Please help me

[Needhelp0001]

I need help moving forward.

I’ve been married 7 yrs and have 2 kids (8 and 2).

Over these years my husband has done the following:

• Got £25k in debt from unpaid tax which I paid with my personal savings.
• Got £30k in credit card debt which we added to the mortgage.
• We had Bayliffs for another £14k at the start of last year and a threat of bankruptcy.
• inappropriate messaging - I saw some flirty chats on his laptop - with female colleagues 3 times. I genuinely don’t think it went further than messaging but I don’t know. These broke my heart.
• He works away for quite long periods and quite often tagged personal holiday on the end- leaving me working full time and caring for our son.
• When he was out of work he wouldnt do childcare. My parents often came up to help and he would just laze about / go for coffees.
• I found a wrap of coke on the toilet once when he was working from home. He smokes weed every day. In our social circles (middle class / educated) casual drug use is not entirely unusual (I don’t smoke weed, have on occasion taken drugs when out but no longer do this).
• Once when our oldest was very young (2/3) he slapped his face leaving a red mark. I told him if he ever touched our son again I would leave him that day. He never did it again.
• He has a tendency to be angry and passive aggressive.

There’s more but this is probably a good reflection of some of the bad aspects of our marriage.

The problem is I’m stuck. Since I told him I wanted to leave a year ago he’s become the best dad ever. So involved with the kids. And in general I guess probably had matured from the earlier days. He’s actually a lovely man in other ways and has been very good at making grand gestures (surprise parties etc), buying flowers over the years. Though less good at being a partner to me through the early years of our son’s life.

I’m stuck. I feel he’s demonstrated that he can change - but by now I’m 80% out. My son is devastated that we are splitting. I can sense he already blames me.

Would you leave, or try to make it work?

Your friends and family haven’t suggested he’s abusive? Did you tell them he’d slapped his toddler sons face?

I wouldn’t say spending 16k on his teeth is generous I think is down right stupid!! And sorry to say it but your daft wiping his ass and sorting his debt out for him out of your own personal savings. I can only imagine how you felt handing that amount of money over 😩🥴
It’s not ready relevant but he could have gone to turkey and had his teeth done for a fraction of the price he has spent.
He sounds like an absolute arsehole I’d be looking into divorce and also finding out if there’s any way you can claw your 25k back!

I was thinking about when he cooked the big meals I was talking about before.

He did it because he was good at cooking and enjoyed it - but also I always thought it was so he didn’t have to deal with the kids. He created a huge mess in the process of course. He’d kind of dictate when we ate. He could also be weird if I cooked or ate without him. He’d be passive aggressive / slightly off with me.

Food was always a weird one - it’s like control wrapped up in generosity. That’s why it’s so hard to wrap my head around.

Cooking is the one chore where it's normal and expected to praise the person who cooked, the one chore with a little status. no-one says "thanks for the shiny clean loo" - but people do sit down and thank the cook and comment on the food.

Heartburn - you’re totally right! I didn’t really mean spending £16k on teeth was generous. More that it was part of a pattern of spending money on dumb stuff because he simply loves spending money. Sometimes that resulted in new teeth and sometimes that resulted in him buying presents and clothes for me. Though as a PP said, given I was ultimately subsidizing it, and didn’t know it was on credit, it wasn’t really generous.

FFS PP. The OP made a bad choice in the past. She probably realises that. Saying 'we can't help you now because you chose wrongly in the past' is really NF helpful right now.

OP, you need to leave. Or get him to. The sooner the better. HE hasn't tried to fix it, he's continually got into debt for frankly pretty big amounts, knowing you will bail him out. 16k on his teeth? He's not generous, he's a selfish using arsehole. At what point did he consider the DC, and how his wasting money could affect their lives? Losing their home, their security, their damn food?

He's financially. He's been physically abusive to your child. The fact he's suddenly Disney dad shows he CAN control his behaviour, he just CHOSE not to.

Posters with more knowledge than I can refer you to links for the freedom programme, advice on 'getting your ducks in a row' and what information you should ideally take with you/keep.

You can do this.

Sorry, financially abusive... Not sure if it's the phone or me....

Thankyou all so much.

This thread has helped me see that it IS bad enough to leave.

I’m on the brink of starting divorce proceedings and I just wasn’t sure whether I should do it. You’ve helped me see it’s not all in my head. I know that sounds stupid but when this happens over a matter of years it’s hard to know if it really is that bad...

Thankyou

Good luck to you OP. Don't teeter on the brink, get on and do it! Honestly, this time next year your life will be so much better.

Thankyou @Kerning for your support on this thread. I’ll come back to it if I wobble again