I'm a mum to a 21 month old and a 3 1/2 year old. My ex partner moved me north with our two children just over a year ago for a business venture, 3 hrs from London where i had lived for 13 years. It meant moving away from my work contacts and meant I wouldn't be able to return to ex-employers when DD was older (we moved when she was six months old). We moved initially to a rental and then six months later into the house we had renovated together. I designed the kitchen and walked to the site every day with the kids strapped in the buggy to see progress and help with decisions. My ex had always had funny turns but it got worse once we moved. He refused to use his office saying it was cold and sat at the kitchen table all day with his back to me. He said nothing was mine because I didn't contribute financially. (I realised after we split up that I had contributed several thousand pounds to the everyday living costs through my freelance work.) He put the house in his name and we're not married because despite promising it, he never asked me. He said I didn't clean enough, that I wasn't his equal, that I didn't have aspirations etc. Our house was actually clean considering we have two toddlers, I found p/t freelance work, I designed the marketing collateral for his new business, I did the flyers for my son's preschool and I did the majority of the childcare for what were two very young children at the time.
Eventually, I decided I would just need to find more work as the money situation was being flung in my face regularly despite my ex being actually very well off. So I put DD in a creche for 3 hours and I did some quotes for a potential new client. When I told my ex, he went mental about me putting her in childcare for 3 hrs (she was 20 months old by this point and I paid for it) accused me of just drinking coffee and putting my feet up and cut a long story short, he threatened and intimidated me for two weeks telling me to leave until, with two upset children, I did just that. I fled to my mum's house two hours south. Four days after I left, with several bags still packed, he filed an emergency residency order saying I had "kidnapped the kids". I got 24 hrs notice of a court hearing. I had to find a solicitor in one afternoon and ended up with one an hour's drive from home. I got my mum to babysit and I spent an afternoon filling in forms to get it delayed. Two weeks later, we went to court and the judge threw the emergency application out (which would have meant the police would have come round to my mum's house and taken the kids back to their dad), and he put it to a contested residency hearing. A week before the hearing my ex supposedly agreed to an access agreement, but when we went to court, he said he'd changed his mind. As the courts thought it was all agreed, they'd only allocated 15 minutes. So then it was listed again for the 30th July. I have now submitted my witness statement. My ex, meanwhile is paying me £19 a week for two children and he is on Match.com as single with no kids. I have no doubt that his custody battle is just about power and intimidation because he is now down in London every other week seeing friends and spending lots of money whilst I scrimp and save to feed our kids. So I think having two toddlers to look after would seriously cramp his style.
Work wise, I have now got a new client and we are just about holding it together, although I worry about money constantly and we can't move out of my mum's. The childcare to cover half my work in the holidays is going to be c£500 (the rest of my work I will do in the evening so as to actually earn something).
Everyone thinks I am okay, but I don't think I am? I feel numb and then I have these outbursts and I'm trying to be a good mum but my DS is 3 and he is really hard work and challenging in his behaviour with everything going on. And he says he wants his daddy sometimes (he sees him every other week for three nights). And just after he comes back from his he is really unsettled and tantrums a lot and doesn't look me in the eye and just seems to really not respect me. And I end up yelling at him and putting him on the naughty step all the time and I just don't think I'm doing it right. I love him so much and I feel like a bad mum. I've ordered "Raising Boys" and something else. But it's all getting too much. I'm worried about court, about my son, about money about being on my own. I can't share anything with my ex for fear of it being used against me in court. So I can't say, "you know his pre-school teachers said he was badly behaved today and I don't know what to do"...And then I have nights like tonight, where I can't stop crying and honestly, the odd suicidal thought crosses my mind but I can't do that because of the kids can I?
I don't know how my life became such a car crash and I know I'm lucky, my kids are beautiful, no one died, I don't live in Sierra Leone, I'm in my 30's and I should just get on with it, but I am really, really struggling right now and I just don't know what to do. Thanks.Sorry, I just realised how long this is.