she's left my life has ended

[nickfromtheuk]

Simon. I totally get your point. Her sitch is currently like this and as everyone agrees they always move out. Maybe because she's been at home though most of this or what ever. I don't know but I need to fill you in on her sitch.

She is living in a small 9ft by 9ft room at her sisters deep in the heart of a very nasty council estate in Brighton. The room belongs to our nephew who has most of his stuff still in there so she's got her 2 large cases and 2 smaller ones filling the rest of the floor area. The only available space is the bed, which is a single and she is sharing that with our son. She has always always dreaded having to live in such an area. She cannot go out at night (not safe) and her sister lives below the poverty line on benefits. Her sister cannot afford to feed herself and the children each week nor can she afford to have the heating on. She has 5 cats that use a litter tray and my wife hates litter trays. My sister in laws house smells. I love her to death, she is closer to me than any of my blood siblings but her house stinks. It smells of poverty and act pee.

The rest of my wife’s family (she grew up in care from the age of 18 months) have always thought we were the family snobs because although I don't earn a bomb we always meet the bill etc and have a nice clean house, which is always warm etc. My sister in law struggles every Christmas to buy her kids toys and we have an arrangement whereby we buy the presents from her to our kids and she wraps them up.

The street outside is filthy and covered in rubbish from dustbins, spare car parts a couple of burned out cars appear on the estate on a weekly basis. It’s a horrible place to live.

Yesterday my wife had to apply for accommodation with the council and although she will be placed highly on the list she will probably be out in a bed-sit first where there could also be drug uses, prostitutes etc. This she is dreading.

Today she had to wait in (she came down here) until the dss (benefits office) phoned her about her benefits. It turns out that the £600 we get in child tax breaks paid into our account will halve immediately so I have to find another £300 per month from somewhere. In April my daughter is 16 so all child tax credits will cease and I will then be £600 pounds per month worse off. On top of this I will be expected to pay child support to the tune of approximately £300 per month. So to cap it off I will have to come up with an additional £900 per month, which I have not got and there is no way in heaven I could ever get it.

The money I will have to give to my wife in child support will be deducted from her income support benefit. I was unfortunate to be off a few years ago before we had Isaac and we only got £92 per week to live on. The council tax and rent was paid but we had o survive on £92, which is impossible.

When we went through the figures I wept because there is no way I can survive financially. I went bankrupt almost 18 years ago when I was very young because of my sons illness (could not get it together to work) and I got bumped (not paid) by a builder to the tune of £7000, which was a lot of money for a 23 year old in 1989. The last thing I ever wanted was to go bankrupt again. It really ruined my life and we could not get a bank account for 10 years. My wife had to go bankrupt as well because the creditors were chasing her for my dept, some of which were set up as joint for financial reasons.

So I wept and said I would have to go bankrupt and she would have to too because she would be chased for them. She said " what about working for someone else like you were talking about before". So I explained I would probably take home about £16K, £1,300 per month but I would have to pay her £250-£300 per month and the credit card, loans, outgoings are £1500 per month at the present time, which is why the £600 we get in tax breaks is sooooo important.

She did not realize any of this (I've always dealt with all the legal docs etc). So she has moved out as she had to see if the grass was greener but 3 short days into the move she can only see poverty and lack ahead of her. Because she was not in an abusive environment she will have been deemed to have made herself homeless. Because of that she will not be seen as deserving of a flat or house and will be put up in bed and breakfast or if she’s lucky a dingy bedsit. She will have to live in the same house / hotel as drug addicts, prostitutes and the destitute. This will probably be for some months (could be up to 2 years) until she moves up the council waiting list and a council flat becomes available. The council work a bidding system. Every 2 weeks a list of property is advertised and you have to put a bid in (say your interested in the property). Once the bidding process closes, the person with the greatest need or highest up the list gets the property. Flats in nice areas are bided for by up to 1000 people on the waiting list. The worse the area the fewer the bids. In order for her to get out of b&b and into a flat will be to bid on a property in one of the more troubled areas, where drug abuse, feral children and trouble are rife.

My wife has always dreaded having to live in an area like this. She absolutely hates the house her sister lives in because its right in the middle of one of the more notorious streets. She is beginning to see how green the grass is on the other side of the picture.

On a financial note she will have to.

a) become bankrupt to stop our debtors from chasing her.
b) Have to live on approximately £60 to £65 per week to clothe herself and our son, pay for groceries, milk, electricity, gas, etc etc. Once all her nice clothes have run out she will have to scrimp and scrape to make ends meet.
c) Do cash in the hand jobs illegally in order to make enough money for Christmas and birthday presents
d) She will also have to do the cash in the hand jobs just to live because £65 is just not enough.
e) She will have to furnish her flat but will not have any money.

I will have to go bankrupt. Our outgoings are £1400 per month and once she signs on the dole, I will have to pay her so she wont even be getting benefits because I’ll have to pay her about £80 per week I’m working. This will be more than she is entitled to in benefits so the difference between £80 and what she is entitled to (approx £65) £15 will be taken off of her rent entitlement meaning she will have to take £15 of the money I give her each week and pay it to towards her rent. So she will be living in poverty, as will I

Unfortunately the situation we find ourselves in means that she is going to have to move back in or the alternative is to.

Live in crap accommodation for up to 2 years (which is not fair on my son) until she eventually get a flat in a horrible crime infested are with not enough money to make ends meet. I will be at home here with my children but I will have had to go bankrupt and I will not be able to work because of y depression. So we will both be condemned to a live of poverty and lack. Where is she going to be in 10 years, when she is 50. On the shelf I’m afraid. Its very difficult to find a decent man willing to live in an area like that. Most of the men who are attracted to single mothers in these area’s are just not my wife’s type.

The alternative is:

She moves back in so that we don’t face financial ruin.
She should move back in at the very least for her children. She needs to face facts. She would never have dreamed of doing what she is doing to our children 18 months ago. When you have children you have to sacrifice your happiness for them if that’s what it takes. There are women in abusive situations because there children don’t know there father is a monster who beats there mother. They stay because they don’t want to ruin there childrens lives. They shouldn’t but the overriding parental urge to keep them happy in a family environment keeps some of these women in these situations.
She will have to deal with her resentment and work on our marriage. She has to. The alternative is living with me and being miserable for the next 10 to 15 years whilst our youngest son grows up and goes into university. She will be 55 then and would have had 15 years of misery. She certainly be on the shelf then feeling bitter and resentment. I’ve told her this today, that basically she does not have a choice because of our financial situation and where she will end up living etc if she doesn’t move back in.
When she does move back she is going to have to deal with her emotions and forgive me. She must find happiness in our marriage. I am not willing to live like that and she owes it to herself to work through our problems and her mlc until she finds happiness in our marriage once again. The alternatives are too awful to contemplate.

I have told her all this morning. I know its probably not the right way to DB but we do not have a choice and I am not spending the next 10-15 years in a love less marriage.

SHE HAS TO WORK THROUGH HER PROBLEMS AND FIND HAPPINESS IN OUR MARRIAGE.

Again I know this is probably not the best way to DB but I owe it to my children who I have let down badly over the last 8 months. I owe it to my children to give them a safe and loving environment as they go through their journey into adult life and beyond.

She’s not happy but life sucks sometimes.

Because she is stuck in this situation she has to find happiness herself in our marriage.

It turns out she was totally used by this man she had an affair with. HE told her him and his wife was in a love less marriage but stayed together for the kids. He told her how lonely he was etc and sad that for the last 5 years he has had to live like that for the kids. This was all she wanted, he gave her scraps and she lapped them up. He got her to believe they had so much in common etc and deserved happiness with each other. He asked her if she wanted to go to the café for a coffee. She met him an a safe environment at school (he is one of the dads and has 2 boys at the school) so she felt ok about going for a coffee. This is when he laid out how miserable he was and how lonely he was. No doubt she felt some sorrow for him and when he asked her if she wanted to go for a coffee again she felt compelled to say yes. She was also wondering about her own unhappiness and thinking they had this in common etc. This is how he reeled her in. On the 2nd café visit her asked her for her mobile number so he could start the chase in Ernest. So he chases her, texts her jokes, little messages, tells her he is developing feelings for her and they start to spend as much time during the 2 days a week she can see him just talking etc whilst he set the hook into her.

She never stood a chance, he tells her he has never done anything like this before but she has won his heart and all that bullshit. It turns out he is serial adulterer. He and his wife are supposed to have not been in love for the last 5 years but when he has had his fill of my wife. When he’s bored because she’s another conquest and he’s looking for fresh victims so he can ruin there marriages. He told her his wife found her text message to him and he had to break it off even though it broke his heart etc. For the kids!! What absolute bullshit. Anyway my poor wife feels so foolish now she realises he has played her, used and abuse her and tossed her aside. If his wife had found out she would be screaming down the phone to my wife telling her to back off. My poor love of course never considered any of this because she thinks she was in love with him and still has feelings for him

UNFORTUNATELY THIS IS THE SITUATION WE ARE IN. IT'S NOWHERE NEAR IDEAL IN FACT THE PRESSURE SHE IS UNDER IS NOT GOOD I KNOW BUT UNFORTUNATELY SHE HAS TO MOVE BACK IN OR WE BOTH FACE FINANCIAL RUIN AS WELL AS A NOT TOO BRIGHT FUTURE.

I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW THIS IS GONNA REALLY MESS HER HEAD UP BUT THIS IS WHERE WE ARE AT. I'VE TOLD HER TO STOP AND SEEK HAPPINESS, DEAL WITH HER ISSUES BECAUSE I HAVE HAD TO. WE CANNOT GO ON LIVING IN THE SAME HOUSE AND LIVE LIKE WE HAVE BEEN. I DO NOT DERSERVE TO BE IGNORED ALL THE TIME, NOR DO OUR CHILDREN. THIS IS SOOO HARD. IT GOES AGAINST ALL THE DB RULS I KNOW. AT THE VERY TIME SHE THOUGHT SHE HAD FINALLY ESCAPED, WHICH I KNOW SHE HAD TO DO SHE IS HAVING TO COME BACK TO THE PLACE SHE THOUGHT SHE HAD FINALLY LEFT. I'LL HAVE TO LET YOU GUYS KNOW WHAT GOES ON BUT IT'S NOT GOING TO BE PLEASENT. SHE DOES HOWEVER HAVE TO DEAL WITH HER ISSUES. SHE SCREAMED AT ME I DO NOT LOVE YOU AND I AM NOT GOING TO WORK ON OUR MARRIAGE. I DONT KNOW MAYBE HAVING TO STAY WILL SHARPEN HER FOCUS AND MAKE HER REALISE SHE HAS TO MAKE HER OWN HAPPINESS. SPEAK TO YOU LATER.

Oh well tell me what you think. I’ve got to go now. Be back later.