AIBU to be fed up and annoyed with DH?

[Spaghettihoops23]

Hi! First time posting and kind of unsure about it, will try and keep it as short as possible.
Have been with DH for 8 years, married for 5 and had a lovely baby girl last year.
Up until Aug2014 we had 2 wages coming in, unfortunatly my MIL past away in November after years of fighting cancer. She was quite young. It really hit DH hard and it meant he stopped working and hasn't since. I was okay with this and supported him. As we only had my wage coming in we moved to a much cheaper but therefore not very nice flat in a not very nice area. This was only supposed to be temp.
I fell pregnant early 2015 and we were both very happy. It helped alot with DH. As the months went on the plan was that DH would look for a job, this never happened.
I also recieved some money from a family member and the plan was have some fun with it and keep the majority of it for a deposit for a house. This didn't happen as we had to live off it and he also lost some of it gambling!
The baby was born and tbh it has been great having him here with me to help for the first few months. He said would look for a job, again nothing happened.
Christmas and new year came and went but still showed no sign or interest in looking for a job.
He does suffer from this mysterious pain but has only recently started going to GP. They have done blood tests, all normal. Because of his mum he worries about cancer and rightly so as 4 have passed away from it.
He now says he will get a job when he is better. The thing is he's not bed bound. He can go to football matches etc. Sits and plays xbox for hours on end.
My MAT pay is going to half in about 2months so obviously worried about that. We also owe my mum alot of money which causes friction between me and her and we were never like that.
I am also desperate to move as flat is horrible, up 4 flights of stairs with no lift.
I totally support him and know he's not 100% but it's not just the 2 of us now. AIBU to think he really needs to sort himself out and provide for his baby?
I love my husband to bits and this post might be because I'm sleep deprived and was thinking about it last night during feeds!

For the sake of your DC, you need to put your foot down. He's slid into a habit of doing nothing, and it's time to stop. Just firmly tell him, you're going back to work NOW.

So Op:

• he doesn't work and is showing no signs of getting a job
• he is happy to borrow off of family members with no real way of paying them back
• he is happy to sit on the xbox, go out to football
• he was on a course which he couldn't be arsed to finish.

Why is he like this? well if it is depression how is anyone ever going to know or be able to help him if he wont seek medical advice.

Why is he like this? because you are enabling him. sorry but this has to be said. he behaves like this because he can, because you allow him to and because as you have said you are not prepared to confront him and deal with this in real life.

heres how it goes. he is never going to change. he isn't going to get a job. this is going to carry on and on until you confront him. you will fall out big time with your mum and then have to start borrowing from someone/somewhere else.

go on to the relationships board on MN OP and read some of the truly awful stories of women who have been in your situation for years and years. don't be one of them. sort it out with him. you managed to tell MN articulately and plainly what the problems are. you need to tell him.

He has every intention of living off you I think, from what you've written. You will go back to work but still deal with the majority of house stuff in the evenings and weekends then you may get stuck as he will try and claim he's the primary carer if you try and leave. You need to change the situation before you go back to work. If you can't I would Leave and set up as a single parent before going back to work to avoid having him live off you for a long time.

Maybe it's time to give him a cut off date to get a job or at least to start looking seriously for one or he can move out until he's sorted himself out. Shake him out of that comfort zone.

YANBU at all. He should start work and ASAP at that. It will help him fight his depression too.

He will never change if he has no reason to try. He could start by helping at night - even if the baby wants to feed all 5 times, your DH could change her. My DH was out of work while I was on ML, we shared all the chores except baths, which he couldn't physically manage due to an injury. It's dreadfully hard financially, if he isn't able to support you financially he needs to step up in other areas. And PPs are right, he shouldn't think of it as "helping", nor "babysitting". He's a dad, he needs to start acting like it.

Is he even able to claim JSA? My DH couldn't as I was still technically employed full time. SMP & child benefit does not go far enough.

Op you seem to be caught in between feeling bad about him grieving, angry at
His lack of effort and also a bit sad at not being a sahm when you agreed to. All perfectly reasonable. If he is depressed then he has a responsibility to you and dd to get help. He just cannot sit back and do the bare minimum when your family could be in a Better position.

You need to have a serious talk, come to a plan with realistic deadlines. Eg. He needs to see a doctor to discuss if this is depression and a date to get it done by. Same with the job, he needs a plan to actively make any strides. He just can't do nothing and go on like this indefinitely.

My daughter died of cancer when she was only 9. I lived with her in hospital for months and saw her go through horrors that scarred my mind forever, then I watched her die. But I had two other young children. So I couldn't just bunk out of life. I hate going to doctor's. I mean, to the point of panic attacks. My daughter died in ICU. I have nightmares and PTSD as a result. But I go because my health is vital to my husband and surviving children. That is what adults who have responsibilities do. If I need treatment, I go see a doctor, nurse, wherever need to go to sort it out so I can do the best I can by my family.

Your husband is having you on. He has no intention of working. And looking after his children is not 'helping'. It is his responsibility as much as it is yours.

He dropped out of his course, he dropped out of his job, he burned through money from family members and he sits on his arse playing Xbox and going to football matches.

As long as you enable this behaviour, it will continue. You can kiss your dreams of SAHM goodbye and tbh, I think it's a really, really poor idea because you're married to someone who has proven he's not the most reliable when it comes to adult commitments like courses and work.

mummymeister and Stripy are spot on. He will not change by choice. You need to decide what you want and then put your foot down.

I wouldn't countenance his going back on the uni course. It's get a job or we split.

And you need to keep yours. Sorry, but you married a wrong 'un if you wanted to be a SAHM.

He needs to swallow his pride, claim jsa and get a job.

I know how hard it is to lose a parent to cancer. My mum was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer when I was pregnant with my youngest and she died just after he turned 1, she was 54. It was the hardest thing I've ever been through but I couldn't just sit around and mope, I've got kids that need looking after and bills to pay.

He does sound like he may be depressed and he needs to get help for that.

If I were you, as awful as it may sound, I'd be issuing an ultimatum. Either he goes to the gp and gets assessed for depression and treatment if needed, starts claiming jsa and looking for a job or we'd be finished.

He's been through hell but that's no excuse for checking out of family life and dropping all responsibility for paying the bills on you.

Expat

Seriously, Always, this is a grown man with two kids, happy to sponge and do FA. He's pisstaking. Why go to a GP when you can use any ol' excuse to gamble away money and play XBox all day? Fuck that for a game of soldiers.

But he doesn't want to work. If he did, he'd be up looking for jobs, not spending his day on the Xbox.

This is nothing to do with you being sleep deprived. No excuses. I think you need to give him a date to sort himself out, as currently he can carry on being lazy as he has no consequences.

Yy to doctors or serious job hunting by this afternoon x date.
On a very serious note, if you return to work and leave him with the baby, if you split up he will likely be granted residency as the main carer of the child.

IME, both from my own point of view and in trying to support my DH, one good strategy in dealing with the pit of depression, apathy etc that your DH seems to have fallen into, is to encourage them to develop a better routine. One that doesn't revolve around computer games or the TV. For example, go out for daily walks together (while you are on ML), spend x amount of time per day/week looking for jobs, cook meals together. At this time of financial constraints, you need to be savvy about what you spend on food, so an ideal time to spend more time & less money on it. What does he enjoy aside from computer games & football - can he get a hobby that motivates him to get more organised & start to feel better? Running, photography?

He needs to apply for JSA though. I'd be inclined to give him some kind of ultimatum here. He at least needs to supporting himself, & contributing something towards the baby's expenses (as a bare minimum). If he won't, I'd tell him you cannot continue to financially support him.

There is a very serious chance he will not qualify for JSA.

Ime the usual time off work for the death of a close family member is a week or two of bereavement leave. He seems to have used it as a trigger to drop out of work life permanently. The failure to finish his course is also worrying.

One of you is surely going to have to work soon to support the family, so he needs to either check back in to the world of work or step up and become a stay at home dad!

YANBU to post here to shed light on your DH's issues. He is letting his family down at the moment by not making a fair contribution be it JSA (too proud but not too proud to live off you ) doing everything baby related that isn't feeding or you know actually spend time looking for a job??? One isn't going to fall into his lap especially after so long out of the workforce. If you don't look you can't find!

Also point out that if your financial circumstances don't take a significant turn for the better, you may need to sell the Xbox, amongst other things, to pay the rent. DH & I have been there - no food in the house, overdraft at the max, in tears with relief at being eligible for foodbank when we'd not eaten for a few days (DH often went hungry as I was BFing, despite family helping us where they could) & lying to the bank about my return to work date so we could get a loan to pay the rent so it wouldn't bounce again. And, you will resent him. I sometimes resented my DH for not working, and he was going without a lot, and applying for every feasible job around, and fully supporting me with DD.

Thank you for all your responses.
He is a good dad and does support me, just not financially. I can be quite precious with the baby so can sometimes not give him the oppurtunity to do more.
He is a good person and up until last year looked after me very well. I should say aswell that he does all the cooking and most of housework so in that sense he's not lazy. Just unmotivated to get a job. When he did go to the doc they weren't very helpful. Didn't listen. Told him to go back in 3months.

Quit making excuses for him, Spag. You did not agree to his dropping out of work for good - over a year of it you didn't even have a child at all. You did not agree to his being a SAHP. But that is the way it is going. You think a good person blows money gambling when there is only one wage coming in? Borrows money off family whilst on one wage and living in a dump? Did you go with him to the GP? If not, you have only his word they were unhelpful, didn't listen and told him to come back in 3 months, giving him another 3 months to sit at home.

You will wind up stuck in a job you don't like, up to your eyeballs in hoc due to his habits and unable to leave because he will get residential custody of your child and you will need to pay maintenance because he's been a SAHP.

You need a reality check here. You are living in a dump, the inheritance you had is blown (and your dismissal of the gambling as 'just a one off' shows just how many excuses you make for him), you owe your mum a load of money and it's causing a strain on your relationship, he goes out to football matches and plays Xbox for hours and fobs off your concerns with 'it'll all work out'.

It's not working. And nor is he. And he won't as long as he is enabled to stay home.

This man will drag you down and make your life harder and more miserable than it ever should be.

He gambled YOUR inheritance away. It doesn't matter that it was once or not a huge amount of money. It's all I need to be confident that he's a shit.

Please don't let him steal away happy years from you when you could do so much better.

spaghettihoops23 stop doing it! stop making excuses for him. so he does the cooking and the housework. so do many other men and they have jobs as well. did you go with him to the docs? are you sure he told him all of the issues?

Look, go onto the relationships bit of MN website. there are so many posts on there about men like this.

people go to work AND do the housework AND cook AND shop AND look after the baby all the time. it is normal.

all the time you keep making excuses he wont get a job. he seriously wont. fast forward 6 months or a year. is this how you want your life to be? speak to him, face to face. he needs a job any bloody job to get him out of the house and into new habits.

he is one of these "but" men. I would have done this but... I would have taken that job but...

You sound like the loveliest person. Could you sit down with him one evening when the baby is asleep and help talk through and write some job applications to get him moving? It seems a lot to ask you to do this for him but he obviously needs help of one kind or another. x

how much money spaghettihoops23 just so we all know. people don't gamble just the once, not large amounts anyway.

how do you know he isn't online gambling?

'Could you sit down with him one evening when the baby is asleep and help talk through and write some job applications to get him moving? It seems a lot to ask you to do this for him but he obviously needs help of one kind or another. x'

He's not 15. Then it becomes the OP's job to find him employment. It's his. He has already told her he'll get a job when he's 'better'. Another excuse.