I don't know where to start without this turning into 300 pages but will try to keep it short. Basically DH and DD do the bare minimum around the house and are so dull and joyless about everything, it feels like if I ever want anything to be nice it's all down to me and it's grinding me down so much, has anyone got any tips how to turn things around?
For some backstory, DH and DD aren't completely lazy or bad people and I'm sure I'm heavily to blame for letting things get to this stage but here we are, I can't go back.
DH has a long history of poor mental health and is coping better now but things seem to easily overwhelm him, he will easily let things slide and doesn't have the same standards I have. I honestly don't have high standards but eg, I'll see it as essential that we should be keeping on top of bills, DH will let something get to a red letter stage then feel shit about it and sort it late at extra cost/disadvantage. If it was all up to him he'd let washing pile up then buy a couple of new t shirts and put something else he was meant to be doing on hold while he spent the day catching up with it. Only a couple of examples there but if I left much up to him we'd all suffer. If I ask him directly to do something he will, no issue, but I'd have to every time, I couldn't just say 'can you keep on top of the washing up every day' as he'd forget and let it lapse until we had no crockery left and then do it in a rush of stress when we were meant to be doing something else. I don't want a maid I have to instruct daily!
DD has anxiety but it's hard to separate out what comes from anxiety and what is teen angst/being a bit spoilt. If I want her to do something around the house I'll have to spell out what she needs to do and most of the time virtually talk her through it, taking more time than to do it myself, otherwise she'll be flapping that she can't do it right/can't do anything/isn't good enough at it to do it. If I try to encourage her or get stern she usually gets stroppy, doesn't seem to matter what approach I take. But as I say, some of it is definitely from anxiety but I can never tell how much so just punishing her seems harsh and if I do she'll just take the punishment and sulk, nothing actually seems to change for the future though.
Not sure how well I've explained it but they just seem to be sucking all the joy out of life, neither of them have any initiative or ideas most of the time, they'd both just happily play on their phones or consoles all day. If I want a family day out I have to suggest and organise it otherwise they'll just say let's chill on our phones, then be bored and get worse mental health wise.
I feel like I'm the mother, housekeeper and manager for both of them and it's exhausting me but nothing I try seems to change stuff. I've talked to DH about it so much and he tries really hard for a couple of days but it sends his anxiety through the roof because he knows he should be doing more, he'll be doing everything so nervously you'd think I had a gun to his head the whole time, asking "is it alright if..." all the time as if I'm a dictator, then he relaxes a bit and it goes back to normal.
Please, any tips?