Why I separated from my husband (Long)

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I got married in 2004 and separated in 2009. When we separated, we had 3 kids together. He came home one night and informed me that “This whole wife and kids and marriage thing just isn’t working for me” and told me that the girls and I needed to move out that night. We were able to stay for two more weeks but we ended up in a homeless shelter for 3 months. We spent Christmas in a homeless shelter that year. Not where I wanted to be, but it was where we needed to be. At that point he was still pretending he wanted to be involved in the oldest girls lives. He made it clear he did not want anything to do with the one year old because she was not any fun. His involvement was taking them for an hour or so every other weekend. We have never had a custody order, so he was free to have them as much as he wanted. Now fast forward to 2020 and we now live three blocks away from him. He is just as involved now as he was back then. Which is sad. My girls do not know any different, but even as much of a POS as my father is, I know that my dad was around a lot more than theirs is. He cannot blame the distance anymore because I let the girls go over whenever they want. He decided from 2012 until 2020 that he did not want anything to do with them. He saw them once in 2015 and that was it. My youngest is 13 and wants absolutely nothing to do with him. She passes up fun stuff solely because she would have to spend time with him and his girlfriend. Now, I say this last part with absolutely no malice. I am happy that the woman he threw his family away for is the same woman he is still with. At least it was worth it for him. So many times, it ends up not being worth what you lost, and it is too late to get the relationship back. Even though it has been hard being a single mom to my three daughters, we are still doing better than we were when he and I were together. Right now we are all living in a motel room turned efficiency apartment, but I am in control of the finances and I don’t have to worry about him not paying the bills. I know that at the end of the day the bills are going to be paid, we will have food to eat, we will have a car, nothing is going to get repossessed, we aren’t going to get evicted, and I didn’t have any of those securities when he and I were together. He may have grown up and finally gotten responsible, but I am so scarred from that relationship that I do not trust anyone when it comes to paying bills. I also will never count on my partner paying part of the bills because I do not have the faith in other people that they will hold up their end of the financial bargain.