Feeling sad about DH's moods and effects on the family

[kiddiedad]

He's always quite miserable, but lately, it's been really bad. He's just always got a face like a smacked arse, sorry about that horrible term- but it's just too fitting, not to be used.

He works long hours during the week, so the only time we have together really is at the weekend. Our kids are nearly 3 and 5 years old.

Yes, they fight a lot and it can be stressful, but they're our kids !

If it was up to him, he'd just stay home all weekend with them- shut the door to his office / lie down in the bedroom and just leave me to it. He also never gets up with them in the morning.
I asked him last week and he shouted to stop breaking his balls...as I had been sleeping in another room with the kids, hence the raise voiced, I guess or maybe not.

Anyway, he just moaps around. I ask him if he's ok, if I can help- let's talk etc, but he doesn't want to. When we do go out- today we went out to a pub lunch he wanted to go to, he's really quiet ( it was a long drive ) and was ok in the pub during lunch but then back to silence again. The kids were shrieking in the car and he was getting very annoyed and shouted at them to be quiet. They were quite loud but it was just kid noise really.

The kids were begging to go to a soft play or to do something fun, which I would have taken them to but he was absolutely having none of it. We got home and he just retreated to the office, then spent some time in the bedroom. He usually takes our oldest to bed but when we asked her tonight if she'd rather stay with me- she said she wanted to stay with me.

Both my kids are extremely attached to me. They love their dad but I fear if he continues to act like this and retreat, they will pick up on it. He just has no patience for them, especially when we are out. But even at home, he just retreats. It's been getting worse since the start of the year.

I'm not sure how to get him out of this particular funk. I try to make him happy but he's never happy. My kids seem like happy kids but my oldest has said stuff like ' I don't want dad to pick me up, I just want you to pick me up '.. I know kids say this kind of stuff but I'm worried if he keeps retreating / not having fun with them, they'll notice.

He has zero desire to do anything with them. That's how it seems anyway. And if we do take them somewhere ' just for them ' he wants to run away at the first opportunity.

Did he want kids? Why does he think he doesn’t have to do anything?

He sounds depressed. You need to get a Job, get the little one in nursery and the big one is already at school, sounds like he's really struggling to cope. Is there any debt that you don't know about do you think? Is he likely to be a gambler? This is about more than just avoiding the family life.

I know he sounds depressed and I talk about it to him all the time, but he won't address it.

I work full time...my little one is in nursery, older one is in school.

There's no debt or money issues or gambling.

Yeah he wanted kids..

Right ok well you either accept it, give him an ultimatum, seek counselling together or separate.

I’ve got one who can be like this, especially at this time of year - it’s often as though he lives for summer and when it’s not a glorious day he’s in a right funk about it.

not sure on advice tbh, we’ve been together 14 years but as time is moving on he’s getting worse and worse, and I’m getting more and more irritated by it.

He liked the idea of kids but he has checked out of the reality.

Hence the ball breaking comment. He feels he's lost something and hasnt identified as a parent. He wants his old unencumbered life back. In his mind, you and the children are nuisances.

This sounds so hard. It's awful living with a partner who clearly doesn't want to be a parent.
He obviously gets no joy from having his little ones around, like they're an inconvenience.

I couldn't live like that and sorry but your children will be psychologically scarred by having a parent who clearly resents them .

He needs to snap out of it and grow up. He needs to do parenting otherwise what's the point of him?
He needs to become an adult.

I had a big blowup with my DH about this over Xmas. It was a hard conversation in which he said the things I observed (you're checking out of family life, your mood is rubbing off on the whole family) were all in my head. I did two things in this chapter that do seem to have genuinely helped:

1. I told him, when he said that, that there was one thing that was absolutely true and unquestionable: I'm deeply miserable.
2. I started going to solo therapy when he refused couples therapy
3. I stopped expecting anything from him and lived my life with the kids as if he wasn't there. The first couple of days he got up and discovered we'd all already left the house and got on with things without him really reinforced the point that his choice to separate is his own look out - and he's the one losing his family over it

You can probably find my post on here - it was only just over a month ago.

Since then things have been a lot better between us. We're still not having much sex - I'm still not certain this is anything more than a temporary change in his behaviour and I don't feel up for it yet - but the whole mood of the house has changed.

The mantra 'you can only change yourself' really stuck with me. I'm glad I'm in therapy and although it's costly I think I'll keep going for a good few months

He’s not just miserable tho is he? He’s lazy and selfish to boot. won’t get up with his own kids, wants to stay home so he can do his own thing whilst you do everything.

i guess the question is op, what are you willing to do about it?

Incidentally it was the lying down in the bedroom in the middle of the day they made me lose it. I've always hated it but that day I just couldn't tolerate it anymore

Divorce him
Life will be lighter

Or give ultimatum get to gp do depression questionn get help
Or ship out

I gave mine an ultimatum, either cheer up, or get help, or I'm leaving. It worked.

That phrase : you go to therapy because the people who need therapy don't go..springs to mind. Stop asking him if he is OK. Stop fussing over him. Do the fun thing you want to do with the dc and leave his miserable head at home. He will either perk up and join you or get worse. Change the way you deal with it giving no energy to his moods and see what happens. Is his Dad like this?

Are you addressing that to the OP or me?

I agree: this is what I did. Gave it no space. Stopped trying to engage him with us or perk him up. He suddenly saw I was in essence no longer giving a shit, redirecting my energies entirely, and suddenly he changed.

Lame that it required this, but there we are

I agree with @User67556

But also op you need some time to yourself. See what he CAN agree to eg if you want tk start Saturday with a run or a yoga class will he be willing /able to supervise them while you go out? Either yes he will, so you recharge, or no he won't - you log all of this in your notes app or some other kind of diary so when you separate you have a good argument for kids to live mostly with you

Also according to the men are from mars book what men want when they have problems is for the women to go and take care of themselves rather than try and chat to them about what's wrong they want their man cave. Obviously someone has to take charge of the kids but if you can make him take turns with who is in charge (as long as they'll be safe you can just leave the house for a bit) then you just leave him be and do things that make you happy like go for a massage, watch a show you love, call a friend

I agree he sounds depressed; how long has he been like this? He needs to get some help overwisr ultimately you’ll end up wanting to leave him as this is no good for you or your kids.
i think @LostittoBostik approach is a good one; get on with things with the kids and he’ll either realise that he doesn’t want to miss out or sink into himself and that will be your answer

I'm in a very similar situation. Been with DH for 17 years, we are genuinely best friends and we do love eachother and our ds, who is 5 and has some additional needs.

But DH struggles with moods, feeling anxious and irritable and tired. It was worse when D's was a baby/young toddler, aggravated by lockdown, but we got through it. I thought we were ok but recently the moods, retreating and lack of patience etc have returned. We talk but it doesn't change, not really.

He's a very active parent, he picks ds up from school, takes him out, reads, we go out as a family loads to the park, shops etc. I've tried making "us time" more of a priority but it's tricky as only my parents can have DS and they already help quite a bit to fill gaps in between our jobs etc. DS loves his dad but is extremely attached to me - it's improved massively the last year or so but it's still an ongoing issue.

I swing between wanting to help, worrying about him and being understanding to sometimes thinking I can't keep doing this, if we're not enough to make you happy just go... But I know if I ever said this then he'd be heartbroken ☹️

What a miserable way to spend your weekend.
I’d tell him you’ve noticed he’s irritable and the kids seem to be getting on his nerves, you’ve asked him if he’s ok and he snaps. So for a few weeks you’re going to give him a break, you’ll take the kids out for the next 2/3 weekends to give him time to think about everything.

However after all that time he’s been given to think, you really do expect him to have some sort of plan. Will he be joining in 50/50 at the weekends and stopping being so miserable? Will he have decided married life isn’t for him and he wants to leave? Will he have decided he will seek help form the Dr/counselling.

I did something similar with my dh when things had reached crisis point. Within 24 hours he’d booked a counselling session and it was the start of a shitshow of stuff coming out about his childhood. (Been married 15 years and he’d never told a soul). We’re still married and he’s the person he should be now-a great dad and now grandad.

Edited to add you do need to give him some kind of plan/ultimatum or things will only get worse as you get more and more fed up with him and he gets more and more irritable- and that isn’t fair on your dc.

To suggest a different lens - you talk about the children being loud and fighting etc. Has he checked out because you have different expectations of parenting/children’s behaviour? Are you the soft/let anything go and he would like more discipline?

I’ve not a clue, I’m just thinking of other possibilities.

He's like this on and off. This latest episode has lasted since the beginning of the year.

He's never been a happy go lucky kind of guy. I mistakenly thought it was because he was in transitions in life but actually I do think it's his personality too.

He's very negative. He's never excited about anything really. His family are the same. They never have a nice word to say about anything really. You invite them to your new house and they can barely even say it's nice.

He hates his work but he also won't change it. It's a dead end. If I come up with things he could change about his work, he doesn't want to hear it and apparently I don't get it anyway. I have said he can leave his job and we will manage but he just won't do it.

We met quite young, we were only 22, leaving uni. He had a lot of job rejections and didn't really know what he actually wanted to do anyways. He didn't handle that well at all. Then he got into something and he just hates it. But he's quite successful.

Anyway, like I said- he won't leave the thing he hates. He has no patience for the kids really, especially lately.

Everything is an effort. If I talk about a family holiday or trip and what does he want to do this year, he gets annoyed - it will be rubbish anyway because the kids are too young. I then suggest we will just stay home but that's not right either.

To be honest he's always been a bit of a squasher of dreams. I really wanted to find a life outside the UK when we graduated but he just always blocked it - he thinks I am ' all talk ' when I have dreams and it's kind of soul destroying to live with that constantly. You need to talk about dreams at first to then start planning to make them a reality, he doesn't get that.

He recently thought that getting a huge purchase for himself would be the key to unlocking his unhappiness, but now the novelty has worn off, he's miserable again. Moaping around in his dressing gown, smoking one cigarette after another outside in the rain.

Honestly his whole being is so unattractive to me. He's just not a happy person. He's a good looking, successful man. He's not gross in any way, he dresses really well, but his entire being is just so negative.

I get pissed off and have a go at him about his demeanour sometimes, because I'm so sick of it.

Not really. They're kids, they fight. We both try and sort it out. Sometimes he needs to do a dad shout to get them to stop. I never tell him not to do it or interfere. We are on similar pages on how to deal with the kids.

He sounds depressed from your latest post. I was just trying to help with other possibilities.

Good luck. If he’s not willing to change the reality is you accept or make a change for you. A horrible place to be but making him happy is not within your gift.

Good luck