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?

The booze needs to go, that should be a first, not last thought. He cannot absolve himself of all parental duties, you can’t just pick up and do everything. Stop pandering to him, if he cries, he cries. I understand how difficult someone must find engaging in life when depressed, but he sound like he’s taking the piss in a big way, going on social media and taking fucking pictures of spring emerging! Get him to take the dc out and get talking to them about ‘spring’.

I have suffered from depression and anxiety as an adult at different points over the years. As a single mum of a child with SEN I still hauled myself out of bed and got shit done.

He's being a selfish, manipulative alcoholic and this isn't a good atmosphere or relationship model for two kids to be growing up around.

The only therapy you need OP is to help yoh see how unhealthy this is for you and your kids so you find the strength to end it.

In my personal and professional opinion/experience, wallowing in depression only lets it set in deeper. The only way through depression is to take baby steps and move forwards.
If he's not trying, he's wallowing. Wallowing is unhealthy and frankly selfish if he has a family who needs him.

A hug and a big drink.

I am suffering from depression at the moment and my husband is doing his best to help me. He does more than half of the housework and cooking. But he will also sometimes say, please can you do the hoovering or clean the bathroom, and I'll pull myself together and do it because I recognise that he's trying his best and it's not fair of me to leave it all to him.

It's quite easy to blame laziness on depression, I think.

He also needs to stop drinking immediately. Alcohol and mental health problems are not friends.

Dp has bouts of depression and so do I, neither of us behave as selfishly as your oh. I still get pissed off with DP when he's depressed too, even though I know what it's like. It's only natural to be annoyed sometimes.

I think your oh would benefit from more structure to his days and taking more responsibility for his kids too. I personally don't think any social media is good for mental health even mn but Twitter is surely one of the most toxic.

He can’t function within your family because he is an alcoholic. The only thing that will help is him wanting to stop drinking- until he makes that decision, or moves out, nothing will change.

Being handled with kid gloves was never helpful, and being infantilised and held to low standards just increases feelings of incompetence. Maybe he just needs a push to delineate his thoughts and realise that he’d feel better if he got stuck in and didn’t hover round the edge of daily life at home. agreed, it's the only thing that worked for me, however I was not an alcoholic so that's a huge extra issue. Sorry op

As the daughter of an alcoholic I beg you. Leave this man. Your children do not deserve to experience a lifetime of his issues. He will not get better whilst being enabled. He will drag you down to your own pit of misery. Your children deserve one healthy, functioning parent and it has to be you. Step up for them.

MorganKitten
Yes I had major depression before. I totally get the not getting out of bed. He still has to take responsibility for certain things. It’s hard. I managed to complete my final year of university. I missed a fair few lectures and some of my coursework was poor and late. But I made it all whilst battling to get out of bed. This man has kids. He doesn’t get a free pass.

He says I need therapy to find out why I lack empathy and sabotage all his good moods

Wow. What an arsehole. He’s drinking 2 bottles a day and does nothing. He expects you to wait on him hand on foot and be happy when he feels happy. His comments sound like a classic abuser actually. DARVO. Deny attack reverse victim offender.

The alcohol is a depressant in itself. I wonder how depressed he would actually be if he weren’t drinking himself into an early grave.

Do yourself and your kids a favour and get rid of him. You don’t want them thinking this is normal behaviour.

I always think when someone or something brings me more misery than joy it is time to get out of that toxic situation

He says I need therapy to find out why I lack empathy and sabotage all his good moods

This is surely classic gaslighting and very unkind. To tell someone they lack empathy is like saying they have a major part missing, and OP you’ve been doing nothing but demonstrating quiet, non-theatrical empathy. ‘Sabotage’ is also telling and suggests he thinks he’s the star of the show here and that the reason his mood is being spoilt is specifically because you have it in for him, rather than because you’re very innocuously asking him to contribute to the household for the sake of everyone. He really needs to get off his arse and do some volunteering and see how other people are making do in much worse circumstances, and that it is possible to pull himself together - does the food bank have any vacancies?

Is that the real reason he doesn’t want a it depressants op. He’s an alcoholic and would rather have the booze?

Does he work normally?

He says I need therapy to find out why I lack empathy and sabotage all his good moods

My best friend had an ex like this. She spent her whole life tiptoeing around him, trying to be as supportive as possible, putting his needs first and her own needs last. If he wanted to go home to his mother's house for two weeks and fiddle with his vintage car and not text or call her, she had to be cool with that. If ever she suggested it would be nice for him to text her occasionally while he was off doing that, or for them to go out and do something fun together occasionally, she wasn't being supportive enough.

We spent months telling her to ditch him and eventually he dumped her for not supporting him with his depression.

Good fucking riddance.

Oh my goodness OP you have to leave him. This is awful behaviour! You should not and do not have to put up with this. Imagine if you just said no.
I don't want to sound harsh but you are totally enabling his behaviour, encouraging it even. I know because I have done the same in the past. The more you give the more he will take. Only you can stop this (either by changing your behaviour or by splitting up). Because he's not going to change it when he's getting everything how he wants it.

I couldn't live lime this. If he told me that I had no empathy I would say, "yep, you are right there now fuck off our of my life". Clearly he is reliant on your feelings of guilt and while you have them his life is easy.

This one's a LTB from me, OP. "Depression" or no.

He sounds bone idle

Exactly @polobelt..

A bone idle alcoholic.

Honestly OP, are you that deluded that you think this is normal?

Sling his lazy arse out.

Who cares if he is depressed...whatever...

He's a completely and utter MUG made out of you.

Wake up OP.

Get him out.

Your poor children with a waster like that as a father.

I couldn't put up with this at all. Let's swap 'depression' for 'diabetes' and 'alcohol' for 'sugar'. If he had diabetes, yet refused to take insulin for it and instead fed it with sugar, then claimed it made him unable to participate in being a fucking grown up, father, husband, and he indeed tried to blame you for it, would you put up with it for long?
So, your husband stays in bed til you wake him up with a cuppa. He does shit all all day that adds any value to the family. He is only capable of thinking about himself, his wants and his needs. He accuses you of sabotaging his 'progress' when you dare to mention that he is taking the piss, and he doesn't value or care about the mental or physical health of you or your children. Sorry but I think he needs a sharp kick up the arse. He may well have depression but being an alcoholic with it muddies the waters so much as no one can know what's the depression and what's the alcoholism.
Please, please consider telling him how serious this is and to shape up or shit off. You and your children deserve much better than this manipulative, gaslighting alcoholic. Best wishes, lovely. I've been there and I don't want to be doom and gloom but it doesn't get better. It just gets slowly but surely worse until you are reliant on pills to wake up every morning and get through the day for your kids.

You're correct to feel rage. You are being used and manipulated.

You need to harness your anger now and use it to give you the energy to do what needs to be done

Get legal advice. Plan your strategy. And get rid.

It will be the weight of the world off your shoulders

If he’s not willing to help himself, I wouldn’t be inclined to want to help him. It’s important he gets better, but not at the expense of your and your DS’s happiness

Sound words.
You know I haven’t thought about the whole situation from the outside for so long. I don’t know what normal is anymore. I just want to get through each day. I can’t suppress how resentful I feel.
But right now there isn’t anything I can do. We are all on lock down and there is no where to go. I have known what I need to do for about a year but I haven’t the strength to do it. I feel so vulnerable having not taught full time since stopping to have the kids. I have no savings. I feel trapped.

For now stop taking him a morning cup of tea, start eating with the DC in the evenings, plate his up if he's still in garden and then TELL him he needs to clean up the kitchen as you cooked and you are putting the DC to bed unless he wants to swap.

Start making his life less easy.