Feel like my life's choices are being eroded

[colditz]

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.

I know i know i know, I can hear my own words echoing in my ears as I type, I would be disgusted if one of my friends was putting up with this.

I agree that this can't be right and can't go on. I don't know the background, sorry. What about his parents and siblings? If he has parents and siblings, can you talk to them to ask them to talk to him? I agree with you working yourself if you're not already and if you have school and childcare provision for the children. Reading your posts again make me mad. What an irresponsible prat he is. So sorry for you and I hope we can all work out how to get you out of this horrible situation.

It's not that I want him to vanish, I just don't want to be financially associated with him any more.

I'm making myself cross now, so lord only knows how everyone here who listens to me whittering on about him feels.

I might fgo and bonk a teenager to teach him a lesson. Serve him right for taking me for gratned

Do you not have any family or friends you could go to? I realise that I'm lucky to have friends who could put me and my children up should the need ever arise (which I'm sure it won't) and I also have friends who own houses and flats which they rent out and they'd rent them out to me at a more reasonable rate if they could I'm sure. Can you write to your local MP? Go to see him or her in their local office which they have regularly?

If he is nice in lots of ways then say to him that you don't want to lose him but that you cannot and will not put up with this financial situation any longer. It's his choice. If he is half decent as you say, he'll either seek help and change or he'll move out. If he doesn't do either then I believe he is not a nice man in any way.

No! Not bonking a teenager! [wry smile] Keep focused on the problem. Don't bring other things into it.
Cool.
Calm.
Focused.
Think of someone you admire even if a soap character and think of what they'd do in the situation. Apart from hire a hit man, I mean!

Isn't one solution what most couples do when one is bad with money, separate finances and you get a job which means you can pay for things? So work back from that. What work could you do? It may depend on wher eyou are in the country but where I am there is always work to be had. Many couples manage not to be financially associated even in marriage but you need a job to manage that.

I used to work before I had ds2 - what happened was, I paid for everything, and did everything too.

I just really do not want to live with him any more. It's not so bad that I must leave now, I could even leave in a couple of years, but I'm not living like this forever,.

Why delay what seems to be inevitable?

You don't want to be financially associated with him, but that's impossible to avoid if you're a couple sharing a home and a family.

You may well love him when he's being sweet but what about the rest of the time?

Don't you and your children deserve better?

If you would be disgusted if any of your friends said the things you're saying why do yourself down and put up with things?!

I'm sorry you're in such a difficult situation, but reading through your posts I don't see that you have any option but to leave him now. Perhaps you can maintain a friendship with him - who knows, he might even grow up a bit! - and you can face a different future together. If you leave it, things will only degenerate further and you may risk having no relationship with him at all that's worth salvaging.

Because I can't leave him. I can't get a job that will pay enough to rent a house without housing benefit, I can't claim housng benefit unless I have a guarantor (which I don't have), The council will not help me unless I am being beaten, the housing association will not help me unless I am being beaten, I have run out of choices. I am trapped.

I typed out a long post then scrapped it. Short version:- You think you're trapped. He thinks you're stuffed as you have no alternatives. He therefore doesn't need to take your dislike of his spending habits seriously as he thinks you have no choice but to stay. Are you going to:-

1. Stay.
2. Stay but tell him that you're doing everything you can so that you can leave and are effectively ending the relationship, leaving yourself single once more and possibly actively dating again.
3. Leaving despite making yourself homeless - you'd rather sleep on the streets. A no-go this one as there is you and the children to think of.
4. Don't know. Haven't thought of more!

Have you any money coming in? What age are the children? If he forces you to give you any money you have then there is no point you having a job to earn money as he'll just take it away from you. I think I posted about an MP's surgery. Please look into every avenue. I'm sure you've tried most but try them all and then try them again. If you can't change him then you must change your circumstances or else wait until the children grow up a bit and leave or whatever. And in my humble opinion it's abuse, too.

Of course it is abuse, and the Colditz of 2 years ago would have been full of fight and attitude, but he has ground her down.

It is like a watered down version of Stockholm Syndrome.

2

He doesn't force me to do anything, he can't as I won't be pushed around in that way but, for exdample, last year her didn't pay the rent for 8 weeks, and we got an eviction notice and I had to clear my account of all my money I had saved for Christmas to pay the rent with. I never got that money back. He owes me money now.

He was very apologetic, he always is. But he still does it. and he sleeps like a baby, and I toss and turn all night worrying, wondering if I could manage night shifts and looking after a baby and toddler all day. Which I can't.

I know he has ground me down. I am so resigned now. I never used to be resigned to anything.

If you knew him....

I have the idea that everyone thinks he is an aggressive person, and he really isn't. He is incredibly passive, but that has it's down side in that he won't take the blame or responsibility for anything. His view of life is that "Things just happen, one after the other"

The only possible thing I could do is have the locks changed while he is out, because I am not sure he has the gumption to challenge me properly instead of yelling through the letterbox.

We have relate type thing on Monday, I am going to raise all these things in that meeting and see what he has to say for himself when he can't ignore me or walk ofgf.

colditz

You know you get those momebnts with three year olds when you come downstairs after going to the loo, and they have pasted a £25 lipstick into the holes in your speakers for no reason youcan fathom?

Those moments when you just want to scream "WHY!? Why did you do that, for Christ's sake what possessed you to do that!?" ?

And when you do ask them why, they look at the floor and say "dunno" ?

I have those with dp.

i know i'm being a twat because deep down i agree with sherlock....but i can really hear the stuff about loving him apart from this shitty aspect of his behaviour.

i guess what do we do with toddlers that behave in a totally irreponsible way....show them through consequences that their actions are wrong???? is there a way of doing that...of doing something that makes him understand that he is being a prick?

like locking all the dvds and computers in a cupboard and giving the key to your mate to keep???

god fucking freaky cross post there....with regards to 3 year olds.

cutting up all this cards?

withdrawing the means of him spending money as a condition of you staying?

Ok

I have had a glass of wine, but would it be correct to say that he is passive/agressive ??

Quite laid back, but knows he holds all the cards, so you Colditz had better get over yourself ??

Yay I am not that pissed.....

Passive-aggressive behaviour refers to passive, sometimes obstructionist resistance to authoritative instructions in interpersonal or occupational situations. It can manifest itself as resentment, stubbornness, procrastination, sullenness, or intentional failure at doing requested tasks. For example, people who are passive-aggressive might take so long to get ready for a party they do not wish to attend that the party is nearly over by the time they arrive.

Can you take control of paying the rent on the grounds that he is not capable of doing it? Because it IS totally unacceptable that he puts you and the children in danger of being homeless through not paying the bloody rent and then expects you to bail him out (which you did so he has every reason to expect that you will do it again).

How many of these boxes can you tick with regard to his behaviour ??

There are certain behaviors that help identify passive-aggressive behavior. [2]

Ambiguity
Avoiding responsibility by claiming forgetfulness
Blaming others
Chronic lateness and forgetfulness
Complaining
Does not express hostility or anger openly
Fear of competition
Fear of dependency
Fear of intimacy
Fears authority
Fosters chaos
Intentional inefficiency
Making excuses and lying
Obstructionism
Procrastination
Resentment
Resists suggestions from others
Sarcasm
Sullenness
A passive-aggressive may not have all of these behaviours, and may have other non-passive-aggressive traits.

Have been there done that, it's gone beyond that now. He has had so much help to behave responsibly that a 12 year old in his shoes would be acting like an adult now. He's had budgeting councelling, relationship councelling, I took over the money (he hated that)

He just doesn't want to. He does not think. Full stop. I am going to leave him now, I have put up with this arsery for years, but I just have to find a way of leaving him.