Hi All, new here and hoping for some advice on things at home and my relationship with my partner. Sorry for the long post but feel it needs a lot of context unfortunately.
We moved in together 2 years ago, she moved 200 miles away from her family with her two children. Youngest (7) has his dad in his life the eldest (12) doesn't.
I have two children myself 10 and 8 and have them regularly.
My partner always wanted to work within Nursing and got into an apprenticeship at the local hospital. 12 hour shifts 3 days a week and a day at uni/placement.
This means I take her youngest to school and pick up mostly 3 days a week, do their dinners and bed time. We have my parents and sister as our support network and I work full time with a mixture from home and travelling.
Initially I was mostly working from home as coming out of covid etc. so had been able to support with drop off/pick up from school without childcare costs whilst my partner was working.
The time I had been missing on work doing school drop off and pickup was starting to affect my work and since I began travelling more with work we have needed to rely on childcare before and after school.
It has taken me 12 months to implement a shared calendar to see my partners shifts in advance so that I can manage my work diary for the week and on many occasions I have had a phone call to say that the childcare hadn't been arranged so could I pick up from school 15-20 minutes before school is due to end!
I cook every night, sometimes late so that we can eat together when she is home from her shift and am left to do the cleaning up. Now I don't mind so much doing this after she has worked a long shift but it is also the case on her days off and uni days. I am doing most of the house work during the week and during my weekends off whilst she does very little on her days off. (She spends a lot of her time sitting around on her phone).
She leaves things to the last minute leaving a trail of mess behind her for me to clear up. Won't unload the dishwasher so that dirty dishes can be put away so they just get left on the side. I was doing all the washing and hanging it out or folding it myself when she could help so now I just do my own and leave her to sort hers.
When questioning her support around the house, over the two years we have been through many excuses, "we've just moved here away from my family" "I've started a new job and I'm tired" "I forgot" "I haven't had time" "I'll do it later"
Then I found an un-paid tax bill last year, over 6 months overdue, the majority of it made up of late charges. Eventually I managed to get her to sort it out and pay it off but this then left her with some credit on top of another credit card I wasn't aware off (she had told me when we bought the house she had no debt)
I then found another tax bill this year, which again took months for her to sort out. Eventually she paid it off with some inheritance she recently received, plus the earlier bill which was now on credit.
I got a promotion back in February this year so my work load has become more challenging to juggle with everything around the house. Thankfully the shifts are mostly up to date and the childcare organised although I'm not sure how long for as I was asked about the payments when I collected last week...they haven't been paid for the past 12 months.
What with the promotion I am now also having to pay back 100% of my partners child benefit through self assessment due to earning over the threshold. I just feel like an overused free of charge nanny and am going to be paying £2k a year for the privilege of being treated like a door mat.
I don't come from a wealthy family... she does, and regularly gets handouts from her parents and wealthy friends (including a £32k car recently) so I want to be able to put as much money away as I can for my two children each month.
We have had so many heated arguments over this time and then make up and its great for a few weeks then things slip back into how it was, i get frustrated with all that i am doing and getting no where with her then we argue again.
She hasn't been particularly affectionate for the two years whilst previously she was. Id say she has instigated 'us time' only a couple of times in that time and i do make sure i leave her be when she has been working as i get she's tired so respect that.
I spoke to her around September time and said I'm going to give this my all for two months and if by the end of it i haven't had anything back then I'm done.
By the end of October it got to a stage when she hadn't put a work shift in the calendar. I had a meeting that day I needed to travel to. She got up at 6am and got ready for work. I questioned her about it and said she would need to take her son to school as i had a meeting i needed to get too but she left anyway.
So I text to say i was done, it felt like the last straw as it is always me and my work which gets affected when she doesn't make sure her shifts are up to date.
I told her that we should do our own dinners and that i would continue to support with the kids and try to make sure it was as normal as possible but i felt like i needed to seperate myself from her physically and around the house as it was driving me crazy.
We went a few weeks communicating somewhat and we were amicable. Both had separate holidays for half term which were both pre-planned anyway. Although i wasn't told about hers until i suggested we look at holidays together to Turkey back in July!
A couple of weeks ago i just felt like we really needed to give this another try, i had been doing a lot of thinking over those weeks and realised that i do still love her despite everything (i hadn't told her i loved her for probably a year as i just felt like i didnt. How could i feel like i love someone when they seem to take advantage of me so much?
I told her one night that I do Love her and really wanted to make things work, she said why are you telling me this now.
That comment is now the start of where my mind goes back to from today.
She asked me if she could go on a work night out a couple of weeks ago so would i look after the kids if i had no plans. I wasn't going anywhere so that's fine as had my two with me anyway.
When she was about to leave i asked who was picking her up as realised she wasn't driving. She said one of her colleagues from work. Ah ok whos that? She reluctantly said Harry then when she left she walked all the way up the road rather than him coming to the house which i thought was odd.
Over this weekend she was back up north to see family and take her son to her dads. She told me she would be spending the weekend with friends and on Saturday. I hadn't heard back from her all afternoon / evening so text to ask if 'she was still alive' (something we say when we've not responded for a while)
I go no response, and realised her apple watch was at home. So i checked the location and though ok, she's just having a night out but obviously at this point im thinking all sorts.
Her location then didn't change from late that evening until late morning. And i saw post from her friend online, a picture of her two friends (only them) with my partner tagged. This then also rang alarm bells!
When she got home i asked how her weekend was and what did she do with her mates. She went to lunch and they watched films and ate snacks all night. I asked where they stayed and the answer wasn't where i had located her!
Obviously then questioned this and it was initially denied, but eventually the truth came out and she spent the Saturday afternoon with Harry, Hotel and night and breakfast the following morning.
It took about ten times to get her to admit they had sex (obviously because who books a hotel and doesn't move from it for hours and not have sex)
I then questioned the works party and she insists it was with work friends too.
Thinking back i now have realised it is obvious that when she went to pilates and was gone 4 hours she met him. When she was late back one Friday after dropping her son with his Dad and said she met a friend on the way home it was him. The work party was a date the following day...
We talked and for once didn't argue. I asked what she wanted and all the emotions came out about moving etc and being away from friends work et. and all the usual excuses i hear about why she doesn't do things around the house and why she doesn't instigate anything with me.
I said i really wanted this to work, we put a lot into this together with her moving and the house for it to all go to waste. I am hellbent on bending over backwards with no complaint to see if this will get her into the frame of mind she seems to need to be in. But despite her saying she wants to work it out with me and promised not with him i just don't know. She's changed her phone password for the first time ever and when she is texting i just think is it him.
I'm not normally one to put these things online and its actually been typed out for a while. The last section was this weekend so i've ranted a bit on this but am i being unreasonable at all? To expect a fair share from both of us of the work around the house and the kids and our relationship?
Im glad i have got this off my chest, and having typed it out i feel a bit better but any advice is appreciated with this.