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?

Your weekend sounds awful OP

Your poor dd. You are enabling him and a codependent. I hope you get the help you need to leave him.

I hope he doesn't drive.

If he's smoking pot daily, he's probably over the limit to drive. If he's ever stopped or involved in an accident, it will all come out then.

If he's drinking daily he probably shouldn't be driving as he could be over the limit.

The fact that he's doing both? I would be really disgusted if he was driving as he's probably under the influence.

Just think of the consequences if he's ever stopped by the police or involved in an accident.

My car was hit by someone driving under the influence. I nearly died and have suffered the consequences ever since as my health never recovered. I have NO sympathy for someone who drives under the influence. It's just a shame that it's usually someone else that suffers. In my case the other driver walked away without a scratch, whilst I was hospitalised for months.

If he's drinking/smoking pot at night he's probably still over the limit in the morning.

God forbid that you ever let him drive your dd around.

Obviously, if he doesn't or can't drive at all then you've nothing to worry about. I just wondered if you'd thought about this aspect of his drinking/drug use.

OP, the addict designating the non-addict as the problem spender is a common theme in relationships like yours. This isn't the first thread where a poster whose partner has a substance problem has posted something similar. It's a deflecting tactic, I think. It's possible you were a bit profligate on ML, most people try to reduce spending on inessentials then, but you'd have to be buying a fuck of a lot of flowers and bubble bath to be running £70 a week on them. And yet you're the one whose money wastage is problematised.

OP, if your partner has not and cannot go without pot or drink for one single day, that's the definition of an addict. He's addicted to pot and sounds like he's an alcoholic too.

Yes, he has mental health issues. All addicts do. He can change it if he wants to. But it doesn't sound like he wants to.

Addicts sometimes seek help when they reach rock bottom. Which means removing what (allegedly) matters most to them. In your case, you and your child. That might give him the push he needs.

You say that he loves you and your child more than he loves pot and drink. Why don't you put that to the test?

He's going to smoke your DD's Christmas presents like my dad drank mine.

I have no respect for you if you don't make any changes. It's these things that imprint forever on a child and I just feel so so sad for her, living in poverty/breadline due to just selfish choices.

I don't think I can post anymore because I find it upsetting. And so will your daughter when she is older

Your partner is an adult. He has the ability to take control of his life and his environment and he has choices to make.

Your daughter is a child. She has no ability to take control of her life or her environment and she has no choices or ability to change things. Moreover, what is happening to her now in these crucial early years will affect her for good or ill the whole of her life.

Yet you frame the issue (and the title of the thread) as concern over your partner, not your daughter.

Your daughter will never forgive you when she grows old enough to realize all this.

He's spent nearly £4,000 on himself in one year. 😳
You could take DD to Lapland to see Santa for that and still have spare change

There is skunk in the fucking house??!

Jesus, OP.

I'm sorry OP, I just have no idea how any loving mother can put an addicted and potentially dangerous and definitely neglectful husband before her own child, I just can't understand that. This is not a situation that can go on any longer for the sake of your DD.

Btw, I once knew a girl, a single mum and pothead, who got the fright of her life when her 4 year old DD came home from school and started chattering about "the brown stone" and how she had told Teacher about how Mummy had a brown stone in a box and you set it on fire.

Luckily Teacher didn't put two and two together but the Mum was scared straight and cleaned up her act. She realised how close she was sailing to the wind.

Unlike you.

misstress it's normal pot and skunk as well. The really smelly stuff that really sends him off to a world of his own

OP - I know its horrible and scary ending a relationship you thought you would be in for a lifetime, especially where the 2 of you have a child together. But if he is on skunk weed then your relationship has had it - skunk is the road to paranoia I can't begin to tell you how against it I am, how I've seen it reduce men to an unkempt, smelly shadow of themselves with less and less ambition or zest as time goes by, and often on road to mental health problems

Is there anybody at all who could get this through his head? Does he have a good mate, a brother? & it would have to be a final once and for all talk - I don't think he is going to listen to you as you've already been putting up with the way he is, and he is getting worse under your nose.

Perhaps leaving him will give him that wake up call. But with skunk involved? He may well just retreat further into himself and not try to get you back. It happens

He surely can't be attractive to you, if you're honest with yourself. I guess you miss the man he was/could have been. You need help and you must talk to drugs counselling services, even if you do that anonymously at first. You simply aren't qualified to have all the answers to this horrid situation.

Initially, the priority is your DD. No matter what, this is an irresponsible man who is making you poor, and impacting on your DD's life chances. He is an addict. In a couple of years she'll be ashamed of her dad. Children are very astute

You have to make the right choices, you will suffer a thousandfold if you don't. What are you going to do if Social Services land on you? You could lose your DD. Absolutely no man on this earth is worth that

Look at what Myusernameismyusername has shared - that could be your DD in years to come. Surely you can see it just isn't fair, its not just about you and your relationship with this man, its about your DD and you as her mother need to be her protector

Please look out for yourself and your DD, put yourselves first you are a mother. Do your best now

Myusernameismyusername

Your thread makes me so incredibly sad. For your little girl. Your description of a lovely family weekend is heartbreaking. If your DD went to a friend's house and her friend's parent started to drink alcohol and smoke weed from midday would you think this was in anyway acceptable? Please listen to the wise words of everyone above and get your little girl out of this unhealthy environment. Wishing you the strength to see your situation for what it is and do the right thing by you and your DD.

Just one thought of several possible: what if your daughter finds his stash of skunk and eats some? It could happen, particularly if he's in charge of her while you sleep and he's out of it and gets careless.

I think shock tactics are needed here. Leave him and tell him you won't be back unless he cleans up his act. You cannot carry on like this. And btw, if neighbours smell the drugs and call the Police, the Police WILL DEFINITELY inform SS. It is standard procedure if a child is in the home.

This exactly ^^

I think people are being a bit harsh on OP. Frightening her about the police/SS is not going to help.

I have quite a bit of experience with "potheads", OP, and I can't say it was good. They often are actually "addicted". It does change their personality negatively. Even if they are using it for self-medication, which some of them definitely are. Its very sad to see. My experience of it is that they can never really grow up or emotionally mature whilst using. As a strong drug it creates a bubble around them. Keeps reality out.

You sound like a good mother to me. I think you are just struggling to deal with this. There is a chance he will change. But you can't make him. Alot of skunk/weed addicts are very addicted and find it hard to quit. My guess is that you'll get sick of it well before that though ...

this is so sad. my ex smokes as well. done so for a long time. massive arguments as a result of his paranoia and jitteriness. we split a couple of years ago with me secretly hoping that would shake him up... now he got together with a woman who is as well a smoker . i'm so gutted. well, all i can say to myself now - stupid for having waited so long for him to get better and change his ways, to get a life, should've dumped him ages before!

It sounds like you are very very controlled by him. You really should consider counselling to support you at this point. You are making home the centre of your family, everything will be good if he has a good day. That is really damaging for your daughter even disregarding all the other issues.

The key fact is, you put him first, he puts weed first, which means nobody is putting your daughter first. To do that, you have to loosen the hold he has on you.

If you leave, and he sorts himself out, and then from that point on there's always a little sad part of him thinking you could leave again..... what's so bad with that? Most people have their limits: drinking, adultery, physical violence. You sound like you have no boundaries: for the sake of your daughter you need help developing them before she gets any older and to remove her from the situation she's in. I understand the feeling that if you can just say things a certain way, do things a certain way, then he'll change. It took me years, in a v different situation, to realise you are not responsible for someone else's mental health and you can't even influence it as much as you'd expect.

Prioritise your daughter, and after her, you, because you're the parent who has been protecting her as much as you can and in order for her to be protected as much as she needs she'll need you to be a lot stronger.

This thread must be really hard for you to read OP but I have to say, coming from someone who's been on the other side of this situation, I can't disagree with much of what's being said even though I sympathise with how hard it must be for you to read it. The risks from SS and the police are real and, although I know how easy it is to push them to the back of your mind and try to pretend they don't exist, you can't afford to ignore them. I did my best to shield my DD from the effects of my lifestyle but I was kidding myself, I still feel guilty every day for what I put her through but all I can do now is make sure she never has to suffer for my choices ever again.

What happened to us (me and DH were both addicts) as a result of our drug use was, in some ways, much worse than SS involvement but it was a short, sharp shock which well and truly woke me up to the mess I was making of DD's childhood and I'm very fortunate that she has escaped relatively unscathed, it could have been so much worse. I really hope you can find the strength to get your DD out before anything awful happens.

I agree with pp's about DP needing to experience rock bottom before he feels the incentive to change and that you and DD leaving might just be the shock he needs. What happened to us was my rock bottom, I almost lost everything I cared about and I can honestly say I'm sure I would still be back there, doing drugs and living that life if it hadn't happened.

I also agree that you have to stop worrying about hurting DP by leaving, he is hurting you and DD every day by using weed and alcohol and refusing to get help for his underlying issues and he is choosing to do this because it's easier for him. He doesn't want to deal with things properly because that's the harder route and he doesnt care that it comes at yours and DD's expense. He is absolutely not putting you and DD first so you will have to, your little girl deserves that from at least one of her parents.

Sorry OP, I know I've been harsher in this post than my previous ones but it comes out of concern for you and from me wanting to give you a push to keep going in the right direction. I know how hard this is for you but I also know it's what he needs if he's ever going to sort himself out, he needs to feel that the repercussions of carrying on as he is are worse than facing up to his problems and there is only one way to help him do that and that is to leave, at least in the short term.

Please don't think I'm unsympathetic to your situation, I'm anything but. I'm also something of a hypocrite because I was the actual source of the problem for my DD, the only difference is that I've managed to turn it around and I'm doing everything in my power now to give her a good, stable, normal life. You can't force your DP to do the same, but you can protect DD and give DP the incentive to change things for himself and your family, you just have to hope he grabs the chance with both hands.

If he doesn't you have no choice but to build a separate life for you and DD but you can't do that and prop him up at the same time. You need to be away from him short term to build your strength and give yourself chance to see things as they really are without his needs blurring your view and sapping your energy. I look back on my time as an addict and just think 'what a waste', all those years living that 'half life' you mentioned, don't let that be you years down the line, especially when it's not even your addiction you and DD are suffering for

I've tried my hardest here to listen and learn from all these posts. I know and hope the majority of you are trying to give me a sharp wake up call rather than to just twist the knife. I'm not at all happy with the situation I've found myself in and it's dawning on me that only I can change it. The description of our 'lovely' family Sunday seen through your eyes has been an eye opener. maybedoctor your description seen through a professionals eyes was chilling simply because put that way it sounds neglectful and wrong. And also because I can't argue and tell you that's not how it was because I've already written it all out. I'm not having a go. Sincere thanks for your post. It got through!!

I'm still catching up on the thread so will read on and post some more.

notverylucky no he doesn't drive. A close family member of mine has just been banned for drug driving so I know it's taken very seriously.

Ok more posters think my weekend sounded not as good as I thought. It sounds a bit pathetic now to say 'but he cooked for us and came to the playground'! God, maybe dd deserves more

myuser I'm so sorry. I can see why you've lost patience with me. I will not let your experience be dd's . Your posts have been insightful and are finally getting through.

mistress and everyone else raising the skunk issue. He always tries to make out its as 'harmless' as the pot yet he has to get it from a proper dealer and not 'that guy down the pub' with the homegrown stuff. I thought its bad rep was media hype. It is according to him

RedStripeLass, I do get why you are so over considerate with your DP, you feel sorry for him because of his metal issues, don't you? It's your sympathy and love for him that makes you appreciate the good things in your relationship and close your eyes to the drugs and drink. Of course it's hard for you to be "objective", you're in the middle of it. But it's not fair what he is doing, he is not being a good partner to you or a good father to your DD.

I'm sure he's very good at convincing himself that what he's doing is okay and acceptable. But you have lived like this for a while, and it's your normal.

appal I think his feelings do consume me and worry me. Is that controlling? I'd hate to speak against him and upset him.

hiding thanks for all your insightful posts as someone that's been there. What I'm learning is that I'm far too invested in his feelings and that I need to consider dd's welfare more than I actually am. I don't want to let her down.

I'm going to have another frank talk with him and ask him if he's even considered the idea that our situation is so potentially harmful that social services would take an interest. If he takes the piss and is dismissive or more likely gets affronted and defensive/angry then I'll have a bot more fuel to make some big and potentially permanent changes.