Think I have made some MORE bad choices

[AlteredEgo]

Have namechanged for this but am regular.

Background: have been with partner for 10 years, since I was 19. We've never been successful, good with money,career-minded etc. TBH, in hindsight, we were very bad for each other as we've just pissed away a decade fecking about at random jobs and having fun. Except of course it wasn't always fun.
I had my daughter nearly 3 years ago and we split when she was 18 months old. Nothing had changed really, he still wasn't earning any money, had a unique attitude to helping around the house and low,low,low personal standards. I lived on my own with DD, worked PT, went back to college and just about kept it all together.
A couple of months ago we agreed to try again for DD's sake, he is great with her. Five months later and he can't get a job - again - , has no money as he pissed away all the money he earned when not with me and we're living off my income. Again. I don't love him, I don't really find him attractive (see low personal standards) and i don't know what to do. I was hoping that we could have a stab at being a "proper" family but I just don't feel like I want to. i don't really enjoy his company, other than the easy companionship you get after so long together and I often find him embarrassing (sorry, could never spell that) when we're with other people. He tends to have some very extreme views that are not backed up with facts and always finds just the wrong person to say these things too.
We're hugely bad influences on one another too. I don't smoke but within weeks of him moving back in I'm out puffing the "odd" (quite a few) of an evening. We spend too much, we're lazy and drink wine during the week. I know how petty that sounds btw, I do but it's true. For some reason I achieved 100% more when I was a single mum.

So what do I do? How can I be the Bad Mummy who chucks him out, after letting him move in,when he has nowhere to go? He literally has no money (as ever), I can't just throw him out. A huge part of me thinks I should just suck it up and get on with it for DD's sake, if nothing else I feel guilty for letting him move in, allowing her to get used to it then thinking of ending it again.
Am I feeling this way just because he doesn't have a job, is annoying me under my feet all day etc? Should I end it before DD gets any more used to having him about or give it longer to be sure? Oh, I'm so messed up.

Sorry for such a long ramble. If anyone has any help to offer, I would love to hear it. If not it's helped a bit to write it down.

You can't be with someone you don't respect.

Your DD won't thank you for staying with her dad for her. You have to want him for you.

Time for a chat.

He isn't your responsibility. Your DD is.

Good luck.

Stop allowing him to behave like this and chuck him out - it may make him be responsible for his life.

You are not his mother, you are the other person in what is supposed to be an equal relationship.

You're a bad mummy if you don't chuck him out. Without him you are an independant woman doing her best for her dd. With him you become a bit of a slob it sounds. Which one of those do you think your dd would be most proud of when she grows up?

You are not eliminating him from her life, I presume he is welcome to see her any time he likes? You are just making the right choices that centre on your dd and NOT your partner. Your dd doesn't benefit from having him there, pissing away your money, and living in filth does she? Whereas if he didn't live with you, she'd get to see the best side of him all the time and also the best side of you.

He's got to go. This is an unhealthy relationship and a bad model for your DD.

apart from the fact you dont love him, that hes a waste of space, that he smells and is a bad influence, think about how he feels. Is it fair on either of you to suffer this "relationship"? He sounds depressed and is depressing you too... help him find somewhere of his own and stick at being friends for your DD's sake.

You're all so grown up. I know, I know.

We're not living in filth btw, I am hugely houseproud! He's just a not clean person. I realise i made it sound like we're sitting pished about every day, smoking fags and rolling in filth. That's not the case at all, it was badly put. He smokes and having it about (outside and never in front of DD or when he is due to be around her) has made me lapse on a few occasions. Not a big deal to many people but I hate it. Plus to me its a symptom of not giving a shite about DD or me really, him caring more about the burning of some dead leaves than us if he won't give up.
The wine thing - just that when i was on my own with DD I'd come back from work, cook dinner, walk the dogs, bath, bed then come down and start the housework.Now when he comes back from the supermarket with wine ("for me") then we have a glass with dinner, slump in front of the telly and that's an evening gone. I realise that too is not a huge deal but to me its indicative of how easily swayed I am by him and how little we achieve together. And we have no income other than what I earn! WTF is he thinking?

So I get why you think that from my post, I'm not a slob but just not up to scratch when I'm with him. The house is clean, dogs walked, DD fed her organic super foods (pfb) and everything functioning but only if I do it. When things are split with him they start to slip or don't get done and I get swayed into doing nothing or get angry that I have to nag.

Things are OK, we're not sitting in piles of our own filth. But we're managing on my money only, have no "plan", rent our home and the only savings are mine and rapidly slipping away. He changes ideas on what he wants career-wise every two minutes, is not good at sticking with a job, leaving it for another which usually ends up cocking up. I guess I don't have much faith in his abilities to provide his share.He's 34, not 22.

Thing is, I'm not sure she would really get to see him. He has nowhere to live and would go and flatshare with friends hours away (he did before). I wouldn't let her stay there overnight for a number of reasons. Plus to be honest, I've been clinging to control of her life because I don't want to have her go away every second weekend and holiday. I know that's stupid but there you go.

Plus, it is impossibly hard not only to make the decision to split but to make it happen. I've broached the subject a good few times over the last weeks and it just ends up in a conversation connected with his work - he turns things so that it seems that things will be better when he gets a job. But he never gets a job and when he does either it cocks up, is impossible to live with (hugely antisocial hours and patterns, working without pension, proper payslips, holiday pay etc) and unstable. I know its hard to find a job at the moment and I know that in our area (rural SW England) jobs are few and far between at the best of times.
It's just so horrible feeling that I've made the wrong choice when I agreed to try again and that I'm making life harder for my daughter. If I chuck him out then I have caused all that pain to him, to her and to me by myself.

Leave him (or chuck him out). Not only is he not contributing anything to you and your DD's life, but he is actually a huge weight upon you that is preventing you from making a constructive live plan (and executing it). This is no good for you and no good for your DD.

John,

We have made a wonderful daughter together but as a couple we are not really working together. I know you feel things will chnage when you get a job, but for now, I coud use some space. If you feel you will be able to get a job soon then it might not be forever, but right now, I need you to stay somewhere else and give me some space please.

Would you want him even if he had a job? Don't let him use this argument.
I don't think it will be a massive shock to him, he's probably just wondering how long he can get away with this for before you chuck him out.

Thank you all
I'm just posting and posting cos it helps to have this random stream on paper! It not something I've been able to talk about as my friends, naturally, are wary of expressing an opinon as we've already got back together this time so I guess they think it might happen again. My mother lives locally but is horribly divorced from my father and I think somewhat coloured in her judgement!

Writing this all has made me think - I feel that I can't make a decision to end it because I don't really know what a proper relationship is like. We've been together since I was 19 so is, of course, my only proper long-term relationship. I know that I want more than an odd sort of fondness for my partner but part of me still thinks that this is just the way things end up after a while. That proper love is just chick-lit and first flush stuff. That plenty of marriages survive on little more than affection and that, if he does sort himself out financially etc, we could toddle along like they do.

I can't leave him, our house is the first proper home DD has really known and she's settled. I'd have to throw him out. With literally not a penny, nowhere to go and no job. It's really, really hard.

A proper relationship is one in which both partners contribute significantly to the joint/family life that you are building together, where their is respect for one another's contribution/personality and a constant dialogue and exchange of ideas that helps you move forward together in mutual understanding (rather than compromise).

I know, its not working.
But I look at all the threads on here where the husband has suddenly decided to chuck it all in and think - I'm doing that. I'm the same as those bollocky men-
I'm getting narky because he has not been earning properly and I see the money as "mine" (to be fair, I did save it when single). But that's a horrible attitude.

I look at all the threads that slate the men who leave for not fulfilling their commitments or making the effort to keep the family together and I think: that's me.

Oh I don't know.

No it's not you. Some relationships go sour because one party is not contributing enough. And, when that happens, it is the party who is contributing more who gets pissed off and ends the relationship. And then they get slated by the rest of the world for putting an end to a relationship where they were consistently getting a bad deal! Ridiculously unfair IMVHO.

It sounds to me as though you really only want a relationship with him as dd's father?

I think you need to make him realise this - he needs to find somewhere to live close by - so that you can both spend lots of time with dd without problems - I am presuming that you would be happy if he was around alot, just not 'living' with you as a permanent thing?

Until he finds somewhere he needs to start contributing: he should be paying you for putting him up and also his fair share of food and bills - and, of course, contributing towards dd's expenses.

That means that he needs to find a job - asap. I think that this requires an ultimatum - you need to get a job before ... otherwise you will have to go back to ....

I would also suggest that you tell him he must give up smoking - presumably its your money that he is using to get the cigarettes....

Did my post help at all?

I've told him to give up smoking. He says he will and doesn't. So, short of violence, what do I do with a grown adult? Withhold the money? I don't dole it out specifically for fags, there is money about the house and he goes to get petrol or shopping and gets tobacco then. I start a million of these arguments when I get angry with him for not doing something he has said he will but there's no resolution to them. He says he will change and doesn't. So when I challenge him on this, on not changing, there's nowhere to go other than kicking him out.

He doesn't feel good about not working - he's not a serial bum. But he is a serial person-with-a crap job who is NOT good at working - he does it to the exclusion of everything else. He's incapable of getting a job that means he can take on his share of home life and also do normal things like pensions, savings etc.

mistlethrush - that was the plan before. We split to sort ourselves out - he was to find a decent job, somewhere to live close by and we were to see how it went. A trial thing really. In reality he moved across the country, moved in with his old mates in a flat share and is no further on career or money wise. He won't find somewhere locally, we're not local and have not particular ties here.He'll say that all this was not his fault, that he worked hard and basically, that the world was against him.
To be fair he usually paid maintenance when we were apart. But then I let him stay over in my house when he came to visit and do what he wanted really.I took on a house (on my own), our pets, our daughter and worked/did degree while he had no responsibilities at all. Now it feels the same but I have the annoyance of having to pick up after him too!

I am crap really.

sorry FBG, crossed. It helped, it all helps.
just in RL, I feel as if I'm saying that and he has an answer for everything. Nothing is ever his fault.

Just keep saying it over and over until he gets it.

Thing is though, for him to get it I have to be firmer and stronger than I know how to be. And I have to be sure that it is the right thing to do. WHich I'm not, not 100%. I should be but i'm not.

Have to go and read bedtime stories, will be offline for a bit but am not ignoring replies, am grateful!

Am back, ranting away to myself

I feel so shitty. he's sitting downstairs, thinking I am working when I'm as good as planning to kick him out. He's done nothing relly, nothing unusual in any case. which I guess is the problem - he's done nothing and that's not unusual.

In order to get through to him I will have to spell out that I feel nothing but a vague fondness for him, that I think he has failed in his share of providing, that I don't find him attractive and don't love him. Then tell him he has nowhere to love, no job and no money and that he can't be with DD anymore (as in living with, he can see her). If that was done to me I would be in tatters, literally broken.
How can I be that much of a cow when all I'm balancing it against is whether or not I'm happy in the relationship. People carry on with very little affection for the sake of the children don't they?

Why are you being so hard on yourself? Why on earth would it be good for your DD for her mother to stay in such an unproductive relationship?

And it is not just affection that you are lacking here - you are lacking material contribution to your joint lives on a massive scale...

Cigarettes though - not on. Not an essential - its not fair that YOUR savings which you have set by through YOUR hard work and thrift are squandered away on a filthy habit that will reduce his life expectancy and damage both you and your daughter (sorry, do try not to be quite so anti smoking, but this is more in terms of the cost and implications etc - its SUCH an expensive, bad habit!!!!)

You need to sit down with him and find out what he wants from life. In particular, he needs to take responsibility for his actions (or lack of them) and the impacts they have on other people...

And you need to work out what you want from life.

Say, five years time - will you be writing a thread saying 'I'm working as many hours as I can when my daughter is at school, but struggeling to make ends meet - but my dd's father is not contributing, although he is staying in my house, eating my food and spending my money - I haven't loved him for years' or something else - perhaps 'my exP lives nearby and is great with dd - I've managed to sort my finances out a bit better...'???

If you let him continue as he is it would appear that nothing will change.

I'm hard on myself cos it feels like it will be me doing this to us all. And that forever in DD's life it will be Mummy who made Daddy leave. Because I won't go into however many years of me working and him not, on him being unreliable and that we're just not good together. I'll just have to say (until she's 30 or something) to her and to everyone else that I wasn't happy or that it wasn't working. So it feels like it is my fault, one for letting this happen AGAIN and two because on some level it feels as if I should just shut up and get on with it. That he hasn't cheated or beat me or anything, he's a generally good man. Weak and a bit crap but by no means bad.

The material contribution thing is right, of course, but he will say that he gave up his income to come and live with us as he moved across country (not strictly true) and that its the recession, blah de blah.

I realise I am making little sense and repeating myself btw, feel free to roll your eyes and ignore me