5 months for no apparent reason (he did nothing), then reduced contact to one night every six weeks, she moved house twice without telling him, she sent him a text listing the ten people she could remember (!) cheating on him with during their marriage and so on. She continued to be nasty to/about me. Again, no defence from him.

Despite all this, our relationship was going fantastically and we began to consider having a baby. He had been saying that he would start divorce proceedings once they'd been separated for 2 years as that makes things easier. The two year mark passed in September, which is the month I happened to fall pregnant. He was very happy that we were having a baby of our own, but months passed and he made no progress with the divorce. She piled debts on to him and he paid them, she made unreasonable demands regarding about the kids and he did it etc. He then said it would be his new years resolution to get divorced. Now we're nearly in March, I'm 7 months pregnant and he has done nothing.

At the moment my daughter and I are still in our own house, my partner is due to move into a new rented property next month and we were due to move in with him. However, I am having second thoughts. His wife has done so much to be spiteful and as long as they are still married she can still do more - like putting more debts on him, filing for spousal maintenance etc. My daughter and I are finally secure in our own home and if we were to move in with him, I don't feel like we would be anymore as at any point his wife could do something spiteful. My partner cannot afford to support my daughter and I as he pays so much in child maintenance for his/their debts, so effectively if his wife did something to cause him to have to pay out more money, he would be okay as he could live in work accomodation but my daughter, our baby and I would be homeless again.

Every time I bring the divorce up, he says he will get it sorted, but he doesn't. He has gone from having the kids half the time, to once every six weeks and has done nothing. His wife has lived in six different houses since they separated, most recently moving this month without giving him the address, you guessed it- he's done nothing. His wife regularly leaves it to the day of arranged contact before letting him know if he's getting one/both of the kids so my daughter never knows what's going on/we can never make any plans. He suspects one/both of the children may not even be his biologically as a result of how many affairs/one night stands his wife had, but does he do anything...? Of course not. I just feel like his life is one long cycle of putting things off, and I don't want to live like that. I don't understand why he doesn't just get the divorce and kids sorted so he can have some kind of order in his life, instead of living at his wifes beck and call forever. Am I being unreasonable? Would I be silly to move in, or am I worrying too much?

Why did his dad make the appointment? Can't he pick up the phone and ring a solicitor himself? Just because you dropped him off it doesn't mean he went in and saw anyone. I find it suspicious that he won't talk about it with you or show you a copy of the letter that's supposedly been sent.

OP I am very sorry to say it, but I believe you are being conned.

I have never met a man who would put up with the things he has experienced from his ex indefinitely, especially as he is now in a 'committed' relationship with you. The whole scenario is just too bizarre to be real.

I don't know what reasons he has to act in such a submissive way but I would be very,very supiscious that it is purely down to his nature. I am much more inclined to think that it is something he would rather you didn't know........................

I have met someone who put up with crap from his ex. Just as there are abusive men out there, there are abusive women. Lots of abused people put up with stuff the rest of us think we wouldn't, as they have become so worn down and accustomed to the crazy behaviour they don't necessarily see it as the rest of us would, or they don't necessarily see solutions that might seem obvious to people outside of the situation.

He sounds like he is ground down by his ex, but unless he learns to stand up to her things are not going to get better.

I don't have any advice unfortunately, other than I think you are right not to move in with him unless he sorts this out. Even then I would give it some time to see if he slips back into his old behaviour. He might be so used to appeasing his ex that he doesn't know how to behave otherwise. The problem is, acting as a doormat to someone throwing a tantrum might temporarily stop that particular tantrum, but only encourages them to throw more and bigger tantrums later.

PS It is possible that she has some other hold over him. Though it may be nothing too bad from your point of view, it could be something else holding him back. Or it could just be more a case of some sort of Stockholm Syndrome (which is what I would suspect, but my view might be coloured by the person I knew in a similar situation).

He could probably do some some counselling or the like to work through things.

Because his dad is funding it, I should think.

If there was a secret that would be hurtful to me/our relationship, then believe me his wife would have take great pleasure in letting me know. He really is just THAT weak.

The thing is, he is never upset or anything by what she does - he just accepts it and then forgets it and tries to sort things out again and again and again and things don't improve.

"acting as a doormat to someone throwing a tantrum might temporarily stop that particular tantrum, but only encourages them to throw more and bigger tantrums later" is spot on - the more he lets her walk all over him, the worse things she does and he says nothing and everytime she says things might be different he believes her and it all goes wrong again. I think if he actually stood up to her then she might have a little respect for him and not do it so much.

My dh was in an abusive relationship with his ex, she had multiple affairs which she flaunted and he tolerated it. I just couldn't understand it as he was accomplished in other areas of his life but his self esteem was on the floor.

Eventually he left, after he had counselling and when she had the 3rd affair but she was completely livid and prevented contact with their child. The more he placated her the worse she became, she pushed all the boundaries. He did in the end stand up to her and whilst initially she reacted very badly she no longer tries to bully him (as much). It's the old adage that a bully will back down when confronted.

However awful it is for him he has to be motivated to change as being in a relationship with a co-dependant (which is probably what he is) is not satisfactory for you.