Or is DH a selfish twat?

[emmalie]

DH works long hours and is currently training for his 3rd Ironman despite a high pressure job and a complicated familiar set up- I have 2 SC (10&14) and two DC (11&5) 11yo is from a previous relationship.

Since training began DH has been swimming, cycling and or running before and after work on most days, he occasionally get into work up to 30 mins late because of this and works later (he's the boss)

I suffer with bipolar and anxiety and I'm learning to recognise the signs of an on coming low phase to try to deal with it before it gets out of hand. The last few days I've been starting to feel low and really need to act on it before it gets to the point that I can't leave the house.

When I feel like this it takes a huge amount of effort to get up and dressed on my own let alone with DC so I asked DH to take youngest dc to school this morning. DH is unaware of my low mood but I have told him that since I am a sahm I won't ask him to do the school run unless I really need him to. DH agreed to school run and I began to mentally prepare for dragging myself out of bed and trying to get up and out to the gym.

Came down at 08.00 to find DH still here and ironing a shirt. I reminded him that DS could be at school as early as 0800 so he could've left by now, he then got cross and left, saying something about how I could've told him and that now he was going to be late (we had a whole conversation about school times in Monday).

At 0900 I receive a picture of stationary traffic and a text saying 'not moving'. This basically means that he's angry with me because he's going to be late for work.
I now feel so stressed as he resents me every time I ask anything of him and is a very passive aggressive person who can sulk for days. However, if it had been his training that had made him late it would be fine! He is an intrinsically selfish person and doesn't seem to think or care why I might have asked to him to do the school run today, everything seems to tick over as long as he is doing whatever suits him. We then got into a text row.

I am now feeling so low about the situation that my motivational plan has failed anyway and I'm sitting in my pj's on the sofa under a blanket- it's had the opposite affect because I know how much DH resents me and my illness and in fact any favour I ask of him😞

I am bipolar and previous to diagnosis I was totally unable to ask for help and even saw it as a sign of weakness. But with lots of help, counselling etc I am now pretty much drug free and stable. To the point where my husband has even been able to get a fulltime job and go back to work 15 months ago and I was able to complete my degree after 14 years of stopping and starting. But the most important tool to me being stable is having learnt to say very loudly and very clearly I NEED SOME SUPPORT RIGHT NOW. No hints, no beating about the bush, or people won't hear you. If the people that love you fail to help you when you make this announcement, then they do not love you, as they have no interest in you staying stable and maintaining your balance.

I do worry about you saying your husband resents your illness. I do not resent my illness, my husband doesn't resent it. Sure its horrible at times but its also intrinsically part of me and my personality, of who I am. To remove my bipolar would mean I was a totally different person, likely without my creative streak or unusual insights. I like me! and my husband LOVES me, exactly as I am, even through the bad bad times.

Your husband sounds very selfish. If I called mine right now and said I needed help as I was slipping, he would tell work he was taking a leave of absence for a day, a week, a month, whatever we need to get me better and to keep us functioning as a family unit. He would be home within 30 minutes and would be on the phone to the crisis team, GP and my family to get support put in place while he made me a brew. You need somebody like that so tell your husband to shape up or ship out.

He shouldn't need telling you're low. A husband should know his wife well enough to be able to tell how she is but even without all that he sounds horrible.

I'm not saying he isn't selfish, he certainly seems it in other ways but it did seem like he had said yes.
My mum suffers with similar but not identical mental health issues and has often struggled with not wanting to discuss her state of mind or make t seem like she's coping.
I understand that comment "he should know" and yes maybe he should.
But god knows I've grown up with my mum and have missed the signs, there have most likely been times she's struggled and we haven't known and could have helped more.

It's easy to say "family should know" but very very hard in real life!

I agree, tell him
You're struggling, explain how you feel and what you want and see how he reacts, that should give you a good clue as to the state of the relationship!

Hope you feel better in yourself soon

It's a difficult one on some points as he had agreed to take the kids so how/when he does it is then surely up to him?

When you got up did he then expect you to help with the kids or was he happy to get on & leave you to be getting yourself ready?

His sending of the "not moving" text was unnecessary I think-it could have just been FYI iyswim, but you know him & know if it wa meant to be a dig at you.

All of that said-who can be bothered with adults who sulk for days when they don't get their own way?