My DP doesn't look after his mind, body or soul.

[RedStripeLass]

I'm at a loss with how to help him. He's 35, we have a 3 year old daughter who was very much planned, both work in our careers of choice yet I'm worried we are crashing and burning.

Where do I start.... When we met 8 years ago he was fun, popular and a real laugh to be around. Now he's sullen, moody and tired all of the time. I mean all of the time. Any extra time in the day will be spent in bed. He never sees friends anymore. He doesn't appear to even have friends anymore.

He doesn't shave and doesn't even wash more than a couple of times a week. I'm making sure he wears clean clothes. He doesn't eat much or properly despite me cooking for him and is, I think, underweight.

He's suffered ill health and bereavement this year but will not face up to anything bad. I'd love him to access some counceling but he is entirely resistant to even the suggestion.

He drinks and smokes pot every single night till he's asleep. He works in the service industry and I know both are ingrained in this world but it's no longer social. I'll enjoy a drink with him a few nights a week but I'm not a smoker. He is sinking over £70 a week smoking pot on his own in the garden. How sad is that? We are so poor at the moment it breaks my heart.

I'm sure he's suffering from depression but he will not indulge in even the slightest bit of self reflection.

Where do I go from here? The whole sorry situation has now caused me to suffer with anxiety and I'm getting tired of propping our family unit up. I'd love to expand our little family but rationally thinking, everything tells me I can't bring another child into this till he's well. How on earth do you make someone access therapy?

Never alone with her in the evening but frequently does the nursery drop off and has an afternoon with her. He can be great sometimes and when I say smoking I mean cigarettes.

No it makes total sense and I get why it pissed you off so much, it's utterly lazy parenting and yet another way in which he puts weed before his child. Would it be really unhealthy and unhelpful advice to suggest you write down all these 'little' incidents to help you keep that anger going and give you the strength to leave or make him go?

I want to pick up on myuser's point as well. I've held off from posting this, partly because I've posted about it before on other threads and partly because I didn't know if it would help or make things worse for you but maybe now is the time.

I've mentioned before that something fairly catastrophic happened to make me stop using drugs and it illustrates myuser's point perfectly. I'll cut a very long story short but basically everyone in our area knew we smoked weed, DH even dealt a bit from time to time when we were skint and the local scumbags obviously realised we might have something worth stealing. So they kicked our front door in at 1am, six of them in balaclavas armed with knives and a gun and they ransacked our house, robbed us and beat the shit out of DH. At one point 2 of them were upstairs while the others searched downstairs and kept me and DH in the living room at gunpoint. Upstairs where my 4 year old DD was supposed to be safe in her bed. I could hear her crying but they wouldn't let me go to her, I knew there were men in masks waving knives around and I couldn't get to her.

I'm not going to go on about it because I doubt I need to go into detail about what that did to me, suffice to say everything changed for me that night. And that's what makes me so sure that you have to get your DD away from the life your DH is forcing you both to live. Any association with people who deal drugs is dangerous, what if he can't pay them at some point? Thats why I mentioned consequences other than SS or the police early on in this thread, illegal drugs bring a whole range of risks into your life that most people who smoke a bit of weed don't even consider.

I'm not trying to scare you Red but if reading about what happened to me might be the thing that finally pushes you into action then it was worth telling you my story.

So when he lights his first joint at 4.30 that's usually as soon as you get home?

Ah well at least he is sober in the afternoons when he has her just a completely crap parent even when he isn't stoned/pissed... eesh...

Oh God hiding I was wondering and wrongly guessed it was something to do with the authorities.
I'm so sorry that happened to you and your family and hope to God it will never be us.

You have to stop thinking that he is going to be a 'normal' parent.

He isn't.

Ah hiding I remember you posting that on another thread. Really awful for you

I don't deserve your sympathy Red, there was no one to blame for what happened but me and DH, we chose to expose ourselves and our DD to those risks and it will always be my greatest shame that I put her through that. I sincerely hope nothing like that ever happens to you but I do want you to see that it could, I hope that knowledge will make you even more determined to get DD away.

It made me turn my life around and we've been incredibly lucky, DD barely remembers and our housing association moved us away from the area. It gave us an entirely fresh start and I'm weirdly glad it happened now, I don't doubt we would still be there, in the same old stoned rut if it hadn't. I doubt your DH will change a single thing either until his life falls apart, that's why I've said I think he needs to feel the loss of you and DD to give him a reason to tackle his addiction.

You can change yours and DD's life though, you can remove those risks from her life completely, I hope you can find the strength.

Was your fault re the risk hiding but certainly the violence you and your family were exposed to was firmly the fault and responsibility of the thugs who attacked you. What appalling human beings.

Really awful for my DD Offred, I deserved it, she didn't.

They were utter scum though, yes.

Eesh I can't agree. There is nothing you could have done to 'deserve' that really IMO. An awful experience for you all, yes most especially for DD who had done nothing to contribute to the risk of it happening and was just subject to yours and DH's choices but still, can't and will never agree that you and DH deserved that.

I think the much bigger risk is DH being carted off by the police in front of DD when he lights up at a children's playground and SS removing her from both of your care while they assess whether she is safe to be with you red.

Wouldn't be likely to happen if you reported it to SS but if it is reported by someone else maybe.

red You don't have to hope it will never be you. You can make it not happen to you. It will only happen if you live with the drug addict.

Did you find yourself doing some mad minimising when you read hidings story, like "oh no, dp would never do anything with properly nasty dealers that might do something like that to us. He loves us too much." If you did think that, you know it's bollocks, right?

Why would you have to move far away and give up work? Isn't there any flat near enough work and nursery that you could rent, even if were stupidly tiny?

You want maintainable anger? Ask your friends who won't bring their children to your place what they think of him.

If "not being that family" motivates you, then a conversation with them will put a hell of a rocket under you I expect.

You're very kind Offred I guess feeling the weight of my contribution to what happened is what makes me determined not to ever go back though so a little self blame is probably a good thing in my case

I did wonder hiding but I also think (apart from rabid daily fail types) no-one is ever going to seriously think you deserved that And no-one is ever going to blame you as much as you blame yourself.

I hope you'll be able to let go of a bit of the unreasonably high burden of responsibility you are taking on one day but I understand you feeling doing that protects you from ever going there again.

I have to agree with rabbit there Red, your DH is the one putting you and DD at risk but it's totally within your power to remove that risk by removing him from your lives. As I keep saying it doesn't have to be forever if he sorts himself out but separating from him for now really is the only way to force a change.

YY and not just force a change re the possibility that he might consider giving up and seeking help but forcing a change in DDs home life by getting her away from a life surrounded by drugs and drink.

I'm only 3 years on so far Offred, I'm only just starting to believe my new life is real so yes, maybe one day but not just yet. I wish I could get across how amazing it is not to be 'that family' anymore to you Red. I still have to battle my addiction some of the time but my life is a dream now compared to how it was and I can't help but want that for you and your DD. And, if I'm honest, for your DH too. There must be a good man in there for you to have stayed and I honestly believe you leaving him might be his only chance of the wake up call that could bring that man back.

Well I just think you are very brave to have made the changes and also to share your story so often with other people.

I honestly don't know how you managed recovery from an addiction and a trauma as awful as that at the same time - real strength of character. Plenty of people would have understood if you had just given up and sunk into a drug fuelled haze. But you didn't, so I am really very confident that you have the strength to keep on keeping on.

I don't feel like I was strong Offred, just reeling from the shock in the days after it happened to the point where I couldn't think about eating, drinking or smoking! And then the reality of what my lifestyle had led to and what could have happened if they'd used those knives sank in and it scared me so much I was more afraid of where I might end up if I carried on using than the unpleasantness of withdrawal. I did use a couple of times in the weeks after the robbery but I was in such a state mentally it just made me ultra paranoid. I think it even caused mild psychosis the last time, I heard voices I knew weren't real and that was the final nail in the coffin, I haven't used since. I get tempted sometimes, my DGM died a couple of weeks ago and I've struggled a bit since but I'm learning to manage stressful times differently these days. I had PTSD type anxiety for months after the robbery so, when I started to struggle last week, I went back to the GP and asked for the same medication I was on back then. I'm a different person basically and that's good because I really didn't like who I used to be, it's taking time but I'm learning to like the person I am now.

Dear god how hideous. :(

I think that because drugs are associated with being 'anti-establishment' and left-wing in some way, the use of them is seen as a victimless crime. But it is not, as it is connected to horrible, horrible crime as described by hiding. The President of Columbia was on tv the other day saying that every line of cocaine has been directly supporting the FARC rebels who have terrorised Columbia for 50 years. Even down to the fact that cannabis farms in the UK steal huge amounts of electricity by bypassing meters - how does that impact on prices for the average family?
I don't know much about the trade but anything that is so closely linked to crime, prostitution and exploitation is by definition nasty, nasty stuff.

Its not a victimless crime and people who convince themselves otherwise make me sad. Anything that involves illegal activity runs hugely greater risks, crime, violence etc. People are stabbed and beaten in the street in the U.K. every week for owing money or other drug related reasons.

I think you should be proud of how far you have come hiding, really you should.

I have some scary stories about people I have known, not myself personally. A relatives DH got himself very deeply into drug debt with the wrong people and his wife and children were followed and threatened. He lost everything to pay off the debt including his family.

But I can see how easy it is to slide into that world and not know how to get back out. It's just the children have no choice, and often the drug user will hide the extent of debts and problems from friends and family and it's pretty much always the friends and family who are the last to know how bad it has got in a very nasty way.

hiding you're so brave. It sounds like you completely turned your life around. The whole dealer thing seems so harmless when it's that nice guy from the pub whose 9yr old dd dotes on our little girl. It doesn't feel seedy. However the dodgy bloke he buys the stronger stuff from urgh! It's a horrible industry especially the hard drugs. People suffer throughout the chain.

I feel like such a fool today as I messed up big time last night. I took some strong pain relief in the day and that combined with being tired meant I fell fast asleep whilst cooking dh some food (he was working v late) and had a candle lit. He came back to cremated food and the candle still lit so was quite rightly fuming that I could have burnt the flat down. Now I'm the unfit parent