Husband furious, think that this is the end

[strugglingflower]

I am posting on AIBU for traffic

Its a long story so please bare with me.

My son not my husband's son, has had issues for about 18 months, he become depressed and lost his job, his girlfriend and a very close family member, he stole money out of our bedroom my son started to smoke weed never in the house, my son become verbally aggressive towards me, my husband and him would argue and there was squaring up to each other, I could see that my son was unwell but I could not get him any help as my son did not engage with medical professionals' I contacted the local crisis team as I could see my son was in a bad place I was told that I would get a call in 2 weeks, still waiting for that phone call.

My son then had an episode of Psychosis, I managed to get him into hospital and then in house treatment at the Priory for a month, and then at home care, when he came home my husband wanted nothing to do with my son and is old school that my son should just suck it up and man up.

My son has now lost 2 jobs through calling in sick as he is vomiting and has no motivation, my son is still depressed.

My husband has gone mad tonight, as I have not told him that he lost his job on Tuesday I wanted to wait until Friday night so that I could sit my husband down. Tonight my husband has locked our bedroom door and will not let me come into the room and is not speaking to me, he has asked in the past to choose between him and my son. I will always choose my son. I think that this is the end of my marriage.

What the hell do I do.

@strugglingflower I'm glad that it has been picked up and hope that he will be able to get the treatment he needs.

I have family members who have been able to manage so much better at work once they had the right medication to help them and I really hope that will be your DS too. Treating the underlying cause has the potential to allow your DS to become a blossoming flower.

So, knowing you are going through huge stress your husband decides the best way to support you is to throw a hissy fit and lock you out of your own bedroom? What an abusive asshole.

If my scientologist children cut off contact with me (non-scientologist), I would be living by their door, hoping to catch a glimpse of them, even from afar and certainly would not swan off to Australia and start sprogging off with a new man. She abandoned them. Different for non-biological kids, though - you don't wanna contact with me? OK, I shall have some new kids. Off I go.

Your son needs more than you because he has got to this stage with your input, so I think you need to take a step back, and work on your marriage. Your poor husband must be at the end of his tether.

Well obviously you support your own child as long as he leaves off the non prescription drugs.

As for your DH - he has NO right to lock you out of any room in a house that you 80% own!

He can get out and rent a place if he wants to distance himself from your son.

But that lock comes off the bedroom door NOW.

It is essential that you keep your son off the weed, which is known to cause psychosis in young people - I am glad you are prioritising this.

It is understandable that your OH is finding this very hard, but his response is unhelpful.

@strugglingflower just seen the updates re ADHD poss ASD - my DD has these too. It seems to make coping with life a little harder for them as intellectually they are often head of the curve, whilst emotionally/psychologically being way behind. The dissonance between social maturity and intellectual ability seems to be a huge part of the problem with the way they navigate the world. My DD messed around with weed, too, and the way we’d know was the high on the day she had it with friends was always followed by a monumental, near psychotic down the next day (self harming, suicidal ideation, absolute hysterical screaming fits).

However, I do believe it can be helped with the right treatment and medication. Getting to the medication can be a journey though - we are on our 4th iteration and seem to be finally breaking through after antipsychotic meds prescribed by CAMHS were utterly inappropriate.

You, like us, seem ‘lucky’ that you have resources to get private support, but I can recommend Oxford ADHD centre, as they look at the individual holistically and manage all her medications/therapy etc in one place. They can do in person or video appointments which helps us as it means we know she will remain with the same team if she moves away to uni or as she grows up. We’ve found NHS child and adult services to be largely non existent, but are blessed with great GPs.

How this fits with your DH, I’m not sure. Some men struggle with YP, especially YP who are MH issues and are not blood relatives. I hate to say it though, as much as your son is legally an adult, he is vulnerable and he needs you now and may need you at regular intervals throughout your life. If you had a child (adult or minor) who had a more obvious disability, you would have the expectation of having to be there for them for the rest of your life (though this may mean arranging for another family member or professional to be on-call/to check in with him when you go on holiday etc). This is no different.

I’m afraid your DH may need to sit down and ask himself whether he would have sought a relationship with you if you had had a more ‘obviously’ disabled child and, as I suspect may be the case from what you’ve described, he feels that he would not have done so - and cannot do so now - you may have to end things. Be reassured though, there are lots of people out there who would not let you down as he is doing now, so even if this does not work out, please feel reassured you can and will meet someone more deserving of your love and commitment in the future. Am so sorry that you are having to navigate this alone and unsupported. I hope you have a friend/family that you can lean on.

It might be time to tell your husband that you will not be forced to pick between him and your son.

You said he only stole for 5 days and it is ridiculous to think that he is a thief now going by your husbands standards!

I understand love is conditional but if your husbands bar is so high then I’d let him find another woman! No good mother would abandon her son over this scenario

There can be little as heartbreaking as watching a child you've loved and brought up go through mental health problems like this and I feel for both of you OP. The only one I don't really feel for here is your husband - I understand that he's gone through this as well and I understand that because he's not his blood child he probably can have the luxury of walking away but that really doesn't mean he should. Even if he is, there are kinder ways of doing it than locking you out of places in your own home, that's not on. Unfortunately I do think this means your marriage won't survive as I don't think any mum worth her salt would put her partner before her child when that child clearly needs help and support. Your husbands way of thinking is extremely old fashioned, unkind and unhelpful and I'm not sure I could live with someone who thought that way. I hope your son gets better but it may take quite some time, psychosis is no small thing.

This does sound like drug induced psychosis which generally resolves quickly and doesn’t return e is continued drug use. OP, you do come across as enabling him and whilst your husband may come across as old fashioned, a zero tolerance approach to substances is the way forward. Your sons depression may well need addressing as that seems to have been the driver for substance use in the first place.

Your son every time. He may recover and never have another crisis like this or it may take longer and be more complex but whatever happens you and he will never forget the lack of empathy and support shown by your husband. His callous lack of understanding will always be there even if it is never spoken of again. Good luck to you and your boy, wishing you both better times ahead

It sounds like you don’t feel that you can adequately parent him with your dh around. Also that you know what you want to do. This problem won’t just go away. Can you look to 5 years time and consider what it might be like with/without your dh?

I would be living by their door, hoping to catch a glimpse of them

No, you wouldn't.

You write as if Tom Cruise lives on an estate that Nicole could buy a terrace on to spy on him.

In reality she would never catch a glimpse of them due to the security.

Erm yes it can. It can also cause people in the grip of a psychotic episode to kill, as sadly happened with the son of a family I know well.

people need to stop using their one experience as a road map of what 'definitely will happen'. I have used this post as an example but lots of posters are doing this. Just because you know one person can't turn their life around doesn't mean everyone in a similar situation can't either.

Nobody on this thread, whatever their experience knows for certain whether the op's son can turn his life around. Nobody. It is possible he can, we could talk probabilities but we would need a lot more data for that and frankly, who has the time?

In the meantime how about offering some realistic hope and supporting the op to put in appropriate boundaries. She is nowhere near ready to give up on her son and what a good mother would be. Her son has made mistakes but he hasn't repeated them (yet), let alone repeated them more than once

As to her DH, my advice would be to talk to him and explain what her plan is to support her son, what her boundaries are, how she plans to deal with slips (if he occasionally slips in his sobriety) and how she will decide if a 'slip' has gone too far and what her backup plan is for that. If he won't listen, contribute and at least try to help with this, he is not worth staying with. - Just my view of course

And just to say that from what has been posted so far, I think the op has a very good sense of boundaries .

Sorry but no, that's not the reason he didn't pass his probation. What was the behaviour? Not going to work? Going and not doing the work properly? I wasn't asking for the cause (in your opinion) but the behaviour. That's the pattern you need to look for and work to eliminate, if he's going to get past this and have a happy life.

As for what I'd do (since you asked) it's this. Just to say - I'm not claiming that this is a cure or that it's easy but having seen more than one mother whose best intentions and love and kindness have ended up doing the opposite and creating prolonged problematic behaviour in sons, this is what I'd do.

As a condition of living with you, ask him to commit to seeing a GP and getting treatment (medication and therapy) for depression. Make sure that he stays the course with the medication even if he doesn't like the side effects at first or thinks its not working (obviously with scope to change meds after a prolonged period of trying one out - but not scope to opt out).
Make sure he commits to going to therapy regularly and actually goes. Even if he says it's not helping, he can't go as he feels sick etc.
Get him any appropriate treatment for his ADHD.
After a grace period of a month or two to get the first things in motion, then these:
A commitment to getting up every morning and getting washed and dressed.
Expectation of certain assigned chores in the house, all his own laundry and a percentage of meal preparation.
Some kind of positive steps towards his future like a course that he goes to regularly, volunteering that he goes to regularly or a job (though I understand a job may be out of reach just now. He agrees to and follows through with doing these things regularly even if he makes excuses.

If he doesn't stick to any of the above then I'd ask him to leave and mean it.

You shouldn’t be scared of your h to extent that he has to be sat down to hear that your son lost his job.

I wouldn’t hesitate to leave my h if he behaved like this. Your problems are automatically halved by ditching this nasty man who shouldn’t be adding to your stress

Kick your husband out ! If he cannot stand by you and the family in bad times he is the one that is not much if a man . Please get help for your son , benefits so he is not under financial pressure and maybe a job where he can regain confidence so only a few hours at a time

Please show me what I have written is enabling my son.

Nothing you’ve said suggests you’re enabling your son, you sound very supportive. Your husband comes across as a huge prick and you should absolutely choose your son over him.

Sorry I'm going to take a different tact because I've had experience with people like your son and know that these types of personality frequently do nothing to make themselves better and destroy families.

Your son may be sick but he's making bad choices. You need to lay down the law. You will always love him but he's a grown adult and if he wants help he needs to show you that he's helping himself. First of all, zero tolerance to any drugs including weed. It will be ultimately making him more depressed and is undoubtedly what induced the psychosis. He needs to seek support from drug and alcohol support workers and get counselling but he needs to understand that his drug use and any consequence of it is ultimately his responsibility. If he doesn't have this respect for you or your home then he should be made to leave.

Sorry if I'm wrong but I'm going to speculate that your son might have been a bit of a twat at other times before this and maybe dh has reached the end of his tether? Yes there's more supportive ways of dealing with this but maybe he doesn't want to spend the rest of his life pandering to your son.

Do what you feel is right. It's not as black and white as people are painting on here though. Being a parent doesn't mean being a martyr. People treat you how you allow them to treat you, even your offspring. You'll do him no favours being too enabling with him either as he'll have no incentive to change.

Your husband's behaviour to you is unacceptable. I couldn't stay in a marriage and be treated this way.

This. It sounds like your son was doing great until things recently fell apart after a series of traumas. Not your fault. Not his.

I wonder if he'll engage with other types of therapy if he won't do talking therapy.

Your DH is not being very supportive at all and him locking you out is outrageous. Your son was out of order for 5 days and it turned out to be psychosis!

My son has been clean of any weed since July 2023, and has regular/weekly drug tests, as this was part of the agreement that was put in place for him to come home.

People will say ‘choose your son’ with no first hand experience of the havoc mental illness can deliver on families. You need to prioritise yourself, you cannot spend your life - and the reality is it will consume your life if these issues are ongoing - focussed solely on your son. Seeing what mental illness has done within my family my advice would be that you need to move your son out of your home, he needs help from professionals. If your marriage is otherwise good you need to place some focus and energy there. In my family it’s been 30 years of parent utterly focused on a mentally ill person who is not getting better and not helping himself. Everyone has one life. Yours also has value and you deserve to carve out space for yourself and your marriage - as well as getting support in place so your son can manage his own illness. You do not need to carry him.