Secondary email ongoing problems

We have two email accounts associated with Virgin media Account, one for my husband, and one for me.  Upon the merger with O2 we each set up individual Gmail accounts, as a back up as advised.

I have been unable to access my email address on my iPad (fortunately I can open it on my iPhone).  We have had several frustrating lengthy telephone calls with Virgin to resolve this.  Upon following instructions my husband usually ends up losing access to his email account thus entailing more frustrating calls to get back into his account. We have just been going around in circles.  Yesterday we were assured that it had been sorted, and to give it 15 minutes and clear browser.  It failed - I had my husbands emails 🤦‍♀️😫.  I logged out.  My husband then went to open his emails on laptop without success.  Eventually after having an another protracted call with a very unhelpful service operator my husband had to insist to be put through to a Manager - who spent considerable time resolving various issues and helped my husband get back into his account.  However, due to the hours spent on the phone we did not have the mental energy to continue to get emails on my iPad.  

Can someone simply tell us in plain english how I can get into my emails on my iPad.  Another point was when my husband logged out of his email and tried to access mine - he could not get in to it and the system would not let him log back into his account.  Ridiculous, please someone help.

Thanks