How much do I owe his kids?

[hilfehilfehilfe]

I am 26. My partner is 32. He earns more than I do but not loads. We have been together since summer 2019. Was not the OW. He has 3 kids from his marriage and they are 5, 7 and 8. I met them Dec 20. I love him a lot but I am starting to feel trapped and unhappy and worried that this is just how my life is going to be forever now. DP is great, thoughtful, supportive and absolutely adores me.

He won't get divorced until his wife is settled with a new boyfriend and also wants to divorce. They never communicate so they would have to be very serious for DP to even have heard of his existence. He has done very little research about divorce and is overall just concerned about not being able to afford it. I am unhappy and ashamed of this and have told him so.

He has a large amount of debt (~£15k) that he is paying off in the agreed installments. He has done no research or work to look into paying this off faster.

He doesn't parent as I would want to. I do not want children so this is not as big an issue as it might be. I think he wants a blended family with me taking on more of a step mum role. I feel they have an amazing mum already and him, they do not need a third parent and I am just a nice, safe adult they know well. He resents my attitude on this.

I own and pay for our house entirely by myself. His contribution is he buys 2/3s(ish) of our groceries as he is meant to be clearing his debt. He is currently in a good financial position (i.e. not going into his overdraft each month and living within his paycheque but not able to save etc.). We moved in together into this house May 21. I resent that I bought this house and pay for it alone in order to protect myself in the event of the relationship not working out - but now it isn't really working for me I don't feel like I can ask him to move out as it would completely uproot his life and the childrens'.

I feel like I went from an individual person to a homeowner, breadwinner, provider and stepmum in the space of a few months. I don't think I want to break up but I do want to go back to being just an individual person in with my own space. I just don't know what I owe his children - their friends are on this street, their bedrooms are here. They love me, they love our life here and they are settled and very happy. I feel horribly guilty to even have wobbles about my relationship with their dad. I feel horrible about turfing DP out too and think it would damage our relationship perhaps fatally but I just feel like I'm suffocating and I need the situation to change. How do I do the right thing by the kids - can I say it's just him that moves out, and he can still have them here during his contact time?

Please help. What's fair of me to do. I don't want to hurt anyone but I can't remember the last time I was happy.

Jesus, please don’t waste the best years of your life on this shit show.

Why would you want to be with a married man with three kids, unable to support himself or his kids and in a truckload of debt, when you’re young, free, financial solvent and don’t want kids? You could be travelling the world or having the time of your life with a man with similar circumstances to you! Or equally having the time of your life alone and happy and carefree!

OP this is awful. He hasn't listened to your feelings at all. The lack of divorce in itself should be a deal breaker. Why on earth does he not want to divorce? In theory he is no longer In a relationship with his wife but with you.

He really holds the upper hand and always will despite you putting a roof over his and his children's heads.

His attitude towards divorce is very odd. You are in his life now and he still has no intention of divorcing. Where does that leave you for the future?

You have spoken to him and nothing is resolved and nothing is going to change.

Reread your op.

WHy are you with him? He has ignored all your concerns and gaslighted you over them to a point.

If you must stay with him then you are far better getting a rent book, a contract and getting him to pay rent he will have less of a chance of getting some of your property that way. His wife can still make a claim on it if he is just paying food etc. If you have a rent book then I'm pretty sure there's much less chance of hat happening.

He should want to divorce his wife, he is liable for any debts she acrues. His reasons are ridiculous and it normally means things are not resolved.

He is the ultimate cocklodger and he is massively doing a number on you. Get rid of him, he brings nothing to your life but misery and disrespect.

For reasons I can't go into here, I can't end things or move him out of the house yet. But I do think I'm leaning that way. I need to talk to my mum too, as well as you vipers

I know you said you can't discuss it but I can't think of a single reason for you not to ask him to leave.

Hi OP, just

and please LTB.
You are being gaslighted and no one does that to someone they love.
Therefore he doesn't, in fact, love you.
Because you're living with someone who doesn't love you, you are unhappy.
You must ask him to leave. I know it's hard, but you MUST.
This is your life and you deserve joy!

Have you friends your own age - can you also open up to them?

Let me guess, the reason that you can't get him to move out just now is HIS reason and not YOUR reason. Maybe his wife is going away and he needs to have the DC, or the work accommodation doesn't have a vacancy or some other thing that is not actually your problem.

Just to summarise, you went back to him with a stronger version of trying to get him to understand that you are unhappy. And he responded in exactly the same way as always by denying, dismissing, belittling and gaslighting. That's because he does understand that you are unhappy, he just doesn't care enough to make any effort, it's much easier to just shut you down.

@StarshipsAreMeantToFly

For reasons I can't go into here, I can't end things or move him out of the house yet. But I do think I'm leaning that way. I need to talk to my mum too, as well as you vipers

I know you said you can't discuss it but I can't think of a single reason for you not to ask him to leave.

As a PP suggested, I would imagine he owes the OP a significant amount of money, and has promised to pay it back at some distant point in future (probably at the same time his divorce comes to through).

OP if that is the case, please reframe this money in your mind. Think of it as a sunk cost, and the price you have to pay to get rid of him.

I'd give him a deadline date to leave, and I'd get a friend, preferably male, to be in the house with you on that day to make sure he goes. I'd immediately change the locks as well, to make sure he couldn't let himself back in!

Hi OP. I do understand that it's much, much harder to leave than it seems to all of us who are reading the thread.

However if you don't plan to leave immediately then this sentence is really worrying:
Things I have learned today - there is no point negotiating. Either I suck up the compromises I have to make to be with him or I don't

No no no no no!!! This is what he wants you to learn! This is why he's so belligerent and overbearing in arguments, and doesn't listen to you and shouts you down and tells you your arguments aren't strong enough - so that you learn not to bring things up, and just keep quiet and be unhappy and internalise it all until it seems like a normal state to you.

So if you do plan to stay with him, even in the short term, you MUST keep talking about this. Keep letting him know that you're unhappy about the (lack of) divorce and he isn't contributing enough financially and you feel his expectations are too high regarding your relationship with his children and anything else that is worrying you.

Otherwise he's won

Op I think you've taken the right approach Re removing the deadline for the divorce. I absolutely agree he should be making steps to divorce but you've made your very reasonable position clear and he clearly isn't interested. It's horrible for you but far better for you to have the measure of him now and move on rather than waste further years and resources on him.

He says this balances our contributions and therefore him being married and not being able to contribute financially is irrelevant.

It's clear that his gaslighting techniques are very effective because this above statement is absolutely delusional. He needs a MASSIVE reality check.

Please try to remind yourself, while you are feeling powerless to counter his "arguments", that actually what you are dealing with is a very manipulative moron. He's an idiot - genuinely really stupid. He might seem less powerful when you realise that.

Gas lighting as fuck OP

He says this balances our contributions and therefore him being married and not being able to contribute financially is irrelevant.

Oh, he's good.
Look how he has you accepting that he is "unable" to contribute.
He is perfectly "able" to contribute.

He would just prefer not to.
He prefers to overpay his wife.
He prefers to overpay on the debts he refuses to consolidate.

Feeding himself & his own children counts as a "contribution", does it?

This man is a Grade A bastard OP.
Why are you allowing a bastard, who won't give you an ounce of what you want, & just takes, takes, takes from you, to squat in your home while you pay for him?

OP the saddest part of this is when you had that big conversation with him and you should have been reassured, you felt hollow. That is awful!!!! Whatever you say to him, it sounds like he's really good at talking it around to make you seem unreasonable.
It is not unreasonable at all to ask him to sort his marital status. It is not unreasonable to want to contribute to finances on an equal basis.
So, this comes down to how you feel. And you've realised you aren't happy and you are likely to move on. Good.
For what it's worth I think you are making the right decision. At 26 you should have a carefree life, you should be out there having fun, living life not carrying a huge load for someone else for no reward. And you say you don't want kids - fair enough - but plenty of women change their minds when they get a bit older and I bet this guy who already has his family would be against having kids together.

You have been set up in a lose-lose situation here. If he does get a divorce, it will be “your fault” for “making” him get it. His resentment will be trundled out to control you in the future. There will he alwdoesn’t,

...(sorry) there will always be a shadow over it and it will be used to control you and cause you guilt forever. If he doesn’t get one, you are stuck in this situation forever. Neither of there things should be acceptable to you!

Someone said upthread he could move out, sort his life out and you could still date him. If he's so fabulous, why don't you just do that? Cant he go back to his family or rent on his own?

There is no fair, someone is going to get hurt.

The relationship will not survive them moving out. He doesn't want to marry you, it's quite clearly not his priority there are many more important things.

If I was that low on the priority list I would be leaving, sorry it didn't work out. He is not and never was ready or in a position to start a new relationship, it was wrong of him to start one. He is not in any true or practical sense a single man, I don't mean legally single.

There is always a strong LTB bias on here and people tend to push for black and white solutions... that said

This guy expecting someone to be Ok with him remaining married is very cheeky. We're all different, some people might not care. But most people would. He is trying to make you think you're in the wrong for saying something about it.

The debt bloody well is your business because you're funding him financially to enable him to pay it off. Again, massively cheeky to expect that.

You've tried to have a serious talk with him and he's just spun things around and worn you down. That's not even a real honest discussion between partners who disagree, he's deflected everything and disregarded your objections.

He's said he doesn't want to get divorced and so basically you have to lump it. You've said the finances worry you and his take is it's fine because it suits him, and bloody hell no wonder.

If he is the one for you then he won't balk at being considerate to your concerns and feelings. He won't be able to avoid compromise in a long term relationship. He's currently managing to do that by making you do all of the compromising.

Op, You seem to be tying yourself up in knots to find excuses for this man's behaviour and trying to convince yourself that all his excuses for why he won't get divorced, pay off his debt, contribute more to food costs etc are all perfectly reasonable and if only you can change yourself and suppress all your completely unreasonable conditions and wishes, then it will all magically turn out alright.

I recognise this sort of mindset and behaviour from when I was in my twenties and still a hopeless romantic always believing that somehow true love was enough no matter how unrealistic or how unhappy I was, or how hopeless the situation was. I can tell you now, this will not get any better. Just save yourself all the inevitable angst and misery now and just finish it. Walk away and start living the the fun and carefree life someone your age should be living.

Has there ever been a thread with such a unified voice?

Hi All,

@hilfehilfehilfeHIllife's mum here and i just wanted to say a couple of things

Hilife is a communicator, as am I and her dad, and our families. DP is not, nor is his family or his wife. When they first got together Hilife open the door of communication and it was a thing of freedom, comfort and joy for DP. I am saddened for Hilife that it feels he has forgotten this so quickly and their communication has deteriorated.

I believe he doesnt want to divorce his wife as he wants an easy path, and if he requests a divorce before she wants one, I think he fears that the steady path they have forged will become a rocky, difficult and expensive road. I truly believe this is the reason for his avoidance.

He has the debt as he took on all debt he and his wife had built up together as I understand that he was the one that wanted out and i believe it assuaged his guilt. There is no property, they rented. I also believe the guilt is why he overpays the CM. I believe he genuinely wants to be a 'good guy' but as he chooses not to listen to Hilife he cannot see that this at cost to her and not as great as it initially appears. He has a payment plan for the debt which he is duly following. Hilife is simply asking him to look into the option of alternatives to pay it off quicker. He has always lived with debt, he's paying off his debt, 'everyone' he knows lives with debt, its a comfortable place for him. He feels no urgency. We do not have debt. Hilife bought her home at 25, her/our outlook and attitude to debt is different. He admires the fact that she was in this position at 25.

I think Hilife is feeling discombobulated today as DP has blocked the conversation and was not open to her thoughts/needs/feelings/opinion, nor to compromise and moving forward together to 'win' as a team. I think she is reeling from this and what it means for their relationship. This is obviously hard for her as their relationship seemed golden until recently and that is difficult for anyone to bear.

Hilife is stronger and more of 'a catch' than she can imagine. She will learn and grow from this, however it turns out, with our support and love, and the world will be a joyful place once again.

@HilifesProudMama It's lovely she has you in her corner. Hope all works out for her.

@HilifesProudMama firstly you should be really proud of your daughter. I'm glad she posted and all of the advice is along the same lines (we never agree but you have mums and stepmums all agreeing on the advice so hell must have frozen over) That instinct to ask for advice (in the face of the gaslighting) will do her service in the future.

It sounds very much like her DP is stonewalling her (lots on relate website about this) and stonewalling is a learned behaviour that can be unlearned if the person wants to, sadly it sounds like DP doesn't and frequently the problem persists. The problem with being put on a pestle is you can be easily downgraded by words. I think a lot of women on here are angry this poor girl got sucked into this by this man. We accept the love we think we deserve spring to mind. Sounds like a small voice in your DD reminded her that she deserves more. That is to be commended

I usually would suggest counselling to see if this can be worked out but if I'm honest she has a royal flush here and is such a catch (as much as her partner doesn't realise) and genuinely since theres no ties that bind (no kids, courts or legal binds) she shouldn't even consider this option.
Don't let her sink more resources into a sunken ship fallacy. She to young and the future is to bright to waste on living a half life

She should have a look at www.captainakward.com decent advice on boundaries, what is and isn't acceptable and generally rather interesting as it's readers asking questions.

I wish her all the best and it's nice to see another mum come to her daughters aid. She's also lucky to have you too