Apologies in advance if this ends up being a long one…
I was with my (now ex) for 5 years - we met in Feb 2019 and originally split Dec 2023. We were apart for the whole month of December last year but ended up getting back together 2nd Jan 2024 after spending time as a family over Christmas etc. but unfortunately things didn’t change much and we separated again in April.
The reason for our split was that whilst we were together, he wasn’t the most supportive of partners - didn’t help much with the children (I have a 8 year old from previous relationship and we have 2 children together, aged 2 and 3) he lied A LOT, often went out to see friends and stayed out overnight without telling me, was constantly getting parking fines which he didn’t pay, running up debts which meant we were receiving letters threatening CCJ’s/bailiff visits etc. I couldn’t take it any more as I had been through all of this with my eldest’s dad too, so I asked him to leave. He was gutted but he understood and did exactly that.
He claimed to be going through a mental breakdown at the time, where he says he just had absolutely no interest in anything and didn’t care about the fines/debts. Nothing made him happy etc. so he would lie to me and say he was with friends for the night, when really he would be spending all night sat in his truck on his own just staring into space before heading to work the following morning from wherever he had been on no sleep. I never truly believed this deep down, but as he was saying he felt depressed, I listened and tried to be so supportive, wanting him to get/feel better for us and our family.
Lots of suspicious things happened surrounding all of this - things not adding up etc. For example, 2 of his parking tickets were in our local supermarket car park exactly 1 week apart (a Thursday on 2 consecutive weeks), arriving at the exact same time (9:20pm) on both visits and leaving approx the same time in the early hours (one was around 1:20am and the following week around 1:40am) yet both times, never actually came home at all overnight so I have no idea where he went after leaving the car park. It was almost as if he had purposely met someone there… he obviously denied anything of the sort. I also believe he was doing drugs and drinking a lot when we weren’t together with his waster “friends”.
When he left, I was actually fine. My life didn’t really change much as I was so used to doing everything at home myself anyhow. It felt like a weight off my shoulders more than anything.
Fast forward to September, after spending some time together with the children this summer which went really well, we ended up giving things another shot yet again after 5 months apart. He had been saying for weeks that he realised what he had lost and how silly he had been to ever let us go and to have treated us the way he did and he will change.
Don’t get me wrong, when he came back, he had improved MASSIVELY when it came to being at home, helping around the house with the children and being open with his feelings (he was a VERY closed book beforehand), no overnight stay outs etc. But he still didn’t contribute financially - he has only ever paid £100 to me in the last 7 months (up until this very day) so I was left to foot all of the bills, childcare, food, pet stuff etc etc. which obviously made me very stressed.
I still didn’t feel like things were headed in the right direction for us to maintain a healthy relationship moving forward so I told him for the final time, I was calling it a day.
But this time around, I am absolutely riddled with guilt and wondering if I have made the right decision as he was clearly trying so hard to be the man he knew he should be, other than financially. He is again claiming that is mental health is not in a good way but how he completely understands the way he initially treated me has been the result of all this, so he only blames himself.
We never row and shout at each other, he has never been abusive towards me (unlike my eldests dad) and when we are good we have so much fun, he really is one of my best friends!
But do I put my own happiness above all? As I know ultimately, I will forever have a seed of doubt that continues to get bigger and bigger when we are together as I’ve soo many unanswered questions about the last year or so but he doesn’t seem prepared to answer anything, just says his MH wasn’t great.
If you have got here then WOW, well done. Thank you for reading. I’m sorry I rambled and it doesn’t make much sense but I hope you get the rough picture.