I Pay My Rent In A Way That Leaves Me Sobbing

I am a lone parent to three beautiful children, Jenny, Angel and Johnny, their father left me 10 months ago for a woman he met at the gym, he walked away and hasn’t seen, spoken or financially supported his children.

We were living in a rented house and I was granted income support and housing benefits plus disability payments for my Jenny who has autism and ADHD, but the housing payments didn’t cover all the rent, the only advice the housing officer gave me was to find somewhere cheaper to live.

Each month I was £75 short to cover the rent, no matter how much I budgeted or cut back I could never get all th money together, my landlord Richard come over and threatened me with eviction, where would we go if we lost the house? Jenny had only just gotten into a very good special needs school, she was settled and happier than I had ever seen her.

All my children were still struggling with their father leaving them let alone having to move out of the only home they had ever known, possibly having to change schools and make new friends, I couldn’t do that to them.

How would I be able to afford to move, I would never be able to get a deposit together, there are very few council properties available let alone one to fit me and 3 children in, changes are we would have been placed into a hostel or bed and breakfast, not somewhere I would want to raise 3 small children.

I had no choice but to offer my body to my over weight middle-aged stinking landlord, he obviously accepted, every week on a Friday lunchtime he knocks on my door and I service his needs, I feel sick to my stomach every time I see him, I cry for ages after he has gone.

A mother will do anything for her children and this is what I have to do, if there was another way to stay I would do it, but at the moment I am stuck, I am used, I am trying to be the best mother I can be.