I think I just need to get this out there – I’m not seeing a counsellor at the moment but think I’m going to book a couple of sessions with one I was seeing last year just to try and sort myself out again. I’ve posted in relationships before about what’s happening but I feel like it’s all coming to a head again and this time I think I’ve finally hit the end of what I can put up with.
There have been ongoing problems in my marriage almost from the word go. We moved in together and I got pregnant with our first child very quickly. We were both old enough to know better but we were both just out of very strained long term relationships and I think wanted ‘a family’. He has been diagnosed with a long term condition that while not serious, does mean he’s on medication for life to manage it. This has affected his work in a way, but he is still highly regarded in his field. It seems it’s more his confidence has been shaken rather than his ability. He has been on antidepressants for two years now, had some talking therapy but never really took it seriously and missed lots of sessions. He is also constantly forgetting to renew his medication so every couple of months there are several days where he isn’t on medication which means a dip in his wellbeing while he is off and then back on them. He also misses specialist’s appointments and refuses to go discuss anything with his doctor. I’m scared of what he’ll be like when he does come off antidepressants.
He seems very angry a lot of the time – shaking, growling and hitting his head if things don’t go as he expects them to. This scares me and has scared the children in the past but they seem used to it now. He panics if anything is not as he expects, jumps down my throat if I try to explain and simply won’t listen. As an example, there was a dirty pan next to the sink that I’d used that morning. I’d put it there after he’d washed up but he thought that he’d missed it and he started to get angry that it was there. I tried to explain that I’d only just out it there but he ignored me and just got more and more wound up. In the end I had to shout at him to calm down and that the pan had only just been put there. All this over a dirty pan.
There’s no fun in life with him. He’s a very serious person and likes being at home but doesn’t enjoy the crazy side of the children and is constantly telling them to be quiet and sit down. I’ve stopped trying to go out with him as he is just miserable when we go anywhere unless everything happens perfectly which it never does. Absolutely anything can spoil his day and I’m shattered trying to second guess what it will be. I wanted to take the boys to LegoLand this summer and I know they would love it – but I know it would be crowded and he would hate it so I never did it. I should have taken them by myself and I’m kicking myself that I haven’t. If I ask how he is he’s always tired or ill, so I never really ask him to do anything. It also means there’s very little intimacy. He doesn’t really like hugging or kissing – if I go to kiss him I generally get offered his cheek, even if I move around to kiss his lips he moves again. We have sex occasionally but this is over quickly and I don’t really enjoy it and I don’t think he does either.
People don’t come to visit us anymore because they don’t like the atmosphere he creates in the house. My parents think he doesn’t like them because of how he treats them, but he actually holds them in very high regard and looks forward to their visits. When they’re here he barely speaks to them and just disappears to our room.
Last year was breaking point for us. He had been getting more and more ill and depressed and his mum had come to visit. She noticed what was happening and offered to take him ‘home’ for a couple of weeks for respite for both me and him. Just after he left I felt like my whole world crashed around my ears and I ended up at the doctors crying and shaking and unable to coherently say what was wrong. I was put onto antidepressants and went for counselling sessions which helped me talk through what was happening in life and how I thought DH’s behaviour impacted all our lives. It was at this point I started to think about leaving. When he came back nothing had changed at all. However, I’ve managed to keep everything going this last year and a half but the strain is getting too much. I came off antidepressants about 4 months ago and have realised that I’ve been ignoring too much and I can’t stay on them forever just to be able to deal with DH. I saw my best friends over the summer and they couldn’t believe the huge hug they got when I saw them. I just felt so good to be held and felt like I was actually wanted and loved. I know the boys love me and give me huge hugs but there’s nothing like an adult hug from someone who loves you!
I do still love him and I worry about him and what will happen when I leave. But I can’t carry on with this – there’s little affection, no real input into life as a couple or family. He doesn’t talk to me other than about very academic subjects. He doesn’t listen to what I say to him. He is incapable of organising himself to do anything – if we go out I organise it, I organise holidays, his trips out with the DSs, basically I organise his life. We’ve stopped going out as a couple because I’m sick of having to organise it. In the family if I don’t do it it doesn’t get done and the strain is just too much. Add onto that trying to organise childcare and reminding him when he’s meant to be doing it. This is affecting my work as I have to keep taking time off or going in late or leaving early to cover what he has forgotten. He keeps telling me that he supports me in my career but I don’t get the feeling that he does. He seems angry when he has to take a day off to look after the children and keeps telling me he has so much on at work that he can’t take time off. I worry that this will get worse rather than better when we don’t live together, but at least then there isn’t the underlying strain in the house of him being quietly stressed and annoyed all the time about everything.
I’ve tried talking to him about all the issues, but he just says he’s tired and / or ill and that he’ll try harder, but he never does. I’m exhausted with it all and I think the boys and I would be happier without him there all the time. I don’t want to cut him out of our lives and I don’t want an acrimonious split. I just want to be happier.