BEL

DEAR BEL,

I’M 33, utterly miserable and can’t see a way out. I’ve been with my boyfriend for nearly nine years, though we’ve known each other since we were both 15.

I became unhappy while pregnant with our daughter, now seven. He got lazier and lazier and didn’t pay for a single thing for her arrival, but I stuck it out for the baby’s sake. I loved him and thought things would improve.

Now I’m always stressed — trying to work, take care of the kids, pay the bills, do the housework. I’m so embarrassed about the state of our home I won’t allow my or the kids’ friends to come around.

We argue about his inability to help around the house. He flits between jobs, spending two months employed, then a year or more unemployed.

Most of the time he can’t be bothered to sign on, so the only money is my part-time wage and Child Tax Credits. He smokes tobacco all week and weed at the weekends — all funded by me. He’s downright awful without his smokes so it’s easier to just pay.

He’s a very loving father to our daughter, but hardly ever does anything with her outside the home because he can’t be bothered. All activities are with me and/or grandparents.

He either ignores my 11-yearold son (from a previous relationship) or speaks to him like dirt — which we row about. I’m certain he no longer cares about me.

I love him, but I’m no longer in love with him and have zero respect while he’s at his games console 24/7, doing nothing for our family. Our sex life is nonexistent, there’s no affection, he comes to bed late, then gets up around noon. He denies his behaviour is a problem.

I just want to be free of him. When I say I think about ending the relationship he veers between saying he’ll change (then doesn’t) and telling me he won’t leave if I want him to. His own parents have told me to ditch him many times!

Unfortunately, we rent from a private landlord — named as equals on the tenancy — so I have no legal right to throw him out. He says he won’t even leave the bedroom, let alone the house, if we split up.

My parents live in sheltered accommodation, I don’t really have any friends and I’m broke — so I’ve nowhere to go and he wouldn’t leave out of spite. Our local council says it can’t help because it’s not an abusive relationship.

Living with him after a break-up would be unbearable so I’m stuck in this miserable situation because it’s the lesser of two evils. I cry a lot and don’t know what to do.

LORIE

You paint a terrible picture of an unhappy life and I feel very sorry for you indeed.

But I’ll start by pointing out the giveaways within your email — because until you recognise them you’ll never find the strength to break the impasse.

Here’s what I highlighted. ‘Inability to help’ means refusal to help, simply because he’s yet another useless, idle exploitative deadbeat.

He ‘can’t be bothered’ to sign on to support the family or do anything with his daughter — yet you call him ‘a very loving father’.

Why kid yourself? He ‘ignores’ or abuses your son — so how is that tolerable for even one day more? You actually pay for his tobacco and his cannabis because he’s ‘ downright awful’ without them! Never mind how weak that makes you look, do you think it’s good for your children?

Finally, I read with disbelief that his own parents tell you to get rid of him, he shows ‘ no affection’, you argue constantly (those poor kids) and have ‘zero respect’ . . . but you can still write ‘I love him’.

oh, please! Look, I’m aware of the old paradox in the Beatles lyric ‘I don’t like you but I love you’. But when there are children in the equation that