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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Feel like my life's choices are being eroded

59 replies

colditz · 31/10/2006 09:08

I have been with dp for 5 years, and he has always been crap with money. We live in a crappy area.

I recently started applying for private rental houses, and we have been turned down for every single one, because dp is consistantly late paying our rent.

I can't leave him, I have nowhere to go. None of the estate agents round here will accept people with housing benefits unless you have a guarantor who owns their own house! I only know two people who own their own bloody house, and neither of them will sign to say they will pay my rent if I don't.

So They won't take me and that is that. Dp won't leave. He just won't. And I have no way of making him.

I can't live with the consant fury that I feel for him any more. But I literally have nowhere to go. And he won't.

I am trapped, totally trapped, I will never own my own house because we are poor and what little we have spare he fritters away.

I feel utterly miserable and frustrated. I have contacted everyone, every estate agent, all the housing associations, the council. We are housed appropriately to the size of our family, and I don't know how to make him leave without telling lies about him, which I won't do.

OP posts:
ginmummy · 31/10/2006 09:16

By the sounds of it you don't need to tell lies about him!

Have you asked for advice at the CAB or emergency housing association?

Original poster
colditz · 31/10/2006 09:21

The only thing I could say is that he is financially abusive - but it seems so wrong to say that. I do love him, but I am so angry with him I can barely bring myself to speak to him.

OP posts:
Original poster
colditz · 31/10/2006 09:22

Have spoken to the housing association. They will only give you emergancy housing if you are in danger of violence, and I'm not.

OP posts:
Bugsy2 · 31/10/2006 09:28

Colditz, so sorry to hear this. For some reason, I thought you'd managed to get your DP's money spending under control.
I don't know anything much about re-housing to be of any great practical help to you. I think Custy is the expert.
Big sympathy though, I do know what it is like living with someone who drives you to the edge of insanity.

LoveMyGirls · 31/10/2006 09:39

can you go to a hostel?

why wont he leave?

have you tried counselling?

so sorry you have to live like this. there must be a way out.

kikki · 31/10/2006 09:40

I don't know how many children you have(if any) but my Mum worked and raised me by herself with no help from anyone. She worked for the NHS(low paid!) and managed to save enough for a deposit and bought her own home. If he won't leave you, can't you leave him? Can't you tell the council that your relationship has broken down and you have no where to go. It's not lying cause it sounds as though you are at the end of your tether in the relationship. Some landlords don't mind taking tenants on housing benefit, have you tried your local paper or a letting agency instead of estate agents?

Original poster
colditz · 31/10/2006 09:47

He saw a money adviser person, which was arranged through our couple's councelling. It has mde no differance.

I have been hanging on for months and months, waiting for this money advice, hoping that he would listen to this bloke when he won't listen to me.

The bloke sat with us and worked out that the way we have our income/outgo thing means that dp gets AT LEAST £30 (up[ to £80) per week to spend on himself, not including mobile phone or food ar anything, an I get £3. He refused to give me any money this week although he owes me £20!

I know it sounds odd to have such seperate finances, but it was the only way of saving my sanity, otherwise I would have been constantly terrified over the years thart he would fritter every penny we have, and more.

OP posts:
charliecat · 31/10/2006 09:51

I think if you leave him because of a breakdown in relationship, you will be homeless and they will house you. It may be a shitter, but in the long run it maybe best. It sounds like living like this is making you ill.
Have you anyone to stay with that could then then write a letter saying you cant live there permanently? That would get the ball rolling.

Original poster
colditz · 31/10/2006 09:56

The council say if I leave and I'm not in fear of violence, I am intentionallt homeless and they won't help. I have to go through private landlords. Who won't touch me with a bargepole.

OP posts:
joelallie · 31/10/2006 10:00

colditz - I've been there too. OK we aren't in quite such a bad state as we own our own home (in a pretty grim area)but we are never as well off as we could be and most if it is down to DH's inability to keep hold of money for 2 minutes!! We have seperate finances - in that we both have personal a/cs that our pay goes into and a joint a/c that we pay a set amount into each month. Thankfully he is slowly improving. His friend is moving this week into a bigger house with a much bigger mortgage - he earns only a bit more than DH does and his wife doesn't work. Dh can't work out how he can afford it - I pointed out that although we earn the same more or less these days DH pays lot less than I do into our a/c than I do and is frequently overdrawn - in fact we had to take out a loan to pay off the last one.

Like you I love my Dh and he has a lot of really good points but financial acumen ain't one of them!! Drives me mad and I can't help resenting the fact that we could have moved on with our lives if he could just keep his bloody money in his pocket

Original poster
colditz · 31/10/2006 10:05

that's the word, joeLallie. Resentful.

I feel resentful that we are floating through life in a leaky boat, and as I run about frantically patching it up, he stamps about in stilletoes, blithely making holes in the bottom of the boat.

OP posts:
Original poster
colditz · 31/10/2006 10:16

Have just rung the CAB, they are going to phone me back.

OP posts:
Chandra · 31/10/2006 10:25

Colditz, I'm sorry to hear this is going on. I don't remember if you work or not, but if you don't... see this time as a spring board: try to find a job and get back your confidence that you can support your family, and when you are ready, leave him.

If you leave him now, chances are that the situation get worse, if he is not able to control his spending with you being there, I'm afraid he may forget to save something to cover mainteinance payments after a separation

LoveMyGirls · 31/10/2006 10:26

fingers crossed there is something you can do.

why can't you take all his money off him and only give him what you can afford for him to spend? if its a choice between him being given "pocket" money and staying with his family or being left on his own to be homeless (as without you he wouldnt pay the bills so wouldnt be able to keep a roof over his head etc)

would you want to stay with him if he didnt spend all of your money?

whats he said about you controlling all of your finaces?

Original poster
colditz · 31/10/2006 10:35

He won't let me have control of the money. I used to, and I used to give him £20 a week to spends on whatever he liked, not clothes or food or evn phone credit, but he didn't like it. Unsurprisingly.

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kikki · 31/10/2006 13:41

You can't live like this, it is miserable, can't you make him dislike you and want to leave you?
Perhaps you should go to the citzens advice bureau and see if they can help look at your options.

LoveMyGirls · 31/10/2006 14:35

what did CAB say?

LoveMyGirls · 02/11/2006 21:57

how are things colditz? obviously no drastic chnges but what did cab say have you had any more thoughts on what to do?

controlfreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaky2 · 02/11/2006 22:01

are you unmarried?
is tenancy in joint names?

Original poster
colditz · 04/11/2006 10:35

Sorry have been meaning to get back to tghis

Found out dp bought a new dvd player behind my back - to add to the two perfectly fucking functional ones we already have, presumably. Am fuming, actually.

I spoke to CAB, and they are hooking me up with someone who will give me some advice next week.

OP posts:
Original poster
colditz · 04/11/2006 10:35

Unmarried, tenancy in jouint names, he will not leave.

OP posts:
SherlockLGJ · 04/11/2006 10:37

It is abuse of the highest order, just not physical.

Original poster
colditz · 04/11/2006 10:40

He really doesn't do it on purpose to hurt me though, it just happens that this is the effect it has. He would do it if he lived on his own. He would sink himself into debt within the year.

OP posts:
SherlockLGJ · 04/11/2006 10:44

If he is old enough to make babies he is old enough to take responsibility for is actions.

Colditz you do this all the time, you allow him to grind you down even further and then when we get upset on your behalf, you defend him.

IMO and I say only IMO it is a form of abuse.

Original poster
colditz · 04/11/2006 10:44

I am so torn, so torn by this. I love him, I really do, he can be such a sweet man, and yet can be such a tosser the very next day.

if he was always a tosser this would be so much easier.

Are there men out there with a higher 'nice man' to 'tosser' ratio though?

OP posts: