Blindsided after nearly 8 years with SEN children, how do I move forward?

[Marina94]

A few months ago my partner (also female) completely blindsided me and ended our relationship out of nowhere. We have 2 young children age 4 and nearly 2 who I carried through IVF. Looking back I can see a lot of elements of emotional abuse / control but I did not know at all that this was going to happen, we were together for over 7 years and had never broken up or discussed breaking up previously. I thought we were at least all in this fully committed for the kids, we were planning to relocate to be nearer our families for a better support network/ quality of life / to more time for us. Every time we did get the time for us it was great, I believed our life stress was all circumstantial around lack of a village. She said she ‘doesn’t feel the same way (about me) any more’ and needs to ‘live her life’, she feels trapped by the children but she was the driving force in having them and she had a really full life in the many years before having children in her late 30s. She also hasn’t sacrificed her life as I have and still has her career and friendships in tact. So I don’t really get what the point of doing this was, but I’m trying to accept it has happened even though the grief seems insurmountable. She was my best friend and my person and my team mate in parenting, the only one who understood the unique profile of our daughters needs. I always justified her questionable controlling qualities and somehow keeping her comfortable was worth the commitment and family I had.

From the evening of the break up it was like a light switch to completely cold and indifferent. She does not appear to have any feelings whatsoever about me and has shown no doubt, empathy or concern at any point in the last 3 months when I have been going through hell trying to process and recover while also full time parenting. She is now accusing me of causing the whole issue because I did not react well enough to the break up and saying Its unfair I am bringing the kids into it just because she doesn’t want to be with me. She says I am making it all up, that it never happened, that she actually treats me well, that it isn’t a big deal she broke up with me, that I’m mentally unstable, that I can’t keep the kids safe (I have for 5 years). She uses every single thing I say and all my vulnerabilities against me. She’s never been great at emotional support but this feels like pure contempt and I am constantly having to remind myself that I haven’t actually done anything wrong. I am pretty sure she is a narcissist or at least an overwhelmed avoidant? She has never liked any of my friends or family (and vice versa) and they have said similarly many times over the years.

She is adamant that I stay being the stay at home parent, still live with her in our house, facilitate her working full time in her fancy career and going out in the evenings. She does say I can go out sometimes in the evenings but doesn't see how our lives are still unequal. She says she will still financially support us but always uses money against me (saying she is the cash cow bank rolling us etc even though I send her everything I get which is more than my half). I am trying to split finances as I currently just transfer her everything I get from my part time job and family and disability allowance but she’s just saying no I’m trying to screw her over financially, that I couldn’t cope without her, I couldn’t work, I couldn’t earn enough, she pays for everything etc. I can’t currently get benefits or funding for childcare because we live together and I don’t work enough hours because I care for my eldest , but my ex says she can’t afford to pay for it.

She is now adamant that she will not be moving or changing her job so we have to stay here. There is nothing for the children where we live in terms of SEN groups, special schools, home education groups, there is very little infrastructure in regard to shops and facilities. I feel completely trapped and we can't afford to move anywhere else around where we live, and now she has made the environment impossible for us to coparent in but then says it's on me if I try to move without her. She is not cooperative in anything I am trying to do to help progress the children and is dismissing/invalidating any concerns I raise about them to the point where I can’t even message her during the (long) days I have with the kids because her response is that I’m making up any difficulties to manipulate her into not going out socially, or that the kids are only distressed because I am not ok, that I’m traumatising them and that they are absolutely fine with her. It’s very lonely and daunting to carry so much more of the parenting load now completely alone.

I don't feel emotionally safe with her at all, I feel very uneasy about whether I know her at all and if I can trust her in any way. She is using all of my weaknesses against me and my mental health against my parenting etc but then blocking the things I try to do to help myself. I am very worried about what she is going to do next and how I will be able to co parent with her when she really doesn't see me as an equal in any way. She is only nice to me when I am saying or doing things that she agrees with and then if I don't she turns on me and shuts me down. She keeps making unilateral decisions that affect me and the kids without warning or asking what I think first. I genuinely don't know what to do. She is making me question my whole self and whole reality.

I am trying to act in the children's best interests, my ex isn’t a bad parent (albeit quite lazy and unboundaried) and the kids love her but because prioritising them doesn't align with the reasons she did this, she doesn’t really have much motivation to even attempt to follow anything I am trying to implement to progress them around their development and sleep.

She is adamant that I can't take the children away from her, which of course I don't want to, but I don't know what to do instead. I want more of her parenting not less. Their needs are so high and different from one another. I’m angry that she has destroyed the trust between us when I know this could have been better if she has gone about this more considerately. Im devastated that literally a few months as we had a plan and I saw solid glimmers of hope for the future. As it stands my mental health is becoming more and more affected by her continuing gaslighting and cruel comments but the kids are such high needs and at the moment they both need an adult with them overnight which is problematic. It often takes a long time to get them to sleep and they can’t be in the same room as each other while this is happening or they just get riled up again and don’t settle.

I am trying to split finances as I currently just transfer her everything I get from my part time job and family and disability allowance but she’s just saying no I’m trying to screw her over financially, I couldn’t cope without her, I couldn’t work, I couldn’t earn enough, she pays for everything etc. I can’t currently get benefits or funding for childcare because we live together and I don’t work enough hours because I care for my eldest , but my ex says she can’t afford to pay for it.

Possible options I can think of :

1. I could relocate nearer to our families anyway to get more support but it is terrifying to move alone and live in a totally new area that I don’t know anything about, and how I will cope alone mentally and practically with the 2 children and their differing needs. I think the younger one should go into childcare regardless for this reason. My exes family have completely disowned me now but do still love the children. I we were originally planning to move nearer to them but now I am thinking that my family (less than 1 hour away) would be more useful. I do hope that my ex would come to visit / have the children at weekends either at my house (I would leave) or her families nearby. I am debating in with my mum as my ex’s family seem to have This would be 3.5 hours from our current home.

1. The other option is I stay in the area where I am and try to get alternative accommodation somehow (I have money in our current house but not enough to buy in this area alone and I couldn’t get a mortgage) but then I would have the familiar environment and some consistency still, a few friends but no family help etc. maybe I could get benefits. Ex would have the best of all worlds I imagine so maybe would agree…

1. we stay in the current home we own but somehow split the days we are there so she is there part of the week parenting while I stay elsewhere and then vice versa. I don’t know how that would work if she is refusing to reduce her hours at work and she often leaves at 7am so realistically I couldn’t be back to takeover before then.

What she's done is awful. Your poor kids. I'd see a lawyer and get proper (qualified) advice.

Are you not married or in a civil partnership OP? If I were you, I would take legal advice and ideally sell the house, take your half and move near your family. Then you can sort out childcare for your youngest, look at any benefits like UC that you can claim and/or look for a part time job. Do not stay living with your abusive ex partner. That is an untenable situation and she can't bully you into staying. Can you get some emotional and practical support from your family to navigate this next bit.

From what you've said, I wouldn't count on her stepping up and doing her fair share in co-parenting. You can and should make a claim for child support via CMS though.

You can't force her to be a good parent or a nice person - unfortunately it sounds as though she's neither. What you can do is get yourself away from her and believe in yourself. You are managing the needs of both your children admirably and will continue to do so. You may well find it easier without the stress of a cruel and uncooperative partner.

@whippersnapper55 not married or in a civil partnership unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at it!! That’s really good advice thank you!! I hadn’t really considered the lawyer option as I thought it was more of a moral / domestic issue as we aren’t married. I think your suggestions make a lot of sense re. Moving to nearer my family. I will try my absolute hardest to make some kind of life for my kids somehow.

I would agree that you need urgent legal advice here. And kindly, she doesn't get to be "in charge" of your life now that you're no longer in a relationship together. She sounds like a horrendous bully who wants everything her way. Living in the same home when no longer together is too toxic for everyone - especially children. You need your family and support more than ever.

Move near your own family not hers. Do not consider her in your plans at all ahe sounds abusive

You need to put yourself and your children first. Move near your parents

We had a Prime Minister who once said “always back Self Interest. At least you know that it’s trying to win”.

Figure out (with the help of a lawyer) what is in your best self interest. Then go for that. As the resident parent, if you get what you need, you will likely find that things are easier and you are stronger. You aren’t a punching bag - no matter how much she likes to tell you she’s hers. Figure it out and get out.

Are you both on the birth certificates?

Moving closer to your family seems the best move for you.

As others have said a solicitor would be a good move and Women’s Aid is worth a call as well.

You need to speak to a lawyer to get advice on if you can legally move with the children. I'm so sorry op what a nightmare. Get away from this women as fast as you can. I assume she found someone else. Please do not ever put all your eggs in someone else's basket. It will be hard to find a job secure child care a place to live but it won't be as hard as living this nightmare you are in now. I promise you that.

You need to sell the house if you are buying together with a mortgage or give notice if renting and move back closer to your Mum. Will your Mum offer you some support both emotionally and with DC? You carried the DC so she can't take them away from you. Is your ex partner on birth certificates?

Thank you so much everyone for the replies. Yes we are both on the birth certificates. I am biological mother and birth mother, she has many times said that this is challenging for her, especially given their level of need, and that it makes it harder to cope with how tough it is being not biologically related, that It’s just different for me, that she thinks she should never have become a parent. She has occasionally said ‘and they’re not even my kids’ which is extremely hurtful as I feel that they just equally ours, we created them. They have no other parents to be there for them but us. I feel she has a lot of resentment for me around them, she doesn’t like my family AT ALL as she thinks they are annoying and too flawed, so the ways that the kids remind her of them really gets to her. I understand the different positions we have in all that but I still think she should be going to seek support in appropriate groups and counselling for this and not taking it out at home.

UPDATE: She is saying today that she wants to make it work with us both in the house as it’s too traumatic for the kids to be away from either of us over night at their ages…she’s saying that she will respect my boundaries around not just hanging out near me in the house and talking to me about random things when I have said it’s too hard for me to do that and I need us to be in direct contact less. She said she will ask to compress her hours into 4 days and free up 1 day for me - but what job am I getting for 1 day in the week and 1 weekend day? She’s saying we should be able to be friends and the problem is that I don’t want that. She’s saying that in regard to the break up she just broke and didn’t go about it in the right way but she just didn’t want to be with me any more (was I really that awful that it had to be that sudden in that exact moment?!!)

I am so confused and conflicted. I know she’s mean to me but she’s saying I can’t prove it like I would need to to take the kids away, forgetting that the primary reason I want to move away is that we were ALWAYS moving away due to the lack of support and infrastructure and schools etc for the kids. She says she’s not moving and I have to have her permission to leave the area?

There was a straight woman she wanted to be with at work and they said to each other that they found one another attractive but apparently it didn’t materialise but who knows what to believe. I feel so hurt. Maybe that is the reason she is suddenly obsessed with and won’t leave her job even though for years she didn’t put any value on a job title and it was very much ‘a means to get money us to live our life and do things’ to her but there has been a total reverse on that. I still hate the thought of imagining her with other women and giving them what I really wanted and the worthlessness I feel is just overwhelming.

I feel such a fool. Years and years of her demanding 100% accountability from me, I had to check in with her constantly, always think of her and what she could want or need bringing back if I was out of the house, always put her first and not overly talk to other people if we were out with them, have my location on, tell her all of the conversations I had with others even if they weren’t relevant etc - or I was hiding things or I didn’t care about her. There would always be arguments and dramas and accusations if I tried to go out and do things independently and after YEARS of begging that we have seperate hobbies/ chill out time and not have to be messaging constantly while out, those are now the things she is leaving to do, even though I always wanted us to do those things and she didn’t want us to.
i can’t explain to anyone how it feels to have her so overly invested in my whole life and then to be completely dropped so abruptly and how it has been so traumatic for my brain that I worry I won’t be able recover from the whiplash.Now to be told by her I shouldn’t have let myself be so reliant on one person…when she made me live like that as a condition of our relationship. To be constantly considering her needs and expectations of me and to now to have her not care one bit about what I’m doing not wanting to talk to me about my life at all, it’s unbelievabley jarring.

I’m so used to having to be telling someone everything and to all of a sudden have this huge void and no one there, even though I was always so independent before this relationship. It feels like I’m just in free fall.

how can I begin to be ok again? And she’s just there witnessing my destabilisation and judging me for it.

You need legal advice and need get out of that house. Sorry this is so shit for you. Gather documents if you can, anything that may be relevant. Payslips, mortgage stuff, kids stuff, kids passports etc. You cannot live like this.

If you left you’d be entitled to child benefit, UC, and child maintenance presuming tbe children would be mostly with you. If their needs are very high might it be possible to have them assessed for eligibility for some kind of home support/care worker? Try to agree contact schedule but you may need to get some sort of arrangement order. Be prepared for this to be long and messy but it’s not impossible. You just have to cross every little bridge as you come to it. Have you got support? You say you have family, are they aware of the situation?

You will be okay again. Better than ok once you’re free of this abusive relationship 💜