How do I (30f) know when it’s time to move on? My partner is 40m.

How do I (30f) know when it’s time to move on? My partner is 40m.

We met through work about 7 years ago. At the time he was married and I went through several relationships, one of which lasted a little over a year and was particularly devastating to me. We connected over him supporting me through that particular breakup and me supporting him through his divorce (he was married 13 years). We realized about a month into our connection that neither of us was ready for a relationship as we hadn’t gotten over our previous relationships and decided to end it and give ourselves time to heal. At the time, he was living like a homeless person and sleeping at work, so I offered him the spare room in the house I was renting after we broke up.

He has two kids (16f and 13m, who were 12 and 9 at the time of his divorce). His ex wife wanted out of their relationship so badly that she signed their house over to him and began a new relationship before they were formally separated. He “thought it would be easier for everyone” if he let her and his kids continue living there while he left and lived like a homeless person which is how he ended up renting a room in my house. My house was unsuitable to house children as I had previous roommates on the lease who had equal right to be there so we couldn’t kick them out, but did not live a child-friendly lifestyle (smoked weed and drank almost every day). This is how he became a mostly absent father, by taking care of his ex so she could take care of the children.

We lived as roommates for a year, then one drunken night after dancing at the bar together we rekindled and have been together as a couple ever since, for the last 3 years.

Last year, we moved into a camper to get away from what became a dangerous situation with the roommates. They were getting arrested for one reason or another and one woke up in my bed after I got roofied at the bar, and if you would have known our dynamic it would be very clear that I would never let this person anywhere near my bed so I began to feel very unsafe in the house and my partner and I pooled our resources to buy a camper as housing is very expensive in our area.

On days he had his kids, he would take them to his mom’s house and live with them at his mom’s. Keep in mind that this is a HOMEOWNER who lives 3/4 of the time in a camper/ 1/4 of the time at his mom’s for the sake of keeping a roof over his ex’s head so he can take care of her instead of taking care of his kids, meanwhile we are living out of a camper. He has 50/50 legal custody but less than 1/4 physical custody as their mom is the primary physical custodian.

His kids hate him for abandoning them in this way. They want to live with their mom full time. Even on his parenting days he is unreliable and chaotic, unable to manage appointments or wake up to take them to school or extracurriculars on time. They don’t see the “sacrifices” he’s made to take care of his cheating ex, they only see his absence in their lives since he bowed out when the going got tough, and found it easier to provide for their mom instead of being an active participant in their lives. This seems to be a side effect of his religious upbringing where the man took care of the woman, and the woman took care of the kids. In this way, I don’t think he’s truly seen himself as separated from her because he’s had the drive to take care of her the entirety of our 3 year relationship.

I recently made it clear to him that I was not down to be with a deadbeat dad and that I was horrified that he sacrificed his relationship with his kids to do what he thought would be easier. I feel massive betrayal from his continuing to take care of her, including protecting her from repaying damages she and her new husband have caused to his property, the effects of which impacted other people in his family. I know this sounds vague but for privacy, I prefer not to get specific. Let’s just say they damaged his property and his family’s property and he protected her instead of getting her to repay the damages caused to his other family members.

Because I pushed him to step up as a dad, and not just a provider for his kids’ mom, in the last couple of months, he’s evicted his ex from the house that he owns. He gave her a 90 day notice and he will be moving back into his property in about a week. He wants me to come with him, but part of me wants to tell him that I’m staying in the camper and he needs to move back alone and focus on his kids. He’s never put his kids first, and it shows. Every time there’s a holiday, I’m the one making sure he invites his kids to family gatherings. They would have missed Thanksgiving and Christmas with his family if I didn’t say something. I had to pressure him to get time with his daughter on her birthday. Again, if I didn’t say anything, he wouldn’t have celebrated with her. I had to force him to go to her sports. If I didn’t say anything, he would never go to a game. I feel like I’m walking this man through how to be a parent, and I’m ten years younger and childfree. He didn’t even send his kids to school with lunch or cook them dinner before I all but yelled at him.

Obviously he has redeeming qualities or else I wouldn’t still be here. He’s my biggest support in following my own dreams. I wouldn’t be where I am now without him because I wouldn’t have the guts or the resources to be without his support. He’s very kind to me and he’s obsessed with me and I’ve never been loved so hard by someone in my life. But I know love isn’t everything, and I know I would have so much less baggage without him. I feel like I have to mentally manage everything in our lives because he isn’t organized and doesn’t think through important decisions well.

We haven’t had sex in a very long time and to be honest I don’t want to. Sex feels like a chore because I have so much weight on my shoulders that I didn’t ask for, and I know the stress is all his fault. I know he’s stressed too, but he signed up to be a parent, I didn’t. I especially didn’t sign up to be his parent. I feel like I’m raising him and coercing him into raising his children or else he knows I’ll leave. His relationship with his children has improved a bit in the last couple of weeks but I feel like it’s because I’ve been telling him to do everything. I feel like the bossy bad guy, but it feels like I have to bully him into being a present character in his kids lives.

I’m also dealing with the resentment that he’s been taking care of his ex wife the entirety of our relationship while we’ve been homeless and his kids don’t have a present father figure. It feels like he wants me to be ok now that he’s evicted her but I feel like his kids and I have been betrayed for the last three years straight. I don’t think I want to move into the house he let his ex wife live in for the last 3 years, making sure she had a better future than me or his kids. Obviously his kids were taken care of because his ex wife put them first, but never because he put his kids first, it was because he put his ex wife first. Am I stupid? Should I have left 2 years and 11 months ago?

TL;DR My boyfriend has been a really bad parent and only steps up when I make him. I feel betrayed because he’s been taking care of his ex wife so she can take care of his kids instead of taking care of them directly himself. We are basically homeless (living out of a camper while his ex lives in the house he owns).. When do I call quits?