Me and my partner have been together for 10 years, we have a 5 year old, for the last year things haven’t been great.
He’s a great father and for all intents and purposes he’s a good guy, but for the last few years he has become less and less present, He became less tolerant of normal day to day things, work was awful for him, he would tell me how he just wanted to be able to be alone, so I would arrange to have the house empty but that day alone would never be long enough, I would come home and have comments like “I hate that because I was enjoying myself the day has gone too quickly” “I wish you would leave me alone more often”. Our kiddo was in full time childcare so he would only need to actively “parent” at the weekends and it would be too much for him. Last summer things came to a head when he said the thought of going into work made him suicidal. I immediately told him to get signed off, if he didn’t want to go back I would find a way to financially support us until he found something more appropriate, I helped him contact his doctors, referred him to therapy, I was his point of contact for work as the anxiety was too much for him, I then started paying for him to go to college so he could retrain and I asked him to start looking for part time work to help fund this, he didn’t really look, I would apply for things for him but he would conveniently miss the callback, or forget to email them something so everything was a non starter. One of the things I asked was that if I was going to be working 2 jobs so he didn’t have to have one is that he just picked up extra chores around the house, I don’t want to be coming home to a house that’s awful when I’m working 7 days a week.
This did not happen, when ever I had a day of annual leave I would be sorting out everything. I sort all the bills, all childcare is arranged by me, anything to do with school is me, anything for our son is planned through me:. It basically came to a point where I was mothering him, but he still wanted to be intimate, I really struggled with this - you want me to look after you like parent does but at the end of the day have sex with you? No. I’ve mentioned this to him, and nothing has changed, I don’t know what to do. He’s a kind guy and a great dad, he’s depressed so I can’t actively blame him and I look awful if I do but I am burning out and I’m burning out fast. I have no desire around him; I feel the ick when he wants to cuddle or hold hands. I don’t know what My point is I guess, I more just want to know am I being unreasonable? I want to support him but do I do it at detriment to myself? What do I do?