Can't wait for it to be over

[PingPongBat]

That's it really. I have come to hate Christmas, primarily because of DH.

From mid-November until the New Year he's always, always either tired, or ill, or grumpy, or angry, or all four. I get the same rant every year about how he hates the build up, hates the pressure he gets from his parents for ideas for presents to buy our kids, hates the pressure he feels to get something for his parents who don't give him any ideas in return & who say 'oh we're easy', how there's never anything in the shops he wants to buy anyone, how whenever he thinks of something good to buy someone no-one sells it, how the shops are full of expensive tat.

He can be a grumpy middle-aged man at the best of times but this time of year it really, really brings me down. This year seems worse than ever. He's hardly talking to me, seems withdrawn, silent. The most animated he's been for the last week was when when a friend popped in for a drink last night and he had a rant about work.

It just seems he has nothing positive to say about anything any more. I'm probably not being fair on him & it all seems worse late at night, but I don't know how to handle it any more.

Every year it gets worse, every year I feel sadder and sadder about Christmas.

Tell me I'm not alone in this, please? Tell me how to cope? 😥

You say he can be a grumpy middle-aged man at the best of times. I don’t think you necessarily have to accept that either.

There are two possibilities here. One is that he’s just a negative person, and that would be difficult for anyone to deal with 24/7, unless they’re also negative, in which case, maybe a good match. But it’s also a way of communicating depression called negative bias - all he seems to see or experience is all the negative things around him, all he can think of are negative outcomes, all he can focus on are the negative things that happen. Some antidepressants have actually been found to be particularly helpful for people who suffer from negative bias (I think sertraline is one of them? But I would have to Google).

Maybe see if he’s willing to try an anti-depressant. If he’s not, or if he’s not willing to do anything, or he insists there’s no problem, then I guess you have to consider whether you want to put up with another 20 years of this. I don’t think anyone should feel they just have to put up with living with someone negative once they reach a certain age. Middle age means could have decades more of life to experience, and I’d imagine you want them to be happy.