My husband and I have been together 20years and have three young children. My husband used to be relatively relaxed, happy and fun but not anymore. His depression started around the time our eldest child was born, we had family issues at the time, a death in the family among other things and his depression has got steadily worse over the last 8 years. Since then he has become very insular, thoughtless to others and convinced his life is so hard and that everyone is against him. In reality he has a very supportive family, three wonderful children a good job, nice home etc.
He refuses to discuss any problems or issues we may have, always either storming off or shouting and swearing at me turning it around to be my fault whatever the issue is. He is so critical of the children, rarely giving any praise. He shouts at them a lot, by this is apparently my fault. Their behaviour is learnt from me and he shouts because of their behaviour so it is my fault?!. (They are actually well behaved good kids). It is noticeably more so for our eldest child, he constantly nags and tries to micromanage almost everything he does, it's relentless. This is definitely having an effect on our son and he has even asked me before if Daddy likes him. It breaks my heart that things have got like this.
My husband has been threatening to walk out once every few months for the last 5 years or so. It has only been recently that I have thought of telling him to go. There was an incident late last year where our son was a little noisy (he only dropped something) and huband yelled, shouted, made him sit on the floor tor 20 mins whilst telling him off, saying that he wasn't going to raise a child to be rude, ignorant, disrespectful, trying to break things...the thing that made alarm bells ring for me was when he said "you should count yourself lucky that you are just a little boy right now" as though there was a threat of something worse when older.
Since then there has been nothing as dramatic and my husband has finally been to the GP and is now on antidepressants. They seem to be helping his mood most of the time and he is making more of an effort with me but not so much with the kids. The criticism really worries me. What will it be like for them 5 years down the line if it continues to get worse.
I feel like I am trapped with no real options. If I stay it may continue as it is or get worse. I can cope with his mood swings and criticism but it is not good for the kids. My son is already struggling with his anger, shouting slamming doors etc. Like he has seen daddy do. I don't want him thinking this is how he should treat women and children or for my daughter too think this is how men are entitled to treat her. I've been thinking of suggesting marriage counselling. May not help but if it means he has to listen without storming off that cou be a good starting point?
If I leave with the kids/ask him to go I worry that he will try to get as much access as possible. I can't see him being amicable in the slightest (he can be pretty spiteful) and I can't see him agreeing to having the kids every other weekend. I think he'd want a 50/50 split just because he could and then I think it would be much worse for the kids. At least at the moment I am there to give love, support and help any time and I am a buffer when their dad is in a bad mood and being rude & critical. If they were with him half the week it would be constant for them and I truly believe my daughter couldn't cope emotionally with it. She's struggled emotionally this year and I think it would be too much and her dad would just end up shouting at her for not c sleeping, waking at night, crying etc and she would become hysterical. Our youngest Is only tiny and very clingy to me so couldn't spend nights away.
I'm a stay at home mum and have no savings so I'm sure that would go against me in terms of trying to get the kids with me full time as I couldn't support them except with benefits at the moment.
Has anyonebeen in a similar situation? How did things turn out? What would you do?