CREDIT
At the age of 21 I met the love of my life Max*. We fell in love and things began to happen pretty quickly within weeks we were looking for our own place. We didn’t see the point in waiting we were in love why wait. Nobody knows what tomorrow holds.
We found a beautiful house to rent in a well known area, nice schools, low crime rate and a friendly environment. What more could we possibly want or need. We both settled well into our new home both working full time to ensure we could afford the best of the best. Life was great after a perfect year together we decided to extend our family. We started to try for a baby. We also opened a joint savings account to transfer money from our wages monthly. This would be our deposit for our family home.
It took us 2 years of trying to conceive before we finally had our precious princess. Our life was complete. Dare I even say perfect. Being on maternity leave I began looking for our new family home according to my calculations we had enough money saved for a deposit.
After a 6 month search we found our new home. I couldn’t have asked for anything more. Max* and I got engaged but decided to wait a while before getting married. I took charge off the general house work and Max* controlled the money side of things paying the bills and mortgage etc…
I returned back to my teaching assistant job when our daughter was nine months old. She attended nursery 3 days a week and went to grandma’s the other two.
When our daughter was 36 months old I noticed that Max* had started to change he became distant and lied to me daily, taking his phone everywhere he went. I put it all down to the daily stress of working a full time job, paying a mortgage and being a father. Little did I know my life and our daughters was about to change forever.
Finishing work at 4 I collected our daughter from nursery as per usual. We returned home and I noticed that their was a letter hand written addressed to Max and I. I opened the letter only to have the shock of my life It was from the bailiffs. They had left a contact number. I called them straight away.
They stated that our Mortgage payments had defaulted for the past 8 months. They also claimed that they had spoken to Max* on numerous occasions and he’d promised to clear the outstanding payments. I came of the telephone in tears the bailiffs gave me 24 hours to find ALL money owed. What had my other half done why hadn’t he spoken to me we both worked full time, had very few luxuries where had the money gone. At first I was upset then it turned to anger. I had know one to turn to nobody who could lend me that kind of money. I needed to confront Max*. I painted on a smile prepared his tea as normal and waited until our daughter had gone to bed.
Max sat down to watch TV and I kept my calm and explained we needed to talk.
I could see the fear in his face but I needed answers. The next 3 hours were spent swearing, shouting, crying and arguing. Max* had used the money that was meant to pay the mortgage on our beautiful home to fund his gambling addiction, He simply explained he was bored of family life, bored of doing the same day to day routine.
He blamed me told me I had destroyed his life when I announced that I was carrying his child although she had been planned. He acted like a wimp threw a tantrum and told me he hated me.
How could I be so naive ?
How could the man I love have an addiction and me be so unaware of it all. How could he say such hurtful things after so long.
How had he kept it all from me ?
He later explained that he had been coming home on his dinner hour to collect the post and had taken out 3 credit cards and a loan. What had happened to my Max* ?.
He explained that we were going to lose everything the house, the car, the furniture. In two and a half years Max* had got us into debt of over 30,000.
What kind of life could I provide for our daughter now.
The bailiffs turned up 36 hours after me opening the letter.
My life was over how could he do this, how could he do this to his daughter.
We were homeless.
I left Max* shortly after I wanted to support him I wanted the man I loved back. I couldn’t live with a liar. Someone who claimed to love me wouldn’t have done this. My heart was broken. I had let my daughter down.
Max and I have been separated for 2 years now he has very little contact with his daughter and is drowning in debt, I’ve tried to offer help and support but it’s too little too late.
Addiction is hard I know first hand that but it can destroy family life. I and my daughter are proof of this.
This blog is an anonymous guest post – if you have a story you too would like to share why not send it in?
