Moved in together five weeks ago and I have made a huge mistake

[sickofitalready]

My DP and I moved in together five weeks ago. We met in 2008 and we were together until December 2011. We got back together in January of last year after his mother died.

A week after we moved in together I received a facebook message from a woman who said she had been living with him during the period that we had split up. She was very specific with dates and I know that she is telling the truth.

She said that he threw her out of the house and would not give her her things back. She also said that he tried to order a television set from Argos in her name and she got the police involved. She went on to say in the message that he was evil to her when they split up and that he had said some disgusting things about her son.

To say that I was horrified would be an understatement. He had told me (and mentions it all the time) that he was single for a year blah blah, blah, and keeps mentioning when I dumped him how lonely he was and how he didn't have anyone with him when his mother was dying (the woman also said that she sat with him at the hospital when his mother was dying).

At the point that I found this out we had literally been in our new house for a week. From the timings she has given me there is no evidence of any overlap between her and me, but even so there was the tiniest of gaps and he has never, ever mentioned this woman. Ever. Neither has his 11 year old daughter, which I find amazing if she lived with him.

We have rented a property which is in our joint names and which is far more expensive than I could afford on my salary alone. I have an 8 year old son, who lives with me. I have no savings whatsoever. The tenancy is for one year.

This morning he told me that he regretted moving in with me, that he had no interest in me whatsoever, that he didn't want to get married any more (he proposed just before we moved in together) and that he was looking for somewhere else to live. This all stemmed from me saying that I wanted to put the cat (his cat) out at night as she keeps coming into our bedroom and waking us up. This has happened every night since we moved in as the door will not close properly. All I said was that I wanted to put the cat out at night as I needed to sleep as I work FT. He just went mental about it.

This is just one example. Since we moved in he has to control everything. I feel like I can't breathe. I said I was going to my friends house for a cup of tea last Sunday and he got all huffy and basically ignored me all day.

This all sounds very, very trivial. I know it does. Just typing it out makes it look trivial. But I feel trapped, by him, by the tenancy agreement, by the fact that I have no money to leave.

You need to get out of this relationship and unless you can find a way to meet the rent such as a sharer, go to alternative property.

You are likely to be able to come to some arrangement with the landlord. The LL is likely to consider it the least worst alternative to have an agreed early exit and re-let it (provided the rental market is OK by you) than to be entering into a world of pain with unpaid or underpaid rent for nearly a year. But they wll be a lot more sympathetic if you go up front than wait until the rent hasn't been paid.

The other lovely thing he said was that the year away from me was the happiest he had ever been. Lovely.

Just got home so if I don't post it's because I can't. Will be back tomorrow. Thank you for all of your messages. I feel very alone at the moment.

I have been in your shoes... Please please get out as soon as possible. Speak to your landlord and ask them to be flexible in relation to the lease.

un mumsnetty hug ()

I've also been in your shoes, and I put up with it for five miserable months thinking that during the summertime he would move up to his smallholding and I could end the relationship then.

The night we moved our stuff in he behaved so appallingly that I realised quite what a big mistake I had made in not listening to all the warning bells that had gone off in my head. He deliberately dropped a sofa we were carrying together, almost shut my fingers in the van door and then told me we "weren't on the same wavelength" . I didn't feel I could move out as I would have been letting my landlady down. His behaviour got worse and worse as I'd basically given him the green light to be a complete bastard to me.

I didn't leave because I was too scared. But that was because I didn't know about things like Women's Aid and the like until almost the end of our relationship, when I found this place and all the fab advice and resources here. What I should have done was phone my landlady and explain the situation and that I feared for my safety around him - there is no way that she would have made me stay there. I would hope that any decent person would not force you to honour a rental agreement in those circumstances. Contact your landlord and explain the situation.

I would also urge you to contact your landlord and explain the situation. You will feel so much better when you are out of this set up.
Worst case, he moves out and you get a lodger and explain re: the locks to the LL and offer to foot the bill for replacing them. Then you move at the end of the year. But I think it is possible you might be able to exit sooner, it is ALWAYS worth asking. Don't feel down or foolish, you didn't know when you moved in with him it would be like this. He sounds utterly awful and you have my complete sympathy.

Good advice Kernowgal.