Where do I stand if we seperate, not married but have children together

startingout2016

*Guest101* True! Could it be that OP's attitude has changed drastically in the recent weeks making her husband resentful of her.

Maybe he doesn't want to bring it up with her if she is being difficult to live with, but he needs to if this is the case. Otherwise its just stalemate.

Maybe OP is the one who has found another relationship and is projecting this onto her husband.

All we hear is one side, so cant judge. Eitherway, the relationship isnt a healthy one, and counselling or mediation would be my suggestion before making a hasty exit.

anna_1977

wow, that was an interesting morning read.

I am a single parent and have been for 6 years, I am truly embarrassed also as a female at some of the comments OP has made. I'm not surprised he's grumpy if you behave in person like you have in here!

If you want any sort of amicability from your partner your attitude really does need to change. You are NOT entitled to the house until your kids are 17, he can go to court to see if he cam force the sale of the house if he wishes.

You seem to think because you sacrificed everything you are entitled to loads, that's not the case and I think you should get some legal advise so they can explain it to you.

I also think you're living in cuckoo land if you think you are going to earn £30-35k as a childminder - especially if 4 spaces are already taken up with your kids.

First step is to try and talk to him, sit him down and explain what's going on in your mind - DON'T get angry and bitter, it's pointless - try and be rational (although judging from this post not sure you know how to be!)

Gloomendoom

NannyV wrote: »

Yep I didn't see the importance of marriage, a bit of paper.... Now I see it!

You wouldn't be the first to make that mistake, and probably not the last.

heartbreak_star

It sounds like you're attempting to be a martyr OP - unfortunately it's not going to come over well here, we're all practical...

HBS x

Happier_Me

How old are your kids OP?

When they are at school full time things will get easier, sleep issues should be a distant memory by then and you will have time to organise yourself, the house and hopefully the kids a little more so that evenings are less chaotic.

It seems to me that neither of you care at all about each others feelings, it's become a competition 'Who has drawn the short straw?', 'Who has the hardest job?'. I don't know if there is a relationship here worth saving, but one of you has got to be the bigger person and change their behaviour in an attempt to break the cycle...and I can't advise him to do that because he isn't on this board....

Two other things to consider from me:

Put yourself in your husband's shoes for a minute. Try to see things from his perspective. You don't earn £65k plus bonus plus car a year without a great big load of pressure and responsibility. He could be absolutely knackered and stressed to the point of despair. I'm a mum of two that had the career prior to kids and maintained it whilst they were young. So I know how stressful a high pressured job can be, I also know what it's like to do a job I hate, it is soul destroying. Add to the fact he is the breadwinner here and has a responsibility to maintain a standard of living for six people, that just adds to the stress and the feeling of being trapped. After a difficult day at work he arrives home to a house full of kids running wild and a partner that is miserable and expects his help to manage the chaos.

I don't know if I have it right here. And maybe you don't either because it sounds like you show no interest in his life and vice versa. Maybe it's time to start to show an interest? Maybe it's time to throw in the towel, take what you can get which would be less than if you were married and start again alone. I would want to walk away knowing I've done what I can to rescue the relationship first though.

The other thing you keep saying is that he will have it easier than you if you separate. So on the one hand we have a mum who is the main carer of four children, with the capacity to earn up to £30k a year, plus benefits, plus £1,000 a month maintenance. That will add up to the equivalent of his remaining pay or very close to it. Let's say you stay in the house too until your youngest is 18.

On the other hand we have a dad who works a high pressured job, hands over £1000 a month, lives alone and sees his kids for short periods, pays a good chunk of money to rent a property and must wait 15 years or so before he can even think about getting on the property ladder (because he won't be able to buy a property in this situation). He might be able to start a new relationship but let's be honest he comes with alot of emotional and financial baggage doesn't he?

I know who I'd rather be in this situation!

Sell the house and you both have £80k each for a deposit for a new home. It is just four walls after all.

And I would still choose to be you in this situation. Take the emotion out of it and you will see his life post separation will be no more rosy than yours.

Yes you would have more protection had you married but that is a moot point because you didn't get married.

The first thing you need to do is work out if it is worth trying to salvage the relationship. If the answer is yes, then the only thing you can change is your own behaviour and attitude and it may well have a positive effect on your partner. And if nothing changes at least you've tried!

getmore4less

I let this one pass by when it started but gave it a read this morning.


Could not help but think think a lot of these issues may have gone way if they had employed a real Nanny.

Gloomendoom

Happier_Me wrote: »

The first thing you need to do is work out if it is worth trying to salvage the relationship. If the answer is yes, then the only thing you can change is your own behaviour and attitude...

I won't be holding my breath.

Soundgirlrocks

OP I can understand your anger and frustrations, however you do have some personal responsibility for your situation. If you agreed to sacrifice your career to raise your children and support your other half then you should have insisted that you marry and made yourselves one legal entity. The alternative would have been to carry on building your career and for the burden of child rearing to be spread between the two of you.

As it is you haven't protected yourself at all and you now find yourself in a frightening position and you are lashing out at people on this forum and from the sounds of it your other half too.

If you do get past this I suggest you start building up your employment skills, and developing a career of your own. You may even find that your other half is happier taking a step back and spending more time with the children and his bad attitude stems from working long hours and pressure to support the family. Patriarchy is as bad for men as it is for women.

NannyV

Happier_Me wrote: »

How old are your kids OP?

When they are at school full time things will get easier, sleep issues should be a distant memory by then and you will have time to organise yourself, the house and hopefully the kids a little more so that evenings are less chaotic.

It seems to me that neither of you care at all about each others feelings, it's become a competition 'Who has drawn the short straw?', 'Who has the hardest job?'. I don't know if there is a relationship here worth saving, but one of you has got to be the bigger person and change their behaviour in an attempt to break the cycle...and I can't advise him to do that because he isn't on this board....

Two other things to consider from me:

Put yourself in your husband's shoes for a minute. Try to see things from his perspective. You don't earn £65k plus bonus plus car a year without a great big load of pressure and responsibility. He could be absolutely knackered and stressed to the point of despair. I'm a mum of two that had the career prior to kids and maintained it whilst they were young. So I know how stressful a high pressured job can be, I also know what it's like to do a job I hate, it is soul destroying. Add to the fact he is the breadwinner here and has a responsibility to maintain a standard of living for six people, that just adds to the stress and the feeling of being trapped. After a difficult day at work he arrives home to a house full of kids running wild and a partner that is miserable and expects his help to manage the chaos.

I don't know if I have it right here. And maybe you don't either because it sounds like you show no interest in his life and vice versa. Maybe it's time to start to show an interest? Maybe it's time to throw in the towel, take what you can get which would be less than if you were married and start again alone. I would want to walk away knowing I've done what I can to rescue the relationship first though.

The other thing you keep saying is that he will have it easier than you if you separate. So on the one hand we have a mum who is the main carer of four children, with the capacity to earn up to £30k a year, plus benefits, plus £1,000 a month maintenance. That will add up to the equivalent of his remaining pay or very close to it. Let's say you stay in the house too until your youngest is 18.

On the other hand we have a dad who works a high pressured job, hands over £1000 a month, lives alone and sees his kids for short periods, pays a good chunk of money to rent a property and must wait 15 years or so before he can even think about getting on the property ladder (because he won't be able to buy a property in this situation). He might be able to start a new relationship but let's be honest he comes with alot of emotional and financial baggage doesn't he?

I know who I'd rather be in this situation!

Sell the house and you both have £80k each for a deposit for a new home. It is just four walls after all.

And I would still choose to be you in this situation. Take the emotion out of it and you will see his life post separation will be no more rosy than yours.

Yes you would have more protection had you married but that is a moot point because you didn't get married.

The first thing you need to do is work out if it is worth trying to salvage the relationship. If the answer is yes, then the only thing you can change is your own behaviour and attitude and it may well have a positive effect on your partner. And if nothing changes at least you've tried!

Thanks for your reply, I didn't realise I would be entitled to any benefits at all apart from child benefit and 1k maintanence so my rant about him having it easier financially was because of that assumption. I also presumed he would be able to sign over the mortgage to me, and for him to potentially take his equity with the help of possibly my family paying this to him so he could buy a house and not rent. I would rather be able to afford taking on our current house by myself without using benefits if I can help it.... Not because I am too proud too but because if I don't need the help then I would rather not as their are others that would need it.

yes I fully understand he may be tired from work, he loves his job and his life and mind revolves around making money... Not because he wants to do this for us (of course he partly wants to do it for his family) but because he has always wanted to have a nice car and money and be succesful. But I work too, I get up in the night to the kids, sort out all their needs, take them to school, go to work and then rush to collect them and go home to sort everything out. Get dinner on the table, my day is also busy, stressful, highly demanding and is mostly done out of love and not alot of money. So yes when he is moody and shouting and goes off in a sulk, I will be resentful of the fact that 'oh but he has a demanding job and wants to come home to peace and a tidy house' because I would love to too!!

I'm not sure if I want to save this relationship, if he wants too either or if it would be any good for our kids to stay together. We have formed bad habits of switching off the emotions as when we were younger there was alot of jealousy etc. So it got to a point where it was easier to not be so emotionally wrapped up in each other. We have been together for 18years so maybe its also to do with this.


I won't be coming back on here as there has been a lot of negative presumptious replies. Yes you don't know me, but I know I love my kids, I know I have no interest in anyone else and I don't think he does, I know my intention wasn't about getting advice about how to screw him financially. I just wanted to see if I could afford to keep the house on without benefits, and when questioned why should I be able too... It stired up feelings about how having a family can effect a woman diferently from a man when you seperate and how I didn't think it was 'taking him for everything he has' by simple wondering if I could take over the mortgage myself.

For anyone who has actually given advice with a little sense of compassion or just without rudeness, thank you

milliemonster

Child tax credits with £2k income and £1k child maintenance? blimey, I work full time, earn £2k a month and am not entitled to tax credits.

Can I just say that if your partner is such a crap dad and wasn't very interested in having children, plus your body has been through hell and back giving birth, why did you go on to have 4 children with him?

When I didn't work full time, I would always make sure I managed to cook tea for the 4 of us (me, hubby and 2 kids) for when hubby got home from work, he would do the same for me if I was at work all day and he was off, quite frankly if I've been at work all day, had a stressful day maybe missed lunch and come home to a chaotic house with 4 kids running riot and screaming their heads off and then had to make my own tea I'd be hacked off too.

Whether you have worked or not, you have benefitted from his income providing you with the opportunity to work when you want to rather than need to, and given you the freedom and choice to have a nice home, and the time to spend with your kids and funds to do things with them. He earns £65k a year, it will be a stressful job earning that level of income and while he may not be a natural father, the stress is obviously spilling over into his homelife with him snapping at the kids a lot. My hubby does the same when he is stressed, difference is we talk, I tell him off about it when it gets too much and we sort it out.

I don't see why you should be entitled to stay in the house either, your partner has done nothing wrong, he is going out to work every day and bringing home the bacon to support his family, he might not be engaged with you and the kids at the moment but that's a different issue to tackle, you don't want to stay in a relationship with him anymore which is fine, then you should leave, but to expect him to move out of the home is a bit much.

Your kids will adapt to a new home, possibly new school and friends etc, kids are resilient, you haven't said how old they are but the only time I'd be loathe to move my kids school would be if they were starting GCSE's.

And as for the car issue, the brand new work car will probably be a company car that is a requirement for the job he does.

You obviously really resent him, which is a shame because the only people that are going to suffer in all of this is your children