I've lived with my partner (not married) for ten years. She's never seen the point of marriage, so we never went that route. We have a daughter, who has just turned five.
My partner owns her own home outright as it was bought for her by her parents, and I effectively pay my share of (what, for me, is rent) bills, and food costs. The house is a timber framed one bed bungalow in an affluent part of rural Devon. The average house price in our road is close to a million, whereas this property is in serious disrepair.
We have no bathroom to speak of, just a toilet and bath behind a curtain by the front door. We converted the old kitchen into a very small bedroom for our daughter, and I'm worried she'll soon outgrow it.
Much of the exterior timber is rotting, and rats have entered the property on several occasions and have nested in the roof. I found one in the living room a few weeks ago and had to shoot it with an air rifle. We go through a cycle every few winters of plugging holes in the exterior before they chew new ones to gain entry and deploying poisons.
I'm embarrassed by our living situation and have asked my partner on several occasions if she would consider moving. I was a stay at home dad from the end of her maternity year until our little one went to school, as I worked from home at the time. I've always found the house difficult and depressing. It's very small, needs extensive work that we can't afford, and can never be comprehensively cleaned. My partner insists on doing the plumbing and electrics herself. Professionals who have been inside have commented that none of it meets current regulations.
My partner is a great mum but has also made decisions that have really challenged my ability to feel comfortable in this place. She keeps a pet pig at the end of the garden and, one winter, brought it into the house because she was concerned it would be too cold in the snow. It destroyed the living room and fouled everywhere. We also briefly kept chickens and returned from holiday to find they'd gotten in and also fouled everywhere. I had to try and deep clean the house while my partner waited outside with the baby. No matter how much I protest and beg, she insists on living here.
I'm adamant that this is no place to raise a child. My partner refuses to consider moving. I'm now considering separation and moving out, as I've lived in these conditions for ten years and can't stand another day. I'm fairly sure that social services would condemn the house and force us to move if they saw it, but I don't want to throw my partner under the bus by reporting.
My daughter, despite the environment, is very happy here. She has a bath every night and is a happy, well adjusted little girl. But I want so much more for her than this. I wouldn't want to uproot her from her school and friends or engage my partner is a horrible litigation process. She is a great mum but cannot see that the house is dangerous and filthy.
I feel like a failure as a dad. I'm not sure whether moving out will prove beneficial in the long term (because I can least offer her a clean home elsewhere that she spends some time in) or whether I should stay and do what I can to improve the house. It feels like a lost cause, though, as we don't have the funds to knock this all down and build a new property in top. We can't borrow on the property because it's not brick and mortar, and so our only option is a personal loan at high interest to build a cheap extension. My suggestion was that we sell and use the profits as a deposit on somewhere appropriate, but my partner is insistent that she will never sell and that the property is entirely hers. I respect that, and it is true, but I would prefer we remain together as a family and invest our efforts into a joint responsibility that is clean and structurally sound. As that isn't an option, I feel like moving and seeing my daughter on weekends is my only option.
What does the collective wisdom of MN think I should do?