I just need some impartial advice about my current life mess, please please comment if you can.
my parter and I have been together 8 years and have 2 children, age 4 and 6. Even when I was pregnant with my first I felt he didn't support me, and I have multiple memories of times he's been unpleasant over the years. He comes across as very charming and seemed to have all the same views on life as I do but it wasn't how it first seemed.
For example when my first child was small and I was struggling with breastfeeding and just being a new mum, I remember him shouting at me because I wanted him to wait with her for 10 minutes after his night shift so I could just have a shower. Once I forgot to buy bread and he shouted at me for that too. And once a week or so after m C section he shouted at me because I'd not dragged the wheelie bin back in over the shingle drive after it had been emptied. He didn't help me with her, he didn't support me breastfeeding her, I was lonely and miserable and a bit depressed I suspect.
He's 3 times quit jobs he's had without discussing with me first so we've existed for some time on my savings and my wages. I remember when my first child was small we did this and it got to the point where he was just drinking and not really doing anything and I had to tell him he needed to get a job. In between times he has contributed something to the running of the house and costs, by giving me cheques, but it's all been a bit hit and miss. I earn a lot more than him so I've paid for our house, which needed to be big enough for rooms for his 2 older sons to stay in.
At times he's been supportive, for example, about my work when it's been stressful, but many times he hasn't. When my training post finished and I had to apply for the next job, which was a very stressful time for me, he didn't even say well done when I got the job, he wasn't happy for me, he just said he didn't want to particularly carry on living where we were living, although it was my wages which paid the rent.
He is kind to the children but I am almost always the one to provide all care, routine and structure, and also discipline. Sometimes, for example when I ask for better manners at the dinner table from them, if they're playing with their food for example he will copy them to get a laugh from them.
He is very critical of what I spend my money on, for example, I can't buy anything new for the house because he would criticise it. He smokes and drinks beer. I try not to criticise this but I think it is hypocritical of him to pass comments on what I buy (and I don't buy a lot or spend alot) when he spends a lot on things which damage his health and that of those around him.
Both my daughter and I have been diagnosed with asthma but when I told him that the GP had said that having a parent who smoked being a big risk factor for developing childhood asthma, he got angry. And yet last year he blamed me because she got a persistent ear infection after she'd had the nasal flu immunisation (which I'd consented to), he didn't think the ear infection was anything to do with him smoking at all.
Anyway he had previously said that he would move with me from the city we lived in to be close to my parents who live in a village 2 hours drive away. Last year a job came up for me close to my parents. I discussed it with him on numerous occasions and he always said I should go for it and he would move with me, he was happy etc etc. He said he would give up his job and move and find a new one in the new place.
So I went through the interview process, I have a very responsible job and the whole application and interview took several months but I got the job. I then was trying to organise where we would live and where the children would go to school. He wouldn't come to see the area with me although there were several opportunities for him to do so. I tried to describe various villages and town locations to him. I reliquished the places at the first school where they got places because he said he didn't want to live in that place. I remember trying to show him pictures of places on Google images and him not wanting to look.
So in the end I came down on my own and chose a house, I actually got quite desperate because it was 3 weeks before the moving date and I hadn't found anywhere, so I ended up with a house about 3 miles from the school with a plan that this place would be a stop gap and hopefully we would buy somewhere in the same village as the school eventually. My parents looked after the children for me whilst I did all this.
When we finally moved he hated everything about the new place. He was very angry. He applied for a job but didn't get it and since then he's been back up to the city to do a couple of weeks work, but not applied for anything else. He would be able to find work in a care home easily as he is a nurse. We've been here since November. He hasn't given me any money towards the house since sometime last summer and I know he's at his overdraft limit.
He still buys his beer and cigarettes. He said he wasn't buying any Christmas presents although in the end he bought me a top off the market. For my birthday I would get flowers and some choclates from the co op and often alcohol ahtough I don't drink much (because the effect it has on him disgusts me). He's very overweight and often doesn't seem to bother to wash.
We've been arguing about more or less everything. One of the few responsibilities he has had has been to take the children to school in the mornings, but they were late 3 times. He won't go the shorter country route to the school but insists on the longer route. My daughter was so upset about this that I've changed my work times to start 30min later in order to take them to school. He was just angry about the house location and the drive.
In addition my daughter (the 6 year old) has struggled a little to settle in, she obviously misses her old friends. He's been really reinforcing this and not been helping her to find anything positive about the move, although there's no way now we could move back. When she's got upset about the move, which she only does with him, I think because he really encourages it, he blames me and is angry with me although the move was something I thought we had decided together.
My heart just feels totally closed off to him now. I feel that he has betrayed my trust in him being a partner and caring about me as a person, and us as a family, so many times, that I have lost faith in him. I always worked to keep the family together because I thought it was best for the children. He's said on numerous occasions that he would leave me. But I've always encouraged him not to. But now somehow I feel at the end of my rope.
When we discussed it he actually then refused to go. He said he wanted to make the relationship work and he would tell the children, if it came to it, that I had kicked him out. He agreed to go to relate although as with everything else has left it to me to find out about it, and I'm sure I'd be the one paying.
I really don't think relate is going to work. He's gone back to the city this week to work and I am so much happier without him. I want to end the relationship. I've hung on for so long for the children but I dont feel I can do it any more.
I just want someone to tell me whether they think I'm doing the right thing.
And the other thing is he was going on about expecting to see the children one weekend a month and 5 weeks holiday a year including alternate Christmases. It breaks my heart to think of them being dragged back up to the city once a month and how that will affect them. I have seen him talking to his sons about their mother and "how crazy" she is, almost wanting them to pick a side between him and her, and I don't want our children to be in the middle of that. And I have read about "Disneyland Dads" who don't uphold any boundaries or control in order to be the "fun" parent, and I am worried about the effect that will have on them.
He's due to come back on Sunday and I think I am going to speak to a solicitor tomorrow if I can about my rights and how to proceed. But please if anyone has any experience of this, then I would be so glad to hear it. Although in some ways I know maybe they would want to see their Dad, to be honest when he's not around they don't miss him, it's always me that does everything for them anyway, and I'm not keen for them to be split between us. So from my point of view the less they see him the better.
Any thoughts or similar experiences would be very much appreciated.