Just need to get this off my chest. My partner and I have been together 10 years, several children, ups and downs, the usual. I’ll admit that I’m not perfect and I never will be, but I have tried to change my mentality so that I can try to deal with stuff like a mature adult.

Over the years, she has gone on nights out with her friends, nothing unusual there. She’ll tell me where she’s going, that she’s only going for a couple of drinks, and that she’ll be home at a particular time.

Except that that has very rarely ever happened.

She’ll instigate messaging me up to a point, usually around 20.30 or so, and from then out its radio silence until she comes home. The earliest she came home once was about 3.30, and over the years its gotten later and later, until 6.00 or 6.30 was the usual time. After each of these occurrences, and when she had woken up in the morning, we’d argue about it. My issue was that I never know if she’s safe or not, and if she is planning on staying out later then to just let me know so I can get some sleep. She would always give me a bullshit answer and promise to change, and not do it next time. This happens about 4-5 times a year, for almost the whole relationship now.

It happened again this week. Except that she never came home at 6.00. Or 7.00. Or 9.00, when my shift started. Absolutely no word from her. I reported her missing.

Then out of the blue, 12.30 rolls around and she makes contact. Great, she’s alive and not in a ditch somewhere. She is ringing a taxi, she’ll be home soon, she’s only 20 minutes away. She walks through the front door at 15.30, straight upstairs to get changed. I see the red flags waving, and I cannot deal with anymore of her bullshit excuses. So I leave.

10 years of our lives, wasted. I don’t want to fix things, I’m not after advice, I don’t want judgement , I just don’t want to hold onto this anymore. It’s too heavy.