For viewing my H with contempt

[needsomeperspective]

My H and I have now been married for almost 13 years. Two children. He has long term mental health issues stemming from an abusive childhood. Frankly I have known for a decade that he has BPD. He takes anti anxiety meds and anti psychotics (when he can be bothered to keep on top of them or as long as I police him like a child). He hasn’t had any job in over six years, no “real” job in ten. He spends much of his time sleeping in very late while I work my ass off to keep our family (and my mother) financially solid - fortunately I have a very good job - but along with that comes it’s own stresses for me as I am responsible for over 300 staff.

I’m lucky enough to have help with the kids and a cleaner. I’ve deliberately arranged my life so that I do not have to rely on my husband in any material way - because he isn’t dependable. He has cheated on me, he used to be emotionally volatile, now he is just an apathetic lump.

He is, all challenges considered, often a loving, kind and involved father and the children undoubtedly benefit from having him in their lives and in their home.

From my perspective we have an almost non existent sex life, and I frequently feel like I’m running a doss house for vagrants than participating in some kind of partnership. But it’s better than having no one. We’ve been very isolated during Covid.

I put in place (following his infidelity) a cast iron post nup which he agreed to sign so I’m not “trapped” in this marriage for financial reasons but I do feel that the children would be much better off if we stayed together and frankly I can’t see how I’d be happier as a single parent compared to this inadequate and pathetic marriage I’m in right now. Some sex is better than none - or one night stands with morons. At least I have someone to visit IKEA with.

How do I reconcile myself to the limitations of this situation and generate the compassion to view my husband as a victim of his mental health issues rather than a useless, feckless, contemptible burden surgically attached to the sofa and piggy backing on my years of relentless hard work - which frankly I often feel.

“I completely disagree with this. He currently doesn't have a lot of reasons to access therapy. He gets to drink himself into a stupor and stay in bed until 6pm, doesn't need to work, gets everything done for him. He has every reason to not seek help. EUPD I'm sure can be hellish to live with, but therapy is scary. If it does improve his mental state, he'll be expected to start acting like an adult and parent. Easier to do nothing and keep drinking and doing whatever he feels like, with the eternal excuse of " I'm ill, it's not my fault"“

This.

I’m quite certain this is why he hasn’t managed to help himself in all the years we’ve been together. Despite every opportunity. Where is the incentive? He gets to drive a sports car, live in a five bedroom house with a pool, and go on fancy holidays with his family without having to raise a finger. And when he is asked to get a job he has all the excuses in the work because he has mental health issues so cannot be expected to cope with that. Alright for some people eh?! Bitter again much?!

Well if you won't divorce him then ban the booze pour it away. Take the car keys too.

I am baffled that your children are better off with a father who drinks and sleeps it off. They really aren't you know ask any adult who grew up in a home like this

You're so far down a rabbit hole enabling his behaviour

@needsomeperspective

“I completely disagree with this. He currently doesn't have a lot of reasons to access therapy. He gets to drink himself into a stupor and stay in bed until 6pm, doesn't need to work, gets everything done for him. He has every reason to not seek help. EUPD I'm sure can be hellish to live with, but therapy is scary. If it does improve his mental state, he'll be expected to start acting like an adult and parent. Easier to do nothing and keep drinking and doing whatever he feels like, with the eternal excuse of " I'm ill, it's not my fault"“

This.

I’m quite certain this is why he hasn’t managed to help himself in all the years we’ve been together. Despite every opportunity. Where is the incentive? He gets to drive a sports car, live in a five bedroom house with a pool, and go on fancy holidays with his family without having to raise a finger. And when he is asked to get a job he has all the excuses in the work because he has mental health issues so cannot be expected to cope with that. Alright for some people eh?! Bitter again much?!

Just ditch him OP!!!! You're so angry!!! And I don't blame you, but the only solution is divorce! Nothing short of withdrawing all support is going to get him to take some responsibility, history has shown that. I'm sorry to point this out, but even you having a crisis wasn't important enough for him to step up.

I don't know anything about divorce and family courts, but I can't imagine he'd have them half the time. And if your kids will be in college in 8 years' time, aren't they almost old enough to decide for themselves if they want to visit their dad? I'm afraid there's another flawed premises here: you think he'd make their life 100% hell for 50% of the time if you left him, whereas he is currently probably making their life miserable (but not quite hell) 100% of the time. Moreover, I doubt he'd have them 50% and unsupervised, as your entire marriage demonstrates he is not capable of looking after them with all the support he could wish for (short of actually having it done for him), let alone independently.

Why would your children go to him half the time??
Why would they even be staying with him at all? They would get just as much from a weekly visit/hang out with him at home as they do from living with him and they would be protected from the toxicity that they are currently living in.

@CloseYourEyesAndSee

Why would your children go to him half the time?? Why would they even be staying with him at all? They would get just as much from a weekly visit/hang out with him at home as they do from living with him and they would be protected from the toxicity that they are currently living in.

I don't think the OP is in the UK

@Calvinlookingforhobbes

YABVU to live half a life like this. What a dreadful example to set your kids. Divorce him and find some happiness. This is your one and only life.

This in spades.

Also @needsomeperspective why oh WHY do women like you, with the most dreadful husbands, always ALWAYS say 'oh but he is such a good dad?'

He really, REALLY isn't! He is NOT a good husband, and he is NOT a good dad. Please stop kidding yourself. You, AND your children will be better away from this man. He may have mental health issues, but I am very suspicious that he is, shall we say, taking advantage of them. You're a mug, and he is lapping it all up.

Please leave him, while your OWN mental health is still intact. This is not even a half life, it's a TENTH of a life. He's got it made, YOU are run ragged and wretched, and your children are NOT benefitting from this one bit. He is setting a terrible example to them.

I’m not in the U.K. but either way I do feel strongly that the children have a right to see their father. My ultimate fear would be that he would lose the will / motivation to make the effort to see them at all in time if we separated. And that would break their hearts. I can totally see him mentally justifying it with “they are better off without me, what can I offer them, I’m nothing”. And that would be that. It’s what he did with his first child years ago.

It’s my fault. I should have picked a better dad for them.

OP, google codependency. And ask yourself whether you are emotionally invested in playing the martyred saviour role as your DH’s enabler in this toxic fiasco of a marriage.
I would urge you to seek counselling by yourself, as I think you need therapy every bit as much as your DH does. There is a reason why you took on this damaged person as a partner, and it isn’t healthy.
You cannot change your DH’s behaviour, but with skilled help from a professional therapist, you can change yourself, and begin to reclaim your life.

@Ilovetoddlerssaidnooneever

OP, I think your reasoning is based on flawed premises: 1) You believe it is your responsibility to keep your husband afloat. Whilst I understand you value the vows you made, your husband does have some responsibility for his own actions. If you divorce him, you are no longer responsible for him in any way, other than perhaps financially. 2) (in relation) you seem to think that you would be doing something bad if you left him. You are allowed to divorce him! This is no way to live!!! Referring back to my previous point, he is choosing (to some extent) to live like this. Hell, you've done everything you can to help him but he's not doing his part. I would argue that he is far more responsible for the breakdown of your relationship than you are. 3) your kids need a dad. What do people mean when they say this? I can guarantee you they do not have your husband in mind! It means kids need a good male role model. That he is most certainly not! If he beat you up, would you still be saying they needed a dad? 4) Having something (him) is better than nothing. I would argue though that sum total of his qualities is negative. In other words, he adds much more negativity to your life than that he contributes positively. Leaving him would therefore not be losing something, but bringing the balance back to 0 or above.

Please, please reconsider what you're doing. What is the benefit of waiting until the kids have gone to college?

I think what you are missing here is the fact that as miserable as it is, the OP has control over the situation especially regarding the impact on the children.

If they divorce she either has to accept her children spending time with a wholly unsatisfactory parent or go to court to prevent him from having access to them and live with the consequences of doing that including how her children will feel about that.

There's no easy answer here.

I agree with a pp that the least worst option is to emotionally withdraw from him and start working on a longer term plan that means that as soon as the children are at college and independent you can enact a swift exit.

Create a positive adult social circle around you and have zero expectations of him.

You've more than paid your dues on this marriage and given him every opportunity to help himself.

It's now time to plan your future without him in the picture even if that means a longer term strategy.

The sad fact is that MH issues do not exempt you from being a selfish, lazy bugger and your H seems perfectly content to maintain the status quo at the expense of his wife and children.

After a decade he won't change.

You simply need now to manage circumstances to yours and the children's best interests.

Good luck

It does sound incredibly challenging and you are shouldering an awful lot. Have you ever had any therapy for yourself? In terms of coming to terms with this. Your mental well being is really important too. And you might benefit from off loading with an experienced counsellor .

Many marriages have broken up under far less stress than this...

Maybe he would. Would that really 'break their hearts'? What kind of relationship do they have with him now - honestly? What does he do with them? How does he enrich their lives?
I thought my DS would be sad when his dad vanished for extended periods. Turns out he's fine. Occasional visits and short bursts of fun is enough to keep the relationship going and the rest of the time he enjoys his drama free, peaceful home. Think about it.

@BreadInCaptivity - I think this neatly sums up everything from my perspective. It’s very good advice and I think I need to do exactly as you say. I put the legal and financial framework in place to facilitate this but I haven’t yet managed to move forward on the emotional side. I suspect that speaking semi-regularly to a therapist would absolutely help me to manage this situation much better.

I've been single for the majority of my life, and what you have described sounds fucking terrible. No way is that better than being single.

As for what's best for the kids? I knew as a child that my parents were unhappy, and that poisoned the household I grew up in. They waited to get divorced until I was 21.

[quote needsomeperspective]@BreadInCaptivity - I think this neatly sums up everything from my perspective. It’s very good advice and I think I need to do exactly as you say. I put the legal and financial framework in place to facilitate this but I haven’t yet managed to move forward on the emotional side. I suspect that speaking semi-regularly to a therapist would absolutely help me to manage this situation much better.[/quote]

I think therapy for you would be a good idea to help you disconnect from your H and plan a better future for yourself as your children.

You might also want to consider family therapy (without H) for you and your children in the run up to your separation so they understand the situation.

It's a shitty situation for you and I send you much ❤️

How did he manage before you came along op? How did he support himself and hold down a job?

You are clearly successful and capable, did you know before you married him about his poor mental health?
Did he pick you on purpose knowing you could financially support him?

As others have said, you are doing your children no favours. All they will see is their mother being driven into the ground by a
manchild who refuses to help himself.
Why would you want them around him and his self destructive behaviours?

You are not showing them what a healthy, happy relationship is.

Why on earth would it be 50/50 with the children? Is their no protection from parents deemed too mentally ill to provide care where you live?

He might not choose to be this way but he is actively choosing not to do anything because you have made it so he doesn't have to.

Get rid. If he goes downhill or drinks himself to death, that's on him. Not you.
You can't fix him.

Protect yourself and your children. You deserve happiness. Enough is enough.

You are better than this

I was in a situation akin to yours though my ex was not in quite such a bad place as yours sounds. I felt contempt for him - which I didn't feel great about, and had lost any respect and with that any sex drive. Personally I can't fancy sex with someone I have lost respect for. I actively agonised about the decision but now love my single life - free of the irritation and indignance of working my arse off while he moaned and groaned. The kids have been pretty fine and have a much happier mother and slightly more competent dad who had to actually step up and do something because I wasn't there to do it for him any more. At times I wish I had someone about who would do some jobs but to honest it is less burdensome than having someone around who I kept hoping might do something but only after 20 times of asking and reminding. I would recommend setting yourself free from this grind. The biggest worry I would see from your situation is him having access to the DC while having mental health episodes but otherwise I'm not sure what there is to lose from what you have described.

You mention barbiturates and heavy drinking. Together.

He'll snuff it eventually with that combination. It isn't fair to put the DC in the position where it could be them who find him dead.

Oh gosh OP, I'm so sorry you are in this situation. I completely understand your reasoning for staying. However I think if you emotionally distance yourself from him your situation may become absolutely unbearable. It sounds like you are in a real crisis at the moment. Do you have friends or family you can talk to about it? having emotional support helps. If not maybe groups for people who live with partners with MH? I would definitely do counseling for yourself as well to unload some of your emotions and possibly find a solution to keep going like this. You know sometimes some things resolve themselves in a way we can't control or predict, you feel like you are in total control of your life but some outside factors may change your situation too, so time will show? What did you see in him when you met and decided to get married? What do you see in him now that 30% of the time you like him?

Hi OP I appreciate I know very little about MH issues, and I realise this article is referring to PTSD from abuse, but I've been interested to see MDMA having almost miraculous (and relatively quick) effects in controlled trials for several intractible MH issues. Could you see if there's a trial near you? www.technologyreview.com/2021/08/25/1032117/mdma-ecstasy-ptsd-therapy-mental-health/

"From my perspective we have an almost non existent sex life, and I frequently feel like I’m running a doss house for vagrants than participating in some kind of partnership. But it’s better than having no one."

Sorry but 😂... how is it better? Even if it is better for you (which I wholly fail to see), having a mentally disturbed parent living with their kids drinking all night and sleeping all day is much worse than an absent parent. Kick him out!

What a ghastly situation OP.

Lots of good advice about first and foremost exploring with a therapist why you're here in the first place. I suspect progress here will make your options and choices much clearer.

You defend the status quo vehemently and I recognise the intense focus on a pragmatic compromise at the expense of all personal hopes and preferences - because I'm doing it too on a much, much less extreme scale. You're weighing up how to minimise impact on your kids and husband and secure whatever benefits can be gained from this, and your own wellbeing is completely unrecognised in this approach. I really hope your next step is to go and find out why you're so fiercely defending the set-up you have at the same time as hating it so much.

In the meantime, might a pragmatic step be a separation arrangement which puts him in an annex on your property, possibly with some kind of carer/support? You gain the freedoms of a single person, run your life and your family home as you wish to, but he's available to the kids and safer than he might be otherwise. Could be a halfway house to the divorce you can't contemplate yet.

I think you should divorce. It can't be good for any of you in living in that atmosphere.

This is going to be quite long and I’m going to be blunt. Please understand that this is coming to you with so much empathy but…..You are using him (and your work) as an excuse for not taking responsibility for the physical, emotional and psychological well-being of your children or yourself.
You sound so emotionally exhausted and lonely. I really feel for you, but I think you need to attack this like you would work tasks and break it all down into priorities and assign responsibility.

Kids first.
You are both responsible for the physical, mental and emotional health and safety of your children and you are BOTH failing in this task.
*You have accepted that DH will never take responsibility for his MH and yet you are facilitating a lifestyle for him where he has continual access to your children while drunk and under the influence of contraindicated medication. This is dangerous and willfully neglectful.

While I believe you work very hard to provide for your family, (and recognize the emotional and physical exhaustion) I also believe that you are hiding behind this work to avoid accepting responsibility and doing what really needs to be done here. Kids are not stupid. They are very sensitive to their environment and they will have already developed their own coping mechanisms. I very much doubt that you have the right impression of what they see and think. They will have grown up with the “volatility” and learned appeasing behaviours - as have you - to avoid “triggering” him. No matter how little they are, they will all be carrying the burden of responsibility for their DF’s MH, and that’s not fair. You say he is an involved father, yet you also mention that he sleeps through every morning and frequently wakes in the evening, drinking through the night. Do they bring kids home for to play, or are they worried it will “trigger” him? Do they have problems making or maintaining friends at school? Do they suffer from anxiety? Do they require a lot of attention? Cry a lot? Are they high-achievers who can’t handle the thought of failure?

You need to stop facilitating him. He is his own responsibility. Once he is no longer in your home he will make a token attempt to sort his shit out, then revert to form and disappear. Realistically, he will be a temporary inconvenience.

You and your kids need counselling. You would benefit from CBT (it works quickly). Your identity is split between confident, capable career woman and fake home life. Your kids need long-term counselling to ensure that they don’t repeat their father’s patterning. Once he is out of the house, you need to start treating them like they are intelligent humans and be honest with them. Don’t whitewash his behaviour any more. They need to learn that it is not acceptable and that they don’t need to avoid “triggering” the people they love any more.

I would also take a really good look at how your kids are around you and be brutally honest…. Are they afraid of triggering you because you’re “so tired because of work?”

There… I know I was hard, but I can see through the eyes of your kids. I grew up just like them. I am 49 and have CPTSD.

What an utterly ridiculous way to live your one precious life! And you are deluded if you think your poor bloody kids aren't affected by living like this. Seriously, just leave him, and make a new and better life for you and your kids. God, I wouldn't let a dog live like this!