Living with DH’s mental health problem

[prepareforlanding]

I’ll say at the outset that my family situation is not LTB territory. I’ve never bought into that glib response (except in obvious cases of abuse) and I don’t feel my situation merits it anyway. Our home life is stable, secure, happy (within the realms of a high-stress/long hours high earner) and we are all healthy. Our children are happy and thriving at school and out, my life is balanced, content and busy and I’m happy with it. DH and I feel that we have many blessings to count.

DH and I have been married for 14 years. We have a lot of respect for each other - achievements, work ethic, forbearance, values. We laugh a lot together, we enjoy the same pastimes, we are supportive of each other emotionally and practically. We both consider the other to be a “good person”. In short, we love each other deeply, and we are in it for life.

The only fly in the ointment is that DH has a mental health issue. It manifests as anger and volatility and aggression (never towards a person, he wouldn’t hurt a fly), and what looks to me like sullen, self-pitying frustration and victimhood. When the mood descends, he simultaneously acts as though he deserves to be miserable and will say that he’s worthless and has no value; and blames me aggressively for not helping him, extending kindness towards him, never admitting that anything is my fault while in a roundabout way implying that everything is actually my fault (implying because he rants, he doesn’t express himself clearly or logically). I will be going about my week and when the explosion comes it’s out of the blue to me. I’m accused of gaslighting him, of twisting things, of nagging and berating when really what he needs is kindness - which I think (because he can’t say exactly what it is) is me letting him get away with this behaviour that’s damaging to me and to our children without any objections from me. Just letting everything slide, silently letting him be however he needs to be and quietly fixing things for myself and the D.C. by myself.

From my perspective, I am protecting our children and myself from a roaring temper and destructive atmosphere, by challenging him on what he’s saying, pointing out the inconsistencies and flawed logic of what he’s saying, telling him how things feel and seem to the D.C. and to me, asking him to get a grip etc. This is like a red rag to a bull. It makes him feel like I’m having a go at him even more, pointing out all his failings and inadequacies, that I’m not being empathetic about how he’s feeling, and it makes him angry that I’m not accepting or supportive of his mental health challenges.

We are on totally different pages. He has an issue that I struggle to understand and evidently show little support or empathy to him about. I can’t allow myself or my children to live in a home where this behaviour goes on (it happens once or twice a year, usually lasts 2-4 days).

When he’s in these moods, nothing I say gets through. I can see that at the time. He’s not himself. It’s as though a red mist descends and he loses control entirely. The gentle, thoughtful, caring and generous man is replaced by someone who lashes out, swears, will throw whatever soft thing is to hand (cushion, garment, tissue box) at the wall or floor in anger. He paces, hissing and seething. He looks at me as though he can’t bear the sight of me. Saying anything at all to him just angers him further. Oddly, however, if any one of the three of us has something go wrong during one of these fits of temper (DS stubs a toe and cries out; I mention something that’s making me sad that he doesn’t know about eg ill health in a family member) he will immediately switch out of that mood to sincere concern and empathy and shared sadness. Everything changes: his body language, the tone of his voice - he’s just his normal self.

Once the episode passes, we’re both exhausted. We talk. I tell him he needs to seek help. He was reluctant for many years but I found someone for him who he saw for a year and it helped. I think that was easy-ish for him because he has anxiety issues at work which manifested in this way, and it’s easy to talk about something dry like a career and get prescribed drugs. This is something else though. It’s deep within him, and I wonder if it’s hereditary (he’s hinted that his own dad used to have a very violent temper).

Am I unsupportive? Am I lacking in empathy? Am I wrong to stand up for myself and “protect” his children from him? They seem perfectly happy and healthy and well balanced children to me, not remotely affected by any of this. But, children can be good at hiding things. Maybe they are affected. I don’t want to probe in case I put ideas in their heads that they SHOULD be affected.

I know this isn’t “normal”, but am I totally off piste in thinking that he needs to seek help and sort himself out and not inflict himself on the rest of us? Or is it my responsibility as his life partner to put up with all this, do what he needs doing, while he sorts himself out along the timetable that works for him? What if he gets to 60yo and this is still happening? Losing 8 days a year to this isn’t a big deal - that leaves 347 happy and good days. But I’m tired of being tired and confused and accused of things I haven’t done, of feeling lost and angry in turn. And then I wonder if that’s what it’s like for me, what must it be like for him… Finally, I don’t see this in a feminist, man versus woman way. If the roles were reversed with DH and me, the situation would be exactly the same. He’s my greatest champion as a woman, truly.

Sorry for the epic post. I just don’t have any bearings in this. Thank you for any replies.

You are massively deluded if you think the children aren't affected. Although not really sure why you posted , because you're not going to do anything about it.

Well, you’re certainly more understanding than I would be. I’d be telling him to leave and come back when he’s sorted his shit out.

But then I wouldn’t want my children being screamed at and witnessing this totally erratic aggression and rage, I wouldn’t want them having to develop ‘coping mechanisms’…

The thing is, we seem to have a culture at present where people like to say that they want to fight the stigma re: mental health problems, “it’s good to talk” and all that stuff.

But there is huge difference between agreeing with this in theory, or putting posts like that on social media (and telling people ‘my door is always open’ 😂) and reality of dealing with someone who is mentally unwell and actually acting as if they are mentally unwell!

There is a lot more to mental illness than bog standard moderate depression or anxiety (although I am not minimising those either)

People who are mentally unwell can be extremely hard work and unpleasant to be around. They don’t necessarily sit around being all sweet and sad and grateful if someone makes them a cup of tea and says kind things.

They can be supremely ungrateful and angry at those who try to help, might lack insight into their own behaviour, to blame others and say the most horrible things.

They might be seen as “refusing to help themselves”, to be “manipulative”, to be lazy.

So the realities of poor mental health can include the person who hasn’t showered for weeks and who refuses to open the door, the one who is paranoid and angry, someone who refuses medication, who is harming themselves in front of others, or who has a suicide plan and has bought themselves a rope, someone who is smashing their own head repeatedly into a wall or who is hearing voice, someone who paces about ranting and explodes at their loved ones over minor things and seems like a different person, who is full of self pity and illogical beliefs…

I saw a poster up thread say that being angry and behaving badly isn’t a feature of many mental health conditions… Really?! This belief is based on what?

Rather than telling the OP that she is lying, that his behaviour is a choice, that she is terrible mother.. is it that hard to believe that she is telling the truth? That her husband is otherwise calm and rational but has episodes, very infrequently, where he seems mentally unwell. He wouldn’t be the first.

The fact is that no-one on here can say with any accuracy whether her DH has a mental health condition or not. This is why he needs to see a qualified mental health professional who can take a full history and assess properly.

People on this site are quick to agree that there isn’t a “perfect victim” in domestic violence cases.

There also isn’t a “perfect mentally ill” person, with just the right level of mental illness. What would that look like? The “right” level for unqualified bystanders to be convinced that there is a condition, but of course not a level which causes “bad behaviour” ( because that is always abuse and a choice made by someone pretending to be unwell, of course!) For goodness sake.

Maybe her DH will have a psychiatric assessment and the conclusion will be that he does not have a mental health condition. But to jump straight to “he is abusive” based on massively infrequent behaviours, which are out ot character, and which the OP - and her own DH - believe is due to an untreated mental health problem.. it’s not helpful, and neither is telling the OP that her own reality is wrong and that she lying to herself about her own life, based on a couple of posts.

He doesn't have a mental health problem, he has an attitude and a behaviour problem. Big time. The fact that he can snap out of it as quickly as he does suggests he is fully in control of his actions.

@Justcashnosweets - A case in point 🤦🏼‍♀️

DH has always had anger issues. And I naively ignored them, thinking it was bit like toddler taming......reward the good and ignore the bad. Only I didn't realise the damage it was doing to our DC until they started showing signs of behavioural issues. Once that lightbulb went on, I felt sick with shame for allowing it and DH left the family home for the best part of a year. When he came back, it was on mine and the kids' terms and not his - and he was very aware that the 1st display of old behaviour would be the last. And funnily enough, he never showed this temper in front of clients at work............ it was just at home.

I'm sorry OP but you're just his enabler. And you are very much walking on eggshells, you've just been doing it for so long that you don't recognise the action any more.

As I’m sure others have pointed out, this IS abusive behaviour, regardless of how often it happens. Breaking things and throwing things ARE acts of violence. Yes, he does have choices. If he believes his outbursts are rooted in trauma, he needs to find a trauma-informed therapist and work with them for as long as it takes. He’s controlling people around him with the threat of another outburst and that is not sustainable.

He can have a mental health condition and also be abusive. I really don’t think it helps to try to sort all abusive behaviour into “mental illness or not”.

Yes, some abusers know exactly what they’re doing, are totally in control, and are just deliberately manipulating you when they talk about their bad childhood or sob and say they hate themselves. But other abusers really do have bad childhoods and mental health problems, they really mean it when they say they hate themselves. And yet they are still abusive, because what makes behaviour abusive is the behaviour, not whether you can find someone to put a diagnostic label on it.

It is good that he’s willing to get help for this, but you are already positioning yourself in a framework of taking on all the responsibility for him - even finding the sort of help he needs. What he needs is to feel, himself, that this can’t continue, and to commit, himself, to doing something about it.

Many of us have been in abusive situations which we allowed to continue far too long because there were genuine mental health issues involved. At least we had the option to change our view and leave, though. Children don’t.

My father was the same and I was and remain utterly terrified of him.
Can you imagine how your DS felt as their dad went nuts in the shower about the water and then balled at their mother?
And he was 'nice' and 'laid back' except of course when he wasn't and that's what I remember the most.
You sound like an apologist for his Frankly awful behaviour. He does NOT need your help. You are babying him and he needs to sort this himself. Take ownership for his issues.
Also have you thought about when your children are teens? When they aren't compliant? That's when my dad completely came into his own trust me.

Wow, I wasn't expecting this many further replies.

LTB is glib, in my opinion. None of us get to adulthood without complications, failings and faults. None of our children are perfect, and none of us are perfect parents or perfectly formed adults who resolved all of life's problems before we had our first child.

I appreciate the harsh-but-true posts.

I am ignoring posters telling me they know what's going on inside my head and home better than I do. Sometimes we can't see what's right under our noses. This isn't such an instance ('none so blind as those who won't see', those posters will say).

I very much appreciate replies that clearly come from people with personal experience or professional expertise.

DH has had a terrible work week, I've barely seen him the past two days, we've mostly communicated by text. I don't need to talk to him to know what he thinks and how he feels. He has told me that yes he needs help. He is grateful that I've offered to help him seek it, and help him with it if that's what he wants. He knows this is for his good, and for our DCs' good. I do things for him because I love him (and vice versa). We are partners. Together we raise our children and lead joint and our individual lives. Nobody is leaving anyone. We will work and improve together, and support each other in doing so. We forgive, we talk (a lot), we learn and we move on.

What DH does in these episodes is damaging to the DC. He knows it, and I think he was damaged in the same way as a child himself (I didn't know him then). A poster upthread alluded to just how difficult changing learned childhood behaviour can be: I think this will be the case for DH, and I think he knows it too. So much so, that I think he can't fathom where to begin, how to go about it, how long it will take, what it might look like etc. He will be feeling daunted. This will go to what he thinks he is. He's got to his 40s without opening Pandora's Box. I choose to help him.

I also agree that I need to be prepared for DH to be different on the other side, and that this might change our dynamic as a couple. So be it. We will figure it out, and we will be fine. I don't feel threatened.

Not my business, but he also needs to prepare for how this might impact his relationship with his father, mother (who, as someone said upthread, most likely has accommodated his father for decades) and siblings. And yes, DD is in my mind in all this. I will not have her learn to pander to, make excuses for, adjust herself for, accept and just live with any man's (or woman's) poor behaviour. I will have her learn that people are flawed, and that when we care for the people we love, that means we help and support their constructive progress to betterment. We don't abandon ourselves, or them.

In sickness and in health, for better or for worse. Nothing in this is bad enough to break apart our family. That would do more damage than staying together and fixing this.

Moving away for the duration of an episode is a good practical idea, but it's not a long term solution. These episodes need to stop happening. If he's unfixable then that's what will have to happen in future. But he's not unfixable. (Nobody is, in my opinion).

Thank you all again for your time and thoughts.

💐

Ok.
So, what are you actually going to do? To insist on? GP for AD's and / or diagnosis? Counselling? What are you actually going to put into place, practically, immediately, to protect your abused children, from their abusive dad.
Your response looks like 12 paragraphs of drivel, with no actual action plan. Or did I miss it? You're incredibly wishy washy. Do you know how to be definite?

Your poor dc is all I can say

You are their advocate and saying it’s ok to be around someone like that isn’t ok

if your dh really cared about his behaviour he’d take action to stop it rather than tell you it’s your fault

For sickness and in health doesn’t mean he can be abusive to his dc ffs

What DH does in these episodes is damaging to the DC. He knows it, and I think he was damaged in the same way as a child himself (I didn't know him then). A poster upthread alluded to just how difficult changing learned childhood behaviour can be: I think this will be the case for DH, and I think he knows it too. So much so, that I think he can't fathom where to begin, how to go about it, how long it will take, what it might look like etc. He will be feeling daunted. This will go to what he thinks he is. He's got to his 40s without opening Pandora's Box.

And so the cycle continues as he's not wanted to stop behaving this way enough to proactively seek help himself.

I would be frightened if a grown man shouted in my face and I'm an adult who could walk away from the situation.

Your poor little boy all vulnerable, naked and getting shouted and yelled at by a man who you say you know 'can't' control his temper when he flared up.

I will have her learn that people are flawed, and that when we care for the people we love, that means we help and support their constructive progress to betterment. We don't abandon ourselves, or them.

That last sentence is so misguided it's almost chilling. Teaching a girl that if you live someone you don't 'abandon' them, even if their behaviour is aggressive, unacceptable and dangerous.

Framing it as 'abandoning' someone rather than self preservation, safeguarding or simply ending a relationship says so much about your own view of relationships - that once you're in, you're in even if your children are suffering.

You probably mean well, I'm sure you don't want your kids to be taught damaging lessons. But they are being taught them right now.

Teaching a girl "if you really love someone, you never abandon them" is practically making her a lamb to the slaughter for any abusive and manipulative men when she's older.

I think you could do with some counselling too, to unpack your own approach to relationships and family dynamics. This is all worrying.

Nothing to add other than its good you recognise that your DH has learnt this behaviour from somewhere, so you know the risk he is putting your children through. I grew up with a dad like this, at the frequency you describe, and while the incidents themselves would happen infrequently, i would not describe the other 360 days as okay, because we would walk on eggshells not knowing if that day would be the day - every time he got slightly annoyed at something we'd be on edge wondering if this would tip him over. It was horrible, we have a fractured relationship as a result, and i for many years put a partners happiness above my own because of it. I am overly anxious and on edge all the time. He has since been diagnosed with depression and anxiety and got proper therapy and medication and his life has changed for it. But its too late for his relationship with his children. Its too late for his two long term relationships he ruined with this behaviour, and its too late for the impact it has had on his childrens own mental health.
Wishing you the absolute best of luck OP - i do not share my experience to scare or shame you, more in the hope that if he does not/cannot change, you make the right decision for you and your childrens sake before its too late for them. Because even if he's trying, if it still keeps happening throughout your childrens lives, it wont matter what the reasons are or how hard he tried, all that with matter is that they were exposed to it. Wishing you the best.

What DH does in these episodes is damaging to the DC

But you're perfectly fine with it continuing aren't you? It sounds from everything you've written that you will throw your children under the bus every single time just so you can feel superior in standing by your man.

I will not have her learn to pander to, make excuses for, adjust herself for, accept and just live with any man's (or woman's) poor behaviour. I will have her learn that people are flawed, and that when we care for the people we love, that means we help and support their constructive progress to betterment.

Unless his behaviour actually changes, the lesson she will learn is “don’t put up with abuse - unless you love someone and you think they’re nice deep down, and then putting up with abuse is what love and support looks like.”

I won’t tell you to LTB. Obviously the best outcome is that he gets help and stops this behaviour. But you need to have some line that would result in you leaving (temporarily or forever) if he crossed it, and be honest with yourself about what you’re accepting in the family, on your children’s behalf, up to that line.

Having a line for yourself isn’t ‘giving up’ or ‘abandoning’ him. It is part of acknowledging that you cannot love him better.

Hopefully your children will mention it at nursery or school and a SS referral will be made.
Only because you seem unwilling to do anything to protect them. Shame on you. Your maternal skills are way off.

You really are his biggest apologist, OP. And you’re behaving exactly as his mother did. So the cycle will continue into your children’s lives. What an unbelievable shame.

I’m not quite sure what this thread was for.

@prepareforlanding I have just watched the Joe Wicks programme - it is painfully clear the effects his parents mental health have had on him (and he himself even says he wasnt aware of some of it)

Film an episode and get him to watch it.

Survivor of domestic abuse here - the explosive tempers similar to what you describe left me petrified. Walking on eggshells becomes part of your survival mode. You grow up hiding from the world rather this curious about it. So very damaging.

Please don't do this to your children.

Really, how often do you think that's acceptable ...an adult male who is physically much larger and is supposed to have unconditional love for you is roaring in your face in your home which is supposed to be your safe space and even worse whilst your naked ......how more vulnerable does your child need to be..

This is such a profound description @averythinline and so true....

OP, you are in the illusion to describe a sort of fairy-tale marriage but this is so far from it.

You remind me of that Tammy Wynette song "Stand by your man", whatever the consequences - damaged children and a mother in denial.

She was abused by both her husbands I read somewhere a long time ago.

I was abused too. Thank god I don't put up with that shit any more. You can sniff it coming at my age because you become very alert to it.

And yes. LTB every time! Life is so much better without toxicity in it.

Why is it ALWAYS 'mental health' and not just shit and abusive behaviour?
Is it to justify the acceptance of it?
Can't help that the children were damaged by such behaviour because it was a 'mental health issue'.
It is such a 'get out of jail free' card on MN 🙄