I am in two minds about this and have been for a while...and I hope some advice may help me to decide what to do.
I was married for 15 years to a man I dearly loved and we have 2 small children. The marriage was not a happy one for either of us but I married for life and put all my efforts into making it work. I discovered that since he met me, I was being cheated on with many, many women. He felt I was too good and strong-minded so tried to break me by being terribly emotionally violent, with the occasional push or kick or spit in the face.
One day, one of his mistresses found me and told me that she had a child with him who was just a few months younger than our younger child. I then went through his things and discovered that his cheating started right when he met me and never stopped. He was gutted but felt quite pleased with himself that it was the final blow for me. I am almost divorced now but here comes my question.
He does not want to give me a penny in the financial settlement. Nothing, zero, nil. I have waited for over a year for him to change his mind as I don't want to fight but it has caused me great stress. It has now reached a point when I just want to tell him to stick it in his a--e and walk away with nothing but with peace on my mind. But then I feel like an idiot that I am leaving all that belongs to my children to him only for him to spend money on himself and his girlfriends. And I will be left telling the kids, sorry, you cannot go on a school trip because I cannot afford it or sorry, you cannot invite your friends over because I have no money left to buy food for your tea.
So the question is: do I fight for what belongs to me and suffer a year or two of terrible stress or do I run away with nothing but worry about how I am going to financially cope?
Sorry about the long post and thanks for any good advice.