To leave him to figure it out himself?

[daiseydreamer]

Husband and I are separating, I ended our marriage for various reasons, the way he parents our children, his lack of responsibility, not feeling equal or supported. Him being in denial about his mental health issues, potentially undiagnosed adhd/autism but absolutely no willingness to explore this or change. I just felt alone and as though he was another child I had to guide through life.

We're currently still living together as neither of us has anywhere else to go. The house has been up for sale for a couple of weeks and we've just had an offer we're going to accept.

He's asked me if I will help him sort out where to live when the house is sold. Part of me thinks, no you're on your own now so figure it out. The other part of me knows he cannot do it himself and doesn't have anyone else to help him.

Starting to feel all kinds of guilt on how he's going to cope moving forward. He has a lot of mental health issues which he just isn't facing up to but I've spent years gently and at times brutally trying to support but getting nowhere.

Would it be unreasonable to just leave him to figure it out himself.

Yeah, I'm quite torn here. SIL is in a similar situation. The problem is that it's never ending. I think I'd probably do bare minimum - send him some links to places you've found or whatever.

He sounds like a nicer version of my ex BIL. But the problem is that if they have these problems and aren't willing to address them, they become controlling and abusive even if they are nice people. Like your ex, BIL had a difficult and traumatic childhood and it has definitely scarred him. But he is well over 50 now. At some point he has to take responsibility.

I would help him find somewhere suitable to live so that the house sale isn’t delayed and so the DC have somewhere safe to visit their father. I wouldn’t do anything else to help him out though.

He's asked me if I will help him sort out where to live when the house is sold.🙄

And if you do, he can hold you responsible for everything that inevitably goes wrong & every gripe he has about his new home/location.

You are divorcing. You are cutting all contact bar childcare discussions.
He doesn't need anybody else to decide where he is going to live. What he is really after is a constant tie to you, where you feel guilted into continuing to do his adulting for you.

The most you should do is email him a list of property agents, tell him to talk to the experts, then disengage from the topic completely.

Don't get sucked in to any discussions about where you are thinking of going to live either. The only information he needs about that is "X miles from their schools, in or near Y town." I don't mean conceal your address from him - just be wary of him using your plans to moan on at you about his inability to form his own, & his expectation that you will do it for him.

If you genuinely think he can't help himself, you have to help him, just like you would any other housemate or acquaintance who really needed the help and had absolutely no one else, surely?

That doesn't mean you need to do it for him but you need to help him get help IMO.

I'm in the "do it" camp - and would look at it as being a necessary part of the moving/separation. Sure it will be a pain in the arse and he may well run into difficulties once left to his own devices, but as soon as the house is sold and you're both out and into new accommodation, you can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that you did the best thing for yourself and your kids. Don't let him fuck up the sale by thinking he can just refuse to leave.

If you have time and capacity, then think of it as helping your kids Dad rather than your ex. If you don't have time, then nothing you can do.

If OP's ex is incapable of finding & moving into a new home on his own, he is incapable of parenting his DC, & OP needs to call SS & her solicitor for a discussion about that.

It's utter bullshit that he "can't".
Don't play the #BeKind card by brandishing OP's kids' welfare at her like she's failing in her pareting duties if she refuses to prop up their manchild father.
She is not responsible for him.

I agree with this. Also he is going to have to sign that he will vacate the house on completion of the house sale; so it is in your best interests to help him do that. After that you can leave his life admin to him.

I'm in the same boat, except he's better with money than me. My view is that I'll do all I can to make it easier for DC, but I'm not going out of my way for XH

Quite. Next it'll be op does all drop offs and pick ups at his house, she could do a quick food shop for him to deliver too, and/or batch cook for him/them (Or does she want them to STARVE?!) and why not their laundry too?...🙄

Dont help him because if you do it will never ever end. Ill bet he isn'tas helpless as he looks.

Yes he does work, he has a good job in construction but it suits him. He works on large scale jobs which are well planned. He follows a plan and so there is little thinking. He walks onto a job is handed the plan and he follows it.

And estate agents & his solicitor will be able to hand him a plan to follow about How To Buy/Rent A Home. It's all process-led, they will be able to break it down into steps for him to follow.

Follow your heart on this dilemma and if you are unable to feel any empathy towards this man leave him to sort himself out.

In your situation, I would help him secure accommodation to ensure there is no hold up with you being able to sell the house and move out. I don’t think you can do any more than that because otherwise you’re in the same situation, but living separately. He will need to sink or swim, hopefully he will get himself sorted and be able to bumble along.
I would be concerned about the children visiting him if he’s as bad as you say - will they be safe in his care? Will he feed them appropriately, ensure they get to bed? Will he allow them to play?

So maybe give him a plan or find someone who can give him a plan?

Divorce and MH are really common factors I homelessness. It's not OP's responsibility, but no matter how useless he is it won't do her DC any good to see their father homeless or be trying to pick up the pieces of that once they reach adulthood. They're going to feel responsible even if OP doesn't.

Think I would pass him back to him back to his parents. Stay there for a bit till he decides what he would like to do going forward.

Do you know what to do to protect yourself from any debts he runs up after you have separated?

My worry though is once I set him up he won't manage to maintain it. He is terrible with money so although he earns plenty and on paper wouldn't struggle financially to manage buying a home he can't budget. He's impulsive. He wont do things like plan meals and shop. If I don't cook he will just get a take away. If I don't make his lunch he'll just buy lunch and he isn't financially comfortable enough to live that lifestyle, he'll think nothing about whacking a large purchase on the credit card because he wants it but can't manage the payments to clear the debt. This is where he burys his head in the sand. When I met him he had significant debt which he just ignored. He recently splashed out a significant amount on a tv against my advice and stated he could pay it in 3 instalments to avoid the interest. I knew he wouldn't but I let it roll.. he hasn't paid and now has to pay monthly with huge interest added. He can't add these things up to budget and thinks if he can afford it. He sees it as, I have x amount left after I pay the bills but won't think but I'll need fuel to get to work so he'll spend all his money within a week of pay day and then cannot fuel his car. I've always managed this by taking most of his money and sending him money as/when needed.

So he went from dictator-style parents, poor guy, to (whatever living arrangements he had between leaving home & meeting you) & then he's had you take care of everything. That means for years, he has never had to experience the consequences of not budgeting. He won't change until he experiences the direct effect of those consequences, without you rushing in to save him from himself.

You can't spend the rest of your children's dependent years worrying about their father's ability to fend for himself. You have enough work to do in making sure that YOU get securely housed & can provide & budget for your DC.
Are you expecting child support from him? If so ... are you depending on it?
Because of course there is a possibility of him going into freefall.
If that happens, of course he is going to look to you to fix it for him.
Please don't.
You will just end up a divorced woman who still does everything she did for her ex when she was married to him.

The benefit is your kids will be mainly removed from all this -
He has a very dictatorship parenting style which is the absolute opposite to me and it causes so many rows. It's not fair on the kids and I can't get him to even consider changing his ways but I also can't stand back and watch my children be shouted at because they aren't complying with a stupid demand. He hates toys out, he hates noise from iPads. They just can't do anything right and he blames them but it isn't, it's him. My children can't be subjected to this anymore so I'm left with no choice but to leave.
And THAT is why you need to leave him to fend for himself. You cannot afford to stay emotionally enmeshed with him via his demands that you run his life for him. You need to protect yourself as well as DC from his abuse - unwitting or not.

I feel sympathy for him, he must have had a tough childhood, but you are not responsible for that, & he is refusing to take responsibility for himself by seeking help for his mental health & ND difficulties. Remember - he'd rather you divorced him than he sought help for himself. Childhood troubles or not, that is immensely selfish, as evidenced by his entitlement to keep demanding that you look after him.

It's impossible to know better than you about this op if he has potential autism or ADHD.

I am so sorry though that he wouldn't get assessed even for the sake of your marriage. That's not your fault. I can't imagine my spouse saying to me "you need to sort this out for the sake of me and the DC" and not complying. Surely it might help him very much if he was assessed and found to have asd or ADHD as he could then put strategies in place to help him navigate life better?

I guess on balance I would help him on the grounds that, when the DC become teens and they ask "why didn't you help Dad?" you can say with clear conscience that you did everything you could.

It sounds like he needs support for three main areas - mental health, budgeting and housing. Signpost him to doctors, Stepchange and letting/estate agents.

There comes a point at which you need to step away and he needs to step up. This is that point.

I'm more worried about how you will co parent with him. He sounds worse than useless with his kids. Can you even leave him alone with them? How old are they?

I agree.

Get through the house sale, then let him get on with it.

Or not. His choice.

All the people saying it's bullshit he can't do things by himself or he isn't as helpless as he looks. Do you realise that in many cases that is the very essence of how autism manifests itself? You can be highly skilled in one area and have huge deficits in another. Many autistic people mask in the outside world in order to fit in. Auto meaning "self" meaning it's about what is going on the inside and is not necessarily apparent just by looking at a person.

So the key to this is getting him assessed but I agree it's hopeless if he won't undergo that process and he is responsible for that decision but of course he may not have full awareness of how he does come across to others. As pp said below, people underestimate what a profound affect ADHD and autism can have on a person.

You dont say how old your dc are but is risk the dc will become his carers as they will feel the same obligation you did during your marriage. So for that reason I would do what was needed to move things forward but then draw a line.

So did he move straight from his parents/grandparents house to live with you? He’s never lived on his own?