This is the last thread I will start on this topic. I know I need to leave. I am trying to arrange that but I need coping stratagies for while I am still here.
I'll have to be pretty brief as it is a long story.
I was thrown out at 16 (mum got re-married and I was surplus to requirements). My father had already died. I looked desperately for someone to love me. I found someone who I thought did. I had my first child at the age of 17. We ran up huge debts but were stupid and had another child 2 years later. We never truely loved each other, we were both just looking for a way forward.
2 years later, he cheated on me. I left. All the debts were in my name. I worked hard and paid them all off myself and then very stupidly allowed him to move back in. Didn't like being alone. He ran up more debts. There was violence, complete lack of respect and in the end, violence. He then cheated again and moved in with a much older woman (mother figure?)
So I'm on my own on a very rough council estate raising two young boys on benefits. Every night I have kids in the garden, wrecking the car, stealing things from the shed, banging on the windows - on one occasion a teenager climbed into the back garden and just trashed the place whilst I was alone inside. Why? because he thought I'd stolen his younger brother's football (he later found it stuck in a bush).
I was scared, lonely, fed up, depressed. I looked for a relationship and ended up with a loser. Wasted a few years with him. Finished it. Spent a couple of years on my own again, struggled with my sanity, decided I could not cope anymore and asked my mum if her husband would act as a guarantor so I coould rent a private house. He said yes. I asked again before looking for a house to confirm, he said yes. I found a house, asked him again, he promised. Went to look at the house, loved it, asked him again if he was sure, he said yes. Secured the house - asked him to sign the papers - guess what, arsehole has "changed his mind". Desperate I went back to dating. Found current partner. Moved in very, very quickly simply because I was so desperate to get away from that area. YES YOU ALL WARNED ME NOT TO AND YOU KNEW I WAS MAKING A MISTAKE. you were right, I was wrong. I was frighetend and didn't know what to do.
It was ok at first, we all got along ok but then the controlling attitude came up. His wierd ways, the issues with the daughter. She's wetting the bed everynight and he doesn't even make her shower or change her sheets. She is scared of having friends over because she knows the room stinks of piss. She makes up constant illnesses for attention. One of which partner was actually going to take her to doctors over despite knowing she didn't have it - just to keep the peace.
I am at college, I am trying to better myself, I want to leave and be by myself with my boys but I can't. As I'm not working, I can't go private and there is a 3 year waiting list for the council.
I swear partner and his ex have mental health issues. His ex sends the daughter wierd texts about having sex with different men and using people and how she wants to kill herself. When I tell DP, he just shakes his head and says "I told you, she's nuts" and burries his head in the sand. When she goes out with her mother, she has to pay for her own busfares and and her own lunch. At easter, the mother didn't buy her an egg and instead threw a tantrum in a shop because DSD wouldn't buy HER an egg.
I sit here thinking is it me or them that is absolutely nuts? Sometimes I think it must be me, because partner seems unfazed by all the wierdness and when I think back, there is no wonder you all think I'm a troll, the story is so fucking wierd, I have trouble understanding it.
I feel for dsd but I need to get away asap. But in the meantime how do I cope with it all? How do I emotionally detach from it all?
I will reply on this if its needed but I won't post anymore threads on the subject.