I've been looking back over my short series of blogs and with the exception of the first, marvelling at how remarkably bouyant I must appear.

I don't feel bouyant now. If a psychologist ask me to draw myself, I should imagine I would fashion some kind of road kill on paper. It's been a tough few weeks.

There's the relentless worry about where we are all going to live. The division of equity translated into some kind of dwelling with enough bedrooms for us all, does not give a happy outcome. Then I'm worrying about how I will get the children to school, and me to work. How I will manage without the help of my neighbour who picks up my daughter from school on the days that I work. Where we will be. What it will feel like. The unknown.

And then there's work itself. I've lost my confidence, I feel like an imposter, like I don't know what I'm doing. And the job is so vital. No job, no schooling for my son. No job, no little bit of extra money at the end of the month to buy food.

My car broke down too. £125. Then there's the MOT looming at the end of March. I'm hoping that my application for child tax credit will have been processed by then and that there will be enough to pay. But there's no certainty of anything.

I rush about the house turning off lights. The heating is only on for six hours a day, yet I am still behind with the gas payments. The fridge isn't working properly. The top half is warm so everything has to be shoved into the drawers below. Precious food goes off because of this. It's exhausting.

Then I got copied in on an email from my younger son's school, sent to my ex. He is behind with the payments there too. Yet every weekend that the children spend with him is just one big buying spree. Toys, complete new outfits, restaurants, outings. It makes me despair.

Then, on sunday, I get this text.

'Hi, just to let you know that I've told the children that I have a girlfriend and they are absolutely fine with it. In fact they suspected it. Her name is xxx'

The children come back and my youngest daughter innocently spills the beans in the way that only an innocent eight year old girl can do. They bought her a present apparently, for mother's day. For mother's day.

No, no, no. Resolutely no.

I've googled her. She looks like a really nice woman. Well-groomed, precise, accomplished. Everything I suppose, that I am not. She looks like she and my ex will be very happy together. I can see it all now. Even I, from my skewed and dysfunctional vantage point, can feel a sense of them finding one another after their years in the wilderness, the sigh of relief, the recognition.

But my children's mother she's not. I want them to have a good relationship with her. I truly hope that they do. But then I also know that it will only last until she has her own child. And then it will all change. And then as the years roll by, one day, maybe one day, he will finally know and understand what I have felt. And why it had to end.

For the first time since he left, I feel very tearful. Like if i let myself, I could sit down, place my head in my hands and just cry myself a river.