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?

I know he won't change - he is an addict, FFS he even admitted it to you. Drugs and booze will ALWAYS come 1st with him, not you or DD.

I doubt that you will do anything concrete about leaving him.

She is going to see drugs as normal and will grow up being part of that lifestyle where even family parties are where adults take drugs in front of the kids. It all screams Shameless.

Three Questions:

Is this the best you want for your daughter?

Does your daughter deserve better than this?

Are you really do the best you can as a mum for your daughter?

This whole thread is awful and tragic but worse than your DPs addiction is you minimising how shit this situation is for your child.

No child deserves to grow up amongst this type of shit. You need to put your daughter before your partners needs and your wants.

You should be getting your daughter away from this situation and if that means you have to leave then that's what you need to do. No ifs ands or buts.

Your trying hard to keep your family together but the bottom line is your current family situation is too fucked up to be bringing up a child in.

I'm being blunr cos there is no sugar coating. Your partner has had a shit year. He's struggling to cope but he is an adult and does have choices or options. Your daughter does not have any choice or any option. Her only hope right now is that someone in RL reports your situation to SS.

That's it. That really is where you are with this.

Its shit all round but your daughter needs to come first.

November
No
Yes
No

I'm really not a bad or dangerous Mum and I love dd miles more than dh. I know I should make more of an effort to show it as active love. I don't know what's wrong with me.

Tbh it comes across as you utterly adore him. That he is the centre of your world.

It also comes across as if he is your son, and you will never ever give up on him, the way Mums can't.

You are afraid.
Which is normal.
But it's time to face your fears

So just to summarise:-

He drinks and smokes pot every single day
He spends so much on his drugs that you are struggling to pay basic bills, you fret about putting the heating on and you had to rely on charity to get her a winter coat
He smashes things in the house
He make "jokes" about raping you
The best example you could give of a lovely family day out involved you both taking her to the park and him sitting on a bench drinking beer
Your families idea of a nice family friendly party involves large amounts of alcohol, drugs being smoked in the house around the children, one family member obviously coked up. It had a buffet though so that is nice.

And your version of a win is that he didn't get quite stoned enough to wet the bed.

I genuinely want to cry now thinking of your dd.

There is RL help for you. Womens Aid, Al Anon, your family have offered a temporary place to stay and work some time off. There is legal, benefits and housing advice available.

elsbeth I do adore him too. I don't like saying that on here because I know I'll be jumped on.

username I'm terrified!!!! I don't exactly know why but I am.

dozer I've been to two al anons now and also seen the HV and CAB. I know about woman's aid but they've got seriously abused people to cater for. My friend used them a few years back so I know all about what they do.

Your adoration is just that it's so totally unhealthy. Adoring someone to this level when you get barely nothing is return is like burning £10 notes (you might as well be). It's ok to adore your DP if that's how you feel but surely someone has to be worthy of adoration? You want to fix him and you need to be the one who does. That is co-dependency

It's not clear what you're waiting for. He's told you clearly he has no intention of giving up the drink\drugs.

Your social life does not sound fun for you, ie. you're pushed into the sensible, 'boring' role, you're struggling financially and he doesn't care. Christmas will be tight & he'll get wasted.
But most importantly your DD is not growing up in an healthy environment. She will think all this is normal. If it carries on there is a high chance she'll go down the same route, getting wasted all the time. She'll grow up believing it's normal for men ( as you said in your previous post it was the men getting properly wasted) to do this and for women to 'cope' and pick up the pieces and carry on.

It's great that you're an optimist, could you not put some of this optimism into a new life for you and your DD?

red I can see the truth in this: I really feel like I've made significant changes inside myself Things have shifted slightly in your own mind, that is a good thing.

However, you didn't write just that, you wrote myself and for dd but that is incorrect red Things have shifted in your mind but nothing has changed in real life. Well, he has started paying his half of the bills but nothing has changed in actual living circumstances. DD's life is exactly the same.

He is still smoking and drinking £70 a week then bitching to you about paying the postage on the stuff you are selling on eBay to pay for the basics. He could hand you the £70 instead of giving it to his dealer. He could have bought DD a coat or Christmas presents or paid the electricity bill instead of giving money to his dealer again and again and again.

No real life changes that affect DD have happened.

Yes, your mind has to shift first, but don't fool yourself into thinking that you have already improved anything for DD. You haven't. Not yet. You can. But you haven't yet.

Red, you are ebaying things to pay for your daughter's Christmas. Meanwhile, he is smoking away 70 pounds every week. And denying that there is anything wrong financially.

He has acknowledged that he is an addict, and has told you loud and clear that he won't change. Not for you, not for your daughter.

I understand that you are besotted. But really, the man you think you love is not the man you are living with.

If you intend to stay with him (and destroy your life in the process) I would implore you to place your child for adoption. She deserves a better life than this utter shit you are giving her.

Fuck me! Dd is going nowhere. That's well out of order. I'm actually crying atthe thought.

all that o can hope is that I ultimately keep the momentum going to keep slowly moving things forward so dd doesn't have to live like this forever

What does moving forward look like? Where are you now, where will you go next, where will you end up?

What will DD's life be like when you change things for her?

red Women's Aid is definitely for women like you. Women stay in bad bad situations with their children because they are terrified. Could you get yourself to a Freedom Programme meeting?

That may not, ultimately, be your decision to make

I'm sorry to make you cry, Red. But your daughter is being brought up in a horrible environment, and you are not making the right choices for her. I'm sorry, but when you become a parent you cease to be the priority. You may adore (in a really unhealthy way) your partner, but your daughter should come first.

Social Services could remove your daughter at any point now. And to be perfectly honest, they would be fully justified in doing so.

all that I can hope is that I ultimately keep the momentum going to keep slowly moving things forward so dd doesn't have to live like this forever

You don't have to hope for anything, Red. It's entirely up to you. You are entirely responsible for what happens. And no, a slow momentum is not remotely enough. It's letting your child down disgracefully.

She will 'live like this forever' if that is what she learns as being normal during her formative years.

I'm really not a bad or dangerous Mum and I love dd miles more than dh

Really? That is not coming across in your posts. This environment you are keeping her in is dangerous and bad - drugs, alcohol, dealers, financial abuse, aggression, grumpy moods etc. Nothing about the situation is good.

You cannot seem to prioritise your DD's needs for a safe and stable environment.

This reason is often why children get removed - a good mum would be taking her out of the situation instead of making excuses, minimising, denying etc.

My heart breaks for your DD.

You are also relying on someone else in this apparent momentum who doesn't want to change. Are you hoping to change him by stealth methods?

Maybe you need to write down a clear list of your intended goals during this momentum and see if they are realistic.

If they involve trying to show him a better life by slowly changing his life from underneath him then I think this is not only a huge mistake but a mammoth amount of effort and a huge risk.

1. Write down a list of how you would like life to look like
2. A list of what you need to do to get there
3. A list of what you can actually achieve if you remain in this current situation

We are nearing 1000 messages. Red, I understand that this is very hard for you. But we all are saying these things because you are so involved in your awful situation that you can't see things clearly.

It sounds like you have absolutely no support in your real life right now. If people are writing on this thread, it's because we care for you and your daughter.

We'll all still be here if you start a new thread.

I'm sorry to sound harsh but if I knew who you were and where you lived I'd be reporting you to SS. You. Yes your partner is a mess, but you are the one who enables him and with full understanding of the repercussions, keeps your daughter in that miserable and fetid environment. You.

The things you think are nice - he cooked you a roast (after getting stoned at the playground) and he only got a little bit wasted and the next morning he played with his daughter (instead of pissing the bed and being an arsehole) are so pathetic that it scares me what your threshold for acceptable is. You are putting him and your fantasy of him above everything else, especially your daughter. Go ahead and throw your life away to pointless optimism indulging and excusing your worthless husband but don't ruin your daughters life as well

If my child was at risk, I would be running for the hills with her.

You seem to think that because you are a nice smiley mummy who loves your dd it will make a difference when SS eventually come knocking it won't they will see a woman who puts her DH's needs before her daughters.
You are failing to keep her safe you are ruining her future mental health and setting her a very bad example of how relationships work.

To be shopping in charity shops and worrying if you can pay the rent while he spends 70.00 a week on weed, then god knows how much on beer and fags it's disgusting.

We all have bereavements, we all have health issues you should tell him next time he moans about needing the weed to help him cope with the loss of his dad, that his dad would be rolling in his grave if he could see what sort of man he turned into.

You should also take a good hard look at yourself and get yourself and dd away.

red it is true that this might be taken out of your hands by SS fairly soon. Things have changed in a way that put you more at risk of that now.

In the last year DH's addiction has worsened. It has been noticed by his work and by his family enough that they are commenting and making little interventions. His addiction has been noticed by your DD's friends' parents enough that they won't come to your house. Everyone in your block of flats can see and smell him smoking every single day.

DD can talk now, much more than a year ago. She is at the age where children playact mummies and daddies at nursery. Children love to play "parties". When she picks up a carrot at nursery and pretends it is a spliff saying "I'm the Daddy", questions will be asked. When they come to your house, when they speak to family, you will look very bad indeed if you carry on as you are.

I know you are terrified of SS but not yet as much as you are terrified of leaving DH.

Use your fear of SS to force yourself to make concrete plans to take DD away from this environment. Get ready for when you will have to show hard evidence of actual changes you personally are making that have a direct impact on DD's life.

Remember it must be the kind of evidence that would hold weight in court when you are making the appeal to have her given back to you.

Red I've read the whole thread.

Please see what others are saying. Nothing has changed. Your DD is still at risk.

The pot smoking at family events in not normal. I am not anti pot however we have a relative who has parties JUST as you described them and for that reason I will NOT take my daughter. They only happen a few times a year but I will not expose her to it. Before my DD I used to smoke pot 3/7 nights a week. As soon as I found out I was pregnant I stopped and I haven't since. I would rather go without than risk her being taken away from us. That's the difference between me and your DH. I stopped. I put my DD first. My DH used to smoke with me. He now doesn't at all either. If he had continued we wouldn't be together. Life as a couple is very different to one as a family. Then decisions only impacted on us. They now impact on our DD too.

Where money is concerned-
£70 a week on pot and drink is ridiculous when you can't pay your electric. When money was super tight a year ago I gave up hair cuts, new clothes, little treats etc and my DH made packed lunches, didn't buy new shoes he didn't need etc. We always paid the bill and DD was always in clothes that fit and were appropriate for the weather.

Please go to your mums. Allow you both to be safe. Let him do whatever he's going to do. Because it's not going to change. And it's heartbreaking that your DD will think that it's normal for a woman and child to be treated as you both are.