I Met a Guy - It went wrong and I need advice...

It's gone so wrong and while I believe his behaviour has been beyond anything anyone would put up with, sometimes I don't know whether I'm wrong or right. So I figured, why not just ask? Get a collective opinion and see whether I'm being rational or I've turned into a total nut. Perhaps I can also get some healthy perspective and see what is really real because right now I'm not strong enough to leave. 

So... I met a guy in June 2018, a 41 year old man with a 4 year old daughter. I was 36 at the time. We fell in love, quickly and passionately. We had met each other a few times before and flirted but the timing hadn't been right. I'd been single for 5 years after a bad relationship, moved abroad to get some space and just didn't want anyone. I didn't mind being single and wasn't playing the field. I was just happy being me without anyone dictating what I did or where I went. It was liberating. I got two dogs and loved my work. Then, at a friend's wedding, I'd had too much to drink. A friend of mine had just had a heart transplant, another had a brain tumour so I hadn't been in the mood to celebrate. A friend had come over and insisted I went to the wedding. She helped me get ready and forced me out the door. 

The wedding was nice, I got cornered by a woman far drunker than me for an age and, several times, I wondered what I was doing there. Finding the dance floor, I had at least 10 left feet and eventually wondered off to get a taxi, probably tripping over my own shoes most of the way. I sat at the entrance waiting for a car to turn up. Sat on a low curb at the beautiful but isolated venue, drunk in an expensive dress, and went to lean back on the wall behind me. Only there wasn't one. With no elegance at all, I admit that I fell into the bush behind me, but a hand reached out and helped me up. He then escorted me to his taxi, offered to take me to my door, waited until I was safely inside with the door closed and went home. The next day I had a message asking if I was okay and if I really did want to see him again... but that it was fine if I hadn't meant it and he'd just be pleased to hear I was okay. 

I messaged and said I was fine and thanked him for ensuring I got home okay. We chatted for a few weeks over messenger, but i was really a bit too embarrassed to meet him again. The it was the football, I was with friends and he offered to come and meet us. I figured I was with a group and it would be okay - it was more than okay. Everyone else left but we stayed. 

He messaged me beautiful messages for the next month, while I responded occasionally, while thinking if I really wanted to trust someone again. I'd gone to London for a week for my Mum's 70th and family friends had encouraged me to take a chance on someone since it had been a long time. I got back, I did and things moved fast. On our third official date, I told him that I wanted kids and, if he didn't want more, there was no point in us seeing each other anymore. He didn't really respond. The next day I regretting being so up front, but I had friends of my age that had fallen in love, only to find the new love of their life didn't share their vision. My next date with, let's call him Harry, he said "I've been thinking about what you said, let's do it". I freaked out! I hadn't meant now, I'd meant there had to be the possibility, since he already had a child. He saw I was running in my mind and laughted and asked "why not? Give me a reason?". The truth was, I couldn't. We were so right together. He didn't want his daughter to be too much older than her potential siblings and I wanted kids. We did the same job, understood the same world and wanted the same things. 

We dined out, stayed in, hugged, kissed (a lot), we made a sofa den so we could lie together and still face the TV. We messaged each other constantly from work and glowed with the possibilities and support we found in each other. We had mutual friends who had nothing but positive things to say about us and it felt like we were on top of the world. 

We also made a baby pretty quickly. 3.5 months after we met, I was pregnant. We weren't living together yet and my friend was visiting when I did the test. I called him and he was there in minutes, making love to me my sofa while my friend made herself scarce in the bedroom. 

We were glowing, then I briefly thought I'd lost the baby but even then he was there every step of the way, coming with me to the appointment and holding my hand the whole time. A week later, the doctor told us it hadn't been the miscarriage we'd assumed and we were overwhelmed by the rollercoaster but incredibly happy. We started to plan for a family, the first for me and a new start for him. We told his daughter, who had been demanding a sibling and, while she was a bit confused, all was well and exciting. 

There's nothing attractive about pregnancy, literally nothing at all. I'll happily concede that, and give credit to any man who makes his partner feel beautiful during and shortly after this period. I was a size 8 when we met, probably a 10 when I got pregnant (we'd eaten in and out a lot) then I had a massive belly, couldn't bend down to tie my own shoes and farted a lot. Maybe, then, with good reason, "Harry" started reading when he went to bed rather than talking or making love to me. I assumed it was the pregnancy and hoped things would improve once the baby came. He'd also lost his well-paid job so, I kitted the house out on my savings and salary and didn't think too much of it, assuming everything would be back to normal soon enough. On our first anniversary, he took me to a nice restaurant but when the taxi pulled up outside our house he said he was going for a drink with a friend, as it was his friend's stag do. I was due in the hospital 2 days later. He came back at 7am, showered and lay prostrate on the sofa the next day. I packed my hospital bag without help and was pretty pissed off. I went in the next day and in the morning, Junior 1 was born. Harry was proud for sure. However, Junior 1 wasn't an easy baby, he had colic and would be up until 6am screaming the whole time and it lasted for months. Harry didn't help much and I was surprised and hurt. There was a night I had a UTI but managed to fall asleep and he was so cross about being left to look after the baby, he kicked the back of the sofa and walked away with me to look after him again. When I asked for sleep, he would agree but be "busy". On the rare occasions he did let me sleep (3 or 4 times in 8 months), tell me he'd given Junior a bottle only for everything to be exactly where I'd left it. From this point on, I believe he has only intermittently engaged again.

Junior 1 was difficult but we had agreed to a second baby. We weren't having sex and he'd lost his job a second time after only 4 months, not because he wasn't good but because he was expensive and the company wanted to save money. I was back at work and my just above average salary just about covered our combined bills. I transferred money to him to live on so he didn't have to ask when I could. But my salary at that time should have been enough to save on and see me through an extended maternity leave the second time round. His comment on finding out about the second baby was far from the reaction to the first when he was by my side and excited from another house and in minutes. Instead, it was "well that was what you wanted" without getting up from the sofa. He'd agreed with the timing, he was party to the act, albeit without the passion of the first pregnancy. We hadn't had sex for months, junior 2 was a lucky second go strike. With the world pandemic, he didn't work for another 14 months and became more and more distant. He was playing video games 16 hours a day while I worked, paid the bills and the nanny, finished at 6pm or paid her to stay later if I had to work late, bathed Junior 1 and put him to bed, cooked and often washed up. I was then asked at 10:30pm to put headphones in if I wanted to watch TV as he wanted to stream. 

When Junior 2 arrived he it was during covid. He was his old self again, taking me to the hospital early in the morning (3am), organising the nanny to come and being great with the kids while I was in hospital. We took on a bigger house on my salary a month or so later as the perfect home came up and we assumed he would get a job soon. He'd not picked up the grocery bills again, including food for his daughter, since May 2019 so we were now running a split total which was increasing massively as he didn't appreciate how much it was costing. But at this point, it had been 18 months with me being increasingly disillusioned and alone in parenting. I would put dinner on, do junior 1's bath, come back to serve dinner and sometimes wash up as well, while we were living on my maternity income in a house we couldn't afford. I'd planned to I would have been able to take extended maternity leave but the money was all gone. 

Three months after Junior 2 was born, just before we moved to the new house, he got another job and a very good one. It was 50% more than his previous salary with a boss he liked and a company he believed in. We were thrilled, he had a new energy and confidence.  

Within three months he was away as much as he was home. Being "professional social" he called it. We work in the same industry and it's a work hard, play hard one. His reputation was as a solid (maybe boring) but experienced senior person. He had never been part of the play hard crowd, or rather he had, but he was the grounding force and rock amongst wayward colleagues and friends. Exactly what I'd fallen in love with. 

That's the background. 

Then as of June 2021, covid started to lift and he had this new job. He met influential people that elevated his status in the relatively small community we live in. He started circulating with people that have a lot of money and at the age of 44, I suspected he was less the rock and more part of the problem. Gradually, at first, but increasingly he was swept up like a cigarette paper in a hurricane. I blamed the people around him but was wisely told that people make their own decisions. It's true that speaking to the people I had blamed, some I knew, some i didn't, only proved that the only person responsible for Harry's actions was him. Late 2021, his daughter's would be step-father died tragically, her mother understandably needed time but he didn't cancel his trip and was out with investors, leaving me with Junior 0 alone for 10 days, grieving and wanting her parents rather than me. For the record, Junior 0 is an amazing kid that I adore and her mother someone I get on exceptionally well with.

We wanted our son and his daughter in a particular school. He told me not to apply and that he had contacts, I chased from Nov 2021 until late Sept 2022 only to get told each time I was a “nag”. Our son was registered with the local comp the working day before school started, meaning as a new parent I missed all the introductions.

Multiple conferences have followed where he didn't call, lied about going in the first place or when he was coming home, hasn’t called the kids, hasn’t turned up or said he was on his way home and didn't show. He's missed appointments for his kids, isn't and doesn't organise anything when they need something and the landlord turned up on our door saying we were 8 months behind on the rent (second time he's lied about paying and hasn't). That's embarrassing for me, as I've never missed a payment in my life. I paid for the sundries, he paid for the rent and it balanced out about the same. Only he didn't pay it. 

His father died in May 2022 and he was suddenly a dedicated family man again - with the kids, not with me. 3 months later he went out, came back at 7am with crap all over his knees, hid his trousers under the bed and lied repeatedly about what had happened. We live in a dry place, he said it was water on the road when it hadn't rained for 2 months. 

Probably not in order but things got worse with more non-payment for things and lying about it, not turning up for appointments for all his kids, finding drugs in the house, he bought condoms that clearly weren't for us, he went to every conference for extended periods and has been going out at home until 7am. I'm generally being left alone for the most part with our 2 kids and regularly his daughter as well.

I think anyone would say that the relationship is over, and probably was a long time ago. I think I know that but because of the kids i haven't left. So the confessions of love between being out I want to believe  but I know I can't really. So has anyone been in this situation that can help?

What do I do please?