To feel rage

[Tuzz]

To feel rage with my partner and father of 2 DS 5 & 7. we all live together. Neither of us is working at the moment.
I wake up and my mind flicks the list of jobs I need to do. It is all usual stuff. 1st world problems. Get up, feed kids, feed dogs, tidy up kitchen - it is never done the night before, hang out washing, vacuum floors, on week days do home school ( I was a teacher so this comes easily to me) cook lunch, clear lunch, walk dogs and kids, mostly make kids tea, bath them read to them and put them to bed. Repeat.
You might be asking where is DP in all of this? He has mental health issues. He is depressed. His day starts when I bring him tea. He wakes up and uses his phone to check Twitter to try to “engage with the world” his words. After an hour he might come downstairs and then goes with a camera into the garden to take photos of spring emerging, this gives him huge pleasure. He will come back in tweet his pictures. Maybe start the doing some gardening. After lunch he usually chooses to go back into the garden and will be there until 6pm. He then goes back on his phone again to keep in touch with the world. Once the kids are asleep either he or I will cook our dinner. I never have the energy to tidy up. He never ever does.
My rage is that he seems only to do the things that give him pleasure, that ease his depression and things are never with the kids or helpful to living in a home with 4 people. I have to do everything else.
lately it seems to me every suggestion he makes I have to do because if I don’t he says I am not supporting him or helping his depression. This morning he showered and shaved. Then announced he wanted to have his hair cut. I was mid cleaning of the kitchen so I stopped and cut his hair. Then had to clean it all up while he went on twitter. I blew my top. Then he close to tears told me how unsupportive I was being. I know he is ill but I feel so alone and now really angry. Am I being unreasonable and need a slap? Or a hug and a big drink?

2 bottles of what?

If it's wine he's an alcoholic.

When DH wasn't trying to get better I made plans to leave and divorce, it miraculously gave him the kick up the bum he needed.

"Won't take any-depressants"
"Won't engage with on line therapy"

Sorry but he needs to either engage enough to be part of the family and help, or move out and live a self indulgent life on his own.

I really feel for you OP.
It sounds like his depression is dominating everything.
I hope someone comes along with personal experience and useful advice for you.

Big hug and big drink. Depressed people, are not easy to live with and can be incredibly physically and emotionally draining. You end up doing everything and feeling reponsible for their well being and even a failure at times for not being able to help them despite bending over backwards to accommodate them. There is not a thing you can do to change their issues, they have to do that themselves but that takes motivation. It's an awful cycle that can its toll on your health too. Please make sure you get some time for yourself.

Yes he is an alcoholic. 2 bottles of wine a day.
He is worried medication for depression will chemically change he brain and coming off them will be so much harder. I partly agree with this. Friends of ours have had so much trouble with meds.
He was, until the beginning of lock down, doing weekly therapy sessions. He says I need therapy to find out why I lack empathy and sabotage all his good moods. I honestly don’t know what I can do right now. It is all okay if I bite my tongue and channel a 1950’s housewife.

Alcohol causes depression and anxiety.
And alcoholism and its associated crap behaviour.
Good luck OP.
Have a big hug, but maybe chocolate to go with it.
YANBU at all.

But its ok to drink 2 bottles of brain poison a day?! FFS!

Maybe you do need therapy - to help you get shot of him.
Al-anon are meant to be good.

There comes a point where depression isn't manageable in a family environment. I grew up with a parent with severe depression and for several years everything centred on his emotions and what he could handle. My mum had a late stage cancer diagnosis, the same type that had killed her own mum a few years before. My dad's reaction to her needing support/reassurance and worrying about what would happen to her young DC was to announce it made him want to kill himself. She had to control even her reaction to treatment.

As I got older, I'd go out every week as soon as I got pocket money and spend it all on things to make him happy. I can still remember the delight, after he left, of choosing how to spend my first £1.00. As an adult you're afraid to delay meeting any of his requests and you ignore your own needs. I've known that feeling since I was 5.

You do not have to live like this. My mum thought she had to and only made him leave when she realised it was affecting me (I begged not to have to come home before her, as I was worried he'd have killed himself - I was 9). So if that's what motivates you to leave, then please know it's affecting your children too.

Oh so he gaslights you and pretends it’s all your fault

Ok no one issue is he is an alcoholic. Secondly he’s a lazy selfish gaslighting one who treats you like shit. Thirdly you have kids you’re raising watching this go down.

Time to take a stance op. Either it changes or he fucks off out of it. You can’t permit this to go on. If not for yourself at least for your kids. Who are being raised watching their alcoholic father. Treat their mother like shit, and her running around like a skivvy after him, and him crying when he doesn’t get his way.

You’ve let this go on long enough.
You need to talk to him, calmly and careful not to nag/rant.
You both cannot continue like this.
IMO, he needs to try medication, he needs to watch the kids while you go for exercise/get some space every day, you need to work out a fair system for cooking and tidying. It sounds like you’re very good at being motivated and organised with the cleaning, your DP sounds although he will postpone it all indefinitely and in the meantime, you’ll do it all around him. That needs to stop.
You need to be a team.
If he does the dishes while you hoover, for instance, it’ll hardly seem like a chore as you’re both equal, doing things together. It’s lovely that he’s a keen gardener, gardening is very therapeutic. Not so great that he’s using it as an excise to shirk his other responsibilities though!
The drinking is another problem and alcohol is a depressant so it’ll be making him worse!

I feel very sorry for you and would find it difficult to cope with that. I don't know what to suggest except that I do not see why your kids don't sit at the table with you for dinner, they're old enough now. We always did, not setting my scene up as perfect but it worked, was nice. It seems a shame to do two lots, it wouldn't hurt 'yer man' to eat a bit earlier for their sakes and it's good to get children into the habit of sitting around the table as a family at supper time. They could have a teatime snack at around 3.30-4pm and then eat with you 6.30-7pm surely? Let him do baths and bed afterwards, insist on it!

Personally I'd stop doing everything, certainly wouldn't vacuum every day and I'd leave the children to him for a while so I could contemplate nature in the garden or go for a walk (if you are allowed to go out for a walk).

I sympathise with mental health issues, have had myself and they do make us self centred, even if we don't want to be; I recognise that this time is particularly difficult but you will end up depressed and anxious if this situation carries on as it is and then where will you all be?

Find a way to meet in the middle, it will be better for him in the long run and will give you some much needed respite. Better for the children too.

Good luck living with someone like this - you will need it.

So he is not concerned about the way alcohol will change his brain, and the effects it will be having on the rest of his body? If he carries on like this you are going to be heading for depression, if you aren't already. Is he willing to do anything to support your mental health, or does he think the support should only go one way? He's not sounding great.

Just read a bit more. He won't do talking therapy or take medication and drinks heavily? Give up and separate. This is unlikely to improve for a very long time.

Just seen your update - you’ve got a man child on your hands! He needs to shape up or ship out.
I hope you have the strength to follow through if he doesn’t use this opportunity to get a handle on his mental health.

I have depression, look after our 3 DC, cook clean lay out his clothes for him etc basically do everything

He sounds like an arse

When I read your opener I thought alcohol- your update makes it all make sense.
He is an alcoholic. That much alcohol will change his brain possibly irreversibly never mind SSRIs

Please seek support for yourself you don’t deserve to live like this you deserve to be happy & appreciated

He is worried medication for depression will chemically change he brain and coming off them will be so much harder.
Depends on the medication and dose and duration of treatment.....plus many come off then without complications.
Alcoholism on the other hand, kills brain cells and causes brain damage along with increasing risks for various health problems....and is a depressant so even worse for those with depression.....
He's full of excuses!
He just wants to please himself only and have you taking care of everything and him.

He's an alcoholic and in typical fashion he's got every excuse under the sun to avoid acknowledging the issue or taking responsibility for his own health.

Tell him to f*ck off he's an alcoholic first and foremost.

He contributes nothing to family life I doubt the DC will notice he's missing.

I have complex PTSD I have some very very bad periods of wishing for death do you know what all I did was go through some of the motions of being parent - that was my priority not self indulging in my hobby.

Most anti-depressants are not compatible with alcohol. He’d have to give up the booze, which may be his real motivation for refusing them.

I am clinically depressed (I did the depression score thingy that the GP does, and scored the maximum in all but one categories, so clearly my properly diagnosed depression has worsened in lockdown). As such, I can sympathise to a certain extent with your dh, @Tuzz. I can understand wanting to retreat from real life into a protective bubble.

BUT I know that would not be reasonable to my dh, or fair. Is dh doing a lot? Yes - he is on gardening leave before starting a new job, and he has lots of energy and motivation, so he is good at getting things done. But I am doing my absolute best to do as much as I can do.

I do all the meal planning, make the shopping list and do the internet order, and I’m doing some of the cooking too - it’s probably 50:50. I’m doing some of the cleaning, and I’m doing bits of tidying and sorting out too.

Your dh needs to accept that he can not resign from everyday life or family responsibilities, and he needs to decide what he can do now, and how he will build up to doing more. Depression isn’t an excuse to be selfish, even though depression makes selfishness very tempting.

Jesus. He drinks two bottles of WINE a day. That’s outrageous and an unfair environment to bring your children up in. They (and you) deserve better than that. How can you find that attractive? That would repulse me

I should add - I an a drinker and love a glass of wine, so I’m not coming at this from a pious t-total angle

You definitely need a hug and a drink.

However, very gently, that’s a massive drip feed. That amount of drinking is why he’s being such a lazy self indulgent twat. That he feels entitled to drink so much as well as the depressive effect it’s having. And tough shot if he doesn’t like Skype, he can engage with phone counselling or any of about a billion other things bar drinking 2 bottles a day which will be better for his MH. I’m so angry on your behalf.

Get rid