Feel for you OP. Some men are fine as boyfriends and maybe even would have been OK as first husbands but they’re just not up to managing their lives post divorce especially if they have challenging kids. The trick is to let them get through that 100pc by themselves and watch from afar to see if they emerge any better at life after having to crack on at it by themselves for as long as necessary.
Except for the money stuff this could have been me. DP moved in with me temporarily after his exw relocated with the kids as we thought there wasn’t much point paying rent on a house in an area his kids no longer lived.
This was a huge mistake on my part. The kids were disrupted by mum’s move and dad’s move here. They came at weekends and fought and whined and ransacked my home and wet beds so frequently we had to buy new mattresses. One of the kids who has severe autism physically attacked me (as he would his parents).
I was Mary Poppins for a while, teaching DP how to get kids to eat meals at the table, have bedtimes and use behaviour charts. He still uses these techniques and has developed some more of his own but I think he resented me for it. Projected that ‘I believed’ he wasn’t a good parent. So this took a lot out of me and I didn’t get much back - though DP did pay me for repairs and did a lot of home improvements in areas his kids hadn’t broken.
When DP decided he would also move to the exw’s new area to have more time with the kids I was relieved. Totally unblended. He’s doing much better as a single dad now as I left him to it. I see his kids maybe once a month. I’m certain we won’t live together until his kids have left home and they do seem to prefer their mum’s house where the parenting hasn’t changed. No rules or bedtimes or vegetables there and unlimited screen time.
Luckily DP is well off. I suspect if he’d had money troubles too they would have become my troubles, just as his exw and kid troubles became my troubles, because I let them.
That’s the thing to stress here. His troubles became my troubles because I let them. I let his problems be my problems. And then I took it on myself to fix his problems. That was entirely my choice and it was the wrong choice.
I’ve put him back in the box he needs to be in. The boyfriend box.
I read this board a lot because DP still wants us to blend again and I’m often musing how that would work. Posts like this are good reminders of why it wouldn’t work.
Good luck OP. Let him be who he will be and put him in the right box in your life that he deserves to be in. Let yourself have the peace and grace you deserve.