I need to give DP a break. How?

[alessthandomesticgoddess]

DP is 25 and an absolute star. We have two DD's together (3 and 14 months) and he has a son from a previous relationship (3) who stays at the weekend. I have bipolar and fibromyalgia and as a result DP is constantly getting up with our DC's, cooking, cleaning, taking care of them, doing the nursery run etc and I feel terrible because while I want to be doing those things, it hurts.

I want to give him a break. I have home help for two hours on a Thursday morning to help me with the DD's and DP is usually here on the laptop just doing his own thing and having a little break. He is in college all day on a Monday studying to be an electrician (in his second year of a three year course). He had to leave his last job as my conditions got worse and he had to become my carer which has left him feeling awful as he can't provide. He can't get JSA as he studies one full day part-time and he can't get carers allowance until my DLA claim is successful.

I just feel awful for him. He is 25 years old and he is marrying a 23 year old with obvious difficulties. His quality of life can't be what he imagined although he insists it's all he wants. He is a star and I feel he deserves much better than I give him.

We have a very good and healthy relationship but he does occasionally lose it with me and shout "You want to do these things but you can't. Stop saying you want to if you can't" and gets frustrated with my illnesses. He finds it difficult but copes so well.

How can I give him a break from all of this? I fear that if he doesn't get some sort of a break soon he'll leave me and I know he says he won't but the anxiety and fear of him leaving when I love him so much is too much to take sometimes. I'm constantly afraid of him cheating or leaving me for someone slimmer, prettier and healthier although he rarely goes out and is absolutely brilliant to me and our DD's. It's all my own issue but I take it out on him.

Sorry you're feeling like this. It sounds so difficult. Are there other family members or friends who can help out now and again to give him a break? I know there are charities who offer respite care, but don't know specifics. Hopefully someone better informed will be along soon.

Slightly confused by the kids' ages - is yours 3 years or 3 months? Was just wondering, as his son from the other relationship is 3 years. Was there an overlap? Not being nosey, honestly, just wondered if it might contribute to your insecurity about him possibly leaving you? But I understand that your health issues are probably reason enough to set you off worrying, however unfounded.

Sorry to hear you are having a difficult time. Do you get any support from or use your local Carers' centres?

More info here and here.

Hopefully someone with more direct experience will be along soon.

Oh gosh, you are just 23, with two children under 3, and with bipolar and fibromyalgia. You are brave to start a family so young, and so close together when you have these difficulties.

Are you working? Studying?

Or are you both at home?

I was working from home but had to stop and claim IS. I'm now trying to claim ESA and I have my DLA assessment on Wednesday. I am studying one evening a week for a Level 4 qualification in Counselling. We are both at home as DP studies one day a week but can't work due to my illnesses and can't claim JSA.

I get help from Home Start once a week for a few hours on a Thursday where a volunteer helps with the children. She is brilliant and she helps me bathe them and do crafts.

DD1 is 4 in June and DSS turned 3 on Valentines Day. DP and I had a one night stand just before he started a new relationship and I found out I was pregnant (he didn't know). Him and his new girlfriend got pregnant unexpectedly and had DSS before they split and DP and I met by chance where I told him. We have been together three years this June. It's a weird situation but him and his ex-partner weren't serious and she broke up with him when DSS was a few days old.

DP doesn't get much time to himself. The DD's go to bed by 7pm every evening so we have time together but as we're living on benefits we don't have much spare income and so nights out are off the cards. We hope (if I feel better) to go to the cinema on Wednesday to take advantage of my Dad's Orange Wednesdays and that will be our first night out together for almost a year.

My 2p's worth and it's really blunt, so if you don't think you can take it - don't read it OK :) But before I start - I know what it's like to be where you are and I know how shit it feels, I was your age too when I was in much the same way (but with different things that aren't so bad these days). I have also been in your DP's shoes, so my blunt advice comes from having been on both sides of this. I hope you get your night out on Wed!!

I think what would help, much more than him getting a break, is you having a slight attitude adjustment :)

It is really annoying when someone keeps on and on about wanting to help or wanting to do something for you, that they can't. Just stop!

It is much easier to just get on with it and do what needs to be done, without someone simpering on about how they would help if they could and how awful they feel not being able to help ... yadda yadda... that really drags you down.

Worrying about him running off with someone else and not being good(or well) enough for him is the thing that is most likely to send him into the arms of another woman. He says he loves you, he says it's where he wants to be, he says he's happy - believe him before you worrying about it makes him unhappy and he ends up doing exactly what you fear.

Do what you are able to do, let him get on with the rest and ocassionally tell him how bloody fantastic he is and how much you love him :)

I don't whine about my illness to him often. He told me around a year ago how tiresome it was and he was doing all he could and so I tried to stop. Of course, I still get my days but I vent on my blog or here now instead of to him. It must be exhausting just listening to me going on so I try to keep it in line. I tell him I love him every day and show appreciation by doing small things for him.

I do need to stop worrying about him running off with another woman though. It's a ridiculous idea and he's not given me any reason to think otherwise. It's all my own insecurity and fears and I shouldn't put that on him like it's his problem. Do you have any advice on how to stop? For some reason knowing he's here doesn't seem to make things better in my head.

What Chipping said.

Ah, seeing as Chipping has opened the blunt can... My sister has fibromyalgia. Sometimes it really get on my nerves.

For example, if I am venting about how busy I am, and how much I have had to do in the day. (I work, and have 2 young children, and until recently I was caring for our elderly parents. She is on disability benefit and with a teenage dd, so mostly stays at home and reads books, she goes through between 5-10 books in the 7 languages she speaks every year)
Her reply? No sympathy, just a curt "Well, I wish I could be doing all that, you are so lucky. I tried sweeping the patio today, and as a result my back is all tense and I need to drag myself to the chiropractor, life is such a drag"

Beware that you don't do similar things when your dp is talking to you about his day, his life, and what he is doing. Sometimes you just need to talk without hearing about THE OTHER PERSON and how it is worse for them....

Oh, and if I have tonsillitis or sinusitis, she tries to cheer me up saying "Poor you, just be glad you dont also have fibromyalgia, because that would make your recovery time SO much longer, and you would have an even worse reaction to the antibiotics, like me".

So, I am sure that you dont, but the whiney tone of "Oh I wish I could do more" somehow makes me think that you do, DONT try to always compare yourself to him and point out how everything is worse for you. It is getting really tedious, and invalidates the other persons feelings.

I definitely try not to do that but I admit that there are days when he complains that he's tired and my body language changes which gives him the impression that I'm thinking I'm worse off than him which I am. I try not to verbalise it though because it's all relative. We all have our pains and I have to deal with mine. It's worse because he has to deal with his and mine in one go.

I just genuinely wish I could help more. I came here so I don't have to whine to DP about what I could do to help. I don't mean to invalidate his feelings but I know it seems that way to him.

I don't whine about my illness to him often

That isn't what I was saying. Talking about your illness and saying how tired you are etc is totally different and I'm sorry he has made you feel like you can't talk to him about it :(

I was talking specifically about 'doing things' such as 'I would hoover if I could', 'I want to be able to change the bed', 'I would cook dinner but it hurts me'

Can you see the difference?

Is IS incredibly hard not to feel like no matter how tired or busy someone else is, they are lucky not to have FM (or whatever) and they should be grateful for it and not whinging... but you just have to remember that they don't and they can also feel utterly exhausted. It's hard. As I said, I've been on both sides of this and it's hard both ways.

You might have to 'fake it till you make it' with the empathy. When he starts telling you how tired he is etc, concentrate on relaxing all your muscles, half listen to him, but half talk to yourself - remind yourself how much he does for you all, remind yourself that he's allowed to be tired and mostly remind yourself how much you love him and how much you appreciate him. Get out of the habit of comparing yourself to him and try to offer him the support you would offer him if you were well and full of energy. It's not easy, not at all, but it's valuable.

Of course you wish you could help more :( Of course you wish you felt full of energy and could just do it ... but the reality is that (at the moment anyway) you can't. What you can do is train yourself to be supportive and understanding.

That's great advice. I'll be doing that later when he comes home and he tells me he's tired and has had a hard day. I appreciate that he has it hard too but when he says "Can you do 'x'" my stock answers are either yes or "Not today, love, it really hurts" which I think he interprets as a bit of a whinge.

I think for me, the biggest problem is that my sister thinks that she is always worse off than me, and that I dont get tired, and that I dont feel ill.

I do. And I want to be able to talk about it as much as she, without being compared to her and told I am not really as tired as her when I am tired.

You can be exhausted even if you dont have fibromyalgia!

My sister (despite fibromyalgia) had a full time job and was a single parent from her dd was 3 years old, and funnily, I find she whines MORE now that she is not working and has a tiny two bed flat, than when she ran a 3 bed detached house, worked, and had a toddler! It could be her scoliosis...

I think it's probably to do with the fact she has so much time. I find myself whining more on my blog now that I don't work than when I did because I have the time to feel the pain rather than have to work through it and because mentally it eats you up inside until you have someone to vent to and it all comes splurging out with no thought to how the person on the receiving end feels. At least that's how it is with me.

When I was studying full time and a SAHM while DP was in work I had no time. I had to push on and take handfuls of pills. By the time I finished I was in so much pain that talking hurt. Now I get to sit down and don't do as much the thoughts eat me up, the pain feels worse and then suddenly it's like a volcano.

It doesn't excuse mine or your sister's behaviour though.

Could be you are right. My chiropractor (who is a friend of both of us, and also has treated her back) once said to me that you are in more pain when the sole focus of your existence is your pain, and you end up wallowing in it, and it is a difficult mindset to come out of.

I know what you mean about just soldiering through. My sister did this summer, she decided to let pain be pain and came with me on numerous mountain trips (which she had not done in years). She was so happy, and so pleased that she managed, that she just "ploughed" on. She got to pay for it though, as she ended up in bed for a week at the end of summer and in great pain, and her Achilles tendons were so bad she could barely walk.

I hope you dont misunderstand me, I am not saying that because your pain is rather constant you should not talk about it, but that you should allow your dp to talk about his pain and his tiredness, without comparing it to yours.

We should all be allowed to vent about our aches, our pain or our tiredness, without comparison. It is a subjective thing!

It is different though if somebody says "Oh I am so tired" and get a reply such as "Oh, yes me too, totally. What you been up to today?" and "Sorry to hear it, but I am also tired, and ..... and..... "

Competitive tiredness is different to sympathetic "we are in similar boats" tiredness...