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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Thinking Would I Leave My Husband Due To His On/Off Low Moods When The Kids Grow Up.

6 replies

ALostWife · 18/03/2026 12:29

To sometimes want to end my 17-year long relationship with my husband.
When he is happy, everything is wonderful. He is a good husband in the sense that he is:

  • Loyal
  • Provides (I work too; we're both self-employed, but he pays the major bills)
  • Does his fair share of childcare
  • Supports me
  • When we have arguments, he is never abusive or swears at me
However, For many years of our relationship, he has had severe mood changes. He can become very down and hyper-focused on work for 14 hours a day, etc. He has recently been in one of these moods since lunchtime on Mother's Day. Our 10-year-old daughter had an emotional meltdown, which caused him to have a day-long headache, during which he spent the day not talking and walking two metres ahead of us when we went out. These are frequent, and our children have noticed that he has moody episodes. I've tried talking to him about it, but he insists that nothing can change in his life in order for him to feel less stressed.

He was an only child to a single mother was very similar she had these moods and would fall out with everyone she knew. I wonder if its some sort of hereditary mental disorder.

A few years ago we had money issues after his construction firm collapsed and he was suicidal. He got through it with therapy, Microdosing and meditation.

Sometimes my marriage to him feels so lonely, and I think that when our daughter is older, I will leave. I'm so jealous when I see happy family men out making their families smile and having a laugh with them .

OP posts:
HopSpringsEternal · 18/03/2026 12:31

I couldnt be doing with that. I would explain to him that you're not going to put up with it any longer and see if he is willing to seek some form of counselling or management techniques.
If not, I would walk away immediately, it's not found your children to be brought up around this sort of behaviour. It will normalise it, and potentially lead them more likely to behave the same way as adults.

Riverflow6 · 18/03/2026 12:34

Similar stuff here. Long term obviously the relationship needs to end. In the short term I just tell my husband to ‘relax at home’ so he doesn’t home out with us on family days out and ruin it. I just pretend I’m a single mother most weekends but enjoy the comfort of the finances
edit: he has adhd and I suspect autistic

watchingthishtread · 18/03/2026 12:34

I have two reactions -

One is to query adhd. The hyper focus and the walking ahead would be typical of adhd but it wouldn't necessarily explain the moods.

The second is that there's no mention of love in your post. Do you love each other?

outerspacepotato · 18/03/2026 12:37

Why subject your kids to growing up with that?

Boxiboxi21 · 18/03/2026 12:48

My father was like this.

It taught me:

  • to stonewall/ignore a person was an effective manipulative/disagreement technique
  • that i wasn't worthy of a man's attention
  • that I had to people-please to keep everyone around me happy
  • that my needs weren't as important as those of others.

It has taken DECADES for me to understand this and reverse the damage. OP please consider the impact your DH's illness is having on your child.

Lmnop22 · 18/03/2026 13:15

Just leave now! Why wait?

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