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Relationships

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

I can't make him leave.

19 replies

CiderWithRosiee · 25/02/2021 09:24

I posted a few weeks ago about wanting to end things with my partner due to his addictions and my own mental health issues. I was told, quite unanimously, that I should end the relationship and I have tried but somehow he is still here. Every time I try and speak to him about it he cries and tells me how much he loves me, that he has nothing to live for without me, that he will have to leave the area (we both grew up here so all of his friends are local and he doesn't drive) because there is 'nothing left for him here', and I end up feeling so terrible that I just give in.

I have always struggled with face to face conversation when it's emotional or 'deep', if you see what I mean? I know that probably sounds like a cop out but it's a real thing, my throat closes up and I genuinely can't speak. I suffered a lot of emotional and physical abuse from my mother as a child which I think has a lot to do with it. So when I try to speak to him about how I feel it doesn't go very well, and I usually end up saying virtually nothing while he tells me that we are meant to be together and that there is no one else who means as much to him as I do. Which, now I've written it down, actually sounds quite sweet, but it makes me feel trapped rather than loved. I tried writing everything down in a letter and then going out for the day so that I wouldn't have to face him, and he did leave but then kept sending me messages telling me that he was now sleeping in a tent and due to the terrible weather over the last few weeks I felt so bad that I let him come back again.

I just don't know what to do. He says he will give up smoking weed (his main addiction, along with gaming) and has been applying for jobs, etc, but I know he has met up with a friend and smoked a small amount over the last couple of days. He said it was a one (two?) off, and that he won't do it again, but I don't believe him.

I am currently having CBT sessions due to severe PTSD after a very sudden and traumatic bereavement so I don't know whether I'm being rational or not, whether I'm trying to punish myself in some way, or whether I really do want to be alone. Everything just feels like such a mess and I honestly want to end it all rather than have to deal with it anymore. I won't, because I have two DC who need me, but sometimes it feels like there is no other way out of this mess.

I do love him, very much, and he is truly one of my best friends, but I need space and time to deal with everything that I've been through, and it feels like his problems are just adding to my own. I know I need to be strong and just tell him, but I really don't know how.

OP posts:
WriteHon · 25/02/2021 09:41

If you don't feel strong enough at the moment to make him accept he has to leave, would it help to have someone at your side when you give him a date he must be out by? Someone that would back you so that his manipulation can't work, even when he's gone?

AttilaTheMeerkat · 25/02/2021 09:57

You absolutely need to get this man now out of your life and permanently. Whilst he is still around with you at all being his willing audience, you will not be able to rebuild your life. He is manipulating you big time into staying with him using tears too. Its all done by him to further make you feel sorry for him. He sees you only as a soft hearted sap of a woman.

You learnt an awful lot of damaging lessons about relationships when you were growing up at the hands of your abusive mother and that is also why you are with such an abusive man now. I would also assume that your relationships in adulthood to date have also all been abusive. The abuse was and remains not your fault in any way and is all on the people who chose to abuse you. Abuse is about power and control and these people want absolute over you.

What is there exactly to love about this man, you I feel do not know what a mutually loving and respectful relationship is mainly because no-one ever bothered to show you. You are also codependent in relationships and put their needs ahead of your own. Your children cannot afford to themselves learn such damaging lessons on relationships.

Do you think the CBT sessions are helping you?. Is this person doing this therapy actually aware of your childhood abuse and of this abusive relationship now?.

Would you be willing to contact the likes of the Samaritans, NAPAC and Womens Aid?. These organisations could help you move properly forward here because you remain very vulnerable still to approaches from abusers. Your boundaries, already mashed by previous abuse, are being further eroded by this individual. Do not under estimate the effects all this is having on your kids too.

Mintjulia · 25/02/2021 10:00

Yes, you need someone with you for moral support. Dad? Brother? Best friend & her husband?

plan what you will say. Give him a date to leave - a week should be enough warning and book someone to change the locks on that day while he is out.

You are not his mother and not responsible for him. Until you force the issue by evicting him, he won't change, won't get a job, won't find somewhere else to live. And he can't go to Housing until he is homeless. YOu need to do it for the well being of your family. Brew

CiderWithRosiee · 25/02/2021 14:55

Thanks for your replies, and sorry for disappearing all day. I had a CBT session today and it wiped me out.

I know I need to be brave and just tell him it's over, but I don't want to hurt him and I don't want to be the reason he does something to hurt himself either. Is it really abuse, if he's telling me that he can't live without me? I have probably been sending out some very mixed signals, so maybe he really does believe that we could still have a future together?

This all just feels like more of a mess than I can sort out.

OP posts:
nitsandwormsdodger · 25/02/2021 15:00

You are doing him a favour by not being indulging him he needs this
Pack his bags
Set a date

AttilaTheMeerkat · 25/02/2021 15:01

Indeed be brave and have physical support in the shape of another adult with you when you tell him its over.

He has not cared at all about hurting you and in turn your children. he has been using you this whole time.

Yes it is abuse (abuse is not just physical in nature) and yes he is manipulating you big time. His threats to kill himself are rooted in manipulation. If you give an inch he will take a mile and indeed has done that. You are not and have never been responsible for him and or his choices of behaviour. You are only responsible for your own self ultimately and from that you need to rebuild your life as part of recovery from being abused since childhood.

Throwntothewolves · 25/02/2021 15:16

See this is the problem when people say 'kick him out' or LTB. Emotionally it's very, very hard to do, and practically, how exactly, if he doesn't accept it's over and won't leave?

If you can maybe you could give him a date and stay elsewhere til then to avoid any emotional manipulation on his part, or having to deal with the toll of living together while separated. If he really won't accept it and wont leave, either you will have to go or you need to go down the legal route to get him out/sell the house/end the lease, whichever applies to your situation

CiderWithRosiee · 25/02/2021 15:53

@Throwntothewolves it's a rented house (HA) so I can't move or end the lease or anything like that. He's on the tenancy but I am the main tenant, and it's my home so I'm not leaving it.

I don't want to seem like I'm arguing with all of you who say he's abusive, I appreciate that I'm probably not seeing things clearly, but is it really abuse to tell someone that they mean that much to you? He doesn't have any family (his Dad left when he was young and his Mum moved away, making him homeless at 17, to be with her new partner) so isn't it possible that he really does actually mean it when he says he has nothing else to live for? Or is it the voicing of that feeling that makes it abusive?

OP posts:
FlorenceinSummer · 25/02/2021 16:06

[quote CiderWithRosiee]@Throwntothewolves it's a rented house (HA) so I can't move or end the lease or anything like that. He's on the tenancy but I am the main tenant, and it's my home so I'm not leaving it.

I don't want to seem like I'm arguing with all of you who say he's abusive, I appreciate that I'm probably not seeing things clearly, but is it really abuse to tell someone that they mean that much to you? He doesn't have any family (his Dad left when he was young and his Mum moved away, making him homeless at 17, to be with her new partner) so isn't it possible that he really does actually mean it when he says he has nothing else to live for? Or is it the voicing of that feeling that makes it abusive?[/quote]
Yes it is abusive to tell you that his mental health and well being is your responsiblity. He is threatening you with violence against himself (nothing to live for without you), he is blaming you for having to move out of the area (without logic or reason), he is using coercion - if you make me leave I will do x/y/z. All abusive behaviour.Flowers

Aahotep · 25/02/2021 16:14

If he cared then he would stop taking drugs and be a good partner and father.
He's telling you all this now to stop you kicking him out.
Actions speak louder than words and his actions have shown you what he is. Suddenly because you want to end the relationship he adores you? Nonsense, he just sees his cushy life won't be quite so cushy anymore.
I highly doubt he will harm himself, he's trying to manipulate you. Many abusive men say this and they don't do it.
Change the locks while he is out, bag up his stuff and leave it with a friend of his for him to collect. He's had plenty of notice, he should have used the time to find somewhere to stay.

CiderWithRosiee · 25/02/2021 16:27

He hasn't been horrible to me over the time we've been together, he's always treated me really well and my DC too, it's just his own mental health and well-being that he neglects.

I know it sounds like I'm making excuses now, but I just want to make it clear that this isn't a long running pattern of behaviour - the tears and the 'threats' only started when I told him I didn't want to be with him anymore. He's not a terrible person, he's just got so many issues and I don't think I can cope with them. If I could wave a magic wand and make everything better for us both then I would, but I can't and I know I need to prioritise my own mental health, and that of my DC.

Has anyone got a backbone I could borrow for a few days? Confused

OP posts:
Aahotep · 25/02/2021 16:42

You are allowed to end the relationship for any reason you like OP. You can't fix him and if you can't live with him as he is then he has to go.
I would happily lend you my spine if I could.
Life will be better without him there in your home. You won't believe how much better.

billy1966 · 25/02/2021 16:57

Your poor children OP.
Can you not find the strength to do what's right for them if not for you?

Why is he more important than your children?

Hont1986 · 25/02/2021 17:01

I don't know what "named on the tenancy but not the main tenant" means. In the UK, if he's a named tenant then you can't make him leave.

FlorenceinSummer · 25/02/2021 17:04

He behaviour has changed as he isn't getting what he wants anymore.

FlorenceinSummer · 25/02/2021 17:05

*His

CiderWithRosiee · 25/02/2021 17:25

@Hont1986 it's a HA property so he is listed as living here but the tenancy is solely in my name. Basically, they know he lives here but he's not registered as their tenant because I was the applicant for the house in the first place. He doesn't have any rights to the house, is what I'm trying to say. Besides which, my DC have lost enough in their lives, I won't make them lose their home too. He has to be the one who leaves, I just need to make that happen.

OP posts:
CiderWithRosiee · 25/02/2021 17:29

@billy1966 why do you refer to my 'poor children'? They are loved and cared for, and the most important people in the world to me. I'm not putting him above them, at all. If I thought for even a second that they were at risk of harm or in danger then he would have been gone immediately, but he has never done anything other than treat them incredibly well.

OP posts:
billy1966 · 25/02/2021 18:34

Read your OP.

The stress
The drama
The weed
The sudden death
Your PTS
The MH difficulties
The weed
The addiction
The gaming
His crying
The stress.

Are you seriously suggesting that your children are oblivious to the house they live in?

I mean this kindly, read your OP and imagine how your children must be feeling.

Loved and secure in a happy home, or in a home where a gaming addicted waster's feelings seem to dominate.

Flowers
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