I can’t cope

[StolenChanel]

I’m so exhausted. I have a chronic illness and have been very unwell for months now. I’m on the mend and due to go back to work very soon and absolutely dreading it. I’ve been struggling massively with anxiety and I can feel depression starting to rear its ugly head, so have been using some of the tools I learnt previously during CBT which is helping somewhat.

DP is great on good days but also exhausted. We generally share the load; he does more cooking and I do more cleaning/tidying, but usually it’s roughly split. Being unwell, all I ask is that everyone tidies up after themselves rather than save it all for one big “clean up”, but of course that doesn’t happen and I’m constantly tidying up after everyone.

Over the last few days, I have been super busy (despite not feeling so great) and have completely crashed today, so haven’t been tidying up at all. The house is an absolute tip. I’m not asking them to scrub the house top to bottom every day, just to put the margarine back in the fridge once they’ve finished with it or unpack the bag of shopping they’ve left in the middle of the kitchen floor.

Normally I would just bite my tongue and deal with the mess tomorrow, but I’m trying not to bottle things up so much as I know it’s adding to the anxiety which in turn isn’t helping my physical health, so I raised the issue with DP this evening. It didn’t go down well. He was defensive and made a few comments such as “We can’t all be perfect like you” and “You think you do everything and no one else does anything”. To be clear, I don’t think either of these things are true. I do think DP and the DCs (particularly the eldest) don’t pull their weight with the tidying as much as they could but I don’t think they do “nothing”.

So now the issue is less about the relatively minor issue of keeping the house tidy but more about the way DP and I are communicating. I can’t go on not being able to express issues without it turning into a passive aggressive war words (or, as it currently stands, a lack there of). I’m having serious anxiety about going back to work, not being 100% well and still trying to maintain a home and got a little tearful, to which he responded “and now she’s crying” with an eye roll.

I feel so overwhelmed and stressed out and just do not know what to do with myself. I don’t even know why I’m posting here to be honest, I guess I’m just looking for some reassurance that everything will be ok.

Everything will be Ok

Talk to him tomorrow when you have had a good nights sleep, and say you know people do have different tolerances for meds, but you have been unwell as he knows and big clean ups take it out of you (you are not asking for sympathy re being unwell, it’s just a practical point).

As part of the same conversation, tell him that you know it’s been tough recently but you need to be able to talk without a row, so cab he say where he thinks your communication is and then perhaps you have a fortnightly lunch to chat things through. You may have to hear stuff from him you don’t like. If this doesn’t work some couples therapy would be useful.

Then have a look at the many threads on getting the rest of the family to do more. Make your husband part of this divvying up. It usually involves tasks on a wall chart. If they are naturally messy you are probably going to have more success with everyone taking a turn at clearing the kitchen / sitting room every night than a vague ‘clean up after yourselves. Start with a couple of tasks each a week and build up. If they don’t get done then pocket money or privileges get docked.

Other options are of course a cleaner or getting your husband to help more if you replaced some of his cooking tasks with frozen meals. But you may not be able to swing this.

Dropping your standards a bit may also be useful

Are you starting back PT at work? If not could you?

@theduchessofspork thank you so much. I have had a really good sleep and feel a lot calmer (and more rational!) this morning. I’ll definitely be taking on your advice; I really appreciate it.

I need to talk to my manager about phased return arrangements, hopefully PT is an option!