Help with stressed/depressed DH

[EmotionalOverload]

Hi I’ve name changed for this.

I am feeling so sad right now. Please don’t respond to this with ‘LTB’ - I am not going to do that and it’ll only make me feel worse.

DH comes from an abusive background. He has been verbally abusive in arguments from the start (guess what I normalised it because my own boundaries were warped). He also - only during arguments - is manipulative and gaslights. He does not really realise he is doing this. It is the only way he has known how to argue and in fact was used to much worse inc witnessing/receiving physical abuse.

Outside of arguments he is kind, soft hearted, dependable, thoughtful, works hard, encourages me to have my own interests and friends.

A few years ago he went through a huge emotional trauma related to his family. It was like a piece of him died and has never come back. He was depressed for a very long time. Now he exists in an almost constant low mood. He refuses to accept it is an issue and has never taken steps to deal with it. He is increasingly stressed by work and it is turning him into a very agitated, stressed, miserable shell of himself.

He frequently speaks in an aggressive tone to me - without being angry at me - has a short fuse, doesn’t seem to care how much he is sucking out of me from the constant low mood.

Tonight was another argument. He blew up at me simply because he hadn’t explained what he wanted me to do and got frustrated that I wasn’t doing it.

When I try to bring it up with him he resorts to insults and shouting.

I don’t know how to make this better. Currently locked him out of the bedroom - I expect he will try to force it open - and have gone through options. I won’t leave him because the rest of it is good. I know to many of you that sounds like it’s not good enough but I like this relationship - minus the shift in mental/emotional status of DH. I am thinking perhaps to say I will have not more to do with him until he seeks help. But I don’t think he will. And I don’t have the energy to keep up silent treatment for weeks on end. It will do more harm than good.

Any advice please that is not LTB would be great.

What are you prepared to do? You suggest an ultimatum but know you won’t leave him and he won’t get help. So what’s left? Stealth counselling ? which with all due respect even if you were qualified would be inappropriate in a relationship. There aren’t a lot of options.

I suppose maybe living apart until he seeks treatment and begins to heal his MH. In the meantime you just be together when he is in control. Is this an option? But bear in mind he might not get control and he might get sicker.

I also recommend you seek some help for yourself and learn about stress and depression. It might help with your responses. Then again you don’t know what is wrong with him, you are guessing.

Personally I wouldn’t live with someone who behaved like this and I wouldn’t stay with someone who refused to seek medical help.

Well there is your answer
"He refuses to accept it is an issue and has never taken steps to deal with it."
There is nothing you can do
You cannot treat him
So you put up with it or
You can march him to gp (But you cannot make him seek help. He has to want to. ) or
You give him ultimatum
You choose.
But don't ruin your life and mental well being for some0ne who won't get help

Not sure what you are really asking for? Tips on living with/putting up with someone who is short tempered, shouty, negative and unwilling to do anything to change? I doubt many people have much advice to give.

Do you have children?

Have you considered that this is his true self? The supportive, easy going, loving partner was all an act? The act of a deeply damaged unhappy person desperately trying to behave as they thought they should, in order to keep a person they loved happy?

Short of the length of time he's been depressed, he sounds similar to my DH. Crap upbringing, lovely and supportive, horrible in an argument, hair trigger when stressed.. I love my DH and we have DC together so I'm not leaving. But I have had to grieve the loss of the relationship I thought I had.

My advice to you is to set boundaries now. It's been going on too long and his behaviour has become too unpleasant towards you. You should never be having to barricade yourself into a locked bedroom, regardless of how depressed or stressed your partner is.

The silent treatment isn't going to help either. You have to sit down with him when he's calm and state what is unacceptable behaviour. As soon as the argument starts or his tone is off, you calmly state that he is doing X again and to stop. Walk away don't engage. Let him put 2+2 together.

Ultimately what you put up with is what you get. So be careful what you put up with.

If you have DC then please make sure they are not witnessing any of this, or the abuse cycle is simply continuing. Abuse doesn't have to be physical for DC to be damaged by witnessing it.

I'm sorry OP.

Thank you to everyone who has replied particularly red for some helpful pointers.

Yes it’s true I’m asking a difficult question and it hinges on what am I prepared to put up with?

The trouble is if you had asked me a decade ago I would have said if someone was like this I would walk it’s a no brainer. But when you’ve built a life with someone, and have 2 dc and love them and know they do love you it’s not just as simple as just walk out. There is a lot more to lose than just a labour partner.

I did talk to him and for the first time ever he has accepted that he doesn’t want to be like this or feel this way and will consider help. Actually getting help will be another step.

I think back a lot to when we first got together. I had no idea how a relationship was meant to work having witnessed an emotionally and financially abusive relationship my whole life. So DH seemed so much better than what was my norm. Now when I’m older I wish I had been able to set better boundaries back then but I can’t change that.

I don’t think this is the real him. I think it is a part of him that comes out when he feels overwhelmed and extremely stressed and given what’s happened a few years ago I can see why.

I think the only way forward for me is to reset boundaries now. See where that leads. Hopefully it will lead to a good outcome.

Labile not labour!

What do you like about this relationship exactly?. What is in this for you?

You talk about this not being the real him. I think this is the real him, the one you are seeing now and the one who targeted you to abuse. He is an abuser who uses you as the scapegoat for all his inherent ills. You talk about the rest of it being good - utter rubbish. Its not good at all. I think you are also denying your own truth here in that is it not. The coffee may be still sweet to you but it still tastes of shit even though you try and add more sugar to it.

Do you know who you are or has all that been subsumed further by this person?.

Do not set yourself on fire to keep another person warm. That is really what you are doing now. Resetting boundaries won't help because yours are still far too low as it is. Also he won't accept any boundary you care to set him. You can give all the excuses for him that you please but there is no justification for his abuses of you. He does this too because he can.

You do realise that the only acceptable level of abuse in a relationship is none?.

What did you yourself learn about relationships when you were growing up?. From the little you write about your own past it is apparent that you sadly learnt a lot of damaging lessons on relationships.

Your comment:-
"I had no idea how a relationship was meant to work having witnessed an emotionally and financially abusive relationship my whole life"

And you still don't re the first part of your comment.
This is in part how you ended up with you going from one abusive relationship to yet another one in the shape of this man now. Your boundaries, already messed with thoroughly because of this previous relationship, have been further screwed over by this person you are now with. This man furthermore saw an easy target in you to bring further down and played further on your own insecurities and fears. I have no doubt whatsoever that you were deliberately targeted by this individual. He did the nice act on you but the nice/nasty act you see from him now is really all part of the cycle of abuse which is a continuous one. Many people as well go through all sorts of traumatic events and choose not to act as he has done. They do not choose to gaslight (psychological abuse) or do the silent treatment (itself an example of emotional abuse) on their partner.

Your previous abuser put on an act to draw you in and this one has done very similar this time around.

You have a choice re this man; your children do not. Would you want them to have a relationship like yours?. What are you teaching them about relationships here, look at the rubbish you yourself were taught. You want this for them too?. Those lessons are still with you to this very day and your children are now absorbing those too.

With this man you've basically gone from say a level 9 abuser to a lower level abuser or slightly different type of bloke, but he is an abuser of you all the same. He is likely telling you as well what you want to hear re seeking help. He has not done so yet and is unlikely to ever do so. Some therapy sessions won't help him; he would need years of therapy and many abusive people do not do well at all in therapy. He is happy as he is and sees he has done nothing wrong with regards to you here. This is who he is and he is not for changing.

You can only change how you react to him.

Sounds like my ex OP. I loved him, cared about him and wanted to help him. Sadly, he didnt want to help himself, drank more, became more isolated, more depressed. I got him appointments with the doctors, started on anti d's, arranged therapy (he had one session). Boundaries didn't work, in the 6 months before I left he wrote me a very heart felt letter apologising for spitting in my face and calling me a cunt in front of the kids because I dared asked him what he wanted to do that day. He said he understood why I was so upset and wanted to leave, he knew his behaviour was bad. 3 months later things got much much worse, because he knew I wanted to leave (hand round throat, screaming at me in front of the kids for innocous little things) etc.

In the end I had to save myself and the kids. I had to leave. Heartbreaking as it was, we are all much happier, he is still as miserable. My boys are now 11 and 7, I did not want them growing up thinking that was normal. Its not. It really isnt.

Set boundaries, ask him to have therpay to save your marriage, get him to see the GP. If he won't, you have your answer and Im afraid you will have to live like this forever. Everyone has a breaking point, perhaps you haven't met your yet?

Oh and I used to say "I dont think he realises hes doing it". He did and does, he just choses who he controls it around.

And what is so awful to you about leaving that you cannot contemplate it. Fear of him, the sunken costs fallacy, money, fear of the unknown here. What is really stopping you from taking that course of action at all?. Its probably all this and more besides but no obstacle is insurmountable. You are your own biggest obstacle to leaving him here.

Attila you are projecting.

No he did not target me - you know nothing about how we got together

How exactly do you get to be the judge of whether the rest of my relationship is in your words ‘utter rubbish’

And without knowing very much at all you decided that I don’t know who I am anymore..!

You missed the point by a long shot.

Have you considered what you have to got lose if you stay. If he won't get treatment he will become sicker. He will be a danger to you and your children and you will all be damaged. Your responsibility is not to him but to them. They should not grow up in this environment. Don't even think it is hidden, its not.

He knows what he is doing, even if just after the fact and not in the moment. But he doesn't care enough to leave and to get help. This is what a decent person would do. He is selfish and would rather put you and your children in danger than deal with it. He is basically the equivalent of a contagion staying in your home infecting all because he won't get help.

If anyone is projecting here its your H. Not me. Do you readily dismiss what other posters are saying too?.

You are describing an abusive relationship. There is no justification or excuse acceptable for his actions against you and in turn your kids.

You can believe what you want but the truth is that your kids are seeing all this from you two and they will be affected profoundly by it. Its they who I feel the most sorry for apart from you actually.

I clearly hit a nerve with you, for that I am sorry but the truth does hurt and this will come back to bite you hard on your ass at some point going forward. The scales will really fall from your eyes then.

Currently locked him out of the bedroom - I expect he will try to force it open
I can't think of any advice you would like. Sorry to hear you and your children are in this frightening and traumatic situation.

Oh, actually, maybe one thing - you've seen the result of your husband not getting counselling for his childhood experiences. So make sure your children have counselling and maybe a "safe place" they can go to outside the home (gps?) if things like this happen. (Ideally, obviously, permanently, but you say that is not on the cards.)

I see you do have children.

If it was just you, you could do what you want, but they're dependent on you to give them a stable safe upbringing. How can you possibly do that in a situation where you're hiding in the bedroom?

As raven points out, you identify his traumatic childhood as a cause for his behaviour - so here you are, enabling him to repeat the pattern with your own children. You need to stop prioritising the damaged adult, and start prioritising the children.

Firstly, you have my sympathy. I have been where you are only we didn't have children when it all started going badly downhill. Snapping at me,then no talking to me, me wondering what I had done wrong (I hadnt done anything wrong). Believe me when I say it will only get worse and you will risk your mental health and the well being of your children. You are not responsible for his mental health - he is. You are responsible for your safety and your childrens' safety.

In the end, I gave my other half an ultimatim - you get help or I leave in a month's time for the sake of my own mental health. You can love them to bits but all the love in the world wont help if they need medical help. You need to clearly explain the effect his behaviour and illness are having on your lives and well-being. He may be so low that he does not see how he is behaving.

Offer to go with him to the GP as a first step.. You are in the driving seat and you do have options... I wish you all the best and I hope he gets the help he needs so he can heal.

OP, in your shoes, I would have some counselling on your own.

I have a depressed partner who is miserable & angry & have stayed in the relationship a lot longer than I should.

I had some counselling as I wanted to understand how I had been in 2 crappy relationships - turns out I have co-dependant traits. It was a real eye-opener for me & everything fell into place.

It has helped me work through things in my own mind & work out a plan for the future.

I'm not saying it would be the same for you, but it was life-changing for me.

I am currently getting my ducks in a row

I grew up in a home with two miserable adults abusing each other it was the equivalent of a war zone. All three of my siblings and myself have emotional trauma and MH issues such as anxiety and depression stemming from their relationship issues. Love conquers all? Nope not true