DH ignoring my breakdown

[Haywirefire]

I don't know what to do or who to turn to. My DH has been ignoring the fact that I'm currently finding life impossible to cope with. I have a full time job, a long commute and three small kids. He works shifts at weekends so I do all the childcare then. My job is very stressful and on top of all of this I've got anemia. I'm exhausted and I'm getting to the point that I can't cope. I'm constantly anxious, I have insomnia and zero patience with anyone. I keep trying to start conversations with him telling him that I'm not coping with my anxiety or that I can't cope with the kids and he just changes the subject. Or worse he wades in with 'yeah I'm tired too'. I feel like I really don't matter to him. I would love to leave him, but im trapped by a massive mortgage and I wouldn't want to put the kids through a divorce. There are days where I feel like taking my own life is the only way out. I'm currently having counselling but all it is doing is highlighting to me that I have very few options, which is just making me feel more despondent. What can I do?

Oh my goodness. That is not ok. I feel desperately sorry for you.

He may well be an emotional black hole. But until you get on a more even keel emotionally (holy shit) forget you and him. Just do you for now. It is not ok to feel you have to accept learning to live with suicidal urges. You have to have help to fix this (and your partner is not the answer, that's now obvious).

Why are you so adamant no meds? Please rethink.

What did he do?

Thinking about 'opting out' is suicidal ideation. It's the classic sign of depression. You also sound like you are stuck in the 'Yes but...' stage.

But if you won't do anything else- why not get signed off work? No one is indispensable. If you were hit by a bus tomorrow, you bet they would find someone to do your job.

You are plagued by suicidal ideation but you are also opting out of life by staying stuck where you are.

Most of life is not within our total control. Most things involve relationships with other people. Your marriage involves your h too and he can make choices that affect you negatively and likely will if you opt out of being involved.

Same with your job. Yes employers usually hate people taking sick leave but they will usually sack you if you go to work sick and fuck up enough.

You have got into a pattern of being a person who feels life is done to you. It is hard to move towards doing life when you are that low. Lots of us know that. What we are saying is instead of fighting with your h and the world try to use that energy to fight for yourself.

The list of things used to get me too, but I learned to divert. This may not work for you, but I start mentally measuring up for curtains. As I don't know my twelve times tables and measure in yards it means a lot of concentration on mental arithmetic and it shuts down a lot of the swirling thoughts. I suppose it's a variation on counting sheep. I drop off quickly enough.

Have you tried breathing exercises? A quick google threw up a bunch, but I'm not sure what you've already tried.

Sounds like you feel completely trapped OP, it's a horrible situation to be in. Please don't feel attacked by posters, it's very obvious you are suffering.
It may be mainly due to your DH but forget him. You need to get well so you can deal with your relationship. I reiterate what I said earlier. Get signed off work and give yourself some space to start sorting your health out. If there is something specific you are getting counselling for, are there any support groups where you can talk to people going through similar? It sometimes just helps if you know you're not alone.

Can you afford help with childcare in the mornings/weekends?

Thanks SleepHay. I understand why people are being confrontational, but I could do without it. The reason I'm posting stuff online is because I have no one to talk to, least of all my husband.

And I've looked for morning childcare but no one wants to do two hours a day. I feel like I should be there for my kids on the weekend because they don't see me during the week.

but it would only be temporary whilst you give yourself the space and time to feel a little better.

Having childcare is better than being looked after by totally stressed out, snappy mum, surely?

Lots of deeply, deeply unfair and horrible things have been done to lots of people (many people on this thread). It is possible to move forward positively despite this.

It is very hard if you feel like you don't even care that your future could be better because you don't even want to try.

That's a terrible place to be and I relate to it more than you know!

I have had some really great RL support recently that has enabled me to really for the first time choose myself over other people in many ways I have never been able to do before. The trick really was asking for help, taking brave steps recommended by the right people and accepting support.

People say that bad feelings will eventually pass even if you do nothing but IME this is very far from the truth, when you are so low you are essentially at rock bottom and everything about your life is shit but even then you still have a choice to make between opting out of taking action towards improving things or killing yourself, usually in this country by very unpleasant means.

You always have choices to make so you might as well make the one with the best likely outcome.

What do you want your husband to do? In all honesty you sound determined to refuse what help you do need so what should he do?

I'm not depressed, I'm overloaded

In which case the only solution is to lighten the load and I agree with PP's, getting signed off work for a while is the logical answer. I think you need to let go of the concept that this isn't possible, if you drive yourself to a breakdown you will have no choice but to be off so save yourself before it gets to that point.

Wrt your husband I don't see how you can possibly tackle the issues with your relationship while you're so overloaded. Working through any kind of relationship issue (including figuring out how you'd go about separating) requires effort and you're at breaking point already so something else is going to have to give before you can tackle it.

I don't think you can afford to wait til you break down though, get signed off asap and give yourself time to breathe before things get even worse and the choice is taken out of your hands.

You are resisting the solutions people are offering on here and that's symptomatic of just how bad things are for you right now, you can't see how absolutely vital it is that you step off the treadmill and give yourself some breathing space. Please do it OP, you deserve to be the priority here

Acknowledge the fact that I'm not coping, take care of me, stop moaning about his life being worse than mine, stop expecting me to sort everything out and tell him what to do. In short, be a fucking grown up, not another child in the house.

Hi Haywire - I had a similar thing a few years back. I am better now but still sometimes resent my husband for his lack of support.. He also did the top trumps thing wrt to exhastion/general rubbishness, then later he tried a new, equally irritating track which was saying 'that must be really difficult for you' and kind of leaving it at that - i think he must have read a 'how to listen' article online..
Anyway - I had a very public breakdown and I suspect you might be headed that way - in part because it will give you permission to take time out and look after yourself..
I understand your reluctance to take ADs and think you are right. But I would recommend high (high high) doses of omega 3 - for at least 6 weeks - and a few other supplements.. PM me if you are interested - I know I sound like a crazy hippy.. I have been on and off ADs for most of my adult life but omega 3 has done more good for me than they ever did.

"Acknowledge the fact that I'm not coping, take care of me, stop moaning about his life being worse than mine, stop expecting me to sort everything out and tell him what to do. In short, be a fucking grown up, not another child in the house."

Do you think he would say the same about you? It sounds like neither of you get any downtime. When he complains about his life you want him to shut up and help you but when you complain about yours you expect a different response?

To paint this in the starkest way possible, you would prefer to kill yourself than go to the doctors, be signed off work and take some medicine. Can you see how illogical that is?

Can you sell the house? Unless you are in negative equity, it is something to consider.

Would you be able to take a holiday? I've done that when I was in an awful job and desperately unhappy. I took two weeks off and during the second week, I applied for a different job.

Sorry you are going through this. It's a long time since I've considered suicide. These problems are temporary and you will eventually get past them. There is life on the other side if you don't throw it away.

Although my husband does juggle a lot, he has three distinct advantages in our set up. He get 2-3 hours every day to him self at home before the kids come back. He gets two rest days in the week at home. He gets most, if not all of his annual leave outside of school holidays. So that's a fixed two week block to himself to do stuff. I get none of these breaks. I'm either at work or looking after the kids.

It's not an illogical position if you've decided you don't want to get better and live through it because it's not worth it!

HWF - there is nothing wrong with you - you are expecting yourself to be superhuman. Three children is a lot of work, I found two hard enough. I think it is difficult to cope with full time demanding work and children unless you have a very supportive DH and preferably one who works office hours so that you can have time together at weekends - you never have a day off! I'm not surprised the counselling isn't working you must be simply exhausted and stressed because it is a totally natural reaction to the life you are leading.
If you really cannot go off sick for a fortnight or so would it be possible to take some leave, get some help from a friend or family or paid help if you can afford it and simply go somewhere totally quiet for a bit of a break?

Is that what you've decided? You don't want to be there for your children?

I have to use all my annual leave to cover the kids school holidays. I have the next two weeks off work but I have the kids everyday and need to entertain them so it's not a break. I've even counted up how many meals I'm going to have to make in the next 18 days for three kids. And all I want to do is never get out of bed again.

It's illogical to even think about that devastating a decision while you're struggling under so much weight. Remove some of the weight (in this case, work) and see how you feel then. I don't think you can see the wood for the trees atm because you're so overloaded. Please OP, you can't go on like this but surely some time off work is a better option than suicide?

At the moment, no. I can't cope with their constant needy-ness

You are desperately unwell. So unwell that you can't seem to see your irrational thinking and subsequent decision-making.

I do think you need caring for and looking after, very much. But he can't do that. I wish that you'd consider printing out this thread, taking it to the GP and saying, 'what do I do'?

I think you're so far down the rabbit hole of misery that you've forgotten what it feels like to experience peace of mind, enjoyment and happiness. Can you remember an occasion where you felt that? Wouldn't you rather feel that again than what you're going through now? You're obviously an incredibly capable, competent and strong person to have coped as well as you have, and I am 100% certain that once your mental health is supported to recover you'll stride ahead and make intelligent, effective decisions about how you live your life and who with. But you have to start getting better first. Please let people help you.